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It’s a bit difficult to read (or review!) a book when the film version of it is perhaps better known than its original. I’m thinking Monkey Planet by Pierre Boulle (aka the film/s Planet of the Apes), Dune by Frank Herbert and possibly even The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien and the Game of Thrones novel series by George RR Martin, both of which are very well known by people who’ve never been near the books. Sometimes the visual images are so iconic that they tend to overshadow the original novel’s impact. By comparison, the literary version can be a bit of a let-down.
The issue becomes a greater one when we consider that perhaps the greatest of all of these novels that suffer as a consequence of its movie version is Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock’s version of the novel is one of the most iconic horror movies of the 20th century , and a film that depends on two key plot points. Not knowing them, even if you haven’t seen the film or read the book, is near-impossible. (Even the cover of this edition refers to one of them.) The Hitchcock version of the film was rated number one on the American Film Institute’s list of one hundred most thrilling films in 2001.
With such a well-known plot then, why should we read the book?
Much of the first part of the book reads like a pulp-detective tale, a story that wouldn’t seem too out of place if written by James M. Cain. Mary Crane (not Marion, as in the film), a quiet, unassuming secretary for Lowery the real estate agent, takes forty thousand dollars (a ridiculously large amount of money in the late 1950’s – probably add a nought these days) not to the bank, to deposit as expected, but instead impulsively runs off with it. Mary plans a fresh start with her fiancé, Sam Loomis (Halloween fans, please note!) a hardware store owner currently trying to clear debts left to him by his deceased father.
This begins a journey that leads to Mary travelling across the US until, in a heavy rainstorm too dangerous to travel further, she decides to stop at a roadside motel she sees – one run by a certain Norman Bates…
Most of this plot summary will not be new to many reading this. As ever, there are aspects that are different between the two mediums, although as movie adaptations go (this time by future-Outer Limits screenwriter Joseph Stefano) it is pretty faithful.
The first chapter is immediately different from the movie, as it writes from the perspective of motel owner Norman Bates. This is also a different character – not the young and handsome Anthony Perkins of the movie, but an older (forty-ish) bespectacled Norman, who drinks late at night to deal with the crushing dreariness of his life.
Other parts of the book are very similar to the movie – the internal dialogue, and the characters would be generally recognisable to movie-watchers.
Where the book scores most over the movie is the surprisingly exact use of language, the precise vocabulary, the imaginative yet un-ostentatious prose. ‘Words have power’, Stephen King once wrote, and Psycho shows this to good effect.
Not everyone has been as impressed as me, however. French film director Francois Truffaut disliked the book intensely, calling it amateurish and implausible. Director Hitchcock claims that he never read the book all the way through after the shower scene. It sold very well on its original release, with Hitchcock allegedly buying up copies before the film’s release to avoid people knowing what happens in the book/film. (It clearly worked!)
Nevertheless, movie aside, I think that the novel, taken on its own merits, holds up to contemporary audiences pretty well. It could be argued that this is a novel whose impact has declined over the fifty-plus years since its first publication, although this may be an effect of reading a tale written in the 20th century from the position of the 21st century.
What surprised me most was how accessible the book was to readers today. There is the odd dated reference – for example, the mention of ‘a Section 8’ may make some readers scratch their heads – although for most of the time the text is relatively uncomplicated and surprisingly direct. Bloch uses his pulp writing skills to write a book that is very readable, deceptively smooth and in the end quite chilling in its development. Much of the story initially reads as remarkably restrained and quite matter-of-fact – it is easy to see why Stephen King liked its no-nonsense, frill-less approach. Perhaps deliberately so, Fairfield, near where Norman lives, comes across as a typical small town in 1950’s America – the sort of place that Stephen King has since excelled in writing about, but Bloch is clearly an inspiration.
The effect of setting the book in this ‘everyman-America’ is that when the key plot points happen, they stand out in sharp relief. They are still quite shocking (even when you know what will occur!) and are still extremely violent. There details are surprisingly un-graphic and matter-of-fact, yet work supremely well in their mundane setting.
I was further impressed by the way in which the plot of the novel deftly expounded different theories about events in the book – the disappearance of Mary, the mystery of the money, even Norman and his relationship with his mother were explored throughout the novel before the final ending. Unlike much pulp fiction where the solution is obtained very quickly and is the only option possible, in Psycho each point, even when seeming a little implausible, is logically examined and very well thought out on the part of the author, to the point where I was thinking it could happen. Even Norman Bates’ viewpoint is quite understandable from the skewed perspective that he exhibits.
