Insomnia: 23rd Oct 2012

I'm looking forward to this one quite a bit. I don't know the first thing about the book itself other than the subject matter inferred by the title. What I did know was that I'd read a glowing review of it somewhere. Just before I started this project, I wrote a couple of posts talking about why I'd decided to read all of Stephen King's works in chronological order. One of these concerned a gorgeous blogpost written by Ryan McKenney (Trap Them - http://www.wecraftindarkness.com - http://trapthem.bigcartel.com - http://insomnialways.blogspot.com - @trapthem on Twitter) enough links? You can read the whole thing here: http://insomnialways.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/constant-reader.html but here's the part I'm talking about:

"I read Insomnia over the course of four nights, two hundred pages at a time. I learned the story of Ralph Roberts and the end results of gradual sleepless nights. By the time I was finished, my heart was aching. Part of it had to do with the story itself. It was, at the root, a perfect story of life and death. The other part of the ache came from overflowing of anticipation. I simply couldn't decide which of his works I wanted to read next."

So, as you can imagine, my expectations are high.

On an unrelated note, if you haven't seen Bob Mould on Letterman,
here you go. If you have, you know what I'm talking about.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes: 8th Sep - 22nd Oct 2012

Another story collection, another collection of disappointments. For so long, I've harped on about my love for the medium but King just hammers in nail after nail. A couple of them were quite creepy - The Moving Finger among them - but my main response to the stories was a shrug and "it was alright."

As I was reading this collection, I wondered whether its downfall is due to the relative quality of ideas. I imagine that, for King, a good idea is worth wringing out to 400-700 pages, while it only takes an average, or more likely a goofy/kooky/throwaway, idea to make a few thousand word story. A lot of the stories feel like he's just trying out his genre chops. Some might see it as an arena where he can be more daring and experimental and maybe that's true but, more often they comes across to me as the half-baked, poor relations to the novels.

I'm painfully aware that I'm doing him a disservice and probably coming across as an ignorant hick. In a away, I think I am actually guilty of laziness and failing to properly engage with the stories as much as I'm usually inclined and as much as they deserve. It didn't help that I took my time with it. Getting a hold of some of Jeff Lemire's works that I hadn't already read as well as re-reading everything I did, won't have helped. As always, his work is fully recommended. Essex County is a fabulous introduction.

Back to the stories before I wrap this up. I liked Dolan's Cadillac . It had a hint of Bachman to it and buzzed with a similar demented unravelling to the chap in Roadwork. I'm now very much looking forward to seeing the film and not just to satisfy the latent man-crush I mentioned previously.

What else...? In fact, fuck it. I was going to go through and pick out some of the ones I dug even a little and say what I didn't about the others. But it feels like as much of a chore as reading them did. And I don't really feel like talking shit about work that I couldn't come close to creating. (My having just started consecutive sentences with 'but' and 'and' should be some indication of my meagre abilities.) So, I'd rather look for the positive and move onto the next thing. From what I've heard, there's a lot to like in Insomnia.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes: 8th Sep 2012

The only thing I know about this collection is that Dolan's Cadillac has been adapted into a film starring Christian Slater of which I've heard good things. I hope it lives up to the praise for two reasons. Bad Stephen King adaptations are painful. There are lots of them and they weigh heavy on the Constant Reader's heart. Perhaps they shouldn't, but they do.

The second reason is that *deep breath* I was/am a Christian Slater fan. Bearing in mind I'm going back to my impressionable teenage years and Gleaming the Cube, Heathers, Pump Up the Volume, Kuffs, True Romance and even Broken Arrow. Then it all went to shit. Maybe apart from the Austin Powers cameo - Sherrrberrrt. For those films alone, dude deserves a break.

Anyway, I've laid out my thoughts on the short story in previous posts. They'll be tagged short story, helpfully enough. I'm going into this collection with an open mind and plenty of hope.

Before I get stuck in, here's a quote from the introduction:

"...I still see stories as a great thing, something which not only enhances lives but actually saves them. Good writing - good stories are the imagination's firing pin, and the purpose of the imagination, I believe, is to offer solace and shelter from situations and life-passages which would otherwise prove unendurable."

You can't say fairer than that.

Dolores Claiborne: 5th - 8th Sep 2012

Of all of his books I've read so far, I think this one has most left me wondering where to start with the . I've heard good things, all spoiler-free, but didn't know what to expect. It wasn't this.

It took a few pages for me to find the rhythm of the monologue format, but once I got locked in, it was great. I was going to mention the Gerald's Game crossovers later, but I might as well do them all here. I wonder how much it was originally intended, but it seems they're, albeit in a satisfyingly understated way, companion pieces. The female protagonists, the circumstantially singular viewpoints (one tied to the plot, the other to the narrative format) and, of course, the eclipses tie them before we get to the actual crossover points, which I won't spoil - for a change. They're both very female centred novels and, considering each is dedicated to the women in his life, it seems borne of a very respectful motivation.

I'm not sure what I expected but, about two-thirds of the way through, I flipped the book over to look at the genre classification. I was hoping to, yet still surprised when I did, see the words "Fiction: Horror" there. Well, there hadn't been much, if any, horror yet, but there was still time. I knew the basics of the plot from the first three pages, but had this idea that there was going to be some huge, devastating twist or something. There wasn't. It sounds as though I'm underplaying and underwhelmed by the book, but I'm not. I really liked it.

The first question I asked myself when I finished and closed the book was, 'if it's not horror, then what is it?'
The first word that came to mind was 'haunted' and by extension, 'haunting.' I think that'll about do it. There is a lot of haunting going on, and the idea that, while some memories can be exorcised, there are some that must be carried and that's just the way it is. The more I think of the power of memories to haunt and grind on a soul, the more I feel the book sliding back along the genre scale toward horror. Just not quite.

I said in the opening post that I'd read King wrote Dolores with Kathy Bates in mind. I think I did a good enough job of keeping her out of mind while reading the book. Mainly, I think, because she's referred to as ugly a few times (admittedly by her antagonistic husband) and Kathy Bates isn't. I'm a shallow swine, ain't I?

