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!

It : 24th September 2011

I've found that the latter stages of each book become almost as much about looking to the next one as finding out how this one turns out.  It's something I've come to regretfully accept as part of my being able to keep things, however slowly, moving.  With a couple of them, the steam-ahead mentality has definitely encroached on the current book and my immersion in it.  Most recently this was definitely the case with The Talisman.  To a lesser extent, it also affected Skeleton Crew.  The loom of a 1000+ pages and both the reputation and my own memories of the book will do that to you, though.

I'm looking forward to It though.  I can't remember a lot about it from my reading of it as a kid, which pleases me more than the failure of my memory worries me.  One thing that keeps cropping up in my mind when facing this book, or any of such a prodigious girth, is the feeling I always had as a kid where I couldn't fathom ever finishing the thing.  From my crawling start of new books, tapping away at the outer shell of the story, waiting for the crack to appear before I could wheedle my way inside, the road seemed so long and the horizon so far away that just getting moving seemed hard to realise.

Of course I always did and the walk through the first chapters turned into a jog and a run through the middle and a sprint to the finish.  But the cycle always reset and I'd return to that same awed approach to the next one.  I'm a bit older now, so the awe is considerably diminished (until I think about the writing process involved in creating these behemoths) but, facing It, there's a glimmer of it there.  It's just a case of putting one foot in front of the other and turning the page...

I was trying to show the heft of the book with the picture and thought I'd use another for comparison.  There was only one choice.  This shit writes itself sometimes.  Or maybe it's the Fornits.

Skeleton Crew: 22nd August - 23rd September 2011

So, I finished the last three stories of Skeleton Key.

With Gramma, I couldn't help wishing he'd stuck to the real horror of the situation and not drifted off to the supernatural.  The elderly and infirm carry an accepted weight of creepiness that is only surpassed by the idea of being alone with an actual corpse.  What the imagination is capable of in that situation is just as terrifying and debilitating as he describes and he does a great job of provoking our unease.  Unfortunately, the ending felt cheap and washed most of that away.

The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet suffered a similar fate by making the Fornits real.  There would have been enough mileage in real insanity for me. 

The Reach was just a bit shit. 

Overall, I enjoyed Skeleton Crew much more then I did Night Shift.  From the sounds of things, critical opinion agrees.  But who cares about that?

Considering the strength of the opening story/novella - The Mist - we were off to a flying start and, while there were a few dips, there were enough crackers in there to keep its head above the waters of 'chore reading' and wanting to cast the book aside to move on to the next thing.

Devour this...

I'm not the only one to have had this idea of reading the complete Stephen King and heartily recommend you check out Laura's blog - http://devouringtexts.blogspot.com
Not only does she write much longer and more interesting posts on the books, she also offers a much more critical review.
The thing that really blows me away about this blog is that not only does it not take Laura a month plus to read each book, she's reading and watching much more besides and writing similarly involved posts for all of them.
For her Stephen King posts, go to http://devouringtexts.blogspot.com/p/challenges.html and scroll down a bit. While you're there, get stuck into check the rest of the blog. It is awesome.

Skeleton Crew - the stories so far

So much for writing about each story… I’m partway through the antepenultimate story of the collection Gramma, and have the time for quick round-up so far. I haven’t stopped to do a bit for each story, mainly because I’m conscious of how long it takes me to get through each book and want to keep going. I’ve enough (mainly self-imposed) distractions, without constantly breaking off from reading to cobble together some trivial and obtuse reflections.

Here There Be Tygers
Meh.

The Monkey
Not bad.

Cain Rose Up
Not bad. An obvious precursor to the Bachman book; Rage

Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
I liked this one quite a bit. I know the fantasy element was king, but I was most taken by the gentle earnestness and almost childlike honesty and wonder of Homer’s character.

The Jaunt
I realised, reading this story, what turns me off of science fiction as a genre. The gimmicky imagination of futuristic details, from the names of newspapers to spaceship systems, galaxies and planets and the attempt to make the impossible sound simultaneously fantastical and commonplace bores me. I’m a bit too lazy to wade through the assimilation of all of that conceit to find out whether the story is actually worth reading. It’s just the icing, when what really matters is how good the actual cake is. Luckily, I really liked The Jaunt. I didn’t see the end coming, but then again, I rarely try to second guess story arcs and endings and was happily swept up, surprised and horrified by it. Nice.

The Wedding Gig
A decent read, but nothing special. Probably most interesting to me for its Prohibition setting and detail.

Paranoid: A Chant
Poetry takes a fair amount of effort for me to even begin to give a shit. I’ll confess to being a lazy reader, especially in my approach to King. By that I mean I’ll be present enough to follow the narrative, suspend my disbelief and generally be an active reader in entertaining the ideas as presented and making necessary leaps, but I’m not approaching him with anything resembling literary criticism. Nothing has the potential to kill art quite like study and criticism. Poetry doesn’t do much for me. I can’t be bothered to deconstruct it or engage in trying to fathom the arcane references and stylistic implications of the form, meter and rhyme. I go through a perhaps biennial phase of immersion in poetry, but that’s about it. Sticking it in the middle of a collection of King’s short stories is met by a skim-read at best or skipped at worst.

