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Cujo

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Cujo is special. This was my introduction to Stephen King; oh, I'd read that story of his about toy soldiers (in seventh grade English class, no less), but this was my first real Stephen King experience. It was also my first truly adult novel; there's some pretty racy stuff in here, especially when you're an innocent twelve-year-old kid. Steve Kemp, Donna Trenton's jilted lover, is a cretin. That's part of the reason why Cujo has always been my least favorite Stephen King novel - until now, that is. Having finally reread this book, I am quite bowled over by the experience. This is King at his most visceral, his most unrelenting, his most vicious. Dark doesn't begin to describe this novel. The ending was and is controversial (so controversial that it was changed - quite cowardly - in the film adaptation). Speaking of the film, it's important not to judge this novel by that adaptation - in the movie, young Tad is almost impossible to like because Danny Pintauro was just such an annoying child actor, and Cujo himself is little more than a monster because we don't get inside his increasingly disturbed head the way we do in the novel. The real Cujo is a good dog.

King has said he does not remember writing very much of this novel, that it was written in an almost perpetual drunken haze. It's ironic because Cujo is an amazingly sober read. Maybe the booze explains the brutality of the story, but I think not - like any great writer, King lets the story tell itself. What happens at the end of this novel just happens; King doesn't make it happen. That ending - actually, the whole book - opens up all kinds of questions about Fate and justice. I have a hard time liking Donna Trenton, and a part of me thinks there is a certain amount of justice in her fate (although the punishment grossly outweighs the crime in this case). How do you explain what happens here, though - all these coincidences that seal our characters' - especially the child's - fates? Why and how does such a horrible tragedy happen? As the reader, you ask these questions, and they echo the questions we sometimes ask in real life. King taps directly in to your worst nightmares with this seemingly simple story.

The basic foundation of this novel is a pretty simple one: man vs. nature. In one corner, you have a mother fighting for the life of her son as well as herself; in the other corner, you have Cujo, a two hundred pound St. Bernard, a gentle, loving dog who has gone rabid - very rabid, insanely murderous rabid. It's essential to realize that there are no villains here, though, only victims. Curiosity killed the cat, but it gave Cujo rabies, and we experience his own canine mental breakdown as the disease lays waste to his central nervous system. Cujo would never dream of hurting anyone; the rabies eventually kills the real Cujo, though, and turns his huge canine body into a horrible killing machine, a very fiend from hell itself, the personification of the terrible monster in the closet that frightens young Tad so much every night in his room. King conjures this malevolent connection in a wonderfully tangible way, going even farther to tie "the monster" in to the murderous deeds of Frank Dodd - King directly cites events chronicled in The Dead Zone, already building the aura of the doom-shrouded town of Castle Rock.

So it's a simple story - yet it's not simple at all. You have marital discord between the Trentons, the result of a stupid affair between Donna and the aforementioned cretin Steve Kemp. Vic is trying to save his business at the same time that he is hammered with the news of his wife's infidelity. You have Tad's fear of the monster in his closet and his trust in his father to keep him safe. You have the wife of country mechanic Joe Camber and her fears that her son will turn out just like his father. You basically have all manner of compelling subplots going on at the same time, somehow coming together to conjure an unimaginably horrible series of events. In other words, this is real life taken to extremes - and there are monsters in real life, oh yes.

I can't think of any words to describe to you, the reader, how this book made me feel, but here goes anyway, because I like to be helpful.

To lump King into the limiting paradigm of "horror writer" is like blasphemy, and if you're going to read Cujo, you might as well toss it if you're going to think of it that way. King is not a horror writer, any more than Fitzgerald is a cheap, 10-cent paperback romance writer.

What King writes about is life--in all its bloody and dank, beautiful and mysterious glory. When I read Cujo I was terrified, and my hands even shook as I put the book down, finally finished at the end of the long night. But what terrified me the most is not the actual carnage, but the fact that this story is so real that the location might as well be Anytown, USA, and You, the Anonymous Reader Reading This Review, as the lead character.

King said himself that, like in Ripley's Believe it or Not, reality and the bizzare (read:horror) coexist at all times, and that the juxtaposition of the two is where terror originates. REAL horror is here in the real world, not in Nasfaratu, not in Freddy Kreuger or Jason, but in your own home, or worse--in your own mind. The story on its own is almost boring: a lovable 200-pound St. Bernard catches rabies. So why was I shaking, and why did I burst into tears after reading the ending? Better yet, why was I so moved that I took the time to write this review to convince you to read it for yourself?

Trust me. Read the book. I don't care if you've never met me. From one terrified reader with her head detached after reading Cujo to another reader contemplating buying it (that's why you're here, isn't it?), take my advice and get it. You won't regret it.

First published way back in 1981 Cujo has more than stood the test of time with exceptional characters, one being a Saint Bernard, as well as an extremely realistic plot resulting in an exceptional thriller. Fans of King's other work will also be thrilled to see the re-emergence of the Maine town of Castle Rock and some of the minor characters from a previous King masterpiece The Dead Zone. For the record though Cujo does not give away anything major of The Dead Zone's plot so that novel will not be ruined if reading Cujo first.

