Norman Bates has always lived in the house on the hill overlooking the Bates Motel. The motel often has plenty of rooms, what with the new interstate driving traffic away from the rural highway that used to bring the tourists to it. Because of this, Norman is lonely and...well, a bit odd. Maybe it's the constant pang of loneliness, maybe it takes a special personality to run a business where all you do is meet people from all walks of life. Or maybe - just maybe - it's because Norman's never been quite able to measure up to his mother's expectation. Norman, you see, still lives with his mother - an authoritative woman who, quite frankly, has stifled Norman. There is no escape from Mother, there is no escape from the house, and there are rarely any paying customers. That is, of course, until Mary Crane shows up one stormy night looking for a room. Mary is on the run from her past and a crime she committed trying to make a better future for herself and her fiancee, Sam. Yes, Mary checks into the Bates Motel, but she never checks out. When Mary vanishes, her past comes looking for her: first her sister Lila, then her employer's detective Milton Arbogast, and her fiancee Sam. But that's not bad news for Mary - it's bad news for Norman Bates, who covered up his mother's mess in Room 6. The name Norman Bates is one fraught with fear and trepidation in American culture. A character based largely on prolific killer Ed Gein, the name Norman Bates was brought into American households most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in his 1960 black and white film Psycho. But Norman Bates was created a year before that by Robert Block and, while it may be common to read about serial killers and psychopaths in fiction today, the subject matter of the 1959 novel was as unheard of (and perhaps even a bit taboo) as it was terrifying.
That's where I want to start, in 1959. Before I get to talking about the book itself and what I thought of it, I want to level with the fact that this was released in 1959. Now, I am no stranger to horror - it's perhaps my favorite genre of just about everything: cinema, television, fiction, nonfiction - there is something about the horror genre that is quite human, likely because it shows the delicacy of human nature itself. In the horror, we often are able to find the beauty around it. In this way, the horror genre provides - however juxtapositionally (is that a word?) - hope. I think a good observer of the horror genre knows this feeling well. But given that the horror genre was relatively rare in 1959, I couldn't get it out of my head how shocking this book must have been. I kept trying to picture myself picking this book, reading it, and trying to make sense of and react to it. Now, perhaps it's because I have this stereotypical image in my head of a rather proper and fragile all-American (white) society with white picket fences, four family heterosexually-headed households, housewives taking care of the home, and businessmen bringing home the dough, but I just can't imagine this book existing on bookshelves and being successful in 1959. But it did, and there's something powerful about that because - and I'll be straight with you - even though I am a huge fan of the original 1960 film (and, honestly, of Bates Motel currently airing on AMC), this book scared the hell out of me.
I was impressed by this novel. It's short - coming in at just under 200 pages - but the way it is written creates unease in the reader. Truly, if you've never seen the movie and have no idea what's going on (don't read the synopsis on the book, by the way - it gives away far too much, as it probably assumes you've seen the film by now), I imagine all you can think is something is wrong here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Bloch even addresses this in the text itself - this feeling of unease and naivety - in a scene featuring Lila in Mrs. Bates' bedroom. Bloch doesn't want you to know what's going on until the second to last chapter, and he keeps the secret from you quite well.
The narrative goes between each of the key players - Norman, Mary, Lila, Sam, Arbogast, and Mrs. Bates, perhaps with a bit heavier focus on Norman, who is truly the common thread and most affected character between all of the ones listed above. The narrative follows Norman from odd but likable to unhinged and frightening, while the other characters (minus Mary) are just trying to figure out what the hell happened to Mary. Mary ultimately isn't that interesting of a character, but to be fair we do not get to spend much time to get to know her before she vanishes. Sorry Mary, but you were basically just a pretty plot device!
The writing is smart, too. Bloch has a straightforward way of storytelling - what you see is what you get and no frills. He tells the reader what they need to know, and then he moves on to the next character, all the while keeping a devastating secret from all the characters (except maybe not Mrs. Bates) and the reader. I can't stress this enough: if you've somehow never seen the movie or had someone spoil it for you, do not spoil it for yourself before you read the book - it does a disservice to the way Bloch wrote the entire narrative.
Finally, I appreciated that this novel from 1959 dared to breech the subject of mental health, even if it did so in a way that might not be favorable. We still have issues discussing mental health in this country, and in a time when it was even more "out of sight, out of mind," this book was ahead of its time. I am no mental health expert, and I do not pretend to be, so I won't speak to the validity of its claims in today's society, nor do I condone the descriptions Bloch depicts, but there is something to be appreciated about the fact that Bloch wrote about it at all (and, based on the last few pages, did his homework and discussed it with all the knowledge he could muster in the time in which he wrote it).
One criticism I have of the novel is that it is full of stereotypes. Perhaps they weren't stereotypes in 1959, but now they're caricatures. Lila is a seemingly able-bodied woman who arguably has the most at stake protagonist-wise, but she often defaults into the helpless frail woman who needs a man to help her solve the mystery. Sam is the strong and somewhat detached male lead, who doesn't believe the "hysterical" tendencies of Lila. The sherriff is a country bumpkin who would rather not make a fuss with the Bates family because, small towns and trust. But the worst stereotype of all is Norman - a fat, ugly, odd man who is clearly set up to be viewed as suspect from the beginning. While he was certainly eccentric in the film version (apologies for comparing the two once again), he was played by Anthony Perkins who, BY THE WAY, is not fat nor ugly. See below:
 |
| This is literally a scene of Perkins playing Norman Bates. The only room I'd be interested in renting is the one Norman sleeps in on the creepy ass house on the hill #justsayin #swoon |
If you haven't seen the movie, don't watch it until after you've read the novel. I know, I know, everybody says that - and this isn't a case of "the book is better than the movie." Both iterations are brilliant in their own right. But if you don't know the twist - and it is quite the twist - that happens just 7 pages before the final word, you'll be in for a much more unsettling ride. Aside from the stereotypical caricatures, Psycho is a scary ride into the mind(s?) of (a) psychopath(s?).
No comments:
Post a Comment