Pet Sematary: Review

I just finished reading Pet Sematary, one of Stephen King's most widely praised novels, one which he, himself, thought he had taken it too far. This is a horror novel about a doctor who, with his wife and kids, moves to a home in Maine with a heavily trafficked highway just without their front door. The highway is notorious for killing pets, leading to the creation of the Pet Sematary, where children would bury their pets once they've turned into roadkill. But there is something deeper to this cemetery, something darker than you can imagine. What ensues is a disturbing, slow-burn story where you track the lives of this newly moved-in family.

Overall, my reaction to this story is actually kind of mixed. The premise of the story is amazing, and most everything leading up to the end was great, but I thought the ending did not quite work, both coming off as low-brow and too sudden.

Strides (Spoilers)

Behind the Pet Sematary is an ancient Native American site called the Micmac burying ground; naturally, it has supernatural properties. If you bury a dead pet there, then it will rise from the grave and return to the owner alive. The catch is that there is something "fundamentally wrong" with the pet thereafter. The effects differ depending on what you bury, but the family's cat is used as an example. The cat has lost all of its grace and it seems like it's not all there. It stinks horribly, no matter how much you wash it, and its presence is just unsettling and unpleasant. Then, of course, the two-year-old son runs into the road and . . . I suppose you can fill in the gaps from there. This very notion is creepy and sets you on edge. I was eagerly anticipating the moment that Gage would be revived in the novel, and this was the primary motivation to read. In fact, my own imagination was going wild at the concept, which actually bit the story in the ass, but we will get to that in the next section.

The next major thing I absolutely loved was the psychology of the characters, particularly Louis; you are inside his head for the majority of the story. This is the selling point of pretty much any King novel, so it was something I was both looking forward to and satisfied to see fulfilled; the character work was amazing. What we see is a character slowly going insane by the grief over his son. He knows that burying his son in the Micmac burying ground is a terrible idea, but we see him slowly rationalize why it is a good idea over the course of the book, until he finally goes through with it. It starts with him telling himself that he will love his son no matter what, so what changes might happen are irrelevant (he wouldn't hate his son if he were retarded, right?). This quickly escalates to an assumption that he can control the situation and perform a "test," with another ill-regarded assumption that he would be able to kill Gage a second time if things have gone wrong. Seeing his thought process is natural and believable and is definitely the best part of the novel.

The tension of the novel was also very well done. King does not rush through the scenes. He lets the anticipated scenes happen only after pages of buildup, with the reader eagerly waiting for the moment. As the novel builds toward the climax, the pieces of the board slowly fall into place, like Jud falling asleep and Rachel coming back to Maine, and we progressively realize how everything seems to be unfolding.

The last pages of the novel were outstanding, with Louis revealing that he has truly gone insane by taking his wife up to the burying ground, showing the wreckage in the aftermath of everything that happened. The last page was incredibly chilling.

Another minor thing I liked was the Wendigo, which was only subtly hinted at in the story. It is a beast stalking the area around the Micmac burying ground, and is only ever on the periphery, a kind of hidden villain. I'm not sure if all the supernatural forces are tied back to this creature or not, because the forces are vague enough that it lacks a real explanation, but that only contributes to the horror.

Missteps (Spoilers)

I want to proceed with caution in this section.

The first thing I will talk about are my expectations going into the novel. The implication of this is that my view is less so a critique, and more so a way in which my expectations left me wishing that the story had been handled differently. When I finished the book, I knew King had a different idea in mind than what I wanted, but I was left disappointed by how Gage was portrayed upon revival. After talking to another reader of the book, I am now convinced that the ideas I will talk about here are best considered a different story, one that I will probably write myself, with many other change ups to make the story its own, of course.