In Cujo the two main plots follow two families each with a young boy. The Trentons have a boy named Tad who is scared of the monster in his closet who he is sure will come and kill him one day. His loving father Vic, has written a poem to keep the monster away but unbeknownst to him his wife Donna is cheating on him with the town low life to relive the boredom of her mundane life while he is away trying to save his advertising company which is under pressure after its biggest client Sharp's Breakfast Cereals has had its new cereal pulled from the shelves after an amusing but devastating food dye incident. Meanwhile another boy named Brett living on a remote property just outside of town is loved by his dad Joe who is isn't opposed to a bit of domestic violence against his wife Charity every now and then. Brett loves his giant Saint Bernard Cujo who loves him and would kill to protect his masters. Cujo also loves chasing rabbits and unfortunately chases one into a cave full of rabies carrying bats. As this disease cripples his mind he struggles to cope with the pain and all Cujo knows is he must get vengeance on those who have made him feel like he does.

Extremely realistic thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the final page!

Cujo is one of Stephen King's most accomplished novels. Devised to evoke true terror in the hearts of readers everywhere, Cujo is a tale of horrible circumstance where the monster isn't a monster at all, but a household pet. A once gentle St. Bernard driven mad by sickness from the bite of a rabid bat. A St. Bernard that once would have been considered harmless in just a few short days turns into a mindless killing machine, and St. Bernard's are BIG! Stephen King pulls no punches with this book and the terrifying encounters the hapless characters have with Cujo are the stuff of Horror novel legend. Cujo is truly one of Stephen King's finest hours as a writer, all the way up to the heart wrenching ending. If you are a Stephen King fan, a Horror fan, or just like really good, involving writing Cujo is a book for you.

"The entire spectrum of the aural world was his. He heard the chimes of heaven and the hoarse screams which uprose from hell. In his madness he heard the real and the unreal." (from Cujo)

Wow, how many times have you heard that written about a Stephen King book? I say it with a die-hard fan's sincerity, though--I've read every book he has ever published at least 3 times each, and "Cujo" is, without a doubt, one of his best. For some reason, though, it's always lumped with the more "halfway" books (books that, while good, aren't on the better side of King's body of work). I think, however, that the problem lies with what i feel to be the book's strongest point: it's complete realism. In Beahm's 'Stephen King Companion,' he points out that in 'Cujo,' most of the situations are out of the characters' control and questions of sacrifice can't come into play. Because of that, though, the book is even more scary and plausible. The characters, as real as they come, are some of his best, and the suspense is top-notch (even better than 'Misery,' in my opinion). Strongly reccommended.

I found CUJO to be a bit of a strange read. While I was expecting the horror story of the mad dog to be front and center, it actually takes quite a while before that becomes the focus. By the end, it's a pity that the standard horror story takes over, because I found myself much more interested in the characters that had been created here. It's on odd mixture of horror and human character studies that works well in some places, but jars oddly in others.

The Cujo of the title is the name of a dog gone bad - or going bad, as it takes a least a hundred and fifty pages before Cujo develops into a truly frightening creature. During the course of this opening, the dog becomes afflicted with rabies, a tangible and real threat. And while there are touches of the supernatural sprinkled through the story, the primary fear comes from our physical world. A huge, power and ferocious dog with a known disease is a very frightening concept. From a very early age, children are taught to fear and to run from any animal displaying the symptoms of that illness, and Stephen King is quite good at tapping into this specific fear.

On the other hand, while the Cujo sequences are indeed effective, they are not really anything special. But I was quite interested in the two families that were developed here. The human dimension really overshadowed most of what was going on with the dog's subplot, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Stephen King creates two families and carefully gives them several similarities, but gives them enough distinctions for us to see how each family member ticks. It's quite interesting to see the different ways that the two families react to troubles in marriage, raising children, and their attitudes to the rich vs. the poor. It does occasionally come across as heavy-handed, but there are enough subtleties involved to make the whole thing worth reading. I was really surprised to find this sensitive and enjoyable characterization given that I was expecting nothing more than a dog eating his way through small town America.

In the end though, the book does fall back on its stock horror component, which just seems to lack a certain oomph. A lot of the interesting characterization falls by the wayside as the conclusion approaches. The ending is heavily involved in concluding the rabid dog subplot, and most of the details surrounding the people, the marriages and the families are left unmentioned and unresolved. It's a pity that King took that sort of ending, because I felt that there was still some gold to be mined there.

I can't help but wonder if this book would have worked better if split up into two separate novels - one a horror story and the other the human drama. Alternatively, the two disparate pieces could have been integrated together with more coherence. But as it stands, the two sections, while having several highlights, don't seem to match up well with each other. CUJO is less than the sum of its parts, which is a shame given how enjoyable and engrossing several of the main parts are.