I'm looking forward to seeing the film, hoping to appreciate the adaptation (reading a plot synopsis tells me there are major alterations) without being to heavily weighed by comparison and spending a couple of hours with Kathy.

Dolores Claiborne: 5th Sep 2012

 

At this point, the only thing I know about Dolores Claiborne is that it was made into a film starring Kathy Bates (who I love).  I'm sure I've read somewhere that King wrote it with Bates in mind.  The best reference I've found for that is on the IMDb trivia page for the film. If someone could furnish me with a better one than that, I'd be especially grateful.

 

Onward.

Gerald's Game: 29th August - 5th September 2012

After all that, it turns out I'm not so sure about Gerald's Game.  On the one hand, I was really taken by the tightly focused and comparatively compact plot.  On the other, having read it before and knowing what was coming, the second reading made it feel a bit baggy and overwrought.  For a large part of the reading, I wondered whether, to maximise on the compactness, it would have better served as a short story.  As I reached the closing chapters, I decided that he'd packed it out well enough to warrant the novel length; and then I came to the ending and it all turned to shit.

 

I'm quite surprised by the selectivity of my memory of a book I first read almost twenty years ago.  Although hardly any of Jessie's 'hard time' came as a surprise, the last section had departed from my memory banks altogether.  While the mind often suppresses painful memories, it seems mine just blanked out this lump of cack.  Showing us what lay behind the curtain on this particular threat, almost subsidiary to the crux of the narrative, seemed a huge mistake.  While I'm generally behind the grounding of the threats to our protagonists in the real and tangible rather than supernatural, I'm happily compelled by psychological terrors.  The number of times, after reading a novel or watching a film, that I've dashed across the landing when returning from the bathroom in the dead of night or decided that I could live without something I'd left downstairs until the next morning, fairly attests to that.

 

If the book does have anything going for it, I'd say it contains King's most graphically gory scene that I've read so far.  So there's that.

 

I said in my opening entry for Gerald's Game that it was significant to me that it was the last of the books that I'd previously read.  I didn't bother trying to explain why.  Jesus, I'm lazy.  It's because you can't unsee something you've already seen and when it comes to books or films, it's the first time that counts.  Of course, you can go back and appreciate the mastery of the plot's construction and unfolding, but it never casts its spell on you with the same efficacy twice.  It only gets one chance to take your hand and ask you to trust and submit to be led where it dares.  That's part of the beauty and the root of my undying love for storytelling, so with that in mind, my embarking on the second half* of his works is exciting.

 

*at this point anyway. The goal posts will no doubt move slightly as King continues to publish works.

 

 

Gerald's Game: 29th August 2012

This is the last of the books that I've read before, so everything's new from hereon in. To me at least. I'm sure there are some who claim that from a certain point, King has just pumped out rehashed versions of his (and others') earlier works.
We'll see.
For me, this is an exciting juncture of the quest.  Gerald's Game is the last Stephen King book I read before I decided to take on this challenge of filling my boots with his works, and that was nearly twenty years ago.  I was still at school and this fucker held me close and didn't let me go the whole time I was reading it.  A little reminiscent of the plot?  So I'm looking forward to seeing if it has the same effect on me.  You'll have noticed, if you've read any of the other posts that I'm more of a Bachman/non-supernatural fan, so this should be just as affecting to me as it ever was.
After this, then, it's all new ground and a whole host of books of which I only know the titles or have seen the films.  Fuck it, it seems significant to me, despite of my absolute failure to explain why.

In the last post, I got on about things that had hindered my progress in reading Needful Things -(now would be a good time to stop reading if you couldn't give two shits about me and only come here for the King vibe).  The biggest of these was writing the lyrics to ten songs in more or less one go.  I've been away from playing in bands for a few years (heroes for sale - http://www.soundcloud.com/heroesforsale12), mainly since having kids, but this year have hit upon the idea of emerging from my indolent state to see what, at 34, I'm capable of.  One of these things has been to get in the best shape of my life (since my mid-teens, anyway) and up the level of running I've been doing in the last couple of years to having a go at a half-marathon.  I didn't enter a race or anything, just mapped it out, put together an 'encouraging' playlist and just went for it.  It was a mixture of awesome and pure agony that left me almost in tears.  Oddly, I found myself doing it again four weeks later. Score.

Anyway, back to the lyrics.  I've missed writing, playing and recording music and, although my family situation rightfully and necessarily reduces my free time, there are ways and means.  I decided to it was within my means and abilities to write and record an album.  So that's what I've been doing (with hugely appreciated help from my good friends Jon and Marcus).  We've got the music of the basic songs I wrote hammered out and ready to demo, I've just finished the lyrics and are getting ready to put it all together before, at some point, recording.  There's not much ambition outside of creating and finishing the piece, but you never know.

So, the band is called Wolves and Vultures.  My wife hates the name, so it's obviously awesome.  It's always nice to have a flawless artistic barometer in the house, even if it's always contrary.  I could be wrong, of course.  As I'm a massive prick/slave to the times, you can find out more (not much at this point) on twitter - @wolves_vultures, facebook - http://www.facebook.com/wolvesandvultures.

Anyway, less fucking about and back to the book.

As always, thank you for reading.

Needful Things: 7th July - 29th August 2012

So, Needful Things eh?

 

It's really very good.  Or at least very enjoyable.  This isn't literary criticism, it's a blog, so that's as qualified a summary statement as you're going to get.

It has that classic slow-burning build up before it all kicks off.  The thing is, when it does hit its high gear (with about 300 pages to go!), it pretty much keeps its foot to the floor until the very end.  The energy and thrust is all very visceral too and literally (like totally) had my pulse racing.  It's people doing shit to other people in pretty terrible ways.  Instigation and evil agencies aside, it's a very people centric story and, in spite of the inevitable and perhaps even unfortunate supernatural grounding, has more to say about humanity and our desire, weakness and the price we're willing to pay for these than the potential existence of 'outside evil' - whatever that means.

 

It's also classic King in the construction a narrative with such a fully fleshed out community of characters.  His exposition and the character traits that emerge during the action foster the image of King having painted each one by hand like those dudes who are into miniature wargaming and paint all of their tiny figures under a magnifying glass.  Some folk find this dull.  Not me.  I don't think he overstepped the exposition mark here, and with a girth of almost 800-pages, that's not bad going.

