Picked up The Ruins last night, finished it this afternoon. Books like that aren't my usual cup of tea, but I've gotten into the habit of picking up OMG SUMMER BLOCKBUSTAR. Like a lot of people, I probably also had The Ruins in my mind at the bookstore because I'd read Stephen King's glowing review of it. Yes, I am aware that Stephen King is the Antimichiko. He's aware of it, too:
There will be reviews of this book by critics who have little liking or
understanding for popular fiction who'll dismiss it as nothing but a
short story that has been bloated to novel length (I'm thinking of
Michiko Kakutani*, for instance, who microwaved Smith's first book).
Funny he should say that, since starting about a third of the way into The Ruins, I started thinking about King's short story "The Raft". While clicking that link isn't technically a spoiler, you still may want to think twice if you haven't read either story. The premise, the characters, the progression, the outcome...
The Ruins felt like a 300 page homage to that 20 page short story.
As far as my inner Michiko goes? It's been a while since I read "The Raft", but my recollection is that I cared more about the characters (including the non-human one) than I did in The Ruins. Maybe that's because most of the Raft characters were middle class college students just taking a quick afternoon break, and most of the Ruins characters are destined-for-upper-class-happiness college graduates indulging in a little Ugly Americanness before starting graduate school, or jobs that no 22 year old could hope to get outside of a book. Or maybe it's because "The Raft" had (and needed) less setup than The Ruins. Or the Heatwave of Global Warming from last week is still very fresh in my mind, or I'm reading up on another Central American country for my day job right now.
Could be anything, really. Still. Twenty pages. Three hundred pages. Y'know?
After one admittedly fast reading, what does The Ruins have that "The Raft" doesn't?
-- Lots of characters who are horror-movie dumb, and (big points here) a couple of characters who are not.
-- Lots more well-done, slow-motion gore. It's not my thing, but if you're the sort of person who loves Saw and Hostel and other modern viscerafest movies like that (some of which also owe big debts to "The Raft"), get The Ruins. The last third of the book, you'll groove to it.
-- A better title. If you read it and you don't get the title, then I don't think you get what Smith was probably shooting for. I'm not completely convinced he achieved it, but I did like being able to ponder the question rather than dismiss it entirely. (I suppose this is where I should admit that I've never really warmed to Joseph Conrad, either.)
As a fan of Lost? Ignore the comparisons to Lost. There's even one on the back cover! Beyond the climate, there's one similarity, and it's a very vague one. If you're a Lost junkie looking to ride out the summer, especially if you're a mythos junkie, pick up something like, I don't know, House of Leaves. That'll keep you busy. And I thought parts of it were scarier, too.
In the end, I think what we have in The Ruins is a good summer movie. Ben Stiller figured this out before I did -- he's optioned it already, and is even in the book's acknowledgments. Still, you know what else Stiller optioned? CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. I bet you can guess which one I'd like to see first. I bet you can also guess which one will see the light of day. Meh.
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