Curse: Conclusion

The solution to the mystery in Alan Grant's Smallville: Curse (New York, 2004) is so understated that the reader might miss it and certainly might not realize its full implications. First, it is learned that the man who had laid the curse had previously faked his psychic powers. Therefore, it is deduced that his curse cannot have worked. Non sequitur. It does not follow.

However, Clark deduces an alternative explanation for the apparent fulfillment of the curse. Thus, when, on p. 6, the omniscient narrator informs the reader that a past evil has stirred, this does not mean that any supernatural entity has been reactivated. Instead, because the minister who reads about the curse believes in the power of curses and is influenced by green meteor radiation, his mind has the power to cause events like a death and a fire in apparent fulfillment of the curse! This is a hard saying...

Happy ending: the minister, advised by Clark, buries his green "(un)lucky charm" with the victim of the fire at the church. The minister and his wife begin to rebuild their marriage and the author makes us feel for them as for the other characters, both regular and one-off. There are quite a few of the latter: the minister and his wife; Clark's temporary girlfriend; the wrestling performers; the drowned grave digger; even the bullies who get out of their depth almost literally when a flooding river interrupts their party.

We often see the cemetery where the Langs are buried but I think that this novel is the only source of information about the First Church of Smallville and its staff.

The novel, also understatedly, describes a turning point for Lex Luthor. After reading a revelatory book:

"His mind was sharper, one hundred per cent focused...
"A man who used this power for good could transform the Universe.
"A man who used it for evil could rule the Universe.
"Lex Luthor had a decision to make." (pp. 272-273)

We already know how he will choose and who will oppose him.

Curse IV

Alan Grant's Smallville: Curse (New York, 2004) is enjoyable and also substantial, certainly by any criteria that can reasonably be applied to a novel based on a TV series. If this had been one of the slighter Smallville novels, then its title theme, the Curse on Smallville, would have been stated and resolved, curtain.

However, Curse is bulkier than some other volumes in the series with more going on:

Pete Ross is alienated from Clark after learning about his alien powers;
Lex, staying in a hotel while his mansion is restored (after damage sustained in the previous Alan Grant Smallville novel?), does some historical research and shares some of his findings with Smallville High sophomores;
Chloe causes an urban panic by publicizing the "curse," which seems to be coming true;
a wrestling show comes to town;
one wrestler, a habitual thief, steals the old journal containing the curse but his thievery is stopped by his manager without any input from either Clark or the police;
another wrestler has business with Clark in the ring and with Lex out of it.

The account of the wrestling show is a particularly good read. Clark, choosing between costumes, turns down a red and blue "S"-suit previously worn by SavageMan.

I am puzzled about the minister's lucky charm, described as a green cross and, just once, as a crucifix. Is it a star-shaped meteor rock or a cross carved from meteor rock? (A crucifix would be a cross with an image of Christ carved on it.)

Lex's Talk

In Alan Grant's Smallville: Curse (New York, 2004), pp. 122-127, Lex Luthor addresses Smallville High School sophomores. His performance would need to be longer to be a real talk. It is in two parts.

First, he asks what is the "essence" of business, religion etc. "Essence of..." seems to mean "the single, indispensable feature of..." With some discussion, Lex and the sophomores compile a list:

business - trust (whereas "profit" is the motivation);
religion - faith (= belief without rational proof);
politics - deceit;
law - also deceit (not justice);
IRS (tax collection) - coercion.

Putting together "politics" and "IRS," Lex describes taxation as:

"...a bunch of liars use the threat of force to steal my money..." (p. 125)

- and gets a laugh from his audience.

Secondly, he advises them:

"Think for yourself...The only person you can rely on is yourself." (p. 126)

- and explains why. I fully agree with his second half. Further, thinking for myself leads me to question the source of what Lex describes as "...my money..."!

Curse III

Alan Grant once mentioned in conversation that, if an author who has been commissioned to write a novel about DC Comics characters takes too long to write it, then he does not earn enough to make it worth doing. These works must be written well, which they are, but also fast.

Some are short and light. Greed, discussed earlier, is 166 pages of quite widely spaced text whereas Curse (New York, 2004) by Alan Grant is more substantial with 274 pages of slightly smaller and more closely packed text.

Do the narratives show many sign of hasty writing? No. The writers who are given the job know what they are doing. Maybe this sentence could be reconsidered:

"Pete's face flushed red with embarrassment." (p. 16)

This version of Pete Ross is black. Do black people darken rather than redden?

