So as you may recall, I was not such a fan of 'Gunslinger' when I reread it, and I was so disappointed that I sought out the old version of it (instead of the revised one) to see if I liked it better. I was slightly trepidatious that I wouldn't enjoy this book either, even though I remembered it being pretty engaging the first time that I read the Dark Tower series--as you may recall, I was also down for the count with some kind of flu or something, so my judgment may have been skewed. However, I still enjoyed it. It was a very quick read, as I started it Friday night and by Sunday morning, I had it done, even though I lost an hour in there to Daylight Savings (during this same weekend, I helped in a rescue effort for two bunnies, attended a very long and not great baseball game, drove around numerous locales in the greater Fort Myers area, and listening to a chunk of Berg's Lulu. As you do).
I was somewhat surprised as the proportions of this one, as I thought for some reason that Jake showed up again and kept wondering if SK was going to cover that in one paragraph or something. My bad. Not this book, the next book. And while I did enjoy the section where Eddie Dean was brought into Roland's world (it's really great!), knowing the outcome of Odetta/Detta somehow made it slightly less compelling this time around. That being said, I did enjoy the reread, and I think the book in general makes a lot of sense within SK's works of this time.
First, you have drug addiction, which will be a significant theme in the next two books: Misery and Tommyknockers. Misery I know well and love; Tommyknockers I vaguely remember not enjoying whatsoever, but I think it's still about addiction from what I recall. So I guess this is SK's druggie phase, which, if I had to put a limit on it, I would say started around Christine and ends around Tommyknockers. This seems about right, as it appears that the King family intervention to get SK sober happened right after this novel.
Second, you have SK, known as the master of horror, etc....... branching out to something new with both Eyes of the Dragon and 'The Drawing of the Three.' Let's bear in mind that 'The Gunslinger' was not a huge success when it was published, so he was leaving horror in pursuing this project. And 'The Drawing of the Three' is a novel that crams in an awful lot of stuff. It has fantasy, a mob scene, a heist movie, some kind of psychological thriller, family drama, and maybe even a little bit of horror in the lobstrosities. I even saw some of Misery being paralleled here with the scenes when Roland is increasingly ill and on his own, having to cope. But horror by no means drives this novel.
I don't want to give away too much here, since Misery is next on the list, but Misery is, among other things, also a book about writing--or perhaps more specifically, about how sometimes you would literally have to trap an author in a bed by maiming him, then forcing him to write, in order for him to finish a project. It feels like that sometimes. And I am wondering if part of this sentiment was brought up by these two books which move away from typical SK and instead feature more fantasy and adventure. Maybe Misery serves as a transition back to what he was known for doing? Still, he could have skipped Tommyknockers. We all would have been okay.
I feel super confident that I will be done with Misery very soon and have a new post very soon. One of my all-time SK favorites.
Showing posts with label Dark Tower. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dark Tower. Show all posts
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Saturday, December 28, 2013
I did IT!
I am very proud to announce that I read IT. And survived. And can even take the dog out for a walk at night without fearing a horrible death by clown. This is some serious progress from the first time I read the book.
And in rereading the book, I understood in part why it scared me so much the first time--and possibly why it would scare anyone. When I was a kid, I used to volunteer at a historical museum and I often had to go into the creepy, dark basement by myself, where the modern plumbing and everything was (you went if you needed to get water, since we did not have a handy creek as they did back in the day). Having to go down in the dark by yourself reminded me of the opening of IT, particularly the cellar part. That really stuck with me. So did Stanley's death and the haunted house. And this is where SK gets you. He takes moderately creepy everyday situations and turns them into actual terror (remember that garbage disposal in Firestarter?). But I found it interesting how much did not stick with me, and I think that this book might have too much horror in it, in the sense that there are simply too many scenes to process and still be afraid. In fact, by the time we were back in 1985 and reminiscing in the Chinese restaurant, I was getting a bit done with horror scenes (oh no! The cookies have terrifying things instead of fortunes!). Then later, there was a scene with Audra at the hotel where the TV came on by itself and there were horrifying noises from the bathroom. This didn't scare me at all as a kid, which surprised me. My first instinct was that perhaps I simply had not stayed in too many hotels by that point in my life, which is probably true. But I think I may have read too much that was scary by that point and it started to blur together.
It's very clear that this book was a pivotal one for SK, because I think that it contained references to pretty much every single previous book that he wrote. Entire town destroyed? Carrie. Group bands together to fight evil bullies? 'The Body.' A werewolf? The Cycle of the Werewolf. Haunted house? The Talisman. Haunted town? 'Salem's Lot. Scary stuff in a bathroom? The Shining. I think you get the idea. Really, there was everything. Even stuff coming in the future. A reference to a bird from Africa? Misery (I can't tell you where that happened, it was very brief but stuck with me). A group banding together to fight evil for the Turtle? The Dark Tower. Small town goes gradually insane as though possessed by an evil force? Needful Things. Violence at a lumberjack camp? The Wind Through the Keyhole. Seriously, this one runs deep.
The book, at its core, is of course not about an evil killer sewer clown or even an evil female spider, but really about the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and how these collide. The idea that the characters had forgotten so much about their past didn't surprise me so much this time, as it did when I was a kid. Of course we forget many things as we age, we can't possibly remember it all. While the premise of IT was that the Losers forget because of the trauma that they experienced, it seems to me that perhaps it was the simple act of forgetting that we all encounter as we age.
I also was less disappointed by the ending than I was the first time. I felt like SK just ran out of ideas when I initially read the book, but now I am more convinced that he had a much bigger story in mind, but couldn't put it all in this one. I mean, it's not like he didn't try. The whole thing comes in at 1142 pages, after all. But this is the closest thing to the seven-volume Dark Tower that exists in his whole oeuvre, I think. And there is a bigger story, with the Turtle and larger forces and galactic battles--in other words, exactly The Dark Tower. But I think he hadn't quite formulated all of that yet. He would get back to it soon afterward, churning out 2 and 3 in the series within the next five years. And maybe this novel marks the bifurcation between the epic and the mundane in SK (not that they are ever fully bifurcated). Books set more in reality took one path, while books that thrived on fantasy took another. Considering that the next book is The Eyes of the Dragon, this idea of a split makes sense.
