Mr. Mercedes: 19th - 27th August 2016

I came out of it having really liked Mr Mercedes. For a good part of the first half, it was hard to escape the sense of King wearing the disguise of crime writer. He knows his stuff, so the conventions and whatever else (I'm wholly aware that I don't really know what I'm talking about when it comes to the minutiae of genre and have rambled at some length about my literary and critical ignorance, so you'll just have to take these comments in the same throwaway vein as the rest of this blog) are all there, but so are the cracks. The disguise is ill-fitting at times. As in, he knows what's expected in a crime novel, but when he does it, it just feels formulaic. Maybe I'm projecting this, imposing my stylistic expectations on the book and being wrong footed by any step outside my comfort zone.

Anyway, when it really came to it, it was hard not to get pulled into the plot and into the characters' lives.

It only took me just over a week, so there's that to say for it.

I'm certainly looking forward to Finders Keepers.

But first, there's Revival.

Doctor Sleep: 7th - 18th August 2016

Lovely stuff. Another one I got through comparatively rapidly. For me, that is.

One of the things that highlights how well I got into a book, is how much other stuff I read at the same time. For this and Joyland, I remained faithful. With The Wind Through The Keyhole, meanwhile, I read both Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Dan Rhodes' The Little Whte Car. I read those books in particular as I was about to go to Paris for the week and both wanted to get into the vibe and also as I'd made two previous attempts to read Tropic of Cancer and thought maybe this time I'd get through it and be able to be that little bit more pretentious while I was over there. It didn't help. That said, while it was nothing but a tongue-in-cheek goal for me, it clearly isn't for many literary tourists to Paris. Back to sort of the point; for all but the overall conceit of The Little White Car, its being set in Paris is completely incidental and barely features in the book.  I knew that beforehand, but I love Dan Rhodes so much, I'll grab even the most tenuous reasons to read his stuff. So should you.

Anyway, back to Doctor Sleep. I'm going to come clean and say that I'm not the biggest fan of The Shining. I'd have to go back and read my thoughts from my latest reading to see whether I was still trying to shoehorn my opinion into the common mould, weighing the book against its popular reception and its relationship to the Kubrick film. At this point, I think I'll claim the inability to remain objective and admit a massive critical weakness.

With Doctor Sleep, however, its perfectly possible to read it without any of the kind of obfuscation that hampers The Shining for me. Evidently, as I bashed through it and really enjoyed it.

Joyland: 5th - 6th July 2016

I liked Joyland a lot: as evidenced by my reading it in a few hours over a couple of days. It brought the film Adventureland to mind early on, but really only as a reference for the vibe of the place. Which was quite helpful for an Englishman with experience of only either big theme parks or the grim travelling fairs that turn up on village park and fields, that I wouldn't take my kids to for love nor money.

Other than that, it's a tight little book that has definitely left me looking forward to the crime trilogy, that I'll be starting with Mr. Mercedes as soon as I've caught up with these posts. It's partly the desire to get on with reading that these posts are so flimsy and shit. The other part is that I can't be bothered to pretend that I know a thing about reviewing. Commenting on how well the plot unfolds, how well the characters and motivations are painted would be a half-cocked wet fart. Most of the reviews on Goodreads, in fact in actual publications or on websites tend to make me want to boil my head. So I don't bother reviewing. I just talk anti-critical bollocks instead. But you already knew that. Don't worry, we're nearly done. Only a handful of books to go...

A Face in the Crowd, In the Tall Grass, Guns - One day in July

I'm not entirely sure when I read these three stories other than it was all in one day in July.

Not much to say about them, I'm afraid. Obviously Guns is an essay rather than a story but, just like always, it's Uncle Steve telling it how it is. So it's worth a read. As are the other two. I think that's my main takeaway: they're all worth a read.

Oh wait, just remembered In The Tall Grass was co-written with Joe Hill. That reminds me, I need to get a hold of his new novel, The Fireman, cos I've rated everything he's done so far. From Horns to NOS4R2 to Locke and Key. Cool. I've also got a few of comics waiting for me to read them. Bonus!

OK, I'm done. Bye.

The Wind Through The Keyhole - A Dark Tower Novel: 30th June - 4thAugust 2016

I went into this one in two minds. On the one hand, I don't consider myself a true convert to the cult of the Dark Tower. On the other, I'm an open-minded soul and there were points of the Dark Tower odyssey where I couldn't help but be caught up by the undertow of the characters and their fates.

In the end, the story within the story was the one that got me and the rest became almost incidental. Part of this may have been the fact that, in the grander scheme, the fate of Roland's ka-tet has already been sealed. A cynical, dick point of view, I know.

All things considered, I think it has its place. It stands up both on its own and as a slight return to the Dark Tower.