 

I think I'm past the point of rating the books better or worse than the others.  I don't see a lot of worth in that.  I really only judge on how much I enjoyed it.  I know that makes me sound a bit simple and devoid of critical thought but, as I keep saying, this is a blog.  I'm not judging the books on how good they are as objectively as reviewers are supposed to (although I agree with the idea I read recently, and am completely at a loss to properly credit, that reviews are always autobiographical because the reading of a book is experiential - I apologise for totally fucking mashing up the sentiment there) so an objective review is pretty much a paradox.  I will say that Needful Things has sprung into my top 5 favourite King books.  I'm not sure what the others are.  Off the top of my head, the ones I've liked best so far are Pet Sematary, The Running Man, Thinner, The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three and The Long Walk.  That's right, The Stand isn't up there.  Neither are IT or The Shining.  I have much more time for the latter two I've just mentioned, but they didn't get me the same way as the ones in my shortlist.  One day I'll probably revisit The Stand, because the mythic status so many seem to ascribe it is a little lost on me thus far.  One day.

 

Another thing that makes such weighing of the quality of one book against the others pointless, particularly at this stage is that, as I've said previously and will say a little more about in the next post, once I get past Gerald's Game, everything is new to me.  I haven't read a think King has written in the last twenty+ years.  Yep.

 

Anyway, one last thing about/around Needful Things.  That it took me so long to finish bears no reflection on my enjoyment of it.  My having started, got bogged down with and eventually abandoning Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer didn't help.  Nor did re-reading Kafka's The Metamorphosis for the umpteenth time and deciding I should brush up on my German by reading it again and deconstructing it in the original language.  That didn't go as well as I'd hoped.  The height of my German scholarship and understanding was nearly half of my life ago.  We have these ideas...  I've promised myself I'll come back to this one.

 

There was an other thing that distracted me from ploughing through Needful Things as quickly as I should have done considering how much I buzzed off it, but this post is quite long enough.  I'll bore you with it in the next one.

 

Needful Things 7th July 2012

I don't know much about this one. I read something about it being the last Castle Rock book. That's about it. Let's go.

The Dark Tower: Volume 3 - The Waste Lands ~ 6th June - 6th July 2012

I'm going to launch right in and say that I found much of The Waste Lands boring. I know King's renowned for taking a hundred pages where ten would have sufficed, but it was more than that. I found myself wishing he'd just get on with it.

There were a lot of things I liked about the book. Roland is certainly growing on me. There wasn't a lot to like about him in the first book, but as his temperament thaws, so does my feeling towards him. I'm sure I said in my post on The Gunslinger that I'm not childish enough to find antipathy towards a protagonist a deal-breaker for my enjoyment of a book, but it doesn't hurt when it goes the other way.
It was nice to see Jake rejoin the group and Eddie and Susannah are still interesting enough. When things get going and something actually happens, it's pure King and as we know by now, he knows how to get the pulse racing.

King's wont to tell us that the books largely write themselves and he hasn't got them all outlined before writing. At times, this is quite apparent, especially when he's rambling along and I was willing him to find the direction and get on with getting there. I know that, as part of a wider story, there will be aspects of it and Mid-World itself that will, in time, take on much greater and more immediate significance and until then remain oblique and incongruous. I should probably serve up an example here. Let's pretend I did. I may be hanging on to false hope that when I'm able to see the whole story, these sections will radiate with relevance and show themselves to be keystones of the whole saga in one of those 'end of Fight Club' reveals. We'll see.

Once again, there's a generous degree of allowance for the book's failures as a stand alone novel due to its position in the ongoing saga. Anyone who criticised the ending of the book at the time was acting like a spoilt child. Mind you, I imagine it was long six years before Wizard and Glass was published.

Overall, I've come away with a negative impression of The Waste Lands. You know the adage where things are described as being greater than the sum of its parts? It's the opposite here. In their singularity, there are some great moments, but they're set within a world and a framework I don't really care for. I want to see how the relationship between Roland and Jake continues to develop and I'm interested to see what the deal is with The Dark Tower but am finding the journey tiresome.

It's a bit worrying to me that The Dark Tower series is King's self-professed magnum opus because, from what I've seen so far, I'd rather it was a passion project and a distraction from the main body of work. That said, King's art is his business alone and, as a Constant Reader, I am not entitled to a say or an illusion of entitlement about his work. My role is nothing more or less than the choice to read or not to read. And read I will.

The Dark Tower - Volume 3: The Waste Lands - 6th June 2012

Despite having loved the second instalment of The Dark Tower (The Drawing of the Three), I've shuffled towards The Waste Lands. It has surprised me as I thought I'd have been much keener to dive in.
I think there are two factors at play. Firstly, after finishing Four Past Midnight I read Joe Hill's Horns instead of cracking on. It was a really good read and I'll take the opportunity to recommend it. You might as well swing by his website joehillfiction.com and follow him on twitter @joe_hill while you're at it.

Secondly, the cover for copy of The Waste Lands that I have is shit. It reminds me of those ridiculous illustrations on Jehovah's Witness pamphlets. I know it's a pretty standard sci-fi cover, but it's terrible. I'm sure John Avon doesn't care any.

That said, there's really no reason I shouldn't be buzzing off starting in on this book, so I'll shut up and get on with it.

The Sun Dog (Four Past Midnight): 24th - 28th May

After giving the first three books in this collection such high praise, it's a bit of a shame that Four Past Midnight ends with a bit of a damp squib for me. While the closing section had me galloping through the pages to the, admittedly satisfying conclusion, I wasn't particularly captured by the build up. I wanted to be, of course. It just didn't really happen.

The ingredients were right. All the elements of a creepy tale were there and yet it didn't do its do on me. A bit like Thorntons and Lindt chocolate. Bear with me. They're no tinpot companies and have a reputation, perhaps self-constructed, of being master chocolatiers and yet, their chocolate is shitty.
How they manage to get it so wrong is beyond me. I'm not calling The Sun Dog shitty, by any means. But you get my point.