SK took four years to work on IT, which is virtually unheard of in his works. I hadn't realized this until completing it, but he also did not have any real novels that came out during this time. In fact, the previous novel was Pet Semetary, which means he went from a pretty dark place to an even more dark place (there was The Talisman, but that was co-written, and I am assuming that the Bachman books were earlier). So despite the fact that SK appeared to be very prolific, he was in fact honing this one novel for a long time. Certainly it shows in places. The beginning, with George's death, is incredibly captivating and well-written. The same can't be said throughout, which is not surprising to me since it is a very long novel. But what bugged me the most was that it was unclear why the Losers kept getting away, while others could not. With George, we see that he is tricked by IT because he doesn't know enough to be suspicious of a clown in the sewer (in fact, much of this reminded me of Erlkönig again, especially when IT tried to convince his victims that they were going to a more beautiful, fun world). But it's not clear in other places why the Losers could escape him, unless you buy the 'protected by the Turtle' argument.
Oh, and you don't really need the clown, of course. The situations in which the kids find themselves are all perilous and it seems pretty clear that they could have died regardless of what IT did. For instance, Ben tried to walk home by himself in the cold, even though the adults had haphazardly tried to stop him. Stanley should never have been in the Standpipe by himself, which was a known danger. Beverly's father is clearly close to insane and unquestionably abusive, whether he is possessed by IT or not. George never should have been playing in the storm water in the first place. I haven't even mentioned the bullies yet, who pose yet another hazard. In fact, the book serves as a reminder of just how perilous childhood can be, and how seemingly normal activities can, in fact, end tragically.
I was thinking that I would write multiple entries on the book and I may still have more to say later, but for now, I think that these are the most salient points from my rereading of IT. I am super glad that it wasn't nearly as scary as the first time around, although I am still not quite ready to tackle the mini-series. I did really enjoy this commentary on the book and recommend for more consideration of it: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/09/the-great-stephen-king-reread-it
And in rereading the book, I understood in part why it scared me so much the first time--and possibly why it would scare anyone. When I was a kid, I used to volunteer at a historical museum and I often had to go into the creepy, dark basement by myself, where the modern plumbing and everything was (you went if you needed to get water, since we did not have a handy creek as they did back in the day). Having to go down in the dark by yourself reminded me of the opening of IT, particularly the cellar part. That really stuck with me. So did Stanley's death and the haunted house. And this is where SK gets you. He takes moderately creepy everyday situations and turns them into actual terror (remember that garbage disposal in Firestarter?). But I found it interesting how much did not stick with me, and I think that this book might have too much horror in it, in the sense that there are simply too many scenes to process and still be afraid. In fact, by the time we were back in 1985 and reminiscing in the Chinese restaurant, I was getting a bit done with horror scenes (oh no! The cookies have terrifying things instead of fortunes!). Then later, there was a scene with Audra at the hotel where the TV came on by itself and there were horrifying noises from the bathroom. This didn't scare me at all as a kid, which surprised me. My first instinct was that perhaps I simply had not stayed in too many hotels by that point in my life, which is probably true. But I think I may have read too much that was scary by that point and it started to blur together.
It's very clear that this book was a pivotal one for SK, because I think that it contained references to pretty much every single previous book that he wrote. Entire town destroyed? Carrie. Group bands together to fight evil bullies? 'The Body.' A werewolf? The Cycle of the Werewolf. Haunted house? The Talisman. Haunted town? 'Salem's Lot. Scary stuff in a bathroom? The Shining. I think you get the idea. Really, there was everything. Even stuff coming in the future. A reference to a bird from Africa? Misery (I can't tell you where that happened, it was very brief but stuck with me). A group banding together to fight evil for the Turtle? The Dark Tower. Small town goes gradually insane as though possessed by an evil force? Needful Things. Violence at a lumberjack camp? The Wind Through the Keyhole. Seriously, this one runs deep.
The book, at its core, is of course not about an evil killer sewer clown or even an evil female spider, but really about the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and how these collide. The idea that the characters had forgotten so much about their past didn't surprise me so much this time, as it did when I was a kid. Of course we forget many things as we age, we can't possibly remember it all. While the premise of IT was that the Losers forget because of the trauma that they experienced, it seems to me that perhaps it was the simple act of forgetting that we all encounter as we age.
I also was less disappointed by the ending than I was the first time. I felt like SK just ran out of ideas when I initially read the book, but now I am more convinced that he had a much bigger story in mind, but couldn't put it all in this one. I mean, it's not like he didn't try. The whole thing comes in at 1142 pages, after all. But this is the closest thing to the seven-volume Dark Tower that exists in his whole oeuvre, I think. And there is a bigger story, with the Turtle and larger forces and galactic battles--in other words, exactly The Dark Tower. But I think he hadn't quite formulated all of that yet. He would get back to it soon afterward, churning out 2 and 3 in the series within the next five years. And maybe this novel marks the bifurcation between the epic and the mundane in SK (not that they are ever fully bifurcated). Books set more in reality took one path, while books that thrived on fantasy took another. Considering that the next book is The Eyes of the Dragon, this idea of a split makes sense.
SK took four years to work on IT, which is virtually unheard of in his works. I hadn't realized this until completing it, but he also did not have any real novels that came out during this time. In fact, the previous novel was Pet Semetary, which means he went from a pretty dark place to an even more dark place (there was The Talisman, but that was co-written, and I am assuming that the Bachman books were earlier). So despite the fact that SK appeared to be very prolific, he was in fact honing this one novel for a long time. Certainly it shows in places. The beginning, with George's death, is incredibly captivating and well-written. The same can't be said throughout, which is not surprising to me since it is a very long novel. But what bugged me the most was that it was unclear why the Losers kept getting away, while others could not. With George, we see that he is tricked by IT because he doesn't know enough to be suspicious of a clown in the sewer (in fact, much of this reminded me of Erlkönig again, especially when IT tried to convince his victims that they were going to a more beautiful, fun world). But it's not clear in other places why the Losers could escape him, unless you buy the 'protected by the Turtle' argument.