I know, I’m an ignorant prick.

The Raft
Not bad, not great.

Word Processor of the Gods
Nice.

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands
As soon as I realised it was from the same world as The Breathing Method from Different Seasons, I got excited. As the one story from Different Seasons that was completely new to me, I got a lot from it (http://thekinglongread.blogspot.com/2011/03/different-seasons-20th-february-29th.html) returning to that world heightened by anticipation. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly in the same league and not nearly as satisfying. Not shit, though.

Beachworld
Pah.

The Reaper’s Image
Bleh.

Nona
Pretty good but a part of me wishes it had been longer and Nona was real.
For Owen
See above – (Paranoid: A Chant)

Survivor Type
Great stuff. Proto-Palahniuk?

Uncle Otto’s Truck
Not great, not altogether shit.

Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)
A nice little sketch.

Big Wheels: A Tale of The Laundry Game (Milkman #2)
A decent enough read but there wasn't much point overall.  Bob killing his wife was a nice touch, though.

Listening
Marc Maron's WTF podcast.  http://www.wtfpod.com  Awesome.  Great guests.  I'd go so far as saying it eclipses his stand-up too.  Which is not a statement I make lightly.

Also, Chris Hardwick's Nerdist podcast. http://www.nerdist.com

Also reading:
Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth.  Amazingly good.

Watching:
The Office (US) - much better than I expected and a really good show in its own right.
Louie - the second series is as good as the first.

The Mist (Skeleton Crew) 22nd-31st August 2011

I thought I might as well do a post for each story as it’ll probably take an age to get through the whole of Skeleton Crew.


So, so good! I dawdled over the first third, slipping in a long weekend of comic reading, but I couldn’t put it down for the last hundred pages. It felt like the perfect horror story to me (and the perfect length – but that’s a whole other issue) with a tight, claustrophobic focus on the human reaction to the unknown threat. While there was some description of the physical detail of the threat, the fact that so much was hidden in the mist and left to the imagination made, for the most part, fear itself the bogeyman of the piece.

The way that the purported cause of the mist and its Legion was only alluded to in passing was also a huge factor in cranking up the unease. And the ending!!! You know that so many people will have put the book down unsatisfied with all the unanswered questions. Ha ha, fuck ‘em.

Skeleton Crew: 22nd August 2011

So, what was I saying about my boner for brevity?

Thinner: 19th-22nd August 2011

Loved it.

Saying what I'm about to say, I can hear you asking why I'm reading the the complete works of a man who has regularly dropped 600-1000 page books on us with frightening prolificacy. I know. You're probably right too. Anyway, I love short books. In the same way as I hold to the assertion that if your film can't tell the story in 90-100 minutes there's something amiss with your storytelling, authors who can't do it in 200-300 pages fail to understand the power of word economy and are presumptuous of their readers and the time they're willing to steal from them.

With that in mind, Thinner was a gorgeous oasis of brevity, taut suspense and skin crawling 'what if' and 'imagine that'. The plot wasn't next level, high-concept but a more classic dark tale. Lovely stuff.

Thinner - 19th August 2011

Very happy to be facing a mere 300 pages after The Talisman. The first Bachman book I've come to that I haven't read previously. I'm going to go and read it now. See you soon. If not after finishing this one I've a round up of the ten film adaptations I've watched in the last few months and more. Thanks for reading, by the way.

The Talisman - 8th May - 19th August 2011

For fuck's sake, I took my time with this bugger. The time I took to read it is fairly indicative of my enjoyment of the thing too; i.e. not all that much. Sure, there were sections that I had a good time reading (Wolf, in particular, and when Jack makes it to Thayer) but the book generally dragged its arse like a dog with worms.

Perhaps it was a labour of love or just a jaunt and a flexing of their writing muscles in a less typical, but not unrelated genre, for the co-authors but I could have done without it.

Tumbleweed

I'll save you the trouble of putting a mirror to the nose and mouth of this blog. It's still breathing. The Talisman is a big, lolloping bastard that has regularly been beaten out by comics. I'm down to the last 150 pages and ready to put the bugger back on the shelf.

Back soon...

The Talisman

I didn't know the first thing about this book, until I reluctantly read the back flap (I like to go in blind, not knowing what to expect) but am intrigued as I approach it, mainly in it being a collaboration with another author and also as a fantasy adventure story.  As long as it's better than The Gunslinger, that is.

I'm also interested to see how the collaboration thing works.  I don't think I've ever read a co-authored fiction book before.  I was going to ask the following questions:

Will the distinct voices come through?  Do I know King's style well enough to know when it isn't him writing?  How did the writing process work?  Did they go off and write sections separately and then edit together etc. and then went googling and found the following interview with Peter Straub - http://www.liljas-library.com/showinterview.php?id=8 where he talks about it and answers all of those questions.  Nice.

I've never read anything by Straub before either.  If any one has any recommendations, you can leave a comment below or you can find me on Twitter - @Mattowar.  I'm due for an audiobook mission after a few months' break.