I always think of Stephen King's "Cujo" as his version of "Hamlet," simply because Donna Trenton's inability to act reminds me of the Prince of Denmark's refusal to do what needed to be done in time for it to matter. Given that starting point it makes sense that this is the first Stephen King novel that avoids the supernatural, save for a small inconsequential moment. This time we do not have telekinetic power, vampires, a haunted hotel, the end of the world, psychic ability, or pyrokensis. In "Cujo" we have a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard who pursues a rabbit into a bolt-hole and is bit by a rapid bat and ends up terrorizing a trapped mother and son in a broken down car. For "Cujo" to be about the perils of inaction, the danger has to be more realistic for the lesson to be worthwhile.

I was really surprised to go back and see how much King crammed into this novel. We are introduced to the cast of human characters, which are basically divided into the Trenton and Chambers families. Vic Trenton is a New York adman with a partner and small agency trying to hold on to his last account who moves to Castle Rock, Maine seeking peace away from the big city. His marriage is on the rocks, which explains why Donna is having an affair, but they both love their four-year-old son, Tad. Joe Chambers does auto repair out of his garage and does not treat his wife Charity right. Cujo is the best friend of their ten-year-old son Brett.

While circumstances align to put Donna and Tad in peril, we learn a whole lot about Vic Trenton's ad campaign for the Sharp Cereal Professor, which blows up in his face. Actually this is my favorite part of the novel and I really like the way Vic finds a way to "bury" the old fellow. The problem is that this is more interesting to me than what is happening back at the Chambers farm with Cujo, which just keeps dragging on and on. Not that the situation is unrealistic, in terms of what happens in the car where Donna and Tad are trapped by Cujo, but that the situation is established fairly early in the book and you know it is not going to be resolved until the end. When you go and see a movie you can lose all sense of time and not know that you have reached the end, but with a book you always have a rough idea of how many pages are left. It would be impractical to have a book where there were 50-100 blank pages at the end, or (surprise) another story, but that would have helped this novel.

"Cujo" is also in the running for being the biggest downer of all of King's novels and the fact that a character we remember fondly from another novel gets killed does not help us think back on the novel favorably. Looking back on King's career "Cujo" seems to be a start of a darker period in his stories where, as King would say, the Dionysian darkness is not dispelled by the Apollonian light. It seems that what bit poor old Cujo when he stuck his nose into that bolt-hole got a piece of King as well.

Cujo has become synonymous with any canine that is violent and dangerous. Unless you have read this masterpiece, you have no idea how dangerous this animal can be. Cujo, a massive St. Bernard, wasn't always like this - he used to love to run and play, and fetch like all good dogs. However, one day he stuck his head down a hole and is bitten by an animal that happens to be foaming at the mouth. IT isn't long until Cujo begins to feel the symptoms of the rabies. The story tells the horror of a young mother and her young son trapped in a stalled car by the dog. What makes this story interesting is it tells half the tale from the perspective of Cujo, and the reader gets the impression as he descends into madness that there is something more evil lurking within him than just rabies. It becomes a battle for survival as the people are trapped in a car with no food or water in the hottest heat wave to have hit Maine in many years. Read this book if you want to be scared - it gives a whole new meaning to the expression "bad dog"...

Relic113

An amazing book, even if it was written during one of King's narcotic spells. The way King draws out every character, even the minor ones, is unforgettable. One of my favorite passages comes right after Vic has discovered Donna's infidelity. He asks her the inevitable question "Why?" and her thoughts spill out to the reader in a way that proves King isn't a run-of-the-mill pulp writer (88-89). The way he sustains the very tense last half of the book is remarkable. And that ending: tragic, honest, and heartbreaking.

As a kid, I was twice attacked by dogs, resulting in my long-time phobia of them. "Cujo" first appeared during my freshman year of high school, and I was always intrigued and also frightened by its premise. If I read it, would it cause me to lose sleep for years to come? Would I be able to handle the flashbacks of my own terror? Finally, for a number of reasons, I took the plunge this week.

To my surprise, "Cujo" is less of a horror novel--it has only a few disturbing moments--and more an exploration of families in a small town, teetering between the nostalgia of the past and the nightmarish realities of the present. Vic and Donna are dealing with marital problems and with a child who believes he has monsters in his closet. The Cambers are hiding abusive relationships, while unaware that their peaceful St. Bernard is about to become two hundred pounds of rabid fury. King's depiction of Cujo's changing frame of mind is masterful.

Ultimately, the threads of these lives will interwine and unravel on a number of levels. The very adult story is also an ode to the survival skills of Donna, and the determination of Donna and Vic to make their marriage work. The ending has some ironic tragedy, but it left me with some details unexplained. It also--thankfully--failed to rob me of any sleep later on. Overall, this is a well-told tale by a deft storyteller who seems as interested by the troubles behind America's picture windows as he is by the horrors of inexplicable evil.