Oh, and you don't really need the clown, of course. The situations in which the kids find themselves are all perilous and it seems pretty clear that they could have died regardless of what IT did. For instance, Ben tried to walk home by himself in the cold, even though the adults had haphazardly tried to stop him. Stanley should never have been in the Standpipe by himself, which was a known danger. Beverly's father is clearly close to insane and unquestionably abusive, whether he is possessed by IT or not. George never should have been playing in the storm water in the first place. I haven't even mentioned the bullies yet, who pose yet another hazard. In fact, the book serves as a reminder of just how perilous childhood can be, and how seemingly normal activities can, in fact, end tragically.
I was thinking that I would write multiple entries on the book and I may still have more to say later, but for now, I think that these are the most salient points from my rereading of IT. I am super glad that it wasn't nearly as scary as the first time around, although I am still not quite ready to tackle the mini-series. I did really enjoy this commentary on the book and recommend for more consideration of it: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/09/the-great-stephen-king-reread-it
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Writing of the Seven (The Gunslinger, revised)
Considering that I was excited to go back to the Dark Tower world and visit it again, it came as a surprise to me that I did not enjoy The Gunslinger as much as I thought I might. Sure, there were the same memorable scenes: crazy zombie guy reveals secret of death, gunslinger shoots up town, a raven named Zoltan. But I found myself distracted by the numerous mentions of events from previous novels, particularly Wizard and Glass, which is the fourth book in the series. To understand why, you have to put yourself in SK's shoes and think about the creation of the series as a whole. It also helped me, when I thought it through, to consider similar 7-book fantasy epics, because I think that I may have identified some kind of 'fourth-book crisis,' which is worth thinking about.
First, you need to know that Wizard and Glass may rank among one of SK's all-time best books. Not just in the Dark Tower series, although I would argue that it is the strongest of them. But in all of his books. It is set in a place called Mejis, which is a bit like California, and tells the story of Roland Deschain falling in love with a woman named Susan Delgado, then bad things happen. While the world depicted in Wizard and Glass is not quite modern, it is also a functioning society. By the time we get to The Gunslinger, this world seems to have completely disappeared. In other words, we enter the series in the middle.
As I mentioned before, there is plenty of time travel in the Dark Tower series as a whole, so maybe this shouldn't be surprising. But it leads to plenty of problems in terms of the information that you want to put in your early books because you are not really moving chronologically. In fact, even The Gunslinger doesn't move chronologically since we have flashbacks to Roland's early years and earning his guns. This problem of conflicting chronologies led SK to revise The Gunslinger and re-release it in 2003, ostensibly because he wanted to fix continuity problems and change the prose. This was around the same time that he finished the Dark Tower series after a 6-year hiatus.
Why did he suddenly finish? Because in the interim, he was involved in a serious car accident when he was hit by a minivan. This event gets written into the Dark Tower series and was obviously extremely traumatic for him. But that doesn't explain why there was an hiatus in the first place.
I think that there was this hiatus because Wizard and Glass was good. Really, really good. And I think that he wasn't quite sure what to do next. That whole novel is effectively a flashback, then the series moves forward with volume five (The Wolves of the Calla), although with a great deal of jumping through time and space--and a pretty big change in style. I think that SK's inertia while writing an epic is not unique, but I think that his chronology problems may be, particularly if you compare his seven-volume epic to others.
If you think about seven-volume epics, quite a few might leap to mind. There is the Narnia series, which was not written chronologically (it starts with book 2), but proceeds chronologically. C. S. Lewis did allow for some flexibility in terms of chronology because time spent in Narnia moves more slowly that time spent in our world. Thus Narnia ages considerably more quickly so that the whole duration of this world is the equivalent of one adult life here. However, the adventures themselves move in chronological order. You can't have Prince Caspian, for instance, before The Silver Chair, and while events from previous novels may be referenced, they are most frequently in a broad way that doesn't cause noticeable conflicts. Harry Potter is similar in that each year is clearly delineated in the series and everything moves forward, apart from a few necessary flashbacks.
However, the seven-book epic is not always so straight ahead. Take Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, for instance. That is not technically a seven-book epic, but that is because Tolkien got stuck trying to fill in the past--in other words, he experienced a fourth-book crisis. There are books that give the history of this world, such as the Silmarillion and other writings, but Tolkien did not complete them. I think he ran into a similar issue to SK. If the world of the Hobbit has already been created, it can be difficult to go back and fill in the background while remaining consistent to the whole, short of making adaptations to the original (which is precisely what Peter Jackson in doing in his film adaptation, taking material from the Simarillion and other unfinished works).
SK came up with a different solution, which was to revise volume 1. And he did so in a way that it incorporated an awful lot of Wizard and Glass, I think because he was so enraptured in this world. So enraptured that he wasn't sure what to do next. So enraptured that the series stalled because there could not be a return to Mejis. But you could have Roland remember, and to do that you could have him thinking about his time there as he went on to the desert, Tull, and waste. There are a lot of references to Mejis, Susan, and a lost horn, all of which are clear references to later books in the series.
And this was exactly what I didn't like about it the third time around (so I didn't like it two out of three readings, weird). I did pick up on a few more details this time, like the mummified corpses in the former subway that disintegrated. But for the most part, I found myself wondering just how much SK revised this volume compared to the original, particularly because there was so much of Wizard and Glass at the periphery.