In summary, then, Psycho the novel is still surprisingly readable and, by turns, plausible, shocking, and grisly. Even with the movie’s reputation, there’s a lot to be enjoyed from reading the novel, and it can be said that, on the whole, the book is still memorable, over fifty years after its first publication. Reading Psycho may just surprise you. It did me!
The issue becomes a greater one when we consider that perhaps the greatest of all of these novels that suffer as a consequence of its movie version is Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock’s version of the novel is one of the most iconic horror movies of the 20th century , and a film that depends on two key plot points. Not knowing them, even if you haven’t seen the film or read the book, is near-impossible. (Even the cover of this edition refers to one of them.) The Hitchcock version of the film was rated number one on the American Film Institute’s list of one hundred most thrilling films in 2001.
With such a well-known plot then, why should we read the book?
Much of the first part of the book reads like a pulp-detective tale, a story that wouldn’t seem too out of place if written by James M. Cain. Mary Crane (not Marion, as in the film), a quiet, unassuming secretary for Lowery the real estate agent, takes forty thousand dollars (a ridiculously large amount of money in the late 1950’s – probably add a nought these days) not to the bank, to deposit as expected, but instead impulsively runs off with it. Mary plans a fresh start with her fiancé, Sam Loomis (Halloween fans, please note!) a hardware store owner currently trying to clear debts left to him by his deceased father.
This begins a journey that leads to Mary travelling across the US until, in a heavy rainstorm too dangerous to travel further, she decides to stop at a roadside motel she sees – one run by a certain Norman Bates…
Most of this plot summary will not be new to many reading this. As ever, there are aspects that are different between the two mediums, although as movie adaptations go (this time by future-Outer Limits screenwriter Joseph Stefano) it is pretty faithful.
The first chapter is immediately different from the movie, as it writes from the perspective of motel owner Norman Bates. This is also a different character – not the young and handsome Anthony Perkins of the movie, but an older (forty-ish) bespectacled Norman, who drinks late at night to deal with the crushing dreariness of his life.
Other parts of the book are very similar to the movie – the internal dialogue, and the characters would be generally recognisable to movie-watchers.
Where the book scores most over the movie is the surprisingly exact use of language, the precise vocabulary, the imaginative yet un-ostentatious prose. ‘Words have power’, Stephen King once wrote, and Psycho shows this to good effect.
Not everyone has been as impressed as me, however. French film director Francois Truffaut disliked the book intensely, calling it amateurish and implausible. Director Hitchcock claims that he never read the book all the way through after the shower scene. It sold very well on its original release, with Hitchcock allegedly buying up copies before the film’s release to avoid people knowing what happens in the book/film. (It clearly worked!)
Nevertheless, movie aside, I think that the novel, taken on its own merits, holds up to contemporary audiences pretty well. It could be argued that this is a novel whose impact has declined over the fifty-plus years since its first publication, although this may be an effect of reading a tale written in the 20th century from the position of the 21st century.
What surprised me most was how accessible the book was to readers today. There is the odd dated reference – for example, the mention of ‘a Section 8’ may make some readers scratch their heads – although for most of the time the text is relatively uncomplicated and surprisingly direct. Bloch uses his pulp writing skills to write a book that is very readable, deceptively smooth and in the end quite chilling in its development. Much of the story initially reads as remarkably restrained and quite matter-of-fact – it is easy to see why Stephen King liked its no-nonsense, frill-less approach. Perhaps deliberately so, Fairfield, near where Norman lives, comes across as a typical small town in 1950’s America – the sort of place that Stephen King has since excelled in writing about, but Bloch is clearly an inspiration.
The effect of setting the book in this ‘everyman-America’ is that when the key plot points happen, they stand out in sharp relief. They are still quite shocking (even when you know what will occur!) and are still extremely violent. There details are surprisingly un-graphic and matter-of-fact, yet work supremely well in their mundane setting.
I was further impressed by the way in which the plot of the novel deftly expounded different theories about events in the book – the disappearance of Mary, the mystery of the money, even Norman and his relationship with his mother were explored throughout the novel before the final ending. Unlike much pulp fiction where the solution is obtained very quickly and is the only option possible, in Psycho each point, even when seeming a little implausible, is logically examined and very well thought out on the part of the author, to the point where I was thinking it could happen. Even Norman Bates’ viewpoint is quite understandable from the skewed perspective that he exhibits.
In summary, then, Psycho the novel is still surprisingly readable and, by turns, plausible, shocking, and grisly. Even with the movie’s reputation, there’s a lot to be enjoyed from reading the novel, and it can be said that, on the whole, the book is still memorable, over fifty years after its first publication. Reading Psycho may just surprise you. It did me!