Now, when I came to the part where Church came back to life and was "fundamentally wrong," my imagination started to go wild over the possibilities. How might Gage's revival go wrong? (I was already spoiled on his death). I really liked what happened to Church. The cat was unsettling, the cat was creepy, and it was subtle enough that it didn't feel silly to me. The notion of Gage coming back in a similar manner, with some piece of him missing, was what excited me. I was so excited to see Ellie's reaction, especially. We would be able to see her initial easy acceptance of Gage's revival, and her excitement. And then there would be a slow crawl realization by her and the rest of the family that Gage simply isn't right. Ellie gradually grows uncomfortable, then scared of, and finally contemptuous toward, Gage. One potential scene that was vivid in my mind would be one where Gage and Ellie are playing, and Gage starts to pull Ellie's hair, hurting her. She would scream and cry, but Gage would not quit; he lacks empathy and an understanding of social cues, leading to him endangering their daughter. I figured that Gage would gradually become more violent, as it seemed that Church was. In other words, I assumed the story would be a much more subtle story with a lot of creep factor, something mirroring the Zelda backstory, except with Ellie and Gage.

Those were my expectations. What happened instead? I described it in the beginning. What we got instead was much less subtle; indeed, it was low brow and honestly kind of silly. A lot of King's work rides that line between inane and scary, and I generally don't care if it is crossed at certain points, but coupled with my expectations above, I was just disappointed.

I did not like that Gage came back immediately evil. I wanted things to slowly escalate over time, much like it was with Church. I did not like how the story implied he was just an evil force occupying the body of a child. I don't know how this jives with the animals coming back calmer. I preferred the idea that only a piece of that person returns to their bodies, instead of that body being occupied by some foreign entity altogether. I did not like how the Micmac burying ground seemed to be a conscious entity with a vendetta. I preferred the idea that it simply revived creatures buried there, with nothing else at play.

This idea of the burying ground being a conscious force ties into a larger problem I have with many of King's novels. I don't appreciate the idea that there is this thing in the background pulling strings to make certain events happen. This isn't a major gripe, and it is obviously a difference in preference, but I always find the story less compelling when these kinds of influences are involved. This is especially the case when characters' behaviors are influenced. While King portrays it better than anyone can, I usually think characters become cheaper when they are influenced by external factors, instead of being internally motivated.

Now, my expectations are my own problem. Clearly, King had different ideas in mind when he wrote the story. So, putting aside my expectations, I still have commentary on how the ending played out.

Basically, I thought the ending was too sudden. I remember that I was growing increasingly frustrated with the long scenes of Louis dealing with the logistics of breaking in and out of the cemetery, not because I did not like the scenes, they were handled just fine, but because I saw the page count slowly running out, leaving less and less time for the climax to happen. It never occurred to me that the climax would literally be forty pages in a four-hundred-page book.

But the execution of the climax was most frustrating of all. Everything was just too sudden. Rachel died too quickly. We barely, if at all, saw her reaction to Gage coming back to life. She is lured into a room and then offed in a matter of sentences, before cutting away. And then, when Louis comes over to deal with Gage, having realized what had happened, he casually kills the cat and Gage. Another idea that I thought was compelling, and was looking forward to, was the idea of Louis being forced to kill Gage a second time. Yet, the psychology of that seemed to be completely brushed over. It didn't seem like Louis had any trouble at all. Perhaps the point of the sequence was to show that Louis had really lost his mind, but even as he has lost his mind, I still don't think it would have been as easy as it was portrayed. And this points to an oft talked about trend among King fans about how his endings suck, because they are rather sudden and don't provide much pay off. I got that feeling reading this. There was not an extended stand off or sequence where Louis has to deal with his son. He just deals with him.

I also wished that Ellie was there for the climax, which shouldn't be a surprise. In the context of the story it makes sense that she isn't, but I thought seeing her reaction was important. And the fact that she never sees the aftermath of the story is another disappointing thing, though I understand why it didn't make the cut.

Finally, I didn't like how Gage's initial death happened off screen. I was reading a King novel, so I was hoping for a serious gut punch of a scene where we see the sequence play out before us, but we got flashbacks instead. I also didn't like how we were told via fourth wall breaking that Gage would die. This is another thing that King often does that I just don't understand. Let some things happen as a surprise. You don't have to tell us in advance.

Conclusion

Overall, my reaction was mixed. I liked most parts of the book, but my expectations colored things, and what I got was not as appreciable. I will give it a 5/10.

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