A REVIEW
It was a smart idea to take the apparatus glued to the ear of the world and turn it into a terrorist weapon that turns people into primitive animalistic zombie-like creatures ready to shred fellow crazies as well as the ‘still-humans’ to pieces. Most readers of Cell will never look at their phones in the same way again.
Steven King’s exploration of the darker side of human nature is as disturbing in Cell as it is in all of his other novels. The Zombie theme always lends itself to the dog-eat-dog metaphor, which highlights the callous physical, emotional and intellectual destruction and defamation that members of the human race inflict upon one another. King, who does not own a cell phone, has written a horror story scary enough to launch a cultish wave of cell phone phobia. The title is a clever pun on the entrapment initiated by society’s obsession with the cell, which places it in a metaphoric cell similar to the one the lead characters find themselves in towards the end of the novel. The ever-perceptive author is permanently tapped into the struggles of the human condition. It is the idiosyncrasies of humanity that form the crux of his novels – he magnifies and warps them until they are no longer merely idiosyncratic struggles akin to human nature, but dangerous psychoses. We feel lost without our phones. The anxiety and stress that bombards us when we realise that we have left our dear darling cell at home is claustrophobically overwhelming. I mean, what happens if we receive a text and we don’t reply immediately, or someone calls and we don’t answer? These thoughts grip our brains and consume our souls when we suffer from no-cell-syndrome. A generalisation perhaps? I hear you say “no way, not me”. I think you are lying. In Cell, those who escape what is assumed to be a terrorist attack launched via cell phones, are very old or very young, lucky, or non-phone owners. No, the man is not telling us to chuck our phones, he is just playing on our vices and trying to scare the crap out of us by asking “what if?” and saying “imagine”.
There is no doubt that King’s concept is excitingly terrifying but the plot is just a little too much like a watered down version of The Stand – world apocalypse, telepathic communication, people split into good and bad, leaders emerge, death and destruction ensue, explosions are the key, character and sacrifice save the day. King’s astute insight into the human condition is why the relationships that govern his novels are so unnervingly familiar – this sense of intimacy is found wanting in Cell. Protagonist Clay is a great hero and we feel for him as he searches for his son but the reader is never too attached. The game players seem to be cardboard cut-outs of previous King characters. Entertaining but not his best.
