King nicely taps into a primal fear about technology, that all our gadgets and geegaws might one day overwhelm us. "They saw we had built the Tower of Babel all over again … and on nothing but electronic cobwebs," one character realizes. Cell is particularly tapped into the zeitgeist in the age of iPods and Blackberrys. We get used to technology so fast, that we never consider there might be a dark side.
Whatever caused the Pulse is ultimately uncontrollable, and in his homespun way, King makes us consider what a man is at his core with the terror of Cell. Are we just another machine? King puts a nice spin on the zombie/world's end mythos (the novel is dedicated to Night of the Living Dead creator George A. Romero and I Am Legend author Richard Matheson). The evolution of the "phone crazies" is compelling and works within the story's logic.
Cell does suffer with its characters, who don't quite come off as indelible creations. There's spunky girl, plucky homily-spouting old man, computer-savvy kid, and so forth, conventions not quite individual enough to be unforgettable. Only the main protagonist Clay gets more than a few dimensions. The plot pushes the story more than the characters do here; they tend to just come off as gears in the machinery. When the story moves as propulsively as it does in Cell, though, that's a failing I barely noticed. It's King quite close to the top of his game.
Article comments
1 - Paul Roy
Nice Review. It sounds like a great read. I haven't read any King since "Four Past Midnight" in 1990, but I have never been dissapointed by a King book. Just don't have the time for that much fiction anymore.
2 - Ray
This guy deserves the millions he makes. He's such dark, strange and utterly fantastical imagination. This may not be a literary classic, but I bet it's a darn good piece of entertainment.
3 - Luke
Sounds sortof like 'the wind named amnesia' the whole world loses it's memory except for one crippled kid who was part of a govt. experiment to see how technology could enhance memory, that kid then taught another kid (one of the lost memory people) how to speak and drive and fire a gun and all sorts of useful stuff, who then went out into the world to try and re-teach humanity everything it forgot.
4 - Joanne D. Kiggins
Thanks for posting this review, Nik. I just ordered The Cell and am looking forward to reading it.
I have a copy of every one of King's books with the exception of My Pretty Pony which was a limited edition.
5 - Eric Berlin
This story has been chosen as an Editors' Pick of the Week. You now have the grave yet giddy honor of selecting a story for next week's best of column if you like (time frame 2/1 " 2/7). Simply leave the title, URL, and a brief description of why you dig it on this week's post (link above).
Congrats!!
Nik -- You can read my thoughts over on the column, but I thought you did a great job with this... can't believe you don't include The Shining though!
6 - ms madder
F off he is the master. Maybe you just dont get the point, people don't matter. We are only a blink in time. We still manage to f it up so get off the phone and talk to the person sitting next to you!!!!
7 - Joanne Carey
Just finished "The Cell", and I still can't get beyond the basic issue of an organic entity, the 'phone crazies', somehow being tagged to be the next species of human.
Being from Wakefield (and living and vacationing along most of the route mentioned in the book), I know how cold and damp it is in that area in October.
No way would people sleeping in the open, with open sores (never mind wounds) not die of exposure or from complications of their wounds.
While I found a lot of parables in the setting between this and "The Stand", I just couldn't get beyond the fact that everyone got up the next morning and continued their 'crazy' life, without complications from night after night of exposure, little food and no medical care.
Great audio book for the ride to and from work this week, but certainly beyond belief from this reader's viewpoint.
8 - Jude
Whew, it's finally over. The Cell was like an itch I couldn't stop scratching until I made it bleed. Mildly entertaining but, at best, a C- overall. What the heck was the ending?
9 - TMS
Agreed! Please, please, please, can someone explain the ending to me????? It was a snoozer for me, but I plowed on out of respect for the master. Disappointed? You bet. But this is the first King tome I've read where I got to the end of the last page and went, "Huh?".....what happened when the phone went to Johnny Gee's ear????
10 - Eduardo
Same question here...
11 - Becky
Ditto
12 - Jessica
Don't understand the ending... anyone know and care to explain?