So I found a way to answer my own question: I got a copy of the original Gunslinger and shall read that next. I know, when I read The Stand I said something to the effect that I don't have time to check out old versus new versions. In the case of The Stand, I stick to my original argument. But this situation is different. I'm curious to know where The Gunslinger started and whether those hints were initially there. Fortunately, I was able to obtain a copy from an academic library--these are tricky to find now. Thus the official report on The Gunslinger will wait until I have read the original.
First, you need to know that Wizard and Glass may rank among one of SK's all-time best books. Not just in the Dark Tower series, although I would argue that it is the strongest of them. But in all of his books. It is set in a place called Mejis, which is a bit like California, and tells the story of Roland Deschain falling in love with a woman named Susan Delgado, then bad things happen. While the world depicted in Wizard and Glass is not quite modern, it is also a functioning society. By the time we get to The Gunslinger, this world seems to have completely disappeared. In other words, we enter the series in the middle.
As I mentioned before, there is plenty of time travel in the Dark Tower series as a whole, so maybe this shouldn't be surprising. But it leads to plenty of problems in terms of the information that you want to put in your early books because you are not really moving chronologically. In fact, even The Gunslinger doesn't move chronologically since we have flashbacks to Roland's early years and earning his guns. This problem of conflicting chronologies led SK to revise The Gunslinger and re-release it in 2003, ostensibly because he wanted to fix continuity problems and change the prose. This was around the same time that he finished the Dark Tower series after a 6-year hiatus.
Why did he suddenly finish? Because in the interim, he was involved in a serious car accident when he was hit by a minivan. This event gets written into the Dark Tower series and was obviously extremely traumatic for him. But that doesn't explain why there was an hiatus in the first place.
I think that there was this hiatus because Wizard and Glass was good. Really, really good. And I think that he wasn't quite sure what to do next. That whole novel is effectively a flashback, then the series moves forward with volume five (The Wolves of the Calla), although with a great deal of jumping through time and space--and a pretty big change in style. I think that SK's inertia while writing an epic is not unique, but I think that his chronology problems may be, particularly if you compare his seven-volume epic to others.
If you think about seven-volume epics, quite a few might leap to mind. There is the Narnia series, which was not written chronologically (it starts with book 2), but proceeds chronologically. C. S. Lewis did allow for some flexibility in terms of chronology because time spent in Narnia moves more slowly that time spent in our world. Thus Narnia ages considerably more quickly so that the whole duration of this world is the equivalent of one adult life here. However, the adventures themselves move in chronological order. You can't have Prince Caspian, for instance, before The Silver Chair, and while events from previous novels may be referenced, they are most frequently in a broad way that doesn't cause noticeable conflicts. Harry Potter is similar in that each year is clearly delineated in the series and everything moves forward, apart from a few necessary flashbacks.
However, the seven-book epic is not always so straight ahead. Take Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, for instance. That is not technically a seven-book epic, but that is because Tolkien got stuck trying to fill in the past--in other words, he experienced a fourth-book crisis. There are books that give the history of this world, such as the Silmarillion and other writings, but Tolkien did not complete them. I think he ran into a similar issue to SK. If the world of the Hobbit has already been created, it can be difficult to go back and fill in the background while remaining consistent to the whole, short of making adaptations to the original (which is precisely what Peter Jackson in doing in his film adaptation, taking material from the Simarillion and other unfinished works).
SK came up with a different solution, which was to revise volume 1. And he did so in a way that it incorporated an awful lot of Wizard and Glass, I think because he was so enraptured in this world. So enraptured that he wasn't sure what to do next. So enraptured that the series stalled because there could not be a return to Mejis. But you could have Roland remember, and to do that you could have him thinking about his time there as he went on to the desert, Tull, and waste. There are a lot of references to Mejis, Susan, and a lost horn, all of which are clear references to later books in the series.
And this was exactly what I didn't like about it the third time around (so I didn't like it two out of three readings, weird). I did pick up on a few more details this time, like the mummified corpses in the former subway that disintegrated. But for the most part, I found myself wondering just how much SK revised this volume compared to the original, particularly because there was so much of Wizard and Glass at the periphery.
So I found a way to answer my own question: I got a copy of the original Gunslinger and shall read that next. I know, when I read The Stand I said something to the effect that I don't have time to check out old versus new versions. In the case of The Stand, I stick to my original argument. But this situation is different. I'm curious to know where The Gunslinger started and whether those hints were initially there. Fortunately, I was able to obtain a copy from an academic library--these are tricky to find now. Thus the official report on The Gunslinger will wait until I have read the original.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
The Running Man
I am going to start right away by saying that I did not really like The Running Man that much. However, I'm glad that I read it, because I think that you can see a number of different themes that SK was confronting around this time and some that would become important in his later works.
Things that I didn't like:
1) The countdown. Especially because if you think about it, nothing actually counts down in this story, not even the explosion at the end.
2) The protagonist. Maybe this just felt hackneyed because I had just read Cujo, where the characters are fleshed out (okay, maybe too much so). But this guy just seemed kind of like a jerk for no reason. Now, I realize that he was living in a society that gave him reasons to be angry, but he seemed less angry at those causes and more just generally angry. That didn't appeal to me. There was something about the 'as a man, I need to go earn my family money' idea that was too simplistic for me.
3) The future. I felt like the future in this story was somewhat vague and not all that sketched out. Basically, everything, everywhere is a disaster, unless you are rich (which most people are not). Everyone else is dying of awful diseases or appearing on fatal game shows.
Now, some people might say that SK was prescient in predicting the obsession that we have now with reality shows, and I will give you that. But he already did that in The Long Walk (which is kind of like The Running Man with a slightly different cast and set of rules). And he's often prescient, which is probably part of why he is considered to be a masterful writer and observer of society.
