Christine by Stephen KingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Remove all evidence of mysteria, (yep, I just made that word up, it means 'mysterious hysteria'), from a typical Stephen King novel and you're left with simple avarice, greed, obsession and average citizens caught up in extemporaneous circumstances - more often than not by their own failings. King's sense of humor comes through in his characters, but also a certain disregard for most people and their interests.
The mysteria in question, Christine's demonic possession, is caused by Ronald's murderous spirit, formed by his own dented and scarred childhood. Unable to repair himself, his life as a mechanic revolved around an oily thumb and a gift for keeping old cars and trucks "motorvating". Pretty standard fare for a King novel, and I saw a very concise review stating any King novel can be summed up as an inanimate object, (car, toy, hotel), a lingering evil possessing a morally susceptible person, (Jack Torrance, Arnie Cunningham) and then everything gets put through the meat tenderizer until one or two characters are left standing.
So, remove all of the mysteria, forget about the demons, the possession, the impossible and impractical, and the reader is left with a handful of murders, a drug dealer, Arnie somehow caught up in all of it and Dennis, wanting to save his childhood friend. There is no mystery more significant than watching somebody you have known all of your life make wrong decision after wrong decision and gradually implode. Stephen King would like to fantasize about it, as a lot of people with escapist fetishes would, but reality is more terrifying than this book.
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