Cycle of the Werewolf 4th - 5th May 2011

I really haven't got much to say about Cycle of the Werewolf.  I didn't do a great deal for me.  It was alright, but not much more.  A bit of 'owt and nowt' as we Yorkshiremen might say.

It was nice to be able to tick a book off the list in less than an hour, but I'm ready for the next brick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_the_werewolf

http://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/cycle_of_the_werewolf.html

Pet Sematary 26th April - 4th May 2011

Crikey! Now we're getting in to it!  Forget everything I've been saying 
about wondering whether any of his books are going to get under my skin and whether I might be truly frightened by them.  Pet Sematary got right in there and did a number on me.  Brilliant!

I don't know whether it goes without saying or I should have been saying this in every end post for the books, but there are spoilers ahead.

It was one of those books that you just want to recoil from and put down because you know how bad things are going to get and by not reading it, perhaps it won't happen.  A natural and childish instinct I'm sure; and somewhat nonsensical in the context of reading a book, but it was there. 
But, at the same time, there's no way you can put it down because you're deep in there and can't rest until you get to the end.  It was like when you're watching a film and you're willing the characters not to go somewhere/do something, knowing full well how inevitable (and essential) it is that they will/must do it. 

So, what was it about Pet Sematary that disturbed me so much?  For the 
greatest part, it was the horror of your child being run over by a lorry and the thought of losing someone so young. The complete negation of a future of possibilities, hopes and experience is crushing. I look at my own children and never imagine the worst. Where's the stock in those kinds of ruminations? It's fucking bleak, I tell you. One things for sure, the hugs I give them have gone up a notch on the tightness scale.

If that wasn't enough, King goes there and has Louis doing what we beg him, out loud (maybe just in my case), not to.  I sat there thinking there's no way you'd walk that road, but who knows until you've faced that (and of course, if there was such a thing as the supernatural)?

As I said earlier, as the book careered towards the conclusion, I didn't want to go on, to avoid coming face to face with the inevitable. No chance. You don't come this far and miss out on this unhappy ending.

I love that King is unafraid of the unhappy or ambiguous ending. Cliffhangers are so delicious. Some people hate them. That makes me love them all the more. The man has done enough work to be able to sit back and leave it with the reader. Only an unimaginative slob could be dissatisfied with the ending.

Anyway, I've been waiting for this kind of a reaction to the books and am now on fire for the whole endeavour.  I finished this late at night and thought twice about crossing the landing to go to the bathroom before going to bed. It also didn't help that my daughter woke up and began crying, only for visions of Gage to flood in and I'm trembling like a girl at the thought of going in to comfort her. And there was no way I was going downstairs to check the doors were locked. Fuck that. What a fanny?!!

Listening:
Ruth Ruth - Everything
Starkweather - This Sheltering Night

Pet Sematary – 26th April 2011

I’ve high hopes for Pet Sematary, not only from reviews and reader comments of it being the scariest of his books, but also, in the introduction King wrote in 2000, where he calls it his most frightening and he thought he’d gone too far and had to be persuaded to publish it. I haven’t got the book in front of me, so can’t provide the exact quote, but there’s the gist.


It’s safe to say, I’m really looking forward to this one. I’ve already made a start on the first few chapters and am hitting the ground running. Plenty of before bed sessions should get the dreams kick-started. Go on son!

Christine - 30th March – 26th April 2011

This was a new one for me and I wondered from the outset whether I’d be able to really engage with the story of a haunted car. Of course it’s about a lot more than that, particularly the shift from adolescence to adulthood and the inescapability of the past, but the fear factor is embroiled in the car’s supernatural self-driving, vengeful bloodlust and regenerative capabilities and LeBay’s possession of Arnie.

It didn’t really get to me. I got caught up in the build up and final confrontation between Dennis/Leigh/Petunia/Christine, but that’s more a testament to King’s suspenseful writing than submitting to the premise. There was a twinge as well, towards the end when Dennis is lamenting the disintegration of his friend and their friendship that gave the whole book an echo of the feel of The Body, in its part-reminiscence/part lament on adolescence and the loss of innocence.

While it wasn’t a scary book, it was a good read. I'm starting to feel like a bit of a blind apologist for King's works. Perhaps a part of me has auto-programmed to resist just coming out and saying this or that book was shit, as if it would undermine the whole endeavour of reading all of his books. We’ll see. There have definitely been one’s I’ve enjoyed more than others so far, but I wouldn’t say any of them were shit. I’ll probably do a list of favourite to least one of these days. Bet you can’t wait, you shitters.


Listening:
Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
Victims - A Dissident
Chris T-T - Everything
NOFX - Everything
Also had a second crack at Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell and finished it this time.  Is it possible to know and appreciate something is very good and be very impressed by it even if you didn't particularly enjoy it?  Yes? That's OK then.

Christine: 30th March 2011

It's about a haunted car, right?

Different Seasons 20th February - 29th March 2011

17th -26th March The Body

Great stuff. The unforced feel of the storytelling is its greatest strength. Free of the limitations of writing within the usual genre, it's a coming of age story that doesn't try to be anything other than the story.

