From Carrie to the Keyhole

Recently, while on a long-distance drive, I came up with a crazy idea: what if I were to read all of Stephen King's novels in chronological order?

Yes, I realize that this is insane.

Seeking help to prevent me from taking on such a ludicrous project, I posted on Facebook that I was considering reading all of Stephen King's books.  The response was mixed: some friends agreed that this was insane, while others encouraged it, with one commentator replying, 'DO IT! IT WILL BE EPIIIC!!' Another not only advocated such an endeavor, but encouraged me to keep a blog to track my results.


How often do you get to embark on a project that requires three 'i's in 'epic'?  Like epic x III.


The title refers to Stephen King's first published novel and 'the Keyhole' is a reference to the upcoming Dark Tower novel (number 4.5ish in the series), entitled 'The Wind Through the Keyhole,' which is due out next year.  Something tells me that I will not get through all of Stephen King's books in the next six months.  And even if I do, I can wait with bated breath for this last one, then blog about it.  My greatest hope is that he doesn't publish another 10-14 in the interim.


Why Stephen King?  I read a number of his books from around 1988-1990, many of which terrified the living daylights out of me (except Tommyknockers, which I thought was awful).  But some I found intriguing.  One of my all-time favorites was Misery, which I still think is a great book and is actually a metaphor for writing.  But I will leave that for later since if I am to read all of the books, I will have a chance to revisit it.  Every so often, I would seek out Stephen King books and reread them.  During the summer of 2004, I reread Pet Semetary and unlike the first time I read it, did not stay up all night terrified that a small, zombie child was going to attack me with a scalpel.  This seemed like progress.


Then two pivotal events occurred:


1) I started spending time with someone who had an anthology of Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, and The Shining last November.  The volume sat on a shelf, taunting me to read it.  It took me a while to actually do so, as I wasn't sure if I could handle visions of nocturnal floating vampire children at my window again (this terrified me when I first read the book), but I decided to check it out.  I got through all three in a little less than a week and this time, there were no sleepless nights with the curtains drawn.  Progress!


2) In January, I decided to reread the first volume of the Dark Tower series, which I own.  When I initially read the book in 2006 or so, I really wasn't all that into it.  I think it was the circumstances under which it was read (long bus trip).  For some reason, I decided to give it a second chance.  By complete coincidence, I also came down with a debilitating flu at this time, which gave me more than enough time to read--and made me very grateful that I had decided to go with the Dark Tower and not The Stand.  My last act before succumbing to the flu was to run to my local library and take out books 2-4, and it is a good thing I did because I would have been bored out of my skull otherwise, except on the weekend when there was playoff football.  I completed the remaining books post-flu that month.


Some people like to watch TV shows meticulously to discover hidden plot conventions.  Some people watch movies obsessively (okay, I do that sometimes too).  Some people have other hobbies.  Me, I like to read.  Also, I enjoy randomly speculating about things in the items that I read.  And I think that is why I want to do this project.  Stephen King's works confront many of the issues that are important in contemporary society while tying them to well-worn tropes--that would be me speculating.  And yes, I do talk like this in everyday life and to spare everyone around me from having to hear such gibberish, I am writing it down in blog form instead.  So if you read this blog, be prepared for random, overly scholarly arguments being applied to these books.


I'm not planning to read companion books or other peoples' points of view to back these ideas up.  Perhaps I will.  But this is mostly me and Steve, or rather me and Steve's novels.  There might be other stuff worked in there too.  Probably not much plot summary (you can find summaries at Wikipedia, among other places) and tons of spoilers, so if you haven't read the books and don't want to know, you've been warned.