I had always been a fan of the original Ringu and Ring movies. Ringu had been my first real exposure to Japanese Horror. I actually scoured the internet, finally finding subtitled copies of the first two films on VCD (Video CD for those of you lucky enough never to have to deal with it. The format was a smaller version of Laserdiscs). I devoured every film in the series, and even attempted to watch the truly terrible Japanese TV series, The Ring Virus. I even loved the American remakes. Yet, in all of this, I had a difficult time getting into the original novels.
All three novels, and the collection of three short stories, have been available in English for a while. I actually bought the first book when it first came out. I never finished it. Finally, during my Christmas break this year I gave the books another shot. I am now almost done with the third book, and am completely and totally entranced by the world Koji Suzuki has created.
An important thing to keep in mind when approached the Ring trilogy (Ring, Spiral and Loop) is going in understanding that the books are nothing like the many film versions. While the first book and the first film do follow similar narratives, they are told in two completely different ways. The most important change is that, while the films are told from a female perspective (specifically that of a mother or maternal figure), all three books are told from a male perspective. The first book has almost no central female characters in it at all. It isn't until the short story collection, Birthday, that any female characters are given a fleshed out voice. The gender swap changes the tone of the story drastically, and alters the central relationships of the book. The emphasis on the mother/child relationship is almost completely absent. Even Sadako's own mother, a central character to the mythology of the films, is barely present in the first novel, and all but forgotten by the second.
Sadako herself also has a more limited presence in the story. No longer is her ghost crawling out of TV's. Instead, her story is told through the main characters uncovering details about her life through research. She never appears as a ghost. Not even once. People are not "scared to death" as they are in the films, but instead suffer from heart attacks. Over all, while the book does contain some supernatural elements, the story feels much more grounded in reality.
These are only the changes made to the first novel. Once you get to Spiral, the second book, the films and the novels completely separate. (This is not accounting for the film Rasen, which attempts to faithful retell the story of the second book. The film, ingored by most, is mind numbingly dull, and because of that has faded into obscurity.)
While the first book, and the first film, followed similar narrative beats, the second book does a 180, pulling away from the supernatural, and shifting the story into the world of science and genetics. Yes, you read that right. Science and genetics. Oh, and math. Instead of ghosts and psychics, the story focuses on medicine and the mutation of viruses. This is only amplified when the reader reaches Loop, the final novel in the trilogy, which broadens the scope to encompass the origins of life on earth.
So, now that you understand some of the basic differences between the film series and the novels, lets delve into the novels themselves.
The books are structured not only chronologically, but also by perspective. Ring, the first book, is very closed in. The consequences are much smaller. The book is, effectively, a single circuit. While the risk is great to the main character, it is more of a personal ordeal, localized to himself, his family and his friends. Spiral begins to open up, showing much larger consequences, while amplifying the risk of failure, while still maintaining personal risk, loss and gain for the main character. It also reveals more of the world, giving the reader larger chunks of history, as well as the pathology of the "evil" that threatens not just the central characters in the book, but also the world as a whole. Then you reach Loop. The story, again, takes a step back, revealing the entire world, and a whole new world in the process. Suddenly everything becomes clear, and the meaning of the first two books changes considerably. It also re-introduces the supernatural into the story, but now from an unexpected source, Native American Folk Lore. The supernatural is no longer used to explain what is happening, but instead is looked at as a puzzle that may contain applications for the real world. The book moves outside of Japan, and into the North America, expanding the "evil's" reach, as well as exploring its true intentions. As the books progress the story also moves farther and farther away from being considered typical horror. While the stories are terrifying, they are so on a different level. No longer is it about the things that go bump in the night. It is now about the fate that humanity is rushing towards, and can't see coming until it is too late for most.
Note that not once did I mention Sadako in those descriptions. That is because Sadako is not all that important. Not as film audiences know her, at least. Sadako is something completely different in the books. She is an entity, a force of nature. She is not a ghost seething with rage. She is an organism with a plan, a set of goals. She is decidedly less human. The greatest exploration of Sadako does not actually occur in the first book. While her history is revealed, she as a character remains a bit of an enigma. She is not so much a person, but is instead a collection of memories. It is not until Spiral that she becomes a true character, and the revelation of her true purpose is surprising. She is terrifying, but not because of her anger, but because of her purpose within the human race.
Another interesting aspect to the book series comes from it being written in the early 90's. The specter of AIDS looms large over every detail in this story. It is hard to explain exactly why without revealing too much, but just know that the books truly capture the panic and fear that gripped the world during that time. I was only a kid during the AIDS epidemic, but I do remember how the fear of contagion infiltrated every aspect of life. That same paranoia and fear is reflected within the stories contained in these books, and in Sadako herself. I'm going to explain in greater detail in the next paragraph, but just be warned, there will be spoilers.
**BEGIN SPOILERS** One aspect of the novels that has consistently been stripped in all film versions is that Sadako is male. She identifies as a woman, but she has testicles (originally described as being external, but then later as internal), and is genetically a male, although she physically presents as a very feminine and pretty young woman. Unlike in the films, where Sadako is killed by her mother, in the books Sadako is murdered by a young doctor after he rapes her. The doctor is infected with smallpox, which he transmits to Sadako during the rape. Sadako's will to live, and her wish to reproduce bond with the smallpox virus, creating the ring virus, which is what victims are infected with when they are exposed to various forms of media (in Ring it is a video, in Spiral it is a novel and in Loop it is a computer program). So the virus is actually transmitted and mutated through homosexual intercourse (even though the doctor perceives Sadako to be a genetic female). As Sadako evolves, she also becomes a hermaphrodite, as she grows a womb, and no longer requires sexual intercourse to reproduce. She essentially becomes a walking, talking virus, as she can continue to reproduce, and at the same time infect people through various means of exposure, which includes sexual intercourse. **END SPOILERS***
While some may be turned off by the drastic differences from the films to the books (and remember, the books did come first), I have enjoyed them immensely. While I love the films, the books have created a completely different narrative. While the film series took the building blocks of the first novel and created a compelling series of ghost stories, Koji Suzuki was able to take the narrative structure of a ghost story and expand it into something that is tied not only to reality, but to the creation, composition, maturation, evolution and potential destruction of the human race. Sadako scared the hell out of me the first time I saw her crawl out of that TV. Now she is scaring me all over again, but not because of the unknown supernatural horror she could potentially inflict, but because of the way she could unravel the very fiber of humanity.
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