Perhaps part of why this novel didn't work so well for me is that stories set in the near future rarely age well. The Running Man supposedly takes place in 2025, so not all that far away, but everything has turned into chaos. We hear about this in little bits, like France is under martial law, but we don't know why. Also, would it really be likely that everywhere would fall apart? I don't know. Most importantly, people are restricted in their use of information and access to it. That part seemed kind of strange now, considering how much information is currently at our fingertips and how that has changed our society--I realize that this is an unfair way of evaluating a book, but I just couldn't get my head around the fact that there seemed to be very few technological developments (FreeVee was basically cable, but with only one channel and mandated in everyone's homes, and I think the cars could kind of float or something) but pretty much everything else was the same. It didn't feel like a coherent world vision of the future, like you might find in Margaret Atwood, for instance. The Long Walk was better in my view, perhaps because it didn't need to describe the whole society in detail, so it provided fewer chances for the reader to question the coherence of the future being presented.
Some things that will come back later:
1) Sewers are icky. There is a scene where the protagonist escapes through the sewers and I was suddenly reminded of scenes from IT.
2) They've after you! Of course, we have already seen this in Firestarter, among others, but what struck me about this iteration was the fact that the protagonist constantly thought that the Hunters were following him and needed to plan his mistake. This reminded me very much of Father Callahan's experience as recounted in The Wolves of Calla, which is the fifth Dark Tower book, so we have a ways to go. The way in which SK described the gradual realization that the people outside were not simply bystanders but actual threats is very similar to how Father Callahan figured out that the 'low men' were after him and went on the run. There is a pretty big gap in terms of time for this idea and I wonder if it will appear in other books as well. None leaps to mind in this case.
Speaking of chronology, there is also a question of which order SK was writing these things. I don't know that it was in publication order; in fact, that seems unlikely. There were some common themes between this one and Cujo, the most notable of which was the fact that the father was ultimately helpless to aid his child, despite his best intentions (and in this case, the mother of his child). The reason that this seems particularly pertinent is that the next book is The Gunslinger, which was one that SK worked on for a very long time, dating back to 1970 in fact. Yet it also has some common themes with this and other contemporaneous works (running, for instance). Look for a new post soon, I suspect that The Gunslinger will go quickly.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Cujo
Strange fact: there is not a hard copy of Cujo to be had easily in the greater Tampa area. Both libraries at which I am a member had lost their copies. So I now own a used copy of Cujo. My dog looked disconcertingly happy when I took it out of the package. Here's hoping that he didn't get any ideas from the cover (he is a small poodle instead of a giant St. Bernard, so things should be okay).
LOTS OF SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH FROM ALL OVER KING'S OEUVRE: This was another book that I had not read before, although I had a vague understanding of the plot--I suspect that many people have a vague understanding of the plot. It feels like SK has finally confronted a theme that he has been dancing around in his previous books: the death of a child. Children had died already in his books, such as in 'Salem's Lot. In Roadwork, the child died before the book started. More often, though, children were saved, because of their supernatural abilities such as in Firestarter and The Shining. But this one had a far more graphic and direct depiction of a child dying of dehydration, which is a pretty awful way to go (maybe not worse than mauled by a rabid St. Bernard, although honestly both are really awful). This theme, of course, will be a huge one in the next few novels, particularly Pet Semetary (unfortunate accident) and IT (So. Very. Many. Children. Dying). I suspect that part of this was King's fear about his own life. After all, he was a father, but one who must have felt some concern at his own actions, particularly as someone who drank a lot. I have always thought that Jack Torrence (the author) in The Shining must be a manifestation of his own fears about parenting and addiction. This novel seem to be reflecting a much greater fear that children can die and that sometimes, there is nothing that you can do about it, even if your intentions are good.
I have to say that I spent about half of this book feeling very sorry for Cujo. I mean, the dog really only needed a rabies vaccination to fix the entire problem. Not to mention that I couldn't believe that no one was really paying attention to the dog as he was becoming sick (until Brett started trying to monitor things from afar when he was in Connecticut, which is a good long way from Maine). SK does include some scenes that imagine what the dog must have experienced during the onset of rabies, which only made me feel worse about the whole thing. I think that SK is a dog person. Dogs in his story are generally very loyal (Oy from Dark Tower!), and he even offers an apology for Cujo at the end of the book by noting that it wasn't his fault that he contracted rabies. He was a good dog.
I read some reviews on Amazon of Cujo and would agree with some of the commentators that the story is inconsistent, particularly about the supernatural. Cujo is set in Castle Rock, which is the same place where The Dead Zone took place and Jimmy identified a serial killer named Frank Dodd. These characters and events were referenced in Cujo, implying that there was a general soupcon of evil in the air, which was then shifted over to Cujo. It also seems to have hung out in the closet of the child, Tad. Evil spirits hanging out in a closet seems somewhat random. I felt like SK might be finally confessing that while the supernatural could be scary, what was far more scary was the kind of horrifying events that could not be explained through the supernatural, such as a serial killer running around a small town. He didn't quite get there though, not so long as there were potential supernatural monsters in the closet.
(It's worth noting that King himself has stated that he barely remembers writing this book because he had a serious drinking problem at the time, so I will allow him the inconsistency).
(Also, what kind of name is Tad? This really bugged me. There was no indication that it was short for Thaddeus, which might have made sense, but not really).
I have to admit that I felt this book was more of a short story that was fleshed out into a novel by adding approximately eight billion details about the characters. Sure, this may have developed the characters more completely, although part of me felt that it really didn't. Certainly, there were times when the description seemed overly excessive, such as when we learned all about the life history, dreams, and ambitions of some police guy who showed up for barely any time at all (Masen). An entire ad campaign concerning cereal was maybe not such a vital part of the plot. But it still moved along at a brisk clip and it didn't feel too drawn out on the whole (except that life history of Masen part).
What Cujo most reminded me of was Misery, particularly the need to describe long periods of time in a way that remained compelling. After all, Tad and his mother Donna stayed in their car for almost two days as they waited for help (or at least for the rabid dog to disappear) and that could get really old, really fast. However, like I said, the novel really didn't drag, and I think that SK avoided that by featuring events every time he went back to the car. I thought that his description of Tad's death was very effective, particularly right before (when Donna was sure that he was dying) and when Vic (Donna's husband) discovered his child dead. The New York Times Book Review described this outcome as a modern Erlkönig, which I just loved. Except with a rabid dog and a dead car instead of an evil sprite and a galloping horse.
