[Reviews] What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz
Koontz, why are you disappointing me lately?
If you read my review of Breathless, you'll know what disappointed me about that book.
What the Night Knows has a very, very different problem.
The story is a good one: John Calvino is the only surviver of the brutal massacre that killed the rest of his family twenty years ago. At the age of fourteen, he walked in on the serial killer with his sisters, and killed him. Now, he's a grown man with a career as a detective, a wife and three children of his own, and now someone is recreating the murders that culminated in his family's destruction.
At its core, What the Night Knows is a ghost story. John becomes convinced there is no other explanation for the similarities between the murders twenty years ago and the current murders than that the killer, Alton Turner Blackwood, has somehow returned from the dead, and is possessing other people to make them complete his work. Considering the fourteen-year old son of the first family knows the next to last thing Blackwood said to fourteen-year old John, this seems like a perfectly rational explanation to the reader, as well. Especially when one considers Dean Koontz's normal themes.
My problem with the book, and it's a big one for me, is that Koontz has stepped away from his normal theme in a way that's disturbing.
Normally, Koontz's books have a distinctly spiritual flavor that does not lift any one religion over the others, or vilify any one spiritual path. The plot may take from a certain particular portion of Christian mythology (such as in The Taking, which ends up being a study of what the Rapture might look like to our modern world), but normally spends no time in preaching actual Christianity.
What the Night Knows, however, deals with the subject of demons, and possession, and thus spends time discussing (through the characters) how one might become a target for demonic possession. Evil thoughts, evil actions, obviously, but Koontz also pulls out the old standbys: Ouija board, crystals, pyramids. Basically anything New Agey and Pagan in nature because they convince people of the magic and might of the material over the spiritual, specifically, of God. Worse, he even paints the owner of the New Age store where a victim picked up "voodoo herbs" and pyramids (and took her son, thus making him vulnerable to demonic possession) as haughty and basically barely able to contained her bitchery (bitchcraft? LOL).
Meanwhile, the Calvinos are all Catholic, and all saintly. They haven't gone to church as much lately, but that's revealed to be a subconscious reaction to their new priest, a man who treats his position as priest as much as a business as a calling, and who rejects the idea of an otherworldly Evil in favor of believing the only evil is that which is inside Man, an attitude that is decried as short-sighted and ignorant throughout the whole book--and also a common idea in many Pagan religions. They return to church at the end of the book when this priest is replaced by another priest who agrees to bless their renovated home.
John carries the weight of guilt on him like a true martyr, his wife Nicolette is a painter and absolutely beautiful inside and out. All of their children and extraordinarily bright. Their son, Zach, intends to be a U.S. Marine, Naomi is a free-spirit who believes in princesses, magical worlds. and magic itself (which, by the way, is almost her undoing, because the demon uses this belief to trick her... so fiction books with magical worlds are evil, too, because they influence kids to believe in magic, so I guess Harry Potter is out), while the youngest, Minette, is psychic, but it's okay because THIS particular type of magic is God's gift and God's will, since it ends up saving the family.
Koontz, please, don't tell me you've pulled an Ann Rice and found Jesus. You do realize she's subsequently denounced Christianity again as narrow-minded and hateful, don't you?
I know several of you who read this LJ are Christians. But every single one of you--much to my joy and blessing--is a wonderful, open-minded, beautiful person who does not allow group-thought to influence your interaction with people who don't share your beliefs.
This book? Is not that.
Which is such a departure for Koontz, and so disturbing to me as a non-Christian who firmly believes that objects are only ever tools, and as such are harmless if the intent is harmless, that I'm not sure I will ever be able to read another book by him. I do not want to be preached at by an author who previously never preached, or told that I must be Catholic, or at least Christian, and release my love of magic in order to live a good life.
And NONE of this even brings up the whole part about John's partner, Lionel, turning into the most godawfully obvious red herring in literature. Seriously, why go so far as to write scenes in this guy's PoV if it was never going to lead any where? Lionel didn't even make it to the Calvino home until the action was all over! He didn't even make it in time to get killed. Or even maimed! Seriously hate this.
The book is well-written and well-plotted beyond the red herring issue. But the change in Koontz's theme from wonderfully spiritual to overtly Christian religious is terrible, and might stop me from picking up another Koontz book.
