Christine
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| Author | Stephen King |
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| Cover artist | Gerry Grace |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror novel |
| Publisher | Viking Press |
| Released | 1983 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 503 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-22026-4 |
Christine is a horror novel by Stephen King, published in 1983. It tells the story of an antique automobile apparently possessed by supernatural forces.
In 1983, a movie version of Christine starring Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, and Harry Dean Stanton was released to theaters, directed by John Carpenter.
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[edit] Plot summary
The story revolves around teenage nerd Arnie Cunningham and his 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury, dubbed "Christine" by the previous owner. The story is set in Libertyville (supposedly a suburb of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania between the summer of 1978 and the spring of 1979. The novel is divided into three parts, the first and third of which are written in first person, from the point of view of Dennis Guilder, Arnie's best and only friend. The middle part of the book is written in the omniscient third person style.
While driving home one evening from a summer job on a building site, Dennis Guilder and Arnie Cunningham drive past Christine, sitting on the dilapidated lawn of a small house on a suburban street. Arnie makes Dennis stop his car, and sets about examining the ancient Fury. Dennis initially thinks Arnie is joking with him , but soon realises that he is deadly serious. The car's owner, an old man in a back brace called Roland D. Lebay, comes out onto the lawn, and offers the car to Arnie for $250. Unable to pay the full amount, he settles on a $25 deposit and agrees to come back the next day with the rest of the money.
Arnie and Dennis return the following day, and LeBay invites Arnie into his house to sign over the car. As they are doing this, Dennis decides to sit inside Christine, now parked in LeBay's garage, and as he does so, he has a vision of the car and the surroundings as they would be in 1957 when the car was brand new. Frightened by this, Dennis gets out of Christine, and decides there and then that he does not like Arnie's new car.
As his parents refuse to allow Christine to be parked at the family home, Arnie drives the car to Darnell's, a local garage. As he restores the automobile, he becomes withdrawn, yet more confident and self-assured. He becomes humorless and cynical. Dennis is scared of these changes, and of Christine's changes. The car is repaired haphazardly (quote from the film: "Look how cock-eyed he works! He's got... brand new windshield wipers for a busted windshield."), and not all of the repairs seem to be done by Arnie. Also, Arnie's appearance (his normally poor complexion) improves in tandem with Christine's. When Roland LeBay dies, Dennis meets his brother, George, who relates to him Roland's past destructive and violent behavior. He is also told that Roland's young daughter choked to death on a hamburger in the back of the car, and then his wife, traumatised by this death, committed suicide in the car by carbon monoxide poisoning. Dennis's further investigations with others around town who had known Roland confirm to him that Arnie's new personality is in simpatico with that of his car's former owner.
When Arnie is almost finished restoring Christine, Leigh Cabot transfers to his high school. Leigh is instantly popular and regarded as the most beautiful girl in school. It is a surprise to everyone when she decides to go out with Arnie. While on a date with Arnie, Leigh almost chokes to death on a hamburger. Leigh is certain that Christine was behind it after the car's doors locked to prevent Arnie or anybody else from saving her. Leigh is only saved from death by a hitchhiker that Arnie picked up, who pulls her from the car and administers the Heimlich Maneuver. Despite being alive, Leigh continues to feel as though she is competing with Christine for Arnie's affection.
Arnie's parents, who have hated the Fury from day one, force him to park the car at the local airport. Soon after this happens, Buddy Repperton, a vicious bully who Arnie and Dennis got expelled earlier in the story, visits Christine with his gang of thugs and vandalize the car. Seeing Christine destroyed completely infuriates Arnie.
Mysterious murders occur in Libertyville. One by one, members of Buddy's gang are killed by Christine. Others who were hostile to Arnie or Christine turn up dead. The police investigate the murders and become suspicious of Arnie. However, Arnie has an alibi for each of the murders, since the car apparently acts on its own (which is not entirely true).
Dennis and Leigh become suspicious not of Arnie, but of Christine. They try to find out as much as they can about the car and its previous owner. As their suspicions grow, they try to destroy the supernatural forces that appear to be in control of Christine and Arnie.
In the book, King never makes it quite clear as to whether Christine is evil or if it's Roland LeBay possessing her. On one hand it is clear that Roland's ghost is driving her during her climatic battle with Dennis and Leigh. But while Dennis is talking with Roland's brother, there are hints to Christine's past that indicate that she may have been bad all along and been a bad influence on Roland: both his wife and daughter died in the car, and it is strongly hinted that their deaths were, in truth, a sacrifice to obtain immortality for both Roland D. LeBay and the car itself. In the movie, all mystery is taken away when Christine tries to murder someone while on the assembly line. The movie also removes the possession plotline, making it so Christine is not possessed but simply an evil car (a 1958 Plymouth Fury was also driven by the deceased Belch Huggins in It. Whether it is the same vehicle or not is entirely speculation).
The novel ends on an ambiguous note. Dennis and Leigh manage to destroy Christine in Darnell's using a huge truck, and Dennis is informed by a police detective that the remains were fed into the crusher in the back of the garage by two police officers, adding that one received a bad cut that needed stitches, and said "it bit him". The last page details that, in Los Angeles, a man named Sander Galton has died a mysterious death when an unknown car burst through the wall of the theater he was working at, instantly killing him. It is stated earlier in the book that the last remaining bully who trashed Christine, "Sandy" Galton, had fled Libertyville after the deaths of his friends. It is not explicitly stated, however, that the Galton killed in LA is the same Galton from Libertyville. Dennis' last thoughts are in fact a terrified formulation of the hypothesis that Christine may have finally finished repairing herself and is now ready to resume her revenge.
The end of the movie version, however, goes somewhat differently. After Dennis and Leigh manage to destroy Christine, the car is compacted into a cube and tossed into a junkyard. But when the camera zooms in on the crushed cube of Christine, a small piece of the crushed fender moves slightly, leading the viewer to wonder if Christine can ever be permenantly destroyed.
[edit] In Popular Culture
- In The Honking, an episode of the animated series Futurama, Bender is run over by a "Werecar," which strongly resembles Christine.
- In a separate episode of the animated series Futurama, in a parody of The Wizard of Oz, Fry, dressed as the Scarecrow, attempts to scare off a crow by reading Christine to the bird.
- In a The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors comic there's a segment called Krustine about a car Krusty gives Homer that turns Homer into a monster.
- An episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy is a direct parody to Christine, in which Billy obtains a possessed tricycle from a child in a magical port-a-potty.
- Christine is seen as the polar opposite to Herbie The Love Bug, often prompting online discussions between fans of the two cars as to who would win in a race ... ... or a fight.
[edit] Precursors
The demonic car concept of an evil, living car was previously seen in the 1977 movie The Car.
[edit] See also
[edit] Editions
- ISBN 0-606-00784-9 (prebound, 1983)
- ISBN 0-670-22026-4 (cloth text, 1983)
- ISBN 84-01-49889-9 (hardcover, 1992)
- ISBN 84-01-49967-4 (hardcover, 1999)
- ISBN 0-7862-2631-5 (hardcover, 2000)
- ISBN 0-9676282-2-9 (paperback, 2000)
- ISBN 0-451-16044-4
[edit] External links
- Christine at the Internet Movie Database
- Christine at theofficialjohncarpenter.com
- http://www.feoamante.com/Movies/ABC/car.html
- Christine at Plymouthcentral.com