In other news, I finally got hold of The first volume of Joe Hill's Locke and Key comic book series from the library. It's very, very good. While I was there, I also picked up his second novel, Horns. Having had a look at the first couple of chapters, I'll be giving his dad a rest and hope to rattle through what is already looking like a very interesting book.

Listening:

Chris T-T - Disobedience & Love Is Not Rescue
Pure Love - Bury My Bones (free download)
Jim Lockey and The Solemn Sun - Death
A load of Skitsystem

The Library Policeman (Three Past Midnight) 19-24th May 2012

Lovely stuff. It's a bit of a relief to say The Library Policeman creeped me out. I even thought (hoped?) it might invade my dreams one night after reading the part that got to me most just before turning in for the night. It didn't, but the uneasy sleep would have been worth it to know I'm not completely overcome by imaginative ennui. I liked the classic ghost story feel of the early chapters (although the roaring success of the speech seemed to be a set up that was never really followed through) and am going to choose this point to self-designate myself a Constant Reader. I know the echoes of the Deadlights from IT and the mention of Paul Sheldon from Misery aren't the most arcane of references and neither are the interlinking Castle Rock or Dark Tower details found elsewhere, but it's satisfying to pick them out and place the story, and also your readership, in the grander patchwork of King's work. It's the little things...

Perhaps if more of Danse Macabre was staying in my head rather than almost literally going in one ear and out the other*, this and others of my reactions (I really can't call them reviews) to the books would show a deeper understanding, awareness and appreciation of the tenets, conventions and formulas of the horror genre. But, as things are going, that's not looking likely.

As I move onto The Sun Dog, I'm still sticking with my earlier thought that this collection would be the book I'd recommend to a King first-timer. It's not too gory to put off the unaccustomed reader but serves as a good introduction to King, the depths he plumbs and the heights to which he can propel us. The Library Policeman is right up there in bolstering that recommendation. If you haven't read it, do.
I've borrowed this book from the library, as it goes. Hope I a) don't lose it and b) don't get bummed when I try to return it.

*I started reading Danse Macabre ages ago. About 18 months ago actually, but didn't get too far before I decided to pick up the next novel, with the hope of reading both concurrently. It didn't happen and the book is left on my shelf giving me the odd, half-hearted dirty looks. It's not that it's not a good read (it does stray on the dry side) but the pull of fiction was too strong and any divergence from the fiction is a detour I can scarcely afford. Yes, I know my extra-King reading should fit that category also, but throw me a bone, man cannot live by bread alone. Anyway, I solved the problem by hunting out the audiobook for Danse Macabre. Audiobooks have their downsides, particularly those read by Alyssa Bresnahan (good god she's the worst...in the world...ever), but in this case, William Dufris is pretty good. He brings the conversational tone of King's non-fiction writing to life and is making it much easier to get through the thing. I should be back with some rambles on it before the leaves turn.

Secret Window (film) 21st May 2012

Writing the post on Secret Window, Secret Garden the other day, I had to stop myself from just writing about the film. Here, it's the other way around. I really don't want to go on about film adaptations of books and their inherent handicap for anyone who has already read it, but here's an example where the film is almost pointless if you know what's going to happen.

In terms of its plot, the film relies so heavily on the twist reveal that, knowing all the events and the outcome, it ends up being a thankless charade. Johnny Depp's performance, particularly the comic touch, saves it from being a total waste of time and the darker ending is a satisfying change but it's really not great.

I don't know what else to say. Part of me is lurching to come out and claim that if you've read a book you should never see the film because you know where the mystery tour is headed. The other part understands that you can know how a magician does a trick and still have your breath taken away by the grace and skill of its execution.


Here, it's just a case of "Oh, that's how it's done..."

Secret Window, Secret Garden (Two Past Midnight): 6th - 19th May 2012

My first reaction to my first encounter with the plot of Secret Window, Secret Garden was disappointment at the use of what felt like a cheap and unimaginative plot device. Admittedly, this was from seeing the film adaptation; where the strength of the whole piece can rest on the whether the big reveal elicits appreciative surprise or a groan.

Seeing the film, I groaned. From there, the book didn't have much of a chance. I'm definitely on team 'book before film' and this was a sucker punch from that corner. That said, when I saw the film, I saw it on the strength of it being a King adaptation (and there are worse actors than Depp and Turturro) and I wasn't expecting to be reading it all these years down the line, so it's just one I'll have to put down to experience. I'll be approaching The Green Mile and 1408 with some trepidation and hope that having seen the films doesn't spoil the read.

Anyway, enough about the film. I'll be watching it again soon enough so it will be getting a post all of its own in due course.

My second reaction to Secret Window, Secret Garden (this time from the reading) is surprise at its proximity to The Dark Half. I think one compounds the other but I'm talking both thematically and temporally. I know the founding ideas differ (pseudonym vs. plagiarism) but in both there is the physical manifestation of the mental concept. Their being published so close together makes it hard for me fully extricate them from comparison.

Saying that, I'm not going to examine this comparison. This is a blog post, not a thesis (and I'm a mental sloth with a flair for indolence.) Instead, I'll just talk a little more about the plagiarism personified, so to speak. I don't know enough about mental illness to judge the accuracy of someone being so plagued by the guilt of previously passing someone else's work off as their own to bring the need and search for retribution upon themselves but it had more plausibility and logic than The Dark Half. While I know the former isn't an essential ingredient in the fantasy genre, surely the latter is one of the fine threads suspending our disbelief. I preferred this story to The Dark Half. The 'ghostly' epilogue aside, Secret Window, Secret Guardian wasn't nearly so divorced from reality as The Dark Half, which drifted towards the absurd. This last point shouldn't be important, but I decided to let it be here.

I wonder whether its the conflict between the close realism of King's writing (in that he sucks you into the reality of his plots through the detail of his writing) and the fantastical elements. By that I mean that his worlds seem so real, I sometimes apply the same laws of possibility as I do to ours e.g. there's no such thing as the supernatural. Shit, that would be like a thousand nails in the coffin of my suspension of disbelief and stop this mission in its tracks. Not cool.
Or is it more a problem of age and application of imagination? I say application rather than ability as I don't suffer from the same problem when watching films or reading comics. Must. Try. Harder.

