This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.
Thanks - he is 29 now but still has not taken any courses yet on what he would like to do - working with cars. Hopefully we can get him into an auto body repair course as currently he just does manual labour - working in a plant type setting doing repetitive work. He does not mind it, but it is not something he wants to do the rest of his life!Congrats on your son's graduation, Neesy! Mine is having some trouble too. Still being tested. I think they want him on meds so he will relax a bit. Speech Delay is the only diagnosis so far.
I'm still not sure how I feel about the book. I can see how the copycat thing might've happened. It's like The Breakfast Club meets Quentin Tarantino. I LOVE Quentin Tarantino and I enjoyed the book. I was expecting more explanation for what set off Charlie, but I was left thinking that maybe some people are born this way... like Natural Born Killers.
Today he would have been diagnosed with some sort of social anxiety disorder and given drugs.
I get that Ted was being a judgmental pr*ck when everyone was trying to let their guard down and be authentic with each other. That nobody liked Ted because he had to put on a show to prove to everyone how great he was, and most everyone knew it was a lie. I've met people like that. I felt really bad for him. I think if he could have turned that side of himself off and connected with his peers, he would have.
I definitely get how the class got swept up in a mob mentality. Being held captive, even by their own piqued interest, with a dead person will mess with a person, and I suppose small town kids must've found it pretty intense, especially in a time when these things just didn't happen.
He did work as an English teacher at a high school so it must have been fresh in his mind (and like you said - he was much younger then).I think Rage is less about the violent aspect - that is just the setting - and more about the interpersonal dynamics present in every high school. There's a clear hierarchy; there are roles to play; there are social expectations; there's a sense of timelessness that we seem to forget when we leave that point in our lives. I think even adults in the environment (teachers, administrators) can't really understand these things.
To me, THAT is what this novel is really about. Charlie does what he does ; the kids react the way they react. That's not really what it's about. Bringing all the hidden parts of their lives out to be seen and discussed? THAT'S the meat of it.
And I don't think a 40-, 50-, or 60-year-old King could have written it.