27th - 29th March The Breathing Method

The thing I liked most about The Breathing Method was its use of mystery. The main story told by the fireplace felt like something of a cheap trick, but everything around the club and its workings was left deliciously to the readers' imagination. I love that level of invitation to be a part of the exposition. Stories are all about telling, but their power to bring you in are their true magic. The unanswered questions set me on fire. In a good way.

I'm almost surprised at how much I've enjoyed reading this collection. A break from type and shorter than usual length. On second thoughts, I shouldn't be too surprised as I generally like short novels most and am not much of a genre hound. Either way, Different Seasons is one of my high points so far.

Different Seasons: Apt Pupil 22nd Febuary - 16th March 2011

I'm feeling like a broken record by starting every entry with whether I've read it before, or seen the film but, in this case, it has some bearing.

Despite knowing I'd definitely read Rita Heyworth and The Body before I can't say for sure whether I'd read Apt Pupil or The Breathing Method before. I'm sure when I saw the Bryan Singer film years ago it all seemed new to me, so I'm guessing I hadn't.

Anyway, the point I'm labouring towards is that, based on the film, I wasn't particularly looking forward to reading Apt Pupil.  Sure, McKellan is always awesome, but it was heavy, close and intense and wasn't a read I expected to much enjoy.

I imagined it to be a book I'd plough through to get to the next, however, I found that I really got into it and is probably the first where the horror of it had a real effect on me.  I think the reason for that is that it is a very real story of very real human horror.  That there's nothing fantastical about the story, in terms of the terrors men (and children) are capable of exacting on each other, is the most affecting aspect of it for me.

I'm already the best part of the way through The Body and it hasn't disappointed. As with rest of the collection the reliance on realism* has been almost refreshing and reassuring. The stories speak for themselves. And I'm listening.

*Of course, realism is one of the most important ingredients of horror, fantastical or otherwise, in that it relies upon our real and universal response of asking ourselves how we would react and feel in such a situation.

Listening:

Trap Them - Darker Handcraft (Christ it's good)
Ben Marwood - Outside There's A Curse
Chris T-T - Love is Not Rescue & 9 Red Songs

Also reading:
Concrete: Book 1 - Depths / Paul Chadwick
Transmetropolitan / Warren Ellis
Preacher / Garth Ennis
Kick Ass / Mark Millar
Blankets / Craig Thompson
Maus / Art Spiegelman

Is it any fucking wonder this is taking me so long.

Different Seasons: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption 20th-22nd February 2011

Yes.

I have this in-built mechanism that spurs me to retract from and deride the hugely popular or generally acclaimed. So it is that my fondness for both this book and the film makes me wonder whether it's just 'too easy' to be consistently blown away by them. I'm quite aware that this thinking is a rank and snobbish affectation of critical acumen which, when displayed by others, makes you want to fill the offenders pockets with sick. In this way, I'm more than happy to say that I love 'Rita Hayworth...'

Tonally, for me, it's King on fire. That conversational, confessional (?) style gets me. I'm sure there's a lot of film-love bias flooding my appreciation of the book, as it's almost impossible to read it without Robbins and Freeman in mind, so I'll pull this gushfest up short and end by saying I loved it.

Different Seasons - 20th February 2011

I've definitely read 'Rita Heyworth...' and 'The Body' before.  Not sure about the other two.  I'm guessing not, though, as 'Apt Pupil' didn't ring any bells when I saw the film.

Seeing as I'm dragging my feet enough with the reading and, subsequently, these posts, I think I'll do a separate post for each story/novella.  Don't hold your breath.

Thanks for reading.

The Gunslinger: Dark Tower I - 14th Jan - 19th February 2011

It pains me more than it probably should to say this, but I didn't care much for The Gunslinger.


I wanted to, but just couldn't get into it. That also goes to explain why a book of a little over 200 pages took more than a month to read. I grew more interested towards the end as the greater adventure was implied but couldn't raise much of an interest in the main character in the first place. I know he was trying his hand at something new, genre-wise and obviously stuck with it, so I'll give him a pass and reserve judgement until the next chapter of the series.


Not a lot more to say.


Currently listening:
Ben Marwood - Outside There's A Curse


and rabidly anticipating the new Trap Them and Victims albums.

The Gunslinger - Dark Tower I - 14th Jan 2011

I haven't read any of the Dark Tower series before.  I'm looking forward to cracking on with this bad boy.

The Running Man - 30 Dec 2010 - 13 Jan 2011

Outstanding! For a number of reasons. First and foremost is that it's nothing like the film. Yes, I know the book came first and I should be saying the film is nothing like the book...


However, my chronology is all messed up. As a kid, I definitely saw the film first, then read the book. The thing is, I may as well have been reading it for the first time, this time around as hardly any of it seemed familiar.

Anyway, to business; I loved the book. Loved it. It reeks of the same jilted nihilism as Roadwork and the world it evokes is much closer to the dystopian classics than the jingoistic, wronged lone justice-seekers of the eighties, typified by Schwarzenegger and Stallone.

The humanity of it, opposed to the brute murder and one-liners of the film, and the inevitability of our living in such a world in the not too distant future have made this book something of a surprise high-rater. Buzzing.