The Wikipedia page for the book describes Mort (and Thad) as a thinly veiled analogue of himself. The more I read of his books, the more I realise he puts of himself in them. Actually writing that makes it sound an incredibly facile observation. It stands to reason and is something you take for granted but unless you're told or take the time to read around a book, you wouldn't know the specifics. I certainly don't think it's necessary to see what lies behind the curtain and we've all read any number of books without knowing the first thing about the author, but I'm not averse to a bit of author/work trivia.

I'll finish with an apology for the length of this entry, heartfelt thanks for your reading it and this link on the subject of plagiarism, this time levelled at King himself -

The Langoliers (One Past Midnight): 28th April - 5th May 2012

I started writing something the day after I finished The Langoliers but things never really got going.

I liked this book a lot. The central concept of being out of time, the destruction of the past and birth of the future is nice and simple and it's nice to see King write with a tauter focus than usual.

I've left it a bit long to say anything meaningful about the book (if I ever do) and have ended up with a post that has me asking 'why did I even bother?'. Brilliant.

I just went off on one about how, as I'm halfway through the next short novel in the collection, Secret Window, Secret Garden, I'd add it to the short list of books I'd recommend for newcomers to Kings. I then explained why I had such a list and the considerations involved, but it bored me, so I deleted it. Shit. Sorry. I'll try harder for the next one.

Four Past Midnight: 28th April 2012

The only thing I knew about this collection before picking it up was that one of the stories had been adapted for a film starring Johnny Depp, John Turturro and Maria Bello. I saw it at the cinema and was steadfastly underwhelmed.

Since starting this reading project, I've also discovered that The Langoliers has also made its way to film. I'm not certain of its reception but, as Dean Stockwell's in it, it's pretty much nailed on that I'll hunt it out. For better or worse.

I've no doubt expressed my affection for short novels previously in this blog and, faced with the four here, it's fair to say I've got a bit of a book boner at the prospect of this collection.

The Dark Half: 9th - 26th April 2012

I’m not sure how I feel about this one.  The story is a bit daft - I know that’s something you just have to take for granted (with varying degrees depending on the premise) with Stephen King’s books - and the genre in general, but I think the physical manifestation of a parasitic twin crept a little too far over the line and prevented my total absorption.

There was enough about the book that I did like to keep me interested the whole way through and I cared for the safe outcome of Thad, his family and Alan.  I liked pretty much all of the characters and appreciated the less than tome-like length of the book.  There wasn’t much I didn’t like about the reading experience either.

As for what I wasn’t keen on: Stark’s existence made no sense.  Yes, I know King’s works beg a hefty suspension of disbelief, he’s just usually much more explanatory or at least provides a thread of logic to the far-fetched plot points.  I’m not saying I’d have preferred a classic dissociative identity disorder story, although it would have been easier to swallow than the physical reality of Stark as a separate person.  Of course it wouldn’t, and couldn’t, have been the same book, but at least it would have been a concrete reference point.  I’m being a whiny bitch, I know, but for someone whose works are generally resplendent with exposition, we were kept as much in the dark as the characters themselves.

The illustration of the bond between the twin babies was something that always threatened to have a deeper significance than it actually turned out to have, particularly when William displayed the identical bruise that Wendy earned from her fall.  In the end it didn’t go anywhere and, if the point was just to say that twins have a strange connection, he made that point just by stating it and mentioning the few examples of phenomena and didn’t need the Wendy/William goose chase.

As for the book being a response to his outing as Richard Bachman, I’m a bit removed, 20 years down the line, always having known that Bachman was King to be too much moved by the idea that he was outed.  The idea of the pen name existing as a distinct personality is interesting but a little over-dramatic when extrapolated to the nth degree.  I think/hope it’s more a case of King having a bit of fun with the concept.

So yeah…The Dark Half.  Not great but not shit.

The Dark Half - 9th Apr 2012

Here we go again. Once more I'll make the resolution to charge through it. I'll just have to see how strong my will is in fending off the relentless desire to read comics.

For a change, I've decided to read the flap synopsis. It sounds great. A horror-thriller-page turner would go down lovely about now.

The Tommyknockers: 6th Feb - 8th Apr

This took me quite a bit longer than I'd have liked, initially intended and certainly longer than it should to have had the proper experience of the book. Aside from my usual indolence and distractions, I'm going to lay the blame at the door of comics and Walker Percy. Between The Walking Dead, Third World War, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Transmetropolitan, I've finally been making some progress with the Ultimate Edition Battle Royale manga I've had hanging around for the last year. Considering my usual slow progress with the King novels, this is clearly a terrible idea. I don't suppose reading Percy's The Moviegoer twice helped matters too much either.


So anyway, The Tommyknockers...
I started really hopeful that I was going to love it but was left it feeling a bit underwhelmed. Aside from my reading habits contributing to a complete lack of momentum, I had trouble giving much of a shit about the characters, well, maybe apart from Ruth and Ev. I didn't care much for the residents of Haven or the neighbouring locals who ended up being casualties of the maelstrom. As always, there is plenty to be gained from the simple act of reading Stephen King, but there were plenty of times when his long-windedness and painstaking backstory composition dragged. Had I been hammering my way through it, this may not have been as noticeable or off-putting for me.


The other problem I had was a lack of interest and connection with the plot as a whole. As so much of the nature of the Tommyknockers was left until the very last to be explained (not a problem in itself as constructing a story with so many unknowns and ultimately unexplaineds is not something I'm afraid of nor put off by, rather it's often something I'd prefer) we were left only with the effects of the ship and the Tommyknockers on Haven and its residents. As I didn't care much for them, even Bobbi, the whole thing ended up being a story I had to sit and see played out. I didn't expect Gard to figure quite so extensively but fear that any endearment I built up towards him in the first half didn't have the legs to perpetuate. Again, my halting reading was probably most to blame.


As for my usual question: did it scare me? The short answer is no. I'm not left watching the skies or fearing the resurgent energy of a buried alien ship. That sounds really dumb when I put it like that - I know that the scare factor of horror, and particularly sci-fi horror, is rarely concentrated on and confined to "what if this really happened?". In fact, is it ever? There were a couple of occasions where the physical transformation of the becoming had me squirming but past that, the chills were at a minimum.


