The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: 20th - 27th Aug 2013

It seems as though every other post includes a moan about the often bloated length of the books,  so you think I'd have had a giant book boner for a nice, short, tightly-focused 300 pager. I was hoping it would work that way, but it just didn't.

In typical fashion, I haven't got much of a reason why or a list of criticisms to bring to it. I just didn't dig it all that much.

Weak. I know. Hearts in Atlantis is next, but not before I finish Jason Aaron's Scalped and bash through Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man.

Bag of Bones: 1st - 19th Aug 2013

Good. Very good.

I know I keep repeating that these posts aren't meant as literary reviews - even a cursory reading makes that quite evident - but I still get that initial sinking feeling of thinking that's what I should be doing, especially when I buzzed off a book and want to say why. And then it passes when I realise I can write any old bollocks I care to. It's a blog. Who cares?

Right. Bag of Bones. It's a good read. I know that's an inane statement but, at this point, it counts for a lot. When you're reading book after book by the same author it helps maintain momentum, not just for the next book, but half a dozen down the line.  'A good read' also translates as saying it's well written, but I'm not going to claim the critical acumen to back up such a claim. What a fanny.

While it's an overtly supernatural tale, it's the human detail that makes it for me. There are glimmers of goodness (Mattie and her daughter are gorgeous - I'm really looking forward to seeing how the very lovely Melissa George does with the part), it mainly hit me as a study in the depths of shittiness of which we're capable and consistently willing to plumb, both personally and as a community.  A somewhat pessimistic reaction to King's handling of facing his worst fears (losing his wife and writers block) perhaps, but there you go.

This is good King. 

                     

Danse Macabre: 28th Nov 2010 - 13th Aug 2013

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Nearly three years to read a book.  Once again...hahahahahahaha.

Anyway, Danse Macabre.  I thought it was pretty boss to start with. King's conversational tone is part of what makes his fiction so eminently readable, but - as evidenced by my initial stalling in this reading, and subsequent halting limp through the remainder - it just wasn't enough to keep me enthralled. I eventually got hold of the audiobook version and things looked up. But, as time wore on, I just became less and less interested.

I imagine that most people reading Danse Macabre would find it a great springboard to influential and contemporary works.  Dude knows his stuff. Being in the midst of reading King's full bibliography, though, I can ill afford to add to my "to read" pile (It's actually hurts to so roundly deflect all manner of awesomeness from my life!) so, in the end, it acted more as a increasingly tiresome distraction from the main mission.

That aside, my interest in a deconstruction of the horror genre also waned heavily as things progressed.  I'm not sure how well visceral art lends itself to be disassembled and explained. It takes a lot of the magic out of it (something King puts a lot of importance in as the special ingredient), a little like being shown how an illusion is actually performed. Seeing what's behind the curtain isn't for everyone. Shitty metaphors aside, some people have no problem with appreciating art purely on the technical ability and execution.  I'm less inclined towards this.  Similarly with music. Virtuoso instrumentalists and muso-wankers bore me senseless.

But, I digress.

The length of time it took me to get through it, multiplied by a desire to crack on with other books, sucks a lot of the weight out of my reaction and its worth (especially to me).

Read it if you want an approachable version of how the engine works. If you just like to drive, don't.

Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower V - 18th March - 1st August 2013

How embarrassing. Four and a half months to read a book. In my defence, it's a big book and it isn't very good. Due to the latter, I found it hard to hammer it. And obviously didn't.

The worst thing is probably that I chose to read two of Joe Hill's books instead of charging onward. Don't tell him. Please. Nah, fuck it, you can. I don't think he'd mind too much to know someone really likes his son's work.

So, am I now a massive Dark Tower fan and totally excited by the picture that is developing of this series and its world as underpinning and encapsulating his entire oeuvre (in a fashion, at a stretch and with selective reasoning)? What do you think?

I don't really dig it at all. But I'm happy for him to be doing it. An artist should be doing whatever the fuck he wants, for himself and no one else. Whether I like it, is the least important thing. I'm just glad I'm done with this chapter of it.

Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower IV - 18th Mar 2013

I really, really want to love The Dark Tower.  Really I do.  As it happens, I didn't care too much for The Gunslinger, loved The Drawing of the Three and found The Wastelands veered too heavily between being totally compelling and rambling into the wasteland of abject boredom.

