Umpqua C.C.: Some Thoughts
In 1977, Stephen King wrote a novella under the pseudonym 'Richard Bachman', called "Rage". The short novella is about a teenager named Charles Decker, a disillusioned and deeply-disturbed young man with"daddy-issues", who walks into his Algebra class, shoots his teacher dead, and then holds the class hostage until he has successfully weeded out the "phonies", exposed the "heartless" and turned each and every clique in that 30-student classroom against each other. Alright, hit the fast-forward button to April 1999, and we have the Columbine high school mass-shootings. A grisly event. A large stone chucked into a lake that sends out ripples across the years that still have not reached the shore nor ceased to build and build and build. Now people are throwing stones at each other across party lines and constitutional barriers. The divide is wide and it is bloody and we are a long way from 1977 when a story like "Rage" read like a good ole' fashion suspense story. Now, it reads more like it ought to have all along, like a damned parable! A warning. In perfect Orwellian tradition, "Rage" is the "1984" of our generation. Here's why I think that, after the events which took place at Umpqua Community College last week. Just as "1984" warned its readers of what a totalitarian society would look like and exposed the soul-killing dangers of its intent, "Rage" showed us what 2015 would look like in a classroom where pure evil stalks the hallways of learning institutions, unrecognized and unchecked. The lessons are there, the character study vivid and teachable. I wouldn't dare blame any one ingredient in this tragedy, nor any of them for that matter. But the best fiction is often that which arms its reader with foreknowledge and vigilance towards a Charles Decker in their midst. Forewarned is forearmed after all. I would recommend "Rage" to anyone interested, but you would be hard-pressed to find it on any bookshelf near you. King had the novella yanked after Columbine, horrified at even the prospect that his story could offer inspiration to a misguided youth in the future. It deserves its place back up there on the shelf, now more than ever. There are lessons to be learned from such a story. Once we can come to recognize Decker for what he is and what he is capable of, those ripples in the lake will cease to ebb and flow. They will flatten and calm. It is possible! I invite you to share your thoughts on the topic.
