Cujo
In the twenty-one years since Cujo was published, and especially since the release of the movie adaptation, the name has become synonymous with big, scary dogs. Understandable, of course, but simplistically classifying Cujo as a novel about a rabid dog is like saying that Shakespeare's Othello was about a jealous guy, or saying that Homer's Odyssey was about a guy's commute home: technically correct, but you're really missing the point.Cujo is a novel about life blowing up in your face for no apparent reason, and it reflects some of the underlying tensions of the late seventies and early eighties as well as some of the problems that Stephen King was struggling with at the time. Though rays of hope shine through the darkness along the way, the book is in general horrific more because of the way each character's life seems to be inexplicably falling apart. Spoiler alert: if you haven't read the book, you might not want to read this review. Cujo begins not with the travails of the soon-to-be-rabid title character, but instead with the story of Frank Dodd, a crazed cop who went on a killing spree in bucolic Castle Rock, Maine, before killing himself. King makes a point of establishing quickly that he was not some kin
With that said, I wholeheartedly recommend Cujo to Stephen King fans, the only qualification being that they should understand a couple of things about the book and when it was written. During the 1980s, Stephen King struggled with both alcoholism and drug addiction, and he candidly admits in his 2000 nonfiction manual "On Writing" that his disease was near its peak when he wrote Cujo: "Near the end of my adventures, I was drinking a case of sixteen-ounce tallboys a night, and there's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all." This alone accounts for all of Cujo's shortcomings and more; personally I find it incredible that he was able to write a book with both a concrete, simple premise and a deeper theme lurking beneath the surface. In conclusion, my disappointment with the novel stems mostly from my own personal likes and dislikes, and not from any real inferiority. It's not my favorite King novel, but it's proof that even subpar King is better than so many other writers at their best.
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Approximate Word count = 1739
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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