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!

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.