It struck me the other day when talking to my mum, and then considering her, my dad and mother-in-law's literary and televisual preoccupation with crime drama how their outlooks differ to mine. My mum and mother-in-law watch CSI and Law and Order like bastards. My dad and mum can't get enough of Michael Connelly (I'll admit I've read 6/7 of his books and was well into them). I think this speaks of a knowledge and understanding that we live in shit-horrible times where the wicked run amok, but there are always the forces of good battling away and proving victorious against the forces of evil. I suppose that's the vein tapped by comic book superheroes too. Plus the fascist cop element.

For me, it's just pure fucking desolation and any payoff comes from opening your eyes further than the average bear and seeing the world for what it is and realising things like popular entertainment, culture and faith in the powers (whether temporal or celestial) are only distractions from how utterly and crushingly bereft of hope we are. Jesus, that's depressing. It's like earning your place in an elite club where you get to eat these amazing, handmade gourmet chocolates. Except they taste of turd. All self-serving feelings of superiority hang by a thread when faced with such a bitter reward.

Our fascination with dystopian works is a bit weird. Whether they're indictments of the current state or portents of how bollocks it's bound to get, you don't get points for seeing it that way and those that do see it don't seem to be prepared or making preparations for it.

Anyway, the book is great and pisses on the film. That said I have a fondness for the film and, seeing as I bought it for £3 a few months ago, I'll be watching it again, any day now.

The Running Man - 30th December 2010

So, I'm going with the contraversial (to someone, somewhere) move of reading two books concurrently. I think The Running Man was published before Danse Macabre anyway, so I'm only realigning the axis.

I read The Running Man as a kid but only really remember the film. I don't think I've seen it since I was a kid, probably younger than its 18 certificate, but it's all there. My lasting impression is equal parts awesome and cheesy shit. I picked it on DVD a while ago for a couple of quid so, once I've read it, I'll see whether I can still stomach Arnie.

As for Danse Macabre I haven't got too far. While King's writing is anything but dry, the book takes a degree of concentration and application that can be difficult to maintain when there are two pre-schoolers charging about and you're perpetually knackered. Whatever.

It also doesn't help that I've just ripped through Chelsea Cain's Gretchen Lowell books. Naughty boy. Time to get back on task.

Danse Macabre - 28th November

It's probably clear to you from previous blog posts, that I don't know the first thing about horror, past or present.  While I know this isn't a definitive history, insight or exploration, it should raise my knowledge about its current realm of 'fuck all'.

Cujo 6th-26th November

Awesome. It's the first one that's really got under my skin and gripped me with the threat and terror of the story.

The thing that stood out most of all for me was the relationships. I'm guessing King let a lot of himself out in this one. It gives the impression of having been written by a parent who is wont to analyse not only their position as parent and their relationship with the child and spouse but also their own parents. Much of the book is tied to these familial relations and, as a parent of young children, it was an easy identifier.

As for my fear of dogs, it hasn't done anything to exacerbate it. After all, it's only a story.  If anything, it has made me question and analyse it. I can easily identify where my fear originated and see why I've never overcome it. Perhaps, for my own wellness of mind, it's time I properly addressed my phobia.

Cujo - interim thoughts

I read on wikipedia that King was shit-faced when he wrote it and, in fact, barely remembers writing it. Surely confirmation bias, but I think that comes across. You can tell he's a bit loose and wild and, while the word is beginning to grate on me, there's a rawness to the writing. It's a bit like the filter is pulled back and the 'off the cuff' is blazing through. There being no chapters, just one irrepressible narrative is the plainest evidence. The way he's talking about the infidelity must resonate with our married brethren. We're good lads who would never roam, but the fear of your spouse doing so is as terrifying as a rabid dog. Whether it was something our boy went through, or not, I don't know but I think he's got the feelings and reaction down.
I know it doesn't have a lot to do with the effect of the horror, but I'm loving this book so far.

Cujo - 6th November

I definitely haven't read Cujo before.

I've a feeling this one's going to put me about. That's because I am scared of dogs. Not all dogs. It's a fear borne of childhood experience, compounded by the fact that I've never really been around dogs since. For a long time, when I was growing up, there was an Alsatian two doors up that was allowed to roam free on the street. Untrained and owned by absolute fucking scrubbers, it was often encouraged to chase us kids on our bikes or to jump up at us while we sat on a high wall. I'm probably exaggerating when I say that for a good few years, I would have to leave the house on full alert for canine attack. It only bit me one time and it was only a nip on the arse and as much a result of my innate fear as its cunthole owners and complete lack of training, but I immediately get the fear when I see a dog on the street.

Some breeds I'm fine with. Well, labradors and anything I could feasibly kick to a safe distance. Please don't get me wrong, I wish no harm on any dog, or any other animal, and know that dangerous dogs are the product of shitty owners. However, I can't help the fact that when I see someone approaching with a dog on a lead, I start judging the dog's strength and potential ferocity versus the owner's strength, grip on the lead and even the durability of the lead itself. Now, if the dog is loose, I'm looking to cross the road, wondering whether I should just turn back, all the while looking for a high fence or wall to climb should it come to that.

I know responsible dog owners are probably shaking their heads, but I can't help it. All that considered, here goes Cujo.

