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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was hooked at the pacing at the start. Then, there was so much content that didn’t make me scared nor care for the characters. I would’ve loved for some of the themes to be explored a little bit deeper, such as the importance of regaining faith.
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What people are calling the definitive horror novel was somewhat of a letdown for me, but it came through in the end, and I can understand how innovative and interesting this book would have been when it was first released. Sensational, with a few reservations.
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a review of the revised and definitive edition.)
I can’t lie, after having seeing others’ reviews for this book and then reading it myself, I feel like a crazy person. This is not a well-written book. The dialogue is painful, especially from Chris but really across almost all scenes. Blatty had spent a long time writing comedy and satire screenplays before this novel, and maybe something just doesn’t translate… Sure enough, his screenplay of this novel won an award for best adapted screenplay… but here, in the book? It was just painful and cringy to read, none of the dialogue felt naturalistic. Clearly he has some skill at writing, I liked, especially in the first sections, how drastically different the tone was when moving from Chris’s perspective to Karras’s perspective. There was actually a god amount of skill in having the tone and style change to match the character we were following. I’m definitely not saying Blatty is a hack, but the dialogue really made it hard for me to enjoy this book. Additionally, the detective felt horribly overwritten and every scene with him made me want to give up the book. The character is supposed to be a shrewd detective who puts on a buffoonish act when interviewing folks to get past their guard, but it never felt like simply an annoying character, it felt like a bad attempt at writing a stereotype of an annoying character. It really fell flat for me. Lastly, while I am on the complaint train, there were just fundamental plotting problems that resorted to nonsense to try and fix. Critical to the story is Karras’s struggle with his faith. Therefore, we cannot have confirmation that Regan is definitely possessed until the final act, if even then, or it will destroy the most important tension in the story. Yet we also need the action to continually ramp up and get more extreme and exciting. So we have Regan literally levitating, reading minds, speaking in tongues, moving furniture, and engaging in wilder and wilder supernatural behavior, but our characters can’t accept this as proof of possession, because that will undercut the tension that is the heart of Karras’s struggle. So Blatty’s way around it is to simply say that modern science accepts that people who are mentally ill as well as people under extreme stress can not only possess super strength beyond their body’s physical limits, and cannot only actively change what smells emit from their body, but can also engage in telekinesis and telepathy. Apparently modern science accepts all these things to be valid scientific fact. That is how Blatty gets around the paradox he has created… these wild things that exist far outside the realm of science are not explained away but instead just claimed to be accepted fact. Telekinesis and telepathy are a result of stress and mental illness. This is what gave me my own crisis of faith, and where I lost faith in this book. I appreciate the dilemma, the need to constantly raise the stakes and the action but also give reason Karras reason to continue to struggle with his faith (or his doubt, I suppose). Yeah, that’s a hard thing to balance. But you do it but careful plotting and character development, not by just waving a magic wand and claiming the impossible to be scientific fact. It is a lazy shortcut that undermines the whole storytelling, in my experience of the book.
OK. That’s a lot of complaining. What did I enjoy? The interiority offered in the book was refreshing, and I liked the extra dimension it gave to Karras. The queer subtext seemed pretty explicit in the book, and while still not entirely explicit added an additional layer to Karras that I really appreciated. The heart of this story is really about his struggles with faith, and the novel did a good job of making his interior life a prominent part of the page count. I already mentioned above how abysmal I felt the detective was portrayed, and I wasn’t a fan of Chris, either, she didn’t feel realistic or convincing. But I appreciated that there was some effort that all of the characters have at least some backstory, including the ancillary characters of Sharon, Willie, Karl, and Father Dyer. None of them were particularly fleshed out but they could have been even more crudely sketched, so I thought that was nice. And I actually thought the intention behind the plotting, the way Regan’s situation slowly became more and more extreme, and how this was combined with Karras spiraling further in his doubts as well as the detective’s tightening of his investigation, this was all smartly paced. My problem was the execution, the need to use unbelievable claims to cover up for what could otherwise decrease narrative tension. So the execution wasn’t great but the actually pacing, the distribution of action and set-pieces, that worked. The overall story, the meditations on mental illness and faith and doubt, those were all still interesting.