I can imagine the tv mini-series was a pile of horseshit but you know I'll end up watching it, if only to revisit the book and scratch the nagging itch that it was better than I thought. We'll see. Until then I'm giving it a meh.

Misery (film) – 8th February 2012

I watched the film again last night. It’s very good. I’m not usually James Caan’s number one fan (ahem, sorry) but he did a great job in this and, of course, Kathy Bates was tremendous.
I also watched the accompanying featurette on the DVD from 2000-ish (I’m presuming that date as they were talking about Richard Farnsworth in the past tense) and there was Barry Sonnenfeld talking about how he used different lenses and, as his last job as cinematographer, before he went onto directing such gems as Wild Wild West, but even though the bit about using different lenses to match the tone of certain scenes was interesting, the film generally has the flat look of a TV movie. The more I think about it, the more I'd like to watch the film again with the director's commentary to see what in filmic terms went a good mile or so over my head as I did get the sense of it being filmed and staged with a very classic feel, I just haven't got that film school knowledge to provide adequate points of reference.

Rob Reiner also talked about the casting. I thought it was a nice touch that the relative fame levels of the characters was reflected in the choice of actors. I didn’t know that Kathy Bates was much more of a stage actor at the time but she certainly set out her stall for the film world with this one.

It’s a very faithful adaptation (obviously there are some alterations and omissions - but don't tell me you didn't wince at this version of hobbling too) and, from a fan perspective, that’s perfect, particularly as it’s underpinned by outstanding performances. One of the other things I liked is that the film did a lot of showing and not a lot of telling. It's nice to see that in a book adaptation.

Kathy Bates rules. After her awesome turn on Six Feet Under I'm still crushing on her like crazy. Her part on The Office was lovely too.

I know this post is a bit disjointed and cack, but if there's one thing I want to say it's that in a world where there are really only a handful of really good Stephen King film adaptations among buckets of shit, this is one of the very good ones.

The Tommyknockers: 6th Feb 2012

I don't know the first thing about this book and am not going to read the synopsis/'from the flap' info before I launch into it.  It's a rare thing for me to be able to go into a book without expectation or preconceived ideas of what to expect (other than those which come with reading a Stephen King novel, of course) and something I think worthwhile to maintain.

Expectations do influence our reading, right?  I'm not making this up.  Does anyone else think it's worthwhile to go into a book or a film etc. knowing as little as possible about it?

Misery: 31st January - 5th February

I absolutely loved Misery. Straight in there and relentlessly tense with barely a lull from beginning to end. Just what the doctor ordered.

I know I've said again and again that I prefer non-supernatural horror (and, again and again, raise the question of why I'm even reading King in the first place, but that's a discussion for another day - I'm sure I've talked about it in an earlier post but will no doubt come back to it again for another going over) and this book is right at the top of my reasons why. I was catapulted into Paul Sheldon's world and lived in the shadow of his fear for the whole 360 pages. If proof were needed that there’s no necessity for imaginary beasties to put the fear of god into a man, here’s our sweet little Annie, resplendently terrifying and unhinged enough to burn her afterimage on the mind’s eye in a similar way it does with Paul at the end of the book.


One of the other things I liked about Misery was the inside look on the writing process and also, at least by inference, King's own feelings towards his status (deserved just as much as perceived, surely) as a genre writer wanting to throw off the shackles of pigeon-holing.  While I’ve always seen his status as a really good writer to be self-evident in the books I’ve read, there are obviously those who don’t see any possible overlap in the Venn diagram of horror writer/good writer.  I was originally going to say that the only thing I didn’t like about the book, and it could have definitely done without, were the sections taken from the novel within the novel; Misery’s Return.  It has just occurred to me that here, King may have been displaying what real trash writing is and, by comparison with the book proper, the true quality of his horror writing is reflectively illuminated.  Maybe?  Probably not.

As I’ve seen the film, albeit many years ago, it was difficult to divorce the characters from the mental images of James Caan and Kathy Bates, even subconsciously.  That’s was no bad thing, though, as I remember being terrified by the film and am looking forward to seeing it again.

If you haven’t read Misery yet, it’s about time you did.

Are you kidding me...?

I know the film/mini-series got some stick but this is terrifying!

Misery: 31st January 2012

I'm really excited about this one. For a couple of reasons. I've read it before and know it's a goodie (not forgetting the film - I'll definitely be hunting it down once I've read it) but also, I've just read Walker Percy's The Moviegoer so am ready for an easier read. I know The Moviegoer isn't a densely, didactic tome, but its reading demanded a fair degree of intellectual application and interpretation. It does for me anyway. I'm currently researching critical thought on the book and Kierkegaard's philosophical influence and their confluence with Percy's own ideas on existentialism and subjective experience. All good fun, but I'm ready for a page-turner.Let's go!

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three: 19th-24th January 2012

I'm more than happy to say I really, really enjoyed this one.  After my disappointment with The Gunslinger - http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/02/gunslinger-dark-tower-i-14th-jan-19th.html *(more on this below)- it was a relief to find that I got right into the thing straight away and charged through it.  I especially took pleasure in how often I found myself looking forward to the next time I'd be able to pick the book back up and get on with the story.

These days it's almost unheard of for me to read a 450 page book in a few days.  It's both a relief and a reassurance that I can make the time and maintain the concentration in the face of the Internet and the iphone, not forgetting marriage, parenthood and employment, to achieve such a feat.

So, why and what did I like about this book?  I think the main draw this time was the gunslinger's increased humanity.  While he's still nails and a borderline sociopath, it was much easier to warm to him here than in The Gunslinger.  I don't know whether you feel it necessary to like your protagonist to enjoy a book, but it must help.  I remember reading Camus' The Outsider and not liking or enjoying the book in the slightest bit because I found the main guy an absolute tool.  I know that was part of the point and the reader should be able to appreciate the work with an artistic detachment, I just couldn't bridge that gap.
I know it's not essential to be able to identify with the hero - I'm not that much of a simpleton - but you can't deny that it makes the reading that bit smoother.
The story itself was compelling.  The mixture of the slowly closing doorway to progression on the quest with the well-written horror of the beach scenes and the rip-roaring tales of the gunslinger's interloping in the minds of The Prisoner, The Lady of Shadows and The Pusher.