Roadwork - 14th October-6th November 2010

I'll start by saying how much I liked Roadwork. A lot.

The least 'horror' of his books I've read so far, barring Rage, it's the one I've found most affecting. The realisation that your humanity is of mere and fleeting concern to the emergent power brokers and ruling elite is crushing enough. In Bart's case, this came after a lifetime of servitude and labour. For the majority of us, it's the road that lays before us and we at least have the option, however grudgingly, whether to trudge its desolate expanse or break free and cavort in the pasture. We're not, like Bart, faced with looking back at the idea of working for a family run or 'community ethos' company with a vested and nurturing interest in its employees as people, not just a commodity or a profit margin factor becoming an arcane and romantic vestige of the past. I don't know...which is worse? Being dealt a shit hand, knowing the deck is stacked or winning a few hands before the rules of the game are changed and breaking even, never-mind winning, is categorically, no longer on the cards.

While the majority of us would have just eaten the shit sandwich with a nod and a smile, accepting the relocations with barely a grumble, it was nice to see him stand up for himself, no matter how ill-fated and unhinged the execution. I suppose, these days, we'd confine our dissatisfactions to tweets and Facebook updates.

Add in the early death of a son and not only do you have an assassinated past but there's also a strangled future to contend with. To say that, as a parent of young children, I felt this more keenly, is an affront to empathy, but there's something particularly chilling to me about the summary suffocation of such a depth of hopes, dreams and transferred aspirations.

I felt his frustrations, and the breakdown of marriage struck a chord. With six years under our belts, my wife and I know that it's never always plain sailing. The thing is, you've committed to be each other's port in the every inevitable storm and that's not easy either, but it's a mutual arrangement that relies on equal participation. He didn't keep his end of the bargain and paid for it. But he's (just a) man and we're awesome at fucking things up, so he's not wholly undeserving of sympathy.

Anyway, no matter how stunted and poorly thought out my ideas in reaction to the book have come across here, I loved Roadwork.

Roadwork

I started Roadwork on Thursday 14th October 2010.

I'm not going to bother deciding either way whether I've read this bad boy before. I'd like to say yes, but I can't actually say for sure. Voyage of discovery and everything.

I actually read the first dozen pages or so when I mistakenly convinced myself that it came after the Dead Zone and was quickly taken by it. This time for real.

Firestarter 26th Sep - 13th October

So, I went into Firestarter under the impression that I'd read it already. I I don't think I had. It didn't take all that long to realise my error. I was also sure that I'd seen the film. Fuck knows.

I've a feeling I'm allowing the end of Carrie to confuse my addled memory, but still, I can't shake the feeling that I have read it. Once again, fuck knows. I know for sure that I've seen Firestarter 2. The only reason I did watch it was due to it starring Jason London who played Randall 'Pink' Floyd in Linklater's Dazed and Confused - I am clearly a fucking genius, as I've just looked it up and it was actually The Rage: Carrie 2, that he was in. I have, however, definitely seen that. Unsurprisingly, I can't can't remember anything about it. What fucking use am I?

Anyway, yet again, no horror. I really enjoyed it, though, as predictable as it ultimately was, the unfolding of the story was well worth the ride.

I feel a bit sloppy in not having much to say about the book. I enjoyed it, but didn't think it was amazing.

Firestarter

I started Firestarter Sunday night 26th September. The reason there's a day's gap between me finishing The Dead Zone and moving on to the next is that I got a little confused and decided that Roadwork actually came after The Dead Zone. I'd only got a few pages in and was feeling it, ready to see where we were headed. Out of interest, I took a quick look to see what came after that and how long I had before I got to a book I hadn't yet procured. I then saw my error and had to dig out my copy of Firestarter. As it happens, I've read both before but, quite pleasingly, none of it seems too familiar so far. In truth, at fifty pages, I'm questioning my memory with a fervour as I'm sure I've already read Firestarter, but I don't remember any of what I've read in the first fifty pages. I read it while I was at school and either borrowed it from the school library or the main library in Barnsley. Fucked it I know. My memory is clearly bollocks.
 
p.s. fuck the Prodigy.

The Dead Zone 30th August - 24th September

As I said before, going into it, I didn't know the first thing about this book. In the end, I came to see that Cronenberg made a film based on it. I haven't seen it, but I'm going to. Mainly because I'd like to see if there's any horror in it as I didn't find any in the book.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book. I really did. I was with him to the end and, after the 'all tied up in a bow' ending of The Stand, it was nice that he didn't pussy out on getting Johnny killed. I know there was coda to exonerate him and Stillson was revealed to the world as a cunt. But still, the hero died. Good for you Mr King.

I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm a bit old for this or maybe too cynical and indulgently jaded. I already hate myself for saying it. What I mean is that I don't know whether I'm going to get the desired effect, particularly when the subject of the book is telekenesis, psychic abilities and supernatural powers etc. I don't believe in any of them. Fuck, I know that none of that matters. I don't believe in ghosts and yet I nearly babbed my pants watching Ju On:The Grudge. I can't be arsed to list all the other films where I bit my nails until my fingers bled, sweat like a beast through the suspense and yelped in fright at the jumpy moments, but I do, no matter that I don't believe in the phenomena or whatever's providing the threat. I'm sure I've espoused this sort of reaction earlier in the blog, but this book's utter failure to hit me as a horror brought it out again.

