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THE EXORCIST: 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
by William Peter Blatty
Harper, October 2011
400 pages
$25.99
ISBN: 0062094351


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This review concerns the release of the 40th Anniversary Edition of William Peter Blatty's blockbuster novel THE EXORCIST, which is advertised as including a new character and a spooky scene with this character. No one who remembers the early 70's could be unaware of the smash that both the novel and subsequent film made in the collective psyche of the era. Although I did not read the book at the time, or see the film, I still could not escape viewing bits and pieces of the film and trailer, specifically the demon-possessed child turning her head completely around and spewing curses. Other than those images, I had no preconceived ideas about what to expect from my reading, but I did hope to experience some degree of fear and trembling.

The basic story is that a lovely child, 11-year old Regan MacNeil, daughter of movie star Chris MacNeil, suddenly undergoes profound personality changes and more. She starts mouthing obscenities, and then begins to display a number of supernatural abilities, from parakinesis, being able to move objects without touching them, to levitation and superhuman strength. Someone else's voice begins talking through her. She gradually becomes more and more gross and less and less human as she spews out vomit and diarrhea and foul smells. They strap her to the bed, but not before she may have had the opportunity to kill someone. Her mother takes her to the best doctors, but they are no help. And then Chris appeals to Father Damien Karras, a Jesuit priest who is himself struggling with his own lack of faith and the guilt he feels for abandoning his mother.

Meanwhile, Detective Kinderman is investigating the death of Chris's director friend Burke Dennings. He is able to piece together events and see where they are leading, but he does so in the clear style of a contemporaneous detective, Peter Falk's embodiment of Colombo. In the same bumbling, self-deprecating manner of the iconic Colombo, Kinderman slowly but surely figures out how a murder was committed, and lets Father Damien know that he knows. It is disappointing that Blatty felt no compunctions about using this same caricature.

Eventually, Father Damien decides to do an exorcism, but he may not be the exorcist of the title. Father Merrin, who has had dealings with demons in Nineveh, is called in to preside. In the Prologue, we have seen Merrin digging in ancient Northern Iraqi ruins. He views a statue of the demon Pazuzu and has a feeling that he will be called upon to do battle.

Perhaps Blatty includes the Prologue to give some sort of frightening reverberation to the novel. Some of the writing style also attempts to be archaic or grandiose, to give the book some sort of authentic connection to horrors of the past. Blatty uses a lot of hyphenated words, like "upward-groping," "fifteen-gated," and "clay-fresh." And when he talks about Chris in Washington, he refers to the River Potomac. Often one has to hunt carefully for the subject of a sentence. His dialogue is stilted but supposedly the author revised some of it in the new edition, so I must assume that the conversations were even triter in the original.

Although THE EXORCIST was touted as a supernatural thriller, I found it to be a superficial bore. The characters were one-dimensional, at best, and their struggles with the deeper questions of life—faith, guilt, good, evil—were simplistic and unbelievable. When the possessed child seems to manifest at least three separate entities, this complexity was a relief. Renting the film as a Halloween treat might be fun, but reading the book will make you fall asleep before the last of the trick-or-treaters rings your bell. Blatty tries hard to make this novel meaningful. It seems that he is trying to write a book about good and evil and faith and the inevitability of death, but in the end the book is just trying to the reader.

Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.

Reviewed by Anne Corey, October 2011

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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