The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty: Review

Sometimes I’ll reread a book to see if it is as good as the first time. Then, there are times when I’ll reread a book because the writer is a master. It’s like watching an old Bruce Lee film; you just want to see the master at work. You want to see how he created the magic, how he scared so many people across the world. Being able to elicit emotion from a reader is always the goal, and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist has surpassed that goal many times over.

I first read The Exorcist when I was a teenager, and believe me when I say I’d never been so afraid to read the next page. Now I’m at the point where I want to understand, “How did he do it?” How did Blatty scare me (and the rest of the world) so effectively with simple words on paper?

It’s difficult to read The Exorcist without constantly comparing it to the movie version. First, the movie seemed more about the possessed than it did about the internal struggles of priests fighting the ultimate evil. Blatty gave us two priests to “see” through, Father Karras, a man who believed in science over an invisible all-knowing God (his secret was that his faith was weak, so weak he questioned if he wore the collar every day more out of a sense of debt for the Jesuit’s paying for his education than for a belief in any god). And then there was Father Merrin, a man who specialized in possession, ancient beliefs, and archaeology. His faith is strong and unwavering. He understood that the only way to fight a spiritual battle was with spiritual weapons. He didn't question it, and he had defeated evil many times before.

Blatty gave us great characters through which to view evil. After reading the novel, I couldn’t help but question why so many people thought that Blatty was anything other than a man of faith. The book is intense and asks all the questions that any man asks as he struggles to understand God in a world that doesn’t seem to require Him. The way that Blatty builds the plot is a work of art. And let's not forget Lt. Kinderman, the detective who doesn’t even know about the possession of one little girl; he only wants to catch a murderer. This was an intense, dark, and great read. My recommendation: don’t read it in the dark and as always… it’s much better than the movie!