Apt Pupil

The first thing I need to make clear is that the novella "Apt Pupil" is much better than the 1998 movie adaptation. Despite a superb performance by Ian McKellen, the filmmakers made a number of choices which hurt the integrity of the story. The novella is a meditation on the nature of evil, whereas the movie is more of a thriller.

Reading the novella at this late stage brought into focus all the things I've always admired about Stephen King: his vivid imagination, his sharp attention to detail, his perverse sense of humor, and his mastery at crafting a battle of wills between two characters. But I was also impressed that he tackled material this challenging. He not only had to present a believable Nazi, he also had to confront the question of what makes people evil, all the while telling a compelling story about two unsympathetic characters who are surrounded by idiots.

The story is set in the 1970s. A pampered suburban youth named Todd Bowden discovers that an elderly neighbor of his is an escaped Nazi commandant named Kurt Dussander. Instead of turning him in, Todd blackmails him into recounting his hideous crimes. Todd once did a research paper on the camps and greatly impressed his teachers, who don't realize he is fascinated by the subject for all the wrong reasons.

King invites us inside these two people's heads, and what we see are two individuals lacking in guilt but filled with fear, haunted by the threat of exposure. Both characters turn to violence as a release, but this in turn increases their fear, in a self-perpetuating cycle not unlike drug addiction.

The story tempts us to ask which character is more evil. Though Dussander has done worse things than almost any human being alive, Todd has ghastly potential. Unlike Todd, Dussander rationalizes his actions, giving the standard line about having been just following orders. Todd is simply a sneaky bully who puts on a public face of being a nice, well-adjusted kid.

Even I, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, found myself almost rooting for Dussander. He's smarter and more charming than the boy, and since he begins the story as victim, I had to marvel at the way he maneuvers the situation and turns it to his advantage. It is easy to forget that his cold rationality is in many ways more frightening than Todd's sick perversion. King exploits this deceptive quality of fiction by not letting us get to know any of Dussander's victims until late in the story.

Another question left unanswered is how much Todd's descent into violence is influenced by Dussander. He might have become that way on his own, but we can't be sure. His most obvious internal change surfaces when he privately rationalizes his lack of attraction to his girlfriend by thinking she must be secretly Jewish. (The real reason is that he has violent homoerotic fantasies which take the place of ordinary sexual feelings.) Did he get his anti-Semitism from Dussander, or was it there to begin with? His liberal parents show no signs of prejudice but are trapped in a world of empty platitudes that keep them from seeing what's in front of them.

There are political overtones to the story, set at the end of the Vietnam War. Dussander defends himself by accusing America of hypocrisy: "The GI soldiers who kill the innocent are decorated by Presidents, welcomed home from the bayoneting of children and the burning of hospitals with parades and bunting.... Only those who lose are tried as war criminals for following orders and directives" (p. 130). Here and elsewhere, King hints at the idea that Americans tend to have a sense of incomprehension at evils committed by other countries yet fail to see the parallels when the evil is homegrown.

The introspective nature of the story may help explain why the movie (set in the 1980s) didn't work. The problems are various. The process of abridging the plot for screen time makes certain elements seem arbitrary. The racial aspects of Nazism are largely ignored. Most significantly, the film softens the character of Todd, depicting him more as a confused kid who gets in over his head than as an unrelenting psychopath. This change leads the movie to have a very different ending than in the novella.

I suppose the producers felt that audiences needed to be able to relate to the young protagonist, but it creates an imbalance that obscures the story's message about the nature of evil. The film can't even decide what exactly Todd and Dussander are guilty of doing. There are several confusing scenes that leave us unsure whether the two have been murdering animals or simply imagining doing so.

I had the feeling the filmmakers were interpreting the novella as a typical horror story because it was written by Stephen King. They underestimated the source material, a thoughtful fable with something valuable to say about the world.

Ratzi self-manipulation.


A high school boy discovers the secret of an old man living nearby - and it is a big one. Deciding to use this knowledge for his own ends, he discovers that an old man like this is a harder target than he thought, and more than a match for a somewhat innocent young man.

This relationship does not have a good effect on the young man's state of mind.


3.5 out of 5

This being only my second Stephen King story I am amazed at how this story grabbed me and won't let go. We come to know who the apt pupil is; but who is the teacher of evil? How guilty is our society in the making of such evil? How can evil exist so close to people and they are not even aware of it? Can we prevent evil or do we foster it by denying that it exists so near? I found some answers in this great story; maybe you can too.

I listened to the audio book Apt Pupil 3 times. The audio version I must give credit to the reader Frank Mueller (I hope correct) Excellent choice.

My mind's eye was full of vivid scenes; senses, of the modern day evil (of the the boy's obession, with past evil of the war with Hitler:the heinous Nazi) The evil already of his (Todd's)own soul, of unbridled anti-social-in-born-psychotic behavior played on my mind's own screen.

The past evils of the old man and present evil of the young boy meshed as into one yet separate being. The assumed character in this story, never named but there it was almost holding one hand of the boys's and the other the old man. Each battling for balance of their lives in more morbid twisted ways. Yet, so similar in their means of balancing themselves or their souls.

Never, finding peace or the norm of acceptible qualities on the inside, yet each were able to assimilate the normalcy on the outside. That was so cool (wink and smile)

Now I will read the book to find that error. There was a proof error. Who ever proof read this book should be more careful. That's why only the 4 stars. There should not have been that error.

Also may I mention, there were no real people or animals injured or otherwise in making this book. That was all in your mind. This is fiction, a story, a great read.

Sorrowfully, there were real Nazi prison camps and millions of real people died there. This is a fact. It is a part of history that should not be forgotten and should never happen again.

Stephen if you read this write to me

The moral of the story is that evil, like a plant, needs proper conditioning and care to make it grow. Todd Boden's evil is nurtured...whether it is by the Nazi he extorts into revealing his secrets, or by himself is worth debating. The story is a study of abject evil and how it manifests in our world.

This is a great book. Stephen King is a fabulous writer who can really tell a story, and this is a good story to tell. It's dark but (unfortunately) not supernatural at all. It's not particulary gory but very scary. Most of us know that the scariest stories are the ones that are plausible. Unfortunately, this story is not only plausible but unfolding today in our society. In that regard King is prescient since this book was written before modern schoolyard massacres.