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Book Review: Blaze July 27, 2007
Well, here's an interesting case that continues to prove that Stephen King's supposed retirement wasn't to be believed. Blaze is billed as one of the "Bachman books" because it was originally drafted back in the early days of his career when he was doing some writing under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman." King supposedly "found" the old manuscript in a trunk, which sounds like a load to me, but he's actually giving all the proceeds from the book to charity so you can hardly accuse him of doing it just for the money.
Blaze tells the story of a character of the same name --a big, mentally deficient small time criminal with, of course, a heart of gold. Blaze has had nothing but hard luck, living through a string of tragedies and hardships that pushed him down a life of petty crime, but which couldn't really harden his gentle nature. Blaze and his new partner George decide to step things up, though, hatching a plan kidnap a baby from a rich family so they can hold him for ransom. But before they can act, George is killed. Blaze attempts to go through with the plan, thanks in part to (supposedly) beyond-the-grave cajoling from his deceased partner. Hilarity does not ensue.
There's some fairly interesting things going on here with the character of Blaze. You can tell that King is trying to paint him as a sympathetic character, a kind of tragic figure you're supposed to be rooting for. I just had a bit of trouble feeling TOO bad for the guy by the end of the book. Sure, he had had some really bad breaks in his life, but in the end he was kidnapping and endangering a BABY. He wasn't rescuing it or posed with some kind of moral dilemma where he had to choose between the lesser of two evils. Blaze was stealing a baby and putting its life in direct danger because (in the beginning, anyway) he thought he could get rich doing it. It just didn't work for me and I was in fact NOT rooting for him during the climax or any other point in the book.
The one source of real tension in the book was whether or not the kidnapped baby would die. King establishes a pretty strong pattern of every chance Blaze had at happiness ending in death, be it his mom, his friend at the orphanage, a prospective father figure, or his partner George. I was tense right up to the end, because I could see where the pattern was going and I didn't want an innocent baby to repeat it. I won't tell you if he does or not just in case you do read it.
I should also probably note that there are some obvious parallels between this book and Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Both contain a big, overpowered dummy (Blaze and Lennie) and both contain a more diminutive, high-strung partner who supposedly looks out for the dummy (George and, um, George). Both involve guys who are down on their luck and who just want a shot at happiness but find out that it's unattainable and that all their hopes are false. And both involve bad things happening after the man-child chokes someone to death while in a passion. The parallels are amusing to pick out, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot else there. King doesn't dig as deeply in that rich earth as Steinbeck did, at any rate.
So, a decent read if you're into King. Like his other Bachman books it's short and a fast read, so you're not looking at much time or effort to get through, making it good for a little diversion.
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Tags: Book Review, Horror, Stephen King
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Posted by enertron on March 1, 2008 3:45 AM:
the only king book I read before this was Rose Madder, which I did not like at all. And there's some kind of cheapness one feels watching any movie based on a king story (exception: shawshank redemption) so I just figured this author was not for me. That belief vanished into thin air once I read Blaze, and I know I'll read more books by him now