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A Creepshow Animated Special - Survivor Type |
There was a time in my life when I was so preoccupied with life itself, migrating to Germany, financial problems, familial problems, health problems, mental health problems, moving to Berlin, the only big city which back then was affordable for poorer people - unfortunately that's not the case anymore - and finally losing my job... Everything was so "too much" that I didn't read much horror because I felt so done. For years. No Stephen King. And when I lost that job, I was on the lookout for something that made me happy, if only for a little bit, if only for a little while. That's how I discovered the Otherland Bookstore during my search, where I'd spend time talking about books to Hannes Riffel, who is the original founder of the bookstore, and talking to Jakob Schmidt, with whom I vibed well and who has always had an excellent taste in books. It was during one of those conversations that I remember talking to Hannes about King and although all the problems in my world buried King's books into my long term memory, I remembered that one story, THAT story where the protagonist eats himself. I didn't even remember the title, but I wanted to re-read it and was wondering in which collection it is. Well, he recognized Survivor Type right away and helped me find and happily reunite with it.
My point is: Survivor Type is the kind of story that even if you forget all the works you have read by an author, you will certainly remember that one. For years, for a lifetime. Why is that? What is it about this story that even King stated "[it] goes a little bit too far, even for me"?
The answer is: shock value, done right.
Hard facts first: the short story is categorized as psychological horror, I would maybe additionally place it into the extreme horror realm as it is heavily transgressive, maybe even body horror. It was first published 1982 in the anthology Terrors by Charles L. Grant, and later in Skeleton Crew. It is a Robinsonade (as in Robinson Crusoe who was cast away from civilization through a sea accident) written as journal entries by the main character Richard Pine, a lapsed surgeon who resorts to drug trafficking, but ends up injured on a rocky island in the Pacific Ocean. The only thing there with him is his contraband, tons of heroine, and a log book that will serve as his journal, but no food at all.
He first tries to eat kelp, a seagull, insects, but because he is injured he can't move and thus can't hunt, and that leads to him eventually drugging himself as a means of anesthetic in order to amputate and eat his own limbs piece by piece: first a foot, then a leg, finally both legs, earlobes, a hand... As the story advances Pine's mental situation deteriorates with each journal entry, propelled by hunger, pain, isolation, self-cannibalism and drug use, and ends in crazy talk. He finally amputates his hand he was so proud of as a surgeon and that he took care of so well throughout his whole life, which gives him the last push towards insanity.
"How badly does the patient want to survive?"
Before his lethal adventure, the self-proclaimed "survivor type" Richard Pine was born Richard Pinzetti in New York City's Little Italy, and it shows. Although not the sharpest tool in the box, he succeeds in getting out of there and making use of his football scholarship to become a surgeon. But you can take a boy out of the mob, but not always the mob out of the boy... After he ends up prescribing drugs for a little bit of extra money, he loses his license and starts relying on this side gig to make a living. And that's exactly how he ends up on a tiny island with only lots of heroin and a log book to write down his story of a quick descend into madness.
If you ever wrote or tried to write fiction, or even just imagined writing, you will know how difficult it is to write about a major physical or mental change and have that change mirrored in your writing and how it requires absolute versatility of the author or translator. I imagine that my absolute goal of being able to have the skill and flexibility in translating different authors from different backgrounds and with different prose styles when I did the translation for the Turkish Science Fiction Anthology last year is a similar feeling to what I'm trying to describe. In Survivor Type, Richard Pine starts off as a normal, albeit a little arrogant and sarcastic human being, descending into an inhuman condition, and his writing reflects that.
Daniel Keyes is an author who absolutely masters that art in his soul-crushing Flowers for Algernon, which follows a man with a mental handicap joining an experiment that promises to make him smart. He gradually attains a higher IQ, but the results are not permanent, and having reached superior intelligence, he then has to forcefully and consciously witness his regression back into the intelligence level he started with. Much like in Survivor Type, here too the most important evidence of the writer's progression is a journal he keeps. It might be a little off to compare the two works, as Keyes' use of this literary device is far more superior to King's - although both main characters are insanely convincing in their arc, Charly in Flowers for Algernon and his progress require much much much more expertise, and as a side effect summon infinite empathy for its lead. Pine, on the other hand, is not very likable, and I don't think King was going for that kind of excellence in his short story anyway. But anyway, if you want to read a ravishing book and you're not afraid of a heartbreak, I'd definitely recommend Algernon. I first read it during a weekend I was sick and bed-bound when I was twenty-one years old, and I remember crying continuously from one cover to the next.
Although the reader does not necessarily root for Richard Pine in the way we root for Charly, it is still a story where the limitations the character faces, his inability to overcome them, and his hands being figuratively tied, cause a high and increasing level of frustration, helplessness, even anger or rage.
So urgent is our wish for Richard to get out, to save himself, and if nothing else works, for him to hold on long enough for someone else to save him, that King can introduce a taboo theme that we readily accept because we so much want to get out of this situation. It is, of course, an understatement to use the term "taboo" when talking about cannibalism, as it is more - cannibalism is and always was the taboo of all taboos! But self cannibalism? That's literally insane, that's literally too far even for King who smashes conventions laughing his evil laugh.
Putting all restraints aside, though - it is apparently scientifically founded, as King made sure to confirm the feasibility and viability of such an endeavor during conversations with his neighbor who was a retired doctor and told him that "a guy could subsist on himself for quite a while - like everything else which is material, the human body is just stored energy." As absurd as the thought may be, eating oneself to stay alive, although very improbable, is apparently possible.
Since the publication of Survivor Type, the trope "How far would you go (to save yourself/for the ones you love etc?)" has been done and redone to the point that it has become a staple - for good reason, it's an awesome trope! But the short story is so ahead of its time that it warped the sub-genre into something bigger and never ceases to be shocking.
If you can't get enough of it, here are some film adaptations for you to feast on: a short film by Chris Ethridge from 2011, 2012 by Billy Hanson, 2013 by Kevin Fisk, 2017 by Chase Pottinger as a short film, and finally, A Creepshow Animated Special (2020).
On a last note, some food for thought - if you found yourself on a desert island and unable to provide food, would you consider eating yourself just long enough to survive until help arrives?
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