The other parallel that reminded me of Misery occurred when the cavalry showed up in the form of Sheriff George Bannerman, only to almost immediately die at the hands of the monster. There is a very similar scene in Misery, at least in concept, even if the actual details differ.
MORAL OF THE STORY: be sure that your pets are up to date with all of their vaccinations.
LOTS OF SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH FROM ALL OVER KING'S OEUVRE: This was another book that I had not read before, although I had a vague understanding of the plot--I suspect that many people have a vague understanding of the plot. It feels like SK has finally confronted a theme that he has been dancing around in his previous books: the death of a child. Children had died already in his books, such as in 'Salem's Lot. In Roadwork, the child died before the book started. More often, though, children were saved, because of their supernatural abilities such as in Firestarter and The Shining. But this one had a far more graphic and direct depiction of a child dying of dehydration, which is a pretty awful way to go (maybe not worse than mauled by a rabid St. Bernard, although honestly both are really awful). This theme, of course, will be a huge one in the next few novels, particularly Pet Semetary (unfortunate accident) and IT (So. Very. Many. Children. Dying). I suspect that part of this was King's fear about his own life. After all, he was a father, but one who must have felt some concern at his own actions, particularly as someone who drank a lot. I have always thought that Jack Torrence (the author) in The Shining must be a manifestation of his own fears about parenting and addiction. This novel seem to be reflecting a much greater fear that children can die and that sometimes, there is nothing that you can do about it, even if your intentions are good.
I have to say that I spent about half of this book feeling very sorry for Cujo. I mean, the dog really only needed a rabies vaccination to fix the entire problem. Not to mention that I couldn't believe that no one was really paying attention to the dog as he was becoming sick (until Brett started trying to monitor things from afar when he was in Connecticut, which is a good long way from Maine). SK does include some scenes that imagine what the dog must have experienced during the onset of rabies, which only made me feel worse about the whole thing. I think that SK is a dog person. Dogs in his story are generally very loyal (Oy from Dark Tower!), and he even offers an apology for Cujo at the end of the book by noting that it wasn't his fault that he contracted rabies. He was a good dog.
I read some reviews on Amazon of Cujo and would agree with some of the commentators that the story is inconsistent, particularly about the supernatural. Cujo is set in Castle Rock, which is the same place where The Dead Zone took place and Jimmy identified a serial killer named Frank Dodd. These characters and events were referenced in Cujo, implying that there was a general soupcon of evil in the air, which was then shifted over to Cujo. It also seems to have hung out in the closet of the child, Tad. Evil spirits hanging out in a closet seems somewhat random. I felt like SK might be finally confessing that while the supernatural could be scary, what was far more scary was the kind of horrifying events that could not be explained through the supernatural, such as a serial killer running around a small town. He didn't quite get there though, not so long as there were potential supernatural monsters in the closet.
(It's worth noting that King himself has stated that he barely remembers writing this book because he had a serious drinking problem at the time, so I will allow him the inconsistency).
(Also, what kind of name is Tad? This really bugged me. There was no indication that it was short for Thaddeus, which might have made sense, but not really).
I have to admit that I felt this book was more of a short story that was fleshed out into a novel by adding approximately eight billion details about the characters. Sure, this may have developed the characters more completely, although part of me felt that it really didn't. Certainly, there were times when the description seemed overly excessive, such as when we learned all about the life history, dreams, and ambitions of some police guy who showed up for barely any time at all (Masen). An entire ad campaign concerning cereal was maybe not such a vital part of the plot. But it still moved along at a brisk clip and it didn't feel too drawn out on the whole (except that life history of Masen part).
What Cujo most reminded me of was Misery, particularly the need to describe long periods of time in a way that remained compelling. After all, Tad and his mother Donna stayed in their car for almost two days as they waited for help (or at least for the rabid dog to disappear) and that could get really old, really fast. However, like I said, the novel really didn't drag, and I think that SK avoided that by featuring events every time he went back to the car. I thought that his description of Tad's death was very effective, particularly right before (when Donna was sure that he was dying) and when Vic (Donna's husband) discovered his child dead. The New York Times Book Review described this outcome as a modern Erlkönig, which I just loved. Except with a rabid dog and a dead car instead of an evil sprite and a galloping horse.
The other parallel that reminded me of Misery occurred when the cavalry showed up in the form of Sheriff George Bannerman, only to almost immediately die at the hands of the monster. There is a very similar scene in Misery, at least in concept, even if the actual details differ.
MORAL OF THE STORY: be sure that your pets are up to date with all of their vaccinations.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Drastic plane rides call for drastic measures
I caved.
I bought 'The Wind Through the Keyhole.' Yes. Out of order.
On a related note, I am traveling to Australia tomorrow. That is a very long flight.
My logic was that I have read other SK novels before, so this isn't really breaking the rules. Okay, it is. But I still would argue that a flight halfway around the world calls for lots of reading material.
I bought 'The Wind Through the Keyhole.' Yes. Out of order.
On a related note, I am traveling to Australia tomorrow. That is a very long flight.
My logic was that I have read other SK novels before, so this isn't really breaking the rules. Okay, it is. But I still would argue that a flight halfway around the world calls for lots of reading material.
Monday, July 11, 2011
'Salem's Lot
'Salem's Lot was the second-scariest Stephen King novel that I read when I was younger (It was the scariest, with the scariest short story award going to 'The Mist'). 'Salem's Lot was also the only book that I can remember which made me put it down because I was so terrified by one of the scenes. The scene in question is the one where Jimmy is impaled because he tried to walk down to the basement of the boarding house, only to find that the vampires removed the stairs and put knives at the bottom (they sneakily also made the light switch inoperable, so that Jimmy did not see this coming). Gruesome. I'm not sure why 'Salem's Lot affected me so much except that there are a number of very graphic and scary elements and I was pretty clearly an impressionable reader at that age.
