«Salem’s Lot» Stephen King: Is the horror classic still relevant half a century after its release?

On October 3, a new adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name «Salem’s Lot» was released on HBO Max. This is the fifth attempt to transfer the second novel by the King of Horror, which was published in 1975 after the famous work «Carrie». We will definitely have a review of this movie, but now we will talk about the novel itself and I can already say that for me, in some moments, it has not stood the test of time. And all the other details, as always, can be found below.

«Salem’s Lot»

Author Stephen King
Translator Oleksandr Krasiuk
Publisher KSD
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 576
Cover Solid
Year of publication 2020
Size 135×205 mm
Website bookclub.ua

So, the writer Ben Myers returns to the small town of Salem’s Lot or Jerusalem’s Lot. This is where he spent his childhood, and where he experienced the greatest fear of his life, connected with the local Marsten House. Ben decides to overcome and digest this horror by writing a new book about it.

At the same time as the writer, a strange businessman arrives in Salem’s Lot and buys the same Marsten House and an old shop where he is going to open an antique furniture store. This gentleman makes people’s skin crawl with orphans, and he has come from far away, bringing with him strange large boxes. In addition, people start disappearing in the city: first a boy, then adults. With the arrival of the strangers, strange things definitely began to happen, and they are connected with a powerful Evil. But what is it and who exactly is threatening the residents?

When discussing the novel, one must keep in mind that it was published 49 years ago. This means that this book is literally from another time, from another era, from another country with its own problems, crises, and challenges. And the 1970s were very difficult for the United States, including failed international policies, domestic scandals and dismissals, the Cold War, and a very high crime rate.

This is both a plus and a minus for the author’s books because on the one hand they are very relevant at the time of their release. And on the other hand, people who read them later, and even from another country, do not always understand certain references, moods, character phrases, and hints of the author.

And King, as always, has a lot of real goods, songs, brands, etc., which make his books as realistic as possible for the American reader, but for the Ukrainian reader. Even half a century later, on the contrary, full of incomprehensible things.

Another problem «Salem’s Lot» for the modern reader is the excessive detail of the narrative. In 1975, it was normal for entire chapters not to move the plot at all, but simply to describe nature, everyday life, or to develop the author’s opinion on a particular topic. And the entire novel is saturated with such chapters. Sometimes King simply describes the everyday life of small-town residents, and it is clear that he does so with pleasure. Sometimes he also shows the details of local communication, the peculiarities of small towns in the United States, their problems, and challenges. And in this novel, he also allows himself to reflect on the theme of Good and Evil, the existence of God and the essence of religion.

Of course, this definitely adds color to the book and a deeper understanding of those times, events, context, etc. But still, this will be relevant for a modern American reader, not for a Ukrainian one. Because we will still not understand probably half of it.

The most important thing is that this greatly slows down the author’s already expansive style, and slows down the plot and events as much as possible. To understand the situation, the beginning of the disappearance of the people I mentioned above occurs somewhere on page 100+, and there are almost 600 of them in the novel. That is, be prepared to wade through or skip entire pages or even chapters with everything I mentioned above.

Of course, you can read them, but they are unlikely to give you pleasure. However, King really knows how to write, so they are definitely atmospheric, even if they do nothing but slow down the story.

A few words about the publication itself. There is nothing unusual here because the book was published several years ago and this is just a reprint. We have a classic cover of King’s novels by KSD with a black background and a nice drawing. The downside is the small font, which was not easy to read even for me, a person with perfect vision. But I understand why they did this because the book has almost 600 pages, and if they had enlarged the font a little, it would have been a brick, which would probably have been physically difficult to read.