The Exorcist (original 1971; edition 1971)

So boring I had to stop reading. Maybe will try later. ( )

I had been meaning to read The Exorcist for a long time, but kept putting it off, until I found a used copy at the thrift store for $0.25. I couldn't pass that up, so I bought it, and the put it on my shelf and put off reading it some more.

So now, in honor of Halloween this month, I have decided to read horror the entire month (with little exception, anyway), and this gave me the perfect opportunity to freak myself out with a little demonic possession!

Again, as with the last book I read (Stephen King's Cujo), this is an iconic book. For those people who enjoy being scared, The Exorcist is the quintessential story. You know you have a classic on your hands when people who have never seen the movie, or read the book (or worse, people who didn't even know there was a book first), can tell you exactly what it's about, and even sometimes name the characters. That being said, I won't go into plot details here, as it's pretty unnecessary.

I finished this book much faster than I had intended. My goal was to read a little bit per day, as I am trying to read a collection of Lovecraft stories as well. Unfortunately, my plan didn't exactly work, as this one grabbed me and didn't let go. I stayed up reading more than half the night to finish it.

In regards to the story itself, of course it was great. This didn't become an almost-universally known classic by accident. I found myself thinking of the nature of good vs. evil, and the lengths that each will go to in order to attain their ends. Intriguing. I haven't adjusted my beliefs, but the fact that I was made to reflect on this facet of the story at all is saying something.

There may be cause for me to try to find the sequel, Legion since I still have a few unanswered questions. I'm not sure that my questions would be answered, however, unless Legion is somewhat more of a prequel.

By this, I mean that I want to know more about Father Merrin as well as the "demon" itself. Who is Father Merrin? What's his story? (The book title refers to him, he being the Exorcist, but we get almost no information about him at all during the course of the book.) Where and when had Merrin encountered the demon before, and what were the circumstances?

For these things, I had to drop off a star in my rating. It almost pained me to do it; who am I to criticize a horror classic? The mark of a good book is that it makes you contemplate it afterwards, and I am doing just that. This was a great book, I just wish that we had a bit more info about Merrin. *sigh* ( )

"Incidentally, what an excellent day for an exorcism."

Sometimes I wish there weren't so many amazing books to read. Because every once in a while I come across a book so intricate, so subtle and so intense, that without a second, slower, read, I know that there was zero chance that I captured a true understanding the book in its' entirety.

William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" is that kind of a book. It's creepy, crude and scary. On more than one evening while reading in bed, I found myself half jumping across the room only to find the cat poking his head through the door to see if it was breakfast time. One morning on my bus ride into work, I almost elbowed a poor woman in the head, so throughout engrossed I was in Blatty's deeply affecting novel.

"The child was slender as fleeting hope."

Blatty's novel, which he converted into the screenplay of the well-known film, is about an actress living in Washington, D.C., finishing the filming of a movie. Living on the doorstep of Georgetown University, several mysteries surround an undiagnosed illness of the actress' daughter, Regan. Her condition grows worse, and its' manifestations become more and more bizarre. I don't think I'm giving much away when I 'reveal' that the girl starts to show signs of a split personality - one of which is less than fully human.

"What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night."

"The Exorcist" is rife with turbulent foreboding. Some elements of the horror are subtle, but Blatty's expectation-setting is not so much: "Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men's eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed."

I love this kind of deep, rich, relentlessly hammering melodrama. Another terrific line provides exposition while Chris MacNeil broods over her ever-sickening daughter: "...the Potomac's deceptively placid surface, offered no hint of the perilously swift and powerful currents that surged underneath...In the soft, smoothing light of evening, the river, with its seeming dead calm and stillness, suddenly struck her as something that was planning. And waiting."

As with all great horror, the physicality of the frights is less imposing than the psychology that precedes it. The real story that orbits Regan MacNeil's seeming possession is one of faith. The plot's passion is driven by Father Damien Karras, a Jesuit priest and trained psychologist teaching at Georgetown. Blatty slowly serves Karras' back-story like a delectable appetizer before the main course.

Father Karras seeks the truth of Regan's condition - all signs point to demonic possession, but Karras' faith, an innate and deeply embedded belief that he felt in his youth, has dissipated through the grim realities of life. He very much feels the realities of Regan's possession, but cannot escape his secular education and experiences, and Blatty masterfully teases out doubt through thoughtful and genuine psychological analyses.

In a scene leading into the demon-exorcising finale, Karras enters Regan's bedroom where she's strapped tightly to her bed. It's been days since the personality of the girl has made even the briefest of appearances. Blatty writes that Karras "felt something in the room congealing"; the atmosphere is thick and heavy. That description terrifically sums up the mood of the book; there's a darkness that is more than just an absence of light, but something more material with real weight and depth.

I really loved this book and couldn't recommend it more highly. It's scary and it's disturbing, but also deep and literate. ( )

Not only my favorite book, but also my favorite movie. I am quite biased towards this novel because it represents the ultimate horror for me: good vs. evil on a higher level, and the destruction/desecration of innocence. I mean, come on, who really likes to see bad things happen to children. It is forceful and pushed the boundaries for the time it was released. ( )

More than watching movie enjoy reading book ( )