Meanwhile, the plot thickens. The omniscient narrator has told us that an old evil has stirred. The minister reads an old manuscript that describes a dog badly injured by a wagon wheel, then five dogs die in accidents in Smallville. It is perfectly possible that a curse is at work. Superheroes are a composite genre, combining elements of science fiction, fantasy and action-adventure. Clark's extraterrestrial origin can coexist with supernatural phenomena.

Curse II

In Curse (New York, 2004) by Alan Grant, Lex is twenty-five when Clark is sixteen whereas in Greed, discussed earlier, Lex is twenty-two when Clark is sixteen. (Nerd Central here.) However, the overwhelming impression generated by the Smallville novels is of seamless continuity.

"Clark wasn't a human being. He was an alien from outer space..." (p. 15)

As I said when discussing Greed, I do not think that this sort of language is an appropriate way to introduce a character in a novel. Need it even be said? Does anyone read these novels without already knowing where Clark is from? If so, then they can be allowed to realize Clark's significance more gradually and subtly than with stock phrases like "...an alien from outer space..."

I recently mentioned references in the TV series to two Greek myths, Prometheus and Pandora. Cassandra, the Greek prophetess who was always right but never believed, is also referred to both in a TV episode and in Curse, where Lex reads a book called Cassandra's Secret which argues that ancient civilizations collapsed because all their decisions were based on alleged divine messages in dreams, visions or auditory hallucinations whereas social complexity required internal reflection and rational thought which then duly emerged, banishing the "messages."

Civilization comprises cities supported by agricultural production of an economic surplus. I think that agriculture, architecture and administration require reasoned discussion and cooperation, thus that pre-rational consciousness would not cause civilizations to collapse but prevent them from starting. Richard Dawkins suggests that the Neolithic Revolution was caused either by the birth of language or by a linguistic revolution like the creation of conditional clauses.

TV And Novel Continuities

When prose fiction is based on screen drama, then the prose descriptions of the characters must correspond to the physical appearances of the actors. Thus, Lana Lang was always red-haired in Superman-related comics but not in the Smallville novels because she is played by Kristin Kreuk on TV.

In Alan Grant's Smallville: Curse (New York, 2004), Clark Kent perceives himself as having:

"An honest, intelligent face. Friendly eyes." (p. 7)

- which sounds both like how we would expect a young Superman to look and like Tom Welling.

The authors of the novels fit their narratives in between TV episodes and seasons but do any differences of continuity arise between the stories as presented in the two media?

On TV, Whitney joined the Marines, asking Clark to look after Lana for him. Lana ex'ed Whitney in a video message, then Whitney died in action. (I may have missed something in between because I am way behind with watching the early seasons.) Clark keeps Lana at a distance and she gives up on Clark, except as a friend, because of his persistent evasiveness.

In Curse, Whitney joined the Marines, "...Clark intended to do everything in his power to crowd out Lana's affection for his rival...," then Whitney died. (ibid.) That sounds like a parallel though not identical sequence of events.

Smallville: Curse

In the Smallville TV series, we often see Lana Lang at her parents' grave. In Smallville: Curse (New York, 2004) by Alan Grant, the six page Prologue is narrated in the third person from the point of view of a new character, Cyrus Deen, who has dug graves in Smallville for forty-seven years.

We learn about two important graves:

sweet corn millionaires, the Weighlands, have "...an elaborate tomb topped with a life-size stone angel..." (p. 2);
the Lang's grave has a flower holder with contents replaced every Sunday by Lana who sits on the grass and talks to her parents. (p. 3)

The Langs died when "...a swarm of meteors fell on the town. After a journey through space that had lasted centuries, they arrowed in on Smallville..." (p. 3)

An interstellar journey at a sub-light speed would indeed take centuries or longer but then how does the spaceship that accompanied the meteors contain a three year old child? Maybe it passed through hyperspace, bringing the meteors with it, enclosed in its field? (But Cyrus does not know about the spaceship.)

The Reverend Grindlay says that death is release and peace for the deceased but Cyrus sees that it is misery and pain for the bereaved. Grindlay cares for "...immortal souls..." whereas Cyrus tends to "...mortal remains." (p. 5) Many of us do not believe in souls but can acknowledge the beliefs of church goers and can also accept that souls exist in this fictitious universe. There is plenty of evidence for them.

When Cyrus takes a manuscript found in an old coffin to the minister:

"...an evil from the past stirred in its long, long sleep." (p. 6)

In that concluding sentence of the Prologue, the omniscient narrator steps in, overriding Cyrus' pov. The grave digger does not yet know of any ancient evil.