Upon rereading it, though, I was less impressed--although I did find myself looking down into the basement of the house in which I was staying a few times, just to reassure myself that the stairs were still there. Parts of it were written in a very clunky way, including a line that was essentially, 'She felt a drop of horror in her stomach, like a fetus of evil' (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have a copy of the book here. Future quotes will be more accurate). That's pretty awful. Mind you, Stephen King was writing at a fast clip, so I can see how you might come up with clunky similes or have repetitive sentence structure from time to time.
What I saw in 'Salem's Lot this time around was the roots for many of King's other novels (and the fact that these vampires can be easily warded off with a crucifix and by refusing them an invitation into the house, two facts that I evidently missed the first time around). For instance, the group that is formed to combat the vampires reminded me of a ka-tet, which will be a feature of his later books, in particular the Dark Tower series. A ka-tet is a group brought together because its members share a fate, and there are numerous mentions of the fact that one of the principal characters, Ben Mears, feels as though everything is coming together as if by fate--he is also a writer, which is an important trope in these early books. Of course, there is also a group, which is a key feature of a ka-tet. One of its members, Father Callahan, clearly stuck with King, since he will become part of the Dark Tower ka-tet at points--and we get the end of his story, which becomes more surreal and otherworldly after he leaves the Lot.
Other recurring themes in this one include the haunted house, which is a favorite King device. Actually, in this case, the haunted house extends beyond its walls and envelops the town in its evil, a precursor to It--they also share the fact that children are the first victims. There is a background provided for the Marsten House and why it became this nexus is provided, at least in part. I'm quite certain that King has more background about this place and why Kurt Barlow chose it as his headquarters. There will be numerous haunted houses to come (The Shining was next, after all) and while this one is very effective, I think that the most striking one that I have found in his works so far was in The Waste Lands, but I am getting ahead of myself here. I do like that Marsten House looks over 'Salem's Lot (sort of like an Overlook...), which is the opposite of It, which finds its home under the town. Neat reversal.
I found this vampire story somewhat amusing because I think that it is one of the more homoerotic that I have run across since so many of the vampires are men at first. In a way, this feels like a reversal of Bram Stoker, where Dracula's Brides are gathered around like a harem.
The plan is to read all of Stephen King's books, including the non-fiction, so I will read Danse Macabre, which is his reflection on the legacy of horror writing. From what I understand, he talks about the cult TV show 'Dark Shadows' as unsuccessful, claiming that television is a bad medium for horror. But it's hard for me to imagine that he wasn't in some way influenced by a show that features a dysfunctional family living in a house that features considerable paranormal activity, including a vampire. And while the show as a whole may not have succeeded in terrifying its audience, I have found that some of its most effective moments occur during the early days of discovering that Barnabas is a vampire, such as when he has hypnotized Maggie (or whatever he did to her) and she is walking around, dressed in white as his lost love Josette, in a trace--these scenes were enhanced because they were shot in black and white, making them even creepier. Not to mention that both are set in Maine. Although 'Salem's Lot is a very different approach when compared to 'Dark Shadows', I can't help but think that there is a slight anxiety of influence.
Incidentally, I learned last night that all of the Barnabus and beyond 'Dark Shadows' is available for instant view on Netflix. Enjoy!
Upon rereading it, though, I was less impressed--although I did find myself looking down into the basement of the house in which I was staying a few times, just to reassure myself that the stairs were still there. Parts of it were written in a very clunky way, including a line that was essentially, 'She felt a drop of horror in her stomach, like a fetus of evil' (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have a copy of the book here. Future quotes will be more accurate). That's pretty awful. Mind you, Stephen King was writing at a fast clip, so I can see how you might come up with clunky similes or have repetitive sentence structure from time to time.
What I saw in 'Salem's Lot this time around was the roots for many of King's other novels (and the fact that these vampires can be easily warded off with a crucifix and by refusing them an invitation into the house, two facts that I evidently missed the first time around). For instance, the group that is formed to combat the vampires reminded me of a ka-tet, which will be a feature of his later books, in particular the Dark Tower series. A ka-tet is a group brought together because its members share a fate, and there are numerous mentions of the fact that one of the principal characters, Ben Mears, feels as though everything is coming together as if by fate--he is also a writer, which is an important trope in these early books. Of course, there is also a group, which is a key feature of a ka-tet. One of its members, Father Callahan, clearly stuck with King, since he will become part of the Dark Tower ka-tet at points--and we get the end of his story, which becomes more surreal and otherworldly after he leaves the Lot.
Other recurring themes in this one include the haunted house, which is a favorite King device. Actually, in this case, the haunted house extends beyond its walls and envelops the town in its evil, a precursor to It--they also share the fact that children are the first victims. There is a background provided for the Marsten House and why it became this nexus is provided, at least in part. I'm quite certain that King has more background about this place and why Kurt Barlow chose it as his headquarters. There will be numerous haunted houses to come (The Shining was next, after all) and while this one is very effective, I think that the most striking one that I have found in his works so far was in The Waste Lands, but I am getting ahead of myself here. I do like that Marsten House looks over 'Salem's Lot (sort of like an Overlook...), which is the opposite of It, which finds its home under the town. Neat reversal.
I found this vampire story somewhat amusing because I think that it is one of the more homoerotic that I have run across since so many of the vampires are men at first. In a way, this feels like a reversal of Bram Stoker, where Dracula's Brides are gathered around like a harem.