So, no, I didn’t love this novel. I read other folks raving about it and feel crazy. The ideas behind it are fun and the characters’ interior lives, especially Karras, are interesting. But at the actual craft level, the writing itself, both exposition and dialogue but especially dialogue, felt really mediocre. It was bad enough to distract and frustrate me but not so terrible that it became a farce of itself that was amusing. I had high expectations for this novel, since I enjoy the film, since I enjoy the ideas and subject matter, and since so many others really enjoy it. Those expectations probably didn’t help me going in, so that is on me, because it didn’t come close to living up to them in any meaningful way. It is a quick read, it moves at a good clip, stilted dialogue or not, so if you enjoyed the film and want to go a little deeper then definitely pick up the book. If you haven’t seen the film, well, maybe start there…
I can’t lie, after having seeing others’ reviews for this book and then reading it myself, I feel like a crazy person. This is not a well-written book. The dialogue is painful, especially from Chris but really across almost all scenes. Blatty had spent a long time writing comedy and satire screenplays before this novel, and maybe something just doesn’t translate… Sure enough, his screenplay of this novel won an award for best adapted screenplay… but here, in the book? It was just painful and cringy to read, none of the dialogue felt naturalistic. Clearly he has some skill at writing, I liked, especially in the first sections, how drastically different the tone was when moving from Chris’s perspective to Karras’s perspective. There was actually a god amount of skill in having the tone and style change to match the character we were following. I’m definitely not saying Blatty is a hack, but the dialogue really made it hard for me to enjoy this book. Additionally, the detective felt horribly overwritten and every scene with him made me want to give up the book. The character is supposed to be a shrewd detective who puts on a buffoonish act when interviewing folks to get past their guard, but it never felt like simply an annoying character, it felt like a bad attempt at writing a stereotype of an annoying character. It really fell flat for me. Lastly, while I am on the complaint train, there were just fundamental plotting problems that resorted to nonsense to try and fix. Critical to the story is Karras’s struggle with his faith. Therefore, we cannot have confirmation that Regan is definitely possessed until the final act, if even then, or it will destroy the most important tension in the story. Yet we also need the action to continually ramp up and get more extreme and exciting. So we have Regan literally levitating, reading minds, speaking in tongues, moving furniture, and engaging in wilder and wilder supernatural behavior, but our characters can’t accept this as proof of possession, because that will undercut the tension that is the heart of Karras’s struggle. So Blatty’s way around it is to simply say that modern science accepts that people who are mentally ill as well as people under extreme stress can not only possess super strength beyond their body’s physical limits, and cannot only actively change what smells emit from their body, but can also engage in telekinesis and telepathy. Apparently modern science accepts all these things to be valid scientific fact. That is how Blatty gets around the paradox he has created… these wild things that exist far outside the realm of science are not explained away but instead just claimed to be accepted fact. Telekinesis and telepathy are a result of stress and mental illness. This is what gave me my own crisis of faith, and where I lost faith in this book. I appreciate the dilemma, the need to constantly raise the stakes and the action but also give reason Karras reason to continue to struggle with his faith (or his doubt, I suppose). Yeah, that’s a hard thing to balance. But you do it but careful plotting and character development, not by just waving a magic wand and claiming the impossible to be scientific fact. It is a lazy shortcut that undermines the whole storytelling, in my experience of the book.
OK. That’s a lot of complaining. What did I enjoy? The interiority offered in the book was refreshing, and I liked the extra dimension it gave to Karras. The queer subtext seemed pretty explicit in the book, and while still not entirely explicit added an additional layer to Karras that I really appreciated. The heart of this story is really about his struggles with faith, and the novel did a good job of making his interior life a prominent part of the page count. I already mentioned above how abysmal I felt the detective was portrayed, and I wasn’t a fan of Chris, either, she didn’t feel realistic or convincing. But I appreciated that there was some effort that all of the characters have at least some backstory, including the ancillary characters of Sharon, Willie, Karl, and Father Dyer. None of them were particularly fleshed out but they could have been even more crudely sketched, so I thought that was nice. And I actually thought the intention behind the plotting, the way Regan’s situation slowly became more and more extreme, and how this was combined with Karras spiraling further in his doubts as well as the detective’s tightening of his investigation, this was all smartly paced. My problem was the execution, the need to use unbelievable claims to cover up for what could otherwise decrease narrative tension. So the execution wasn’t great but the actually pacing, the distribution of action and set-pieces, that worked. The overall story, the meditations on mental illness and faith and doubt, those were all still interesting.
So, no, I didn’t love this novel. I read other folks raving about it and feel crazy. The ideas behind it are fun and the characters’ interior lives, especially Karras, are interesting. But at the actual craft level, the writing itself, both exposition and dialogue but especially dialogue, felt really mediocre. It was bad enough to distract and frustrate me but not so terrible that it became a farce of itself that was amusing. I had high expectations for this novel, since I enjoy the film, since I enjoy the ideas and subject matter, and since so many others really enjoy it. Those expectations probably didn’t help me going in, so that is on me, because it didn’t come close to living up to them in any meaningful way. It is a quick read, it moves at a good clip, stilted dialogue or not, so if you enjoyed the film and want to go a little deeper then definitely pick up the book. If you haven’t seen the film, well, maybe start there…
challenging
dark
medium-paced