If you read my review of Breathless, you'll know what disappointed me about that book.
What the Night Knows has a very, very different problem.
The story is a good one: John Calvino is the only surviver of the brutal massacre that killed the rest of his family twenty years ago. At the age of fourteen, he walked in on the serial killer with his sisters, and killed him. Now, he's a grown man with a career as a detective, a wife and three children of his own, and now someone is recreating the murders that culminated in his family's destruction.
At its core, What the Night Knows is a ghost story. John becomes convinced there is no other explanation for the similarities between the murders twenty years ago and the current murders than that the killer, Alton Turner Blackwood, has somehow returned from the dead, and is possessing other people to make them complete his work. Considering the fourteen-year old son of the first family knows the next to last thing Blackwood said to fourteen-year old John, this seems like a perfectly rational explanation to the reader, as well. Especially when one considers Dean Koontz's normal themes.
My problem with the book, and it's a big one for me, is that Koontz has stepped away from his normal theme in a way that's disturbing.
Normally, Koontz's books have a distinctly spiritual flavor that does not lift any one religion over the others, or vilify any one spiritual path. The plot may take from a certain particular portion of Christian mythology (such as in The Taking, which ends up being a study of what the Rapture might look like to our modern world), but normally spends no time in preaching actual Christianity.
What the Night Knows, however, deals with the subject of demons, and possession, and thus spends time discussing (through the characters) how one might become a target for demonic possession. Evil thoughts, evil actions, obviously, but Koontz also pulls out the old standbys: Ouija board, crystals, pyramids. Basically anything New Agey and Pagan in nature because they convince people of the magic and might of the material over the spiritual, specifically, of God. Worse, he even paints the owner of the New Age store where a victim picked up "voodoo herbs" and pyramids (and took her son, thus making him vulnerable to demonic possession) as haughty and basically barely able to contained her bitchery (bitchcraft? LOL).
Meanwhile, the Calvinos are all Catholic, and all saintly. They haven't gone to church as much lately, but that's revealed to be a subconscious reaction to their new priest, a man who treats his position as priest as much as a business as a calling, and who rejects the idea of an otherworldly Evil in favor of believing the only evil is that which is inside Man, an attitude that is decried as short-sighted and ignorant throughout the whole book--and also a common idea in many Pagan religions. They return to church at the end of the book when this priest is replaced by another priest who agrees to bless their renovated home.
John carries the weight of guilt on him like a true martyr, his wife Nicolette is a painter and absolutely beautiful inside and out. All of their children and extraordinarily bright. Their son, Zach, intends to be a U.S. Marine, Naomi is a free-spirit who believes in princesses, magical worlds. and magic itself (which, by the way, is almost her undoing, because the demon uses this belief to trick her... so fiction books with magical worlds are evil, too, because they influence kids to believe in magic, so I guess Harry Potter is out), while the youngest, Minette, is psychic, but it's okay because THIS particular type of magic is God's gift and God's will, since it ends up saving the family.
Koontz, please, don't tell me you've pulled an Ann Rice and found Jesus. You do realize she's subsequently denounced Christianity again as narrow-minded and hateful, don't you?
I know several of you who read this LJ are Christians. But every single one of you--much to my joy and blessing--is a wonderful, open-minded, beautiful person who does not allow group-thought to influence your interaction with people who don't share your beliefs.
This book? Is not that.
Which is such a departure for Koontz, and so disturbing to me as a non-Christian who firmly believes that objects are only ever tools, and as such are harmless if the intent is harmless, that I'm not sure I will ever be able to read another book by him. I do not want to be preached at by an author who previously never preached, or told that I must be Catholic, or at least Christian, and release my love of magic in order to live a good life.
And NONE of this even brings up the whole part about John's partner, Lionel, turning into the most godawfully obvious red herring in literature. Seriously, why go so far as to write scenes in this guy's PoV if it was never going to lead any where? Lionel didn't even make it to the Calvino home until the action was all over! He didn't even make it in time to get killed. Or even maimed! Seriously hate this.
The book is well-written and well-plotted beyond the red herring issue. But the change in Koontz's theme from wonderfully spiritual to overtly Christian religious is terrible, and might stop me from picking up another Koontz book.