For true horror fans, there's few films as renowned for its scares quite like William Friedkin's The Exorcist. How could it not be, especially as it deals with a fear that goes beyond what can be seen and eats at the very soul of every viewer? It's a demon, Pazuzu, who lives inside the bodies of the innocent, destroying them until they wither and die. If that was all that the story was about, it would be scary, but it wouldn't be accepted as one of the scariest works in 20th century fiction. No, what makes the story far more fascinating is something that can be found more often and effectively in the text, where censorship seems to be misbegotten in favor of the most brutal, intense descriptions imaginable to reasonable man. William Peter Blatty's book may have the blueprint for what the film became, but it's such a gross, ugly vision that no reasonable filmmaker would put any actor through it. And yet, that is what makes Blatty's novel so vital and in some ways superior to the film adaptation.
The story is predominantly the same, though the themes are more pronounced on the page. The story centers around the MacNeils, whose daughter Regan gets possessed one night. What's first believed to be a basic illness slowly unwinds into something more surreal, unnerving, and works to the pages' ability to be descriptive and vague within a single sentence. It's the fear of a demon consuming a body, and the inability to understand why it wants to destroy lives. Father Karras, a lapsed-priest who takes up time at Georgetown University near the MacNeils is called upon to save the day as his mother's also dying. The world of faith and survival is present in everything that Karras does, for he wants to believe that he can save Reagan from the death of a creature who vomits, defecates, curses, and stabs herself in ways that turn the beautiful, innocent face of Regan into a cratering face of hate.
While the first chapters of the book establish the world nicely, it's a bit deceiving in tone. The normalcy is intentional for about the first 100 pages, where everything is "nice." This is part of Blatty's trick. By making a world that isn't unlike the reader's own, it immediately connects them into the story, allowing what's to come to feel like it could happen in their neighborhood. In fact, Regan's likely one of many girls that the reader will see in their daily lives. To think of anything graphic and vulgar happening to them is a horrifying idea, especially in early 1970's America where the Vietnam War and Women's Rights Movements reflect different conversations about families being torn apart and how women are treated (in the case of Regan, it's the literal invasion of her body). It's present in most iconic horror of the time, whether it be Rosemary's Baby or The Omen. But here, it feels more organic, more real. If the reader grew up in the same churches as Father Karras, it will begin to churn the stomach, knowing that even the depiction of goodness in the world is itself full of doubt, unable to be sure if it can destroy evil. Which is to argue: if priests can't destroy the devil, then who can?
Once the book gets going, it becomes a more fascinating read that pits good against evil, but also religion against science. There's constant experiments on Regan that are themselves described in horrific detail, capturing the struggle in society to be well. There's the feeling that one little operation can solve all of Regan's problems. Instead, science is just as hopeless as Father Karras. Both are deterrents, but not able to absolve their conflicts entirely. The struggle becomes unnerving as the story goes along and Pazuzu's role in the story becomes more pronounced. Suddenly Regan and Pazuzu are one in the same, fighting for control of a voice that is harsh in every sense of the word. It's also here that Blatty's detail reveals something more horrifying: the realism. Yes, demonic possession is arguably fiction, but Blatty's stroke of genius comes in his ability to paint realistic symptoms such as dehydration, physical weaknesses, and the general sense that Regan could die a death that she didn't deserve.
The book is constantly tragic not because it wants to scare the reader, but instead drops them into a pit of despair that could stand for anything. With exception to Pazuzu's vulgarity, the idea of watching a loved one die in a state of dizziness in painful. Blatty knows that and chooses to paint the struggle of demonic possession as something slow and tedious, capturing the belief that Karras won't be the hero, that Regan will be victim to something violating her body. It's the epitome of what faith was built to do, but will it be able to pull through in the face of vomiting that becomes required to be mentioned on every page for the last 100 or so? The uncertainty is powerful, much like the understanding of the characters, who are just as clueless as to how to solve the problem. It's the sense of uncertainty that drives "The Exorcist" into a new territory of literature greatness, of which it becomes more than excuse to depict the devil with outrageously disturbing language and images that definitely sound like hell on Earth. More than anything, this world of Blatty's sounds downright plausible.
It helps that the book seems well researched, and at points almost akin to a historic account of exorcisms. While this book's inevitable legacy is tarnishing the name of the Ouija Board, it also paints a dark side to faith that suggests that not everything can be absolved, or at least with a clean conscience. It also suggests that science doesn't have all of the cures, nor films (of which Regan's mother is an actress) able to cure all of the blues. More than all of that, it suggests that everyone is susceptible to evil, and it can destroy lives unknowingly. The lack of control that Regan has is disturbing unto itself, reflecting a rejection of the human condition in ways that could be all too familiar to those who read up on stranger scientific discoveries. Whatever the case may be, Blatty's story works because it doesn't chastise any one approach to exorcising Regan. Instead, it suggests the power beyond which man can control, which is a terrible fear.
"The Exorcist" is a book that never lets up the tension, even if some passages may be tedious and lacking the thrills. If anything, Blatty's pacing is able to make the book a consistent joy that will engross the readers, hoping not only for Regan's cure, but for Karras to be that voice of reason amid his own personal struggles. This is a book that doesn't rely on jump scares, but instead one long attack that won't end. It never feels dull, and instead paints a vision bound to give nightmares and cast doubt on the goodness of the world, even if it ultimately is for it. The book launched a franchise of films and an interest in the occult that at best does an admirable job of comparing. However, it's still no match for the passages of devils defiling every piece of decency in the world. It will make the reader uncomfortable, but that's kind of the point. Pazuzu is here to kill, and he doesn't care how painful it is for the possessed or the person watching it happen. Nobody knows his methods, and that's the scariest part of all.
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