The Bad Seed (1954) – 4 stars
I’ve been intending to write this review for some time….which means I’m really struggling to dredge up memories of the book.
Published in 1954, The Bad Seed tells the story of Rhoda Penmark, an 8 year old sociopath, and her mother, who is uncovering the truth of her daughter’s callous indifference to human suffering. Rhoda murders a classmate over a penmanship award that she felt she deserved, and she would go on to murder the maintenance man at her apartment complex for suspecting her of killing her classmate.
I’m sure every parent can understand the inescapable fear of what your children will grow up to be. Even for parents of good, caring children…..there’s always the question. Are they really thoughtful, caring people? What are they like when I’m not watching them? To be the parent of a sociopath is…..terrifying. I can’t imagine it.
What Christine Penmark experiences in this book is haunting. And March’s treatment of this relationship is surprisingly thoughtful and considerate for a book written in the early 1950s. At least from my perspective. His understanding of sociopathy seems much more modern than I would’ve expected for the time period.
From an historical perspective, this novel pre-dates genre defining works like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, and (more recently) We Need to Talk About Kevin. The Bad Seed, unlike most of those stories, isn’t supernatural. Rhoda is a seemingly normal child. But without this novel, I don’t know if you get all the others.
Spiral (1994) – 2 stars
I hated this book.
Like, I liked the first book in the series, even though it didn’t live up to the iconic film adaptations – but this movie does not exist within the same realm. For starters, it mostly involves an entirely different cast of characters. That’s not a huge deal, but it’s always a little jarring when you dive into a world, get used to the people, and then have to get used to a whole new group with different motivations and personalities.
But I could deal with that.
What I didn’t like was that it takes a haunting ghost story of revenge with an interesting premise …..and making it a story even Michael Crichton wouldn’t write because of it’s tenuous grasp of biology.
Turns out, Sadako didn’t infuse the videotape with her evil spirit to enact revenge on her murder. No, she and Ryuji (one of the main characters in the first book, victim of Sadako, and friend of Asakawa) worked together to….bring Sadako back from the dead so she could be impregnated with Ryuji’s spirit, reviving him and sparing him from her destruction.
It doesn’t make more sense if you read the book. Ryuji’s involvement is revealed in the last 20 pages or so, and still doesn’t make sense. He spent the entire first book helping Asakawa solve the mystery of the videotape, and then trying to stop the killing. Now he’s the mastermind behind the whole thing? No. This surprise ending didn’t work for me at all.
