Needful Things

You've been here before. Sure you have. Sure. I never forget a face.

This is how Stephen King's novel Needful Things begins.

Since we've begun writing essays, our teachers have told us - and they keep telling us- to avoid using the word "thing", both in English and Turkish. However, like in this novel, sometimes, there isn't a word which better fits the situation than "thing".

The novel is named after a new store which opens in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, where most of Stephen King's stories take place. The shop seems to have something for anyone, at a price they can just afford and are willing to pay. The proprietor of this store, Mr. Gaunt, is somewhat peculiar; the first clue King gives to his readers about Mr. Gaunt is that everyone who visits the store and talks to him, first an eleven year old boy, then an old lady, seems to remember his eye color differently...

Mr. Gaunt's first client is Brian, an eleven-year-old boy who collects baseball cards and is looking for a 1956 Sandy Koufax baseball card. Mr. Gaunt walks back to his storage place, brings out a box, and starts looking at the cards inside. That is when he happens to find a 1956 baseball card of Sandy Koufax, and it is signed, "To my good friend, Brian". What a coincidence! Brian knows he cannot afford to pay for this, but, as our econ teacher once told us, there is a cost for everything, and that it is not just money all the time. Mr. Gaunt knows this and he sells each of his items to people who want them very badly for a very reasonable cash price, and a promise to play a trick on someone in town. Then slowly, Mr. Gaunt builds his reign over the people of Castle Rock, without them knowing about it.

What made the novel fun to read was how King kept making references to his other novels, like Cujo and Carrie, and his novellas, like Shawshank Redemption. Having read all of the afore-mentioned novels, I felt like I was a citizen of Castle Rock myself while reading the novel!

The thing about most Stephen King novels is that at first, there are so many things going on, so many families, so many people with different stories, that you tend to mix them all up. For example, in Cujo, the story of three families were being told at once. However in this novel, King has raised the bar. As much as 10 stories are being told all at once, and, I don't know how he has done it, but he has managed to not even confuse you that much throughout the novel and to tie them all up in the end, not leaving any "loose ends".

When I say "loose ends", Stephen King is the author which comes to my mind. In almost all of his novels that I've read, there is an epilogue at the very end, just when you thought you had closure, which brings up a whole new set of questions and makes you wander if there is a sequel to the novel you just read. However, he does it so expertly that you don't get mad or annoyed at the author and the novel and are sorry for your time (unlike the scriptwriters of the TV show Lost-if you've watched it until the very end, you know what I mean). Once again, King has managed to do this in Needful Things, but, instead of being annoying), it gave me goosebumps and made me read it over and over again.

Stephen King, named his novel and the shop in it, a simple, yet meaningful phrase; Needful Things. Once you read the book and get to know Mr Leland Gaunt and all his customers, and one person who has never been his customer who ends up saving the town, you see that no other set of words in the English language can fit the title of the store better. Needful Things is a masterpiece, and makes you look at every pawn shop you enter, and its proprietor, very differently.