I think part of my problem is that fantasy lit. requires a level of reader engagement beyond your average popular fiction. You've got to take your suspension of disbelief to a whole other plane before you even start. I'm aware how lazy and ignorant I sound, I'm just explaining the shit my brain makes me deal with when I read. That I'm on a mission to devour these books as rapidly as time and commitment allow (partly because I'm feeling the pull towards eventually reading something other than King for a change) doesn't help getting in the mindset of full mental application. Having actually typed that, I'm realising I'm wrong, that's exactly what I need to do. I've probably already made the same point in an earlier post, so I'm obviously not bothered about making myself look daft.

Anyway, onward! Please be awesome.

Six Stories: 12th-17th Mar 2013

Considering this is out of print, was limited to 1100 copies, isn't available for Kindle and all the stories appear in later collections, let's pretend I haven't read it.

The Green Mile (film) - 3rd Mar 2013

So good.  So, so good.  It's nice when you don't have to watch a Stephen King adaptation and constantly make excuses for the quality and convince yourself that it's at least worth watching for the story and revisiting the novel or short-story.
If you haven't seen it, you should.  The ending is utterly crushing, no matter how many times you've seen it.

The Regulators: 4th - 11th Mar 2013

So, it turns out there was a much greater connection between The Regulators and Desperation than I expected.  I'd got the impression that the links were more or less nominal, but it turns out that some of the characters (Johnny, Steve and Cynthia at least) were pretty much the same people. Oh, and it's the same Tak, his possession is just a bit different.

Overall, the book's a bit daft.  Crushingly insightful criticism, I know.  But it's all I've got.  I agree with Laura @devouringtexts.blogspot.co.uk that The Regulators feels designed to offer Johnny redemption for being such a bell-end in Desperation.
The violent deaths and dismemberments were pretty arresting/cool this time around.
I recently read a comment on a message board in answer to the question of whether one should read Desperation or The Regulators first. The guy suggested that one would be better taking both books, putting them in the bin and forgetting all about them. Dude had a point.

p.s. Apart from Cynthia. I could have used more Cynthia.

Desperation (TV mini-series) 11th Mar 2013

Seriously now, WHY?  This was terrible.  Ron Perlman was about the best thing in
it.  The smugness of the 'god is good/terrible/great' thing was nauseating.  I
really need to stop watching these.  I won't.  I'm an idiot.

Dolan's Cadillac (film) - 21st Feb 2013

Why? Seriously, though. Why?

Why do I read Stephen King novels/stories and then watch film adaptations? I know there are some exceptions that don't need to be listed here, but there are so many more that just didn't need to be made. Maybe that's not entirely true. Some of them work well enough on their own, when compared to other films of their quality and production value. For example, I've seen Dolan's Cadillac likened to an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and other stories described as perfect for The Outer Limits. Now, that's all well and good. It's just, when you read Stephen King, you don't ascribe the movie in your mind with the production value of a 70's TV mini-series. That's being a little unfair towards Dolan's Cadillac as it's a pretty good looking film and, while Christian Slater and Wes Bentley are no longer the big hitters they once were (moreso Slater), they're not shit.

And neither is Dolan's Cadillac shit. It's not great and, as a fan of the story and Slater (yep, you heard), I really hoped it would be. One thing that threw me was that, having heard Slater was in it and looking no further into the film until it came through my letterbox, courtesy of Lovefilm, I'd assumed Slater played the part of Robinson. So fully formed was this assumption - made before I'd even read the story - that I read it with Slater in mind. I'd got him looking all harried, sweaty and balding like he did in the film He Was A Quiet Man. Error on my part. Or maybe theirs.

Stephen King film adaptations are a bit like when you go out to eat and have something that blows your mind. Then you have a go at making the dish yourself and it may range from a passable imitation to an inedible mess or on those rare occasions, you nail it or make something not quite the same, but due to the quality of the ingredients and the skill/luck of adaptation it's just as mind blowing. Most of the time, it just won't be as good and you'll realise that you'll never equal the restaurant version and should just save that dish for when you eat out and know that the chef will nail it.

All that said, you know I'm still going to watch all of them. Idiot.

Desperation: 4th - 27th Feb 2013

I had such high hopes for Desperation.  It totally grabbed me by the scrote within the first few pages. For a Stephen King novel (at least so far in my chronological reading) it's not all that common. Sure, he posits ideas that that are immediately intriguing, but he rarely hits the ground running in such a forceful way as he does here in Desperation. I had chills within minutes. Needless to say, I was very excited.

