The Exorcist

This is one of those books that the film is so well known that the book has kind of faded from the discourse a bit. This is a shame. Blatty's novel is an impressively ambiguous critique on faith vs science. I am probably a bit unusual in approaching this book without having seen the film. It is well written with a nice readable prose.

From what I have heard, the book manages to be significantly more ambiguous than the film. The film leaves you in little doubt that there is a devil possessing Reagan. The book is much more open to interpretation, and deliberately plays up that ambiguity - the conflict of science vs faith is central to the story being told here. The eeriness, tension and fear is all still here, but there is always an open question on whether this can be explained using science.

I do need to go and watch the film now - I honestly don't know how I have gone through 35 years of life without seeing it. I am intrigued to see how it compares with the novel, but the clips I have seen do seem to push the supernatural to the forefront compared to original novel