If anyone wants to weigh in on how or if it's possible to fear something we know is not real or to what it is that we are actually reacting, then feel free to leave comments.

Bed covers

Well, they're not far from covering the bed.  It's been a while since I looked at the collection so far.  The top row is the read/reading.  Clearly there's still a way to go.

As far as collecting all of his books, these are the ones I'm missing...

1983 Cycle of the Werewolf

1986 It
1987 The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three
1989 Dolan's Cadillac
1989 My Pretty Pony
1990 Four Past Midnight -Short stories
1993 Nightmares &Dreamscapes - Short stories
1995 Umney's Last Case
1996 The Regulators - Bachman
1997 Six Stories 1997 - Short stories
1999 Storm of the Century
1999 The New Lieutenant's Rap
2004 The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
2004 The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
2005 The Colorado Kid
2007 Blaze - Bachman
2009 Ur
2010 Blockade Billy
2010 Full Dark, No Stars

I included the last one because it'll be out by the time I get to it.  So will a few more, I should imagine.

The Dead Zone

I started The Dead Zone this morning - 30th August.  I know in terms of living in the world, I could be considered something of a troglodyte because of this, but I'm happy to say that, going into the book, I didn't know the first thing about it.  It's only as I've just gone to find the cover picture (not the same as the edition I'm reading, but I like how shit this one looks) that I saw it was made into a film by Cronenberg.  I also couldn't avoid a one line synopsis which I'm pleased to say was covered by the first chapter anyway.

It's a bit of lame habit of mine to avoid finding out too much about any book or film before I read or watch them.  I don't read generally read reviews to steer clear of spoilers.  Anyway, troglodyte or otherwise, my mind is open to The Dead Zone and I'm well up for it.

Currently Listening:

Ride Your Bike - The Connection
Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier
Meshuggah - All (mainly when running)
Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Played with Fire (audiobook)

The Long Walk 21-29 August

That's more like it.  Despite having spent most evenings for the past couple of months playing guitar in preparation for playing the service music for a workmate's wedding, I knocked this bad boy off in a week.  Of course, it's only two hundred and something pages, but that's not the point.  I found the discipline I pissed away while reading The Stand and was able to immerse myself in The Long Walk.  There I go with that word again; immerse.

That's the point though.  Books demand and deserve immersion.  I'll consult my thesaurus next time I revisit the concept.  Reading The Long Walk again takes me back to the time I first read it.  Having picked up The Bachman Books  at home after watching The Running Man for the fifth time, I blasted through the novel before immediately turning to the other three works in the collection.  I can't think of the book without remembering my old room in the house I grew up in.  I clearly remember going to bed early and a staying up later than advisable, knowing that I'd be tired at school the next day.  I wondered whether I'd rose-tinted my memory of the book but was heartened by friends who were equally quick to remark on how much they'd loved it.

As it turns out, I think I may have rose-tinted it a bit.  In truth, though, there are a couple of reasons for it not having the same impact this time.  Firstly, there's no reveal.  You already know the horror of 'buying a ticket'.  But that's the same with every book or film, it's not going to surprise you a second time.  The second reason is down to the overall desensitising effect of some of the truly horrendous things I've seen in films and read in books since.  Where it wins out, though, is the marvel of the writing.  You're there for the full five and a bit days, matching the Walkers step for step.  The story rarely leaves the road but doesn't get overly dull or repetitive.

In an earlier post, when I was talking about my reasons for taking on this mission, I mentioned that I had actually cried at the end of The Long Walk.  On second reading, I'm not sure at what point the rising emotion got the better of me, as I didn't feel it this time.  I can only imagine it was the very end.I'm a bit gutted that I didn't get the same payoff this time, but it doesn't stop me from cherishing my memory of the first reading as one of the highlights of my lifelong love of reading.  I know, I'm getting a bit emo.  Fuck it.  If you haven't read The Long Walk, I recommend you do so.

A final aside- it struck me that Battle Royale by Kōshun Takami is probably heavily influenced by The Long Walk.  That's all.  Read that too.  Or watch the film.  Again.

The Long Walk

This is one I've been looking forward to re-reading.  I started it on Saturday 21st August.

The Stand - 8th Mar - 21st August

Jesus, I took my time with this one.

As I said at the beginning of The Stand, I was really looking forward to it. Having enjoyed the short stories of Night Shift less than expected, I was ready for a big old story to get wrapped up in. Stories don’t get much bigger than The Stand. However, I don’t think I did it justice.


I’ll stop pussy-footing around and say that I wasn’t blown away. This isn’t a book review or literary criticism, so what I’m going to say next shouldn’t be misconstrued as evidence of a weakness of my critical acumen, or a blind apologia for King. This blog is a record of my personal reaction to the works.

The scope and scale of the story did blow me away. To build and maintain the strands of the narrative over 1400 pages is something that I struggle to even begin to consider. Then again, I’m not a writer and I certainly don’t have the discipline and organisation to construct the web of a novel. But still, only a douche bag could refuse to accept the impressiveness of the magnitude of this book.

