Can someone (including Stephen) clear up the Glick/Barlow scenario? *SPOILERS*

I am late to the party on this, but I am a big fan of 'Salem's Lot' and loving reading all of the postings. Straker definitely kidnapped Ralphie and Barlow bit him.

 

...love the user name, glad to have you join us!...

 

Sorry, but I think you are mistaken. Straker used Ralphie as a blood sacrifice to whatever "god" Barlow and he worship so that Barlow could enter Salem's Lot. I don't think there was any Ralphie left to bite when Barlow got there.

 

Agree. Bobarobabob (I gave up) -

Nighthawk73 see post #28 by skimom2

 

I began reading the thread, thinking that was exactly true, but now I'm just confused. Maybe the truth is King didn't consider who bit Danny important. It happened, that was the thing. I'm okay with that. My problem with Salem's Lot, if I pick it up just to read a few pages, I end up going on until the end again. I think "Lot" is probably the best modern vampire novel. And "Jerusalem's Lot" (or "Geezers vs Bloodsuckers") from the collection Night Shift is one terrific companion piece.

No disrespect to Anne Rice, but "Interview with ..." never did a thing for me. Book or film. And I like vampires! Horribly, we took the kid to see the last Twilight movie at her urging, and she and I both liked it! The final battle was like X-Men if it had been produced by the people who made iCarly! Her mom hated it.

 

...how's about Night Flier?......nifty lil twist on the toothsome legend.....

 

It actually was! I completely forgot that. Stay in the air almost constantly, land and feed inconspicuously here & there, buy some trinkets at the duty free shop, then back to the friendly skies! If he had managed not to occasionally massacre an entire airport full of people, that could have gone on for years. Yeah, quite a novel approach. It makes me think of the old TV movie "The Night Stalker" with Darren McGavin from "A Chistmas Story" (It's a major award!), and who narrated nearly all McDonald's Travis McGee novels, I hear brilliantly, but they're on cassette instead of cd. Yikes! But at least they exist.

Anyway, In the TV movie (I saw it on youtube. Then bought it. Then bought the entire TV series) the vampire has chosen to live (?) in Las Vegas. Work by night, sleep by day. The dude was very much like the vampire in 'The Night Flyer' or the Salem's Lot movie. He didn't give two ****s about espousing his opinions on the state of the modern world, women with good bone structure, fine dining -- he wanted blood! Period. Apparently the source material, the original novel, was not what you'd call bomb diggidy. Wait, I'm quoting Danse Macabre almost verbatim! Why didn't someone stop me?!! Oh boy, after "Christmas Story" the word spoiler will appear and the rest of my post will be gone! At least I got it out of my system.

 

I read Salem's Lot a long time before The DT final books were out, so for a long time I thought Ralphie was sacrificed only to Barlow as well.

Spoiler

However, having read about Callahan's life after SL, the happenings at the Dixie Pig and all, I think the sacrifice had sonething to do with the Crimson King, as well. Barlow is the head honcho bad guy in the book, but lurking behind him in the shadows is an even worse bad guy. It plays into King working the DT into his other works quite easily.

I could be wrong, but it makes the most sense to me. Either way, I loved the 'Lot, and it's homage to classic vampire literature. The only other modern take on vampires I really cared for was 30 Days of Night. Those were vampires.

 

I watched the first two Twilight films. As their own thing, they can be enjoyed. They do not affect vampires outside of their own universe, so I never got why many people complained about how vampires are portrayed in those stories.

But I think a part that made me enjoy it was that I was totally (and consciously) thinking "X-Men" during the movie, especially during the baseball game (X-Men tend to play baseball every once in a while in the comics).

 

HI! Coming back to this thread years later! I just got and was reading the kindle edition of "Salem's Lot", which is the expanded edition with deleted scenes and other stories related to the Lot. As count chocula says, one of the deleted scenes does contain a conversation between Jimmy Cody and Matt Burke where Cody notes that Danny did have scratches on his neck that disappeared after he died (more accurately, he assumed that they had healed). Another deleted scene actually shows Barlow himself making the sacrifice of Ralphie Glick to a demonic entity at the cemetery. On the surface, this would seem to end the argument - and maybe it really does. It indicates that Barlow was, in fact, making the trip between his coffin (wherever it was kept) and Salem's Lot before the sacrifice of Ralphie and that he was, therefore, responsible for turning Danny.

However, perhaps a bit too tenaciously, I'm not entirely convinced by this. First, deleted scenes are deleted for a reason - they were not necessary or they may have been taken out because the author changed his mind about their content. For example, King's deleted scenes about the showdown with Barlow are different in significant ways from how the final book turned out - the use of rats was far more extensive and Ben and Mark carried Barlow's coffin outside and let the sun destroy him, for example. I think that the scene with Barlow and the demon and even the conversation between Matt and Jimmy may not be the last word on these issues. I say this, in part, because the scene that count chocula quotes above (pp. 360-61) actually has Matt explaining that Straker had to be the one to sacrifice both Glick boys precisely because his master could not enter the Lot before paying obeisance to his own master. Matt says that Straker bled Danny first as a gift from his master to his faithful servant. In the text, it's not clear to me if Matt is suggesting that Straker was accepting Danny as a gift from Barlow (i.e., accepting the honor of performing such a crucial task for his master) or if he was bleeding Danny as a gift to Barlow's master. The wording is oddly unclear. But what is clear is that, in Matt's estimation at least, Barlow did not kill Danny - it was Straker who killed they boy and, consequently, was responsible for Danny's turning.

So, I return to my original theory - in fact, I suspect that I got it from those pages. Danny was not converted by Barlow and Barlow did not enter SL until after the sacrifice of the Glick boys. His first arrival in the town really was when his coffin was picked up in Portland by Hank and Royal. Danny became a vampire under the influence of the demonic power to which Barlow is subservient.

 

Just an addendum: there are two deleted conversations mentioning Danny's neck wounds: one between a doctor and nurse and the other between Jimmy and Matt. Also, the scene where someone sacrifices Ralphie to the demon is not as exact as I implied; the scene does not name the person who is talking to the demon. However, what it describes is an elderly man with pure white hair that is swept back from his forehead. This certainly sounds like Barlow, not Straker, assuming Straker was bald in the original version. Also, the demon tells the figure offering the sacrifice to "consummate your act, and grow strong" which seems to apply to Barlow, not Straker.

 

Yeah, that is what I get. A sacrifice has to be done to a greater evil so the vampire can later enter the land. So the ritual itself must have turned the boy.

 

I always preferred Interview to Salems Lot. Salems Lot is a great story, but the dialogue was so awkward it put me off. Interview was a fresh outlook to me. I didn't like any of the sequels. But Salems Lot has never been a favorite. I prefer Jerusalems Lot.

 

And right creepy in it's own right.

 

That's my Friday night fright taken care of!

 

What, nobody in the terminal left a rain slicker?

 

Damn doowopgirl, you've given us a lot to digest. I loved Salems Lot -- in some ways Jerusalem's Lot was even better. I wish King had followed up with more sequels & prequels. It seems to me there was a lot of material here. Maybe he'll get around to it. I can't stand Anne Rice! Her writing does nothing for me. I thought 'Interview' was awful! Book & film. Silly! I'd rather read a Bazooka Joe bubblegum card! It would be more thought provoking. And scarier!



Ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! I won't sleep tonite!

 

I love the differences of opinion here. I stick to my original views. I hope you eventually got to sleep.