Rage

Rage is the first Richard Bachman book published by King under his pseudonym. This is a story he wrote years earlier and that went in his "trunk" to be brought out, or not, someday.  It is a very interesting story about a teenage boy who has been bullied by his father, ignored by his peers, and shit on by life. One day he fights back by bringing a gun to school, which he uses to murder two teachers and hold hostage a classroom full of his peers. The most interesting part of this book to me is the use of stories, the stories that everyone has that are embarrassing or in some way personally eventful, by Charlie and eventually those in the class.  The telling of these stories causes the students over the course of the morning to turn from being scared of Charlie to supporting and defending him.

All but Ted that is. For there is always the nemesis that we must face in some way, the monster we must destroy if we are to save ourselves. For Charlie there are several of those, his father, the principal, the psychiatrist he had been seeing, and Ted. What this story tells me is that some people never have the chance, their circumstances in life combine with that switch that just did not flip in their brains and they turn out to be a sociopath. That, unfortunately, is Charlie.  The brilliant thing that King did with this book in my opinion is make me feel a deep connection and sense of empathy for Charlie.  In the end, I was rooting for him too.

I read this in the Bachman Books collection, which contains Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man.  The cool thing with this book is it also has an introduction by King on why he wrote as Bachman, what prompted him to do it.  I found this very insightful as I am not that person who reads every interview on King, in fact I think I read one and that was on his favorite movie lines.  I prefer to read what he writes and leave his personal life or his motivation to him. In my mind, it is not really my business. My business is to read, enjoy, and what I get out of it, is what I get out of it.

But, the part about his introduction that amazes me is where he mentions that he thought he could write the books, publish them, and no one would know it was him. Which he realized is pretty ridiculous, of course the Constant Readers would know. I always think of Richard Bachman as Stephen King in a really bad mood. The books are not as scary or gory (I dislike that word, but nothing else comes to mind). They rarely end happily. They most definitely feel like King in style and cadence. And most of the time they are terrifying because the horror is much closer to reality. Personally, I am sad that Bachman died, I kind of like the grumpy bastard.