I was going to say there were a couple of things in the book that I wasn't that bothered about, but really it's just one big thing.  The Odetta/Detta thread didn't do much for me.  It seemed a protracted way of constructing the twist of the three that were actually drawn in the end.  I'm not saying it wasn't a nice and satisfactory twist, it was just a thread where the destination interested me much more than the journey.

It's something of a challenge to satisfactorily view the book as an isolated work in itself.  Yes, I know it's a volume within a larger work and can't (or shouldn't) be divorced from its place in the greater tale.  But still, it's a novel and should have enough of narrative arc to exist independently.  What I'm really getting at is; is there a limit to how much a book can rely on its existent volumes for details and character traits that this one will only tell you about and never show.  And equally; can an author only get away with so many obscure nods to the future and the promise that this detail will be really significant or 'if you just keep on the road with me for another n pages, the story is really going to take off'?
I'm not really levelling any charges at King here, rather just giving voice to ideas that crossed my mind as I came to the end of the book.  It's fair to say I'm very much looking forward to continuing on Roland's quest for the Dark Tower, there's just the small matter of four novels and a collection of novellas to see off first.

*On the subject of The Gunslinger - when I came to starting reading The Drawing of the Three, there was a bit of a recap of The Gunslinger and I found myself thinking 'really? I don't remember that'.  Clearly my memory is toss.  So, in an effort to refresh my shitty memory and find out whether I'd missed something that would have made me appreciate the book more as well as looking back with a modicum of context surrounding Roland, the man in black and the tower quest, I'm currently listening to the audiobook version of The Gunslinger, read by Stephen King himself.  It would have made sense to have finished it before I got to the end of The Drawing of the Three but things didn't work out that way.  Do they ever.  Anyway, once I'm done I'll be back with a re-review.

Thanks for reading.

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - 19th January 2012

So, I read Jeff Lemire’s Essex County once I’d finished The Eyes of the Dragon and it was so, so good. I can’t recommend it enough. The artwork is stark, distinctive and beautiful and the story is heart-breakingly moving and real but its heaviness doesn’t drag it down. It’s a thing of wonder.

Anyway, back to The Dark Tower. I didn’t care much for The Gunslinger so am hoping for a vast improvement. I am reliably informed by Laura of http://devouringtexts.blogspot.com/ that it is “The Dark Tower is the best ever!” so my expectations are still pretty high.

Onward!

The Eyes of Dragon: 8th-16th January 2012

A nice, quick one; that just about sums up the whole book and my response to it.

Not knowing anything about the book beforehand, it’s apparent in the first pages that it falls squarely in the fantasy genre.  I’ve got to say, I’m not sure how I feel about the fantasy as a genre.  It’s not something I generally read, but don’t have an outright aversion to it.  I think people who reject whole genres of literature are idiots.  Whatever setting they’re in, the stories are all about people being people and, while not always groundbreaking, they’re often revelatory or at least illuminative of our capacity to cover the spectrum of good and bad behaviour.

It’s also quickly apparent that this is an all-ages book.  There’s no horror, no bad language or sex etc.  It’s just a nice, wholesome story of good vs. evil in a fantasy land of magic, dragons and kings and queens in their castles.  From reading this (http://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/eyes_of_the_dragon_the_inspiration.html) King wrote the book for his then 13 year old daughter who wasn’t keen on his horror stories.  It feels to me like an author flexing his writing abilities and trying his hand at a genre exercise outside of his usual fare.  As I’ve already said, it’s a nice story, nicely written and, of course, has a nice ending (I don’t think that comes close to spoiling it) but that really is it.  I haven’t even got anything bad to say about it.  I don’t have a great deal of praise for it either.  I will say that I happily charged through it, was very interested to see how things would turn out in the end and did get caught up in the race against time, was touched by the loyalty between friends and fealty of servant to master.  It will serve as the perfect introduction to his works for my own children when they get a little older.

That he would eventually come to see his grand fantasy series, The Dark Tower, as his true magnum opus is interesting and a little disconcerting at this stage as I’m not really buzzing at the prospect of spending more time in a fantasy land.  Presumably, The Dark Tower is a lot more grown-up?  As The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three is next on my list, I guess I’ll be finding out sooner than later.

Well, once I’ve read Jeff Lemire’s Essex County Trilogy.  My wife got it for me at Christmas and I've been looking for an opportunity to read it without interrupting the King mission.  As I'm now waiting for my local library to find a copy of The Drawing of the Three - now's as good a time as any.

If you're into comics, or not, check out Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth series.  It's so good!  In fact, anything he's put his hand to is worth a look.

The King Long View...continued

I started this post in August last year, but failed miserably in finishing and posting it.  I’ve watched quite a few of the film adaptations recently and meant to write a bit about them at the time but, of course, indolence always wins out; that and the indomitable wariness of ever espousing a critical opinion.

29/03/11            The Shawshank Redemption

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/02/different-seasons-rita-haywo-rth-and.html


I’ll come straight out and say I love this film.  I know there’s some mixed opinion on it, and I summed up mine in a recent tweet – “If you don’t love The Shawshank Redemption, you are either a reactant douche, dead inside or a fucking liar.”

I don’t know about it being one of the best films of all time, but it’s one of my favourites.  Aside from the fact that there’s a yawning chasm between something being critically good and it’s potential to be enjoyed, I can’t help but feel that anyone’s dislike for the film is fuelled by a desire to buck the trend.

30/03/11            Stand by Me

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/03/different-seasons-20th-february-29th.html

This film gets better each time I watch it.  It’s one of the few films where comparisons between it and the book are largely meaningless and the realm of trolling donkeys.

04/04/11            Apt Pupil

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/03/different-seasons-apt-pupil-22nd-march.html

McKellan’s always great, but the kid was just annoying.  I guess that was the point, so he did a good job, but it made it hard to get behind. 