The plan is to read all of Stephen King's books, including the non-fiction, so I will read Danse Macabre, which is his reflection on the legacy of horror writing. From what I understand, he talks about the cult TV show 'Dark Shadows' as unsuccessful, claiming that television is a bad medium for horror. But it's hard for me to imagine that he wasn't in some way influenced by a show that features a dysfunctional family living in a house that features considerable paranormal activity, including a vampire. And while the show as a whole may not have succeeded in terrifying its audience, I have found that some of its most effective moments occur during the early days of discovering that Barnabas is a vampire, such as when he has hypnotized Maggie (or whatever he did to her) and she is walking around, dressed in white as his lost love Josette, in a trace--these scenes were enhanced because they were shot in black and white, making them even creepier. Not to mention that both are set in Maine. Although 'Salem's Lot is a very different approach when compared to 'Dark Shadows', I can't help but think that there is a slight anxiety of influence.
Incidentally, I learned last night that all of the Barnabus and beyond 'Dark Shadows' is available for instant view on Netflix. Enjoy!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Carrie
Carrie was one of the few Stephen King books that I read when I was younger which did not scare me. Not one bit. Apparently angry telekinetics on the warpath with the ability to fry people via downed power lines was not terrifying. But I think that probably it didn't scare me because this book is one of the easiest ones in which the story beyond the horror emerges. Carrie is an ostracized, isolated teenager in what appears to be a very stratified high school--socially stratified high schools are definitely a recurring theme in Stephen King's books. I think that those of us who felt ostracized have some sympathy for Carrie and maybe even a bit of Schadenfreude as she seeks revenge against the others. That being said, she goes somewhat overboard, like blowing up large portions of the town.
I sometimes think of Stephen King's books as a commentary on earlier American fiction that created seemingly pastoral rural settings, like Thornton Wilder's Our Town. In Grover's Corners, everything seems to be perfect, but it's actually not. Death surrounds the play in a way that does not become fully apparent until the third act. Books like Carrie are set in what should be idyllic towns but rather than masking the disturbing elements, as Wilder does, King brings them to the forefront. In Carrie especially, the opening scene grounds the entire book since we see right away a girl who is detached from her social group, one who is the butt of jokes that are not funny, and the target of a group that comes close to a mob mentality. There is also something here of Shirley Jackson, one of Stephen King's favorite writers, and the danger of crowds (like in 'The Lottery'). There is a similar moment when the bucket of pigs' blood hits Carrie: the whole crowd torments her with their frightened laughter, unsure of how to act when she is involved.
I liked the different techniques that King incorporated into this book. There was his favorite interruption of text to insert the character's thoughts,
(Oh, how he likes to do this!)
which he returns to in a number of his other works. In a book about someone with telekinetic powers, it works. Also, I felt that the interspersion of fictional sources written later about the incident helped move along some of the plot without hindering it. We didn't need anyone to walk in and explain details about Carrie's powers in an artificial way, we could just have an excerpt from an expert on telekinesis instead. This technique will come back in other books, particularly since King enjoys creating lengthy histories for many of his stories (no, it's not just an out-of-control Dark Tower thing, although that is probably the best-known manifestation). Actually, I suspect that part of what is driving me through this project is the idea that there are almost always hidden backgrounds in his books and I want to try and find them.
Carrie is actually a pretty compelling character. I found it very effective at the end when she still wants her mother's help despite the fact that: a) her mother has never really helped her and b) her mother is dead. But the idea that her actions go outside of her control and she wants help makes sense for her character; it also fits with the idea that she has been abused by her mother for her entire life and can't see how hurtful she was. I think that this is part of why this book works: Carrie does what she can to integrate with her peer group, and we see her trying to assimilate, but in the end is unable to because of one vicious individual (Chris).
One thing that I did not notice before: Stephen King has a thing, at least in these early books, for characters to walk around with weapons sticking out of them. Specifically, Carrie walks around for a while with a knife sticking out of her back. I can think of at least two other books in which this happens, but I won't give them away. Need to leave some suspense.
I sometimes think of Stephen King's books as a commentary on earlier American fiction that created seemingly pastoral rural settings, like Thornton Wilder's Our Town. In Grover's Corners, everything seems to be perfect, but it's actually not. Death surrounds the play in a way that does not become fully apparent until the third act. Books like Carrie are set in what should be idyllic towns but rather than masking the disturbing elements, as Wilder does, King brings them to the forefront. In Carrie especially, the opening scene grounds the entire book since we see right away a girl who is detached from her social group, one who is the butt of jokes that are not funny, and the target of a group that comes close to a mob mentality. There is also something here of Shirley Jackson, one of Stephen King's favorite writers, and the danger of crowds (like in 'The Lottery'). There is a similar moment when the bucket of pigs' blood hits Carrie: the whole crowd torments her with their frightened laughter, unsure of how to act when she is involved.
I liked the different techniques that King incorporated into this book. There was his favorite interruption of text to insert the character's thoughts,
(Oh, how he likes to do this!)
which he returns to in a number of his other works. In a book about someone with telekinetic powers, it works. Also, I felt that the interspersion of fictional sources written later about the incident helped move along some of the plot without hindering it. We didn't need anyone to walk in and explain details about Carrie's powers in an artificial way, we could just have an excerpt from an expert on telekinesis instead. This technique will come back in other books, particularly since King enjoys creating lengthy histories for many of his stories (no, it's not just an out-of-control Dark Tower thing, although that is probably the best-known manifestation). Actually, I suspect that part of what is driving me through this project is the idea that there are almost always hidden backgrounds in his books and I want to try and find them.
Carrie is actually a pretty compelling character. I found it very effective at the end when she still wants her mother's help despite the fact that: a) her mother has never really helped her and b) her mother is dead. But the idea that her actions go outside of her control and she wants help makes sense for her character; it also fits with the idea that she has been abused by her mother for her entire life and can't see how hurtful she was. I think that this is part of why this book works: Carrie does what she can to integrate with her peer group, and we see her trying to assimilate, but in the end is unable to because of one vicious individual (Chris).
One thing that I did not notice before: Stephen King has a thing, at least in these early books, for characters to walk around with weapons sticking out of them. Specifically, Carrie walks around for a while with a knife sticking out of her back. I can think of at least two other books in which this happens, but I won't give them away. Need to leave some suspense.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)