At the same time, its size was the root of many of the problems I had with its reading. For a start, you can’t sit down to a brick of a book with the same mindset as a novella or regular length novel. You know that he’s going to be taking his sweet time in establishing the multitude of strands before unravelling or entwining them. As I’ve probably said a dozen or so times, my reading time is greatly diminished these days. Reading in snatches, here and there is bad enough, but I’ve also had a few other projects on the go. It’s the sort of book you could do with putting a few full days into, maybe on holiday or if you have shit all else on. I’ll accept that my disjointed approach contributed to my failure to agree with those who think it’s his masterwork.

Perhaps it would have been different if I’d not taken so long over reading it, but I wasn’t swept up by the desperation and suspense of the plot. Randall Flagg didn’t scare me. I must be getting wooden-heartedly cynical as I get older but, convinced that there’s going to be an ultimately happy ending, it was hard to be truly affected by the machinations and fates of the exhaustively fleshed-out characters. Re-reading that last sentence, I can smell the bullshit of it myself. The vast majority of books and films come to a happy Hollywood conclusion. Their appeal to our base instinct that hopes ‘everything will turn out alright in the end’ is a huge key to their success. I’m sure I’m not alone in having an attraction to those books and films that subvert this norm and go with a more ambiguous outcome, or just plain admit that the cunts of the world often win out. I think really, a lot of it also probably had a lot to do with the fixation on good an evil as a battle between god and the devil. I’m sure I’ll come across as an immense hypocrite but I have no trouble imagining ghosts and demonic possessions and supernatural abilities, but when it comes to people acting as agents of the Lord and the success of their endeavours being contingent on their faith and following ‘prophecies’ I’m just along for the ride to see where we end up at that point. And the less said about the literal ‘deus ex-machina’ in the dénouement, the better.

It feels like a bit of a shame that I let that spoil it for me, especially considering the incredible depth and scope of the build up. I was gutted that Nick Andros bought it when he did. I much preferred him as a character than Stu and Ralph and a host of others. But that’s the way it goes. As always, his writing is the saving grace. I don’t think I’ll be too disappointed with any of his books as I work through them all. While I’m sure there’ll be some that just don’t click with me, I’m always going to get something from the very reading of him.

Thinking on, there was something else that contributed to my inability to really connect and adhere to The Stand. Christ almighty, did you see me there? I just used the word ‘connect’ in the Oprah sense. I feel way worse about that than I do about using the word ‘adhere’. Anyway, I’m sure the two or three people who read this will forgive me this indiscretion. Back to the point; it probably doesn’t help that I’ve read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and also saw the film this year. As far as post-apocalyptic stories go, I found McCarthy’s about a hundred times more affecting. It’s probably borne of an interminable selfishness, which I no doubt share with the vast majority of humankind, in that when faced with the catastrophically altered and inevitably doomed fate of mankind, I would be primarily worried about how I would see it through from day to day and how I would ensure that those closest to me survived too. It’s an unfair and probably unnecessary comparison, but I couldn’t avoid it. The stories of the resurrection of the power plant and electrical grid and the fact that they were so quickly able to reconstruct a relatively ‘normal’ existence within a year seemed to soften the blow. Of course it didn’t, but there was way too much going on to get bogged down in the shattering grief of so many characters.

I’m probably setting myself up for a lot of hours of disappointment and swimming against the tide in my reading of the coming books, but one thing that struck me during my reading of The Stand was that I repeatedly compared it to a TV series. This year, I’ve been watching Dexter, Lost and Six Feet Under among others. While I love them all, you can’t deny that in the telling of their stories, there’s a lot of padding. To make my point, if you compare a 100 minute or two hour film to these series with their 12 to 24 episodes of 40-60 minutes each, you effectively have about the same length overall plot arcs, but the series cram in half a dozen cliff-hangers, stories within stories, asides etc. They’re obviously different, but closely related media that have similarly different strengths and pitfalls. For a film, things need to be that bit tighter, while a series has more freedom, but has to maintain the momentum with something more than end of episode cliff-hangers to keep you coming back week after week. There are times when watching a TV series that you’ll come to the end of the show and wonder whether anything has actually happened, or they could have probably covered the worthwhile stuff in about ten minutes. There are series that could easily be cut down to feature length and you wouldn’t even feel rushed. Of course, I don’t have examples. I’m not that much of a TV and film nerd to have them, and neither am I that convinced by my argument to do so. I’m just running my mouth.

I guess the important thing is that there are some TV show episodes, take Lost for example, where they barely progress the plot. How about the one in the last series that gave the back story for Jacob and his brother? Depending on how you look at it, they could have left it out. However, for me, it was enough to spend another hour in the world of Lost, bathing in the depth and texture of the intricately woven story, climbing and swinging from another thread of the narrative, before leaping to another vine next week.

After all that interminable bollocks, I should probably be asking myself whether The Stand would have worked as a 200-300 page novel, to complete this metaphor. The short answer is: yes, and there’s no doubt King could have done it, but it was never meant to be and the question is intrinsically moot.

OK, I’m done. I didn’t love The Stand, but I loved a lot about it.