02/05/11            Christine

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/04/christine-30th-march-26th-april-2011.html

Shit.  Can’t be bothered to explain, except to say that Arnie was a dick who was neither menacing enough nor capable of eliciting any sympathy.

11/05/11            Firestarter

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2010/10/firestarter-26th-sep-13th-october.html

I’ve read reviews of the film that hated it.  I didn’t hate it.  Like many adaptations of King’s work, they just stay faithful and let poor performances shit all over your imaginiations.

25/05/11            Cat's Eye

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2010/03/night-shift-20th-feb-8th-mar-2010.html


Not great, but not bad. 

08/06/11            Creepshow

Awful

12/06/11            Pet Sematary

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/05/pet-sematary-26th-april-4th-may-2011.html


Apart from Herman Munster being in it (although I think he was miscast), there’s no justification for this film having been made.  It’s one of the few times where I’ll put my foot down and say “just read the book!”

20/06/11            Cujo

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2010/11/cujo-6th-26th-november.html


A bit pointless.  And they changed the ending.  Pussies.

17/08/11            Silver Bullet

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/05/cycle-of-werewolf-4th-5th-may-2011.html


Definitely one for the ‘so bad it’s good’ category.  Good, but not great.  Gary Busey was typically inappropriate and wonderful.

22/12/11            The Mist

http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/09/mist-skeleton-crew-22nd-31st-august.html

I loved the novella.  Loved it.  I didn’t like the film nearly as much; mainly because it’s a straightforward retelling of the story that removes all of your imaginary detail and replaces it with someone else’s.  I’ve seen criticisms of the effects and acting which, to be fair, were TV-movie standard (Toby Jones was the standout and Marcia Gay Harden was effective in that I wished her eventual demise could have come within moments of her appearance on screen.  But it was still a solid film.

Much has been made of the ending.  I’d heard it was even bleaker than the book so was very interested into what Darabont had changed.  I know I’m dropping book spoilers all over the place, but I won’t spoil the film ending, save to say that my jaw dropped and I sat gaping at the screen with my mouth agape and thinking ‘fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.’  Awesome.

The Eyes of the Dragon: 8th January 2012

470 pages of bigger print. Easy street!Roland and Flagg are familiar names but, past that, it's all new to me. Let's go!

2011

Seeing as I don't update my personal blog I might as well put this here.

Here are some of my favourite things that I put in my eyes and ears released in 2011

Film:
Thor
Source Code
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Drive
X-Men: First Class
The Guard
Snow Town
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Black Swan
True Grit

Music:
Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
Ben Marwood - Outside There's a Curse
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
Chris T-T - Disobedience: Chris T-T Sings A.A. Milne and Words Fail Me EP
Touché Amoré - Parting the Seas Between Brightness and Me
Oxygen Thief: Destroy it Yourself

There were more, some disappointing (Rise Against - Endgame, Frank Turner - England Keep my Bones; I love him and there are some of his best songs yet on there, but there's some cack and it's not the masterpiece everyone's making it out to be. I'm not a blind apologist for his early stuff either. His best is still to come.)
Some that I haven't give enough time:
Russian Circles - Empros, Mogwai - Hardcore will Never Die, Oathbreaker - Mælstrøm

Comedy:
Louis C.K. - Hilarious, Live at the Beacon Theatre and the Louie series. The guy can do no wrong.
Marc Maron - This Has to Be Funny (if you haven't already, get stuck into his WTF podcast - WTFPod.com)
Patton Oswalt - Finest Hour

TV:
The Walking Dead
True Blood's still worth a watch
The Office (US) - I hadn't seen it at all until this year. For shame.
I also rewatched all of Quantum Leap. It went on for two seasons too many, but it was such a good show.
I also finally got on the 30 Rock and Breaking Bad trains.

IT: 24th September 2011 - 8th January 2012

Writing a post for IT is a bit daunting. Considering the book's expansive, ranging immensity, my inclination is to try to write something that pays tribute to those qualities. That said, this is not a masters thesis, nor even a school book report or even a review, so I'll just say what I feel like saying and leave it at that.
While it took over three months to read it, that's not due to procrastination or going off reading other things, as I did during both The Stand and The Talisman (I'm picking on these two as they're the longest of his books I've encountered so far.) I read a few comics but not many. It's really a measure of how much time I have (or, more tellingly, make) to read. It's a big book, but it didn't drag. During both The Stand and The Talisman, I found myself looking at how much I still had to read with a degree of exasperation and the feeling that I didn't much care about what was still to come. Not with IT.
I don't think it lost its way or grew tired. I don't even think it could have lost a few hundred pages. I really enjoyed it. I loved the way he drew each of the many strands of the plot and gradually entwined them. I'd also liken it to a patchwork quilt with vibrant, beautifully embroidered panels that is eventually folded in on itself as the arcs are drawn to their conclusion. The way the parallels between the 1958 and 1985 strands become more apparent, until they become two sides of the same coin spinning in place, was a delight to read.
As for my usual question: did it scare me? It did a bit. While posing a real threat to our heroes and its many victims, IT's predominant strength is the way it taps into the nature and mechanics of fear itself, particularly the immobilising irrationality of perceived fear. I haven't come away from it with an aversion to clowns, though their intrinsic creepiness is no less diminished. I'm still not great with the dark. What a girl.
If there was anything about the book that niggled me, it was the group virginity-losing. While a group of eleven year olds having sex in the context of a horror novel doesn't offend me per se, its inclusion does demand some justification, whether as a plot point or conceptual device. There are enough people whom the idea will render apoplectic and, without anything to back it up, the scene comes off as pornographic by definition. Having read a couple of his books now, I know that King isn't a cheap writer, so he gets the benefit of the doubt in this instance but giving a more explicit reason than a bonding experience for the group would have been nice. I wondered whether he was using it as a way for them to prematurely transcend the boundary between childhood and adulthood as a way to sabotage IT's influence over them. But, considering their encounters twenty-eight years later, this obviously wasn't the case. That said, this is a horror novel: the arena of subverted norms where anything can, and often, does happen.
So yeah, 1090 pages of small type later, I'm done with IT. Good shit!