As things progressed and the cast of characters was assembled in opposition to the evil adversary, I got echoes of The Stand. Not so much Captain Trips, but the classic battle of good* versus evil and the character of Johnny Marinville reminded me of Larry Underwood. King certainly likes his washed-up artists.

*Unfortunately, for me, this "good" is here represented by the plainest Christian representation of god, not only as a focus of faith and hope, but a direct agent of action and influence. I say unfortunately, but I don't suppose it's totally impossible to regard it as a literary device based on the tradition of other great works of fiction. That some people don't realise that they are works of propaganda and fiction is another, more troublesome, matter entirely.

While The Stand didn't light my fire in the way I'd hoped, particularly considering its almost universal acclaim among King's fans, I was hopeful and very willing, considering how well it started, to love Desperation. As I wrote in my opening post for the book, even at the halfway stage, I wasn't disappointed. Somehow, though, things went awry as I hit a lull, both in the narrative and my momentum. I'm not sure to what extent spending a good week catching up on about fifty issues of The Walking Dead comic was a cause or effect of this lack of motivation, but it was a welcome relief.

I eventually stopped farting about and went back and finished the book. It pains me to say that my liking of the book steadily decreased throughout the second half. I just stopped caring. And this was in spite of the inclusion of Cynthia from Rose Madder. I was inordinately happy about her inclusion in the book and actually rather liked the fact that she didn't have the largest of roles, she was just there - at about the same level as she was in Rose Madder.

I hadn't really paid much attention to or recognised the fact that King's endings tend to be somewhat hurried and almost anticlimactic - I'm obviously not the most involved or perceptive of readers. Maybe it's that he doesn't signpost his transition into the third act as clearly as I need him to. I'm dumb.

Alright, that's enough. I wanted to like it a lot and, for the first half, I really did. Then I started liking it less and less until I thought it was just OK and can't imagine I'll ever read it again to see if I was wrong. On the plus side, it stands out as the book that got right inside my mind and put a knot in my belly within minutes. So there's that.

The Regulators - 2nd Mar 2013

Right then. I'm in two minds going into this one. On the one hand, I'm eager to find out how the book ties in with Desperation, even though I've been told it's not that much. Having gotten all sloppy over Cynthia from Rose Madder showing up in Desperation, it's a bit gutting that in The Regulators, the names will all be familiar, but the characters are all different. I'm sure I'll get over it.

The other vibe I've got for The Regulators from the internets is that it just isn't very good. Exciting.

In my post for The Green Mile I talked about whether I had become numb to graphic descriptions of the horrors of physical violence. While Desperation didn't really get under my skin in this regard, a story told in The Walking Dead comic last week did. One of the characters talked of a guy that, before the rise of the dead, had sucked out and eaten the eyes of his four year old son. Fuck.

So I'm not totally dead inside.

Desperation - 4th Feb 2013

I didn't know the first thing about this book other than that the next one in line, The Regulators, was published under the Richard Bachman name and acts as a sort of companion piece.

As I write this, I'm already more than halfway through Desperation and have read a little about The Regulators, so know that any assumptions I had about the relationship between the two books is completely wrong.

I'd imagined the two books being two perspectives on the same story and highly anticipated seeing how King would handle this approach. While it turns out that it's completely unrelated, I'm still going to bluster ahead with a recommendation of Lucas Belvaux's 'La Trilogie' - three films with interlocking plots and characters that are played out in different genres - Cavale/On the Run (thriller), Un couple épatant/An Amazing Couple (romantic comedy/farce) and Après la vie/After the Life (melodrama).  They're not perfect films either individually, or even as a whole, but they're mightily impressive and very powerful.

Now I've got that out of my system, I'll get back to reading Desperation, as it's treating me very well so far.  There are some echoes of The Stand, except I'm actually enjoying it and hammering my way through it.  Sweet.

The Green Mile: 28th Jan - 4th Feb 2013

 I don't have a good reason for having taken a week to write this.  I loved The Green Mile and know exactly why, I just didn't get around to writing it down until now.

Without really thinking about it too much, I'm going to say that The Green Mile has been the most enjoyable read so far in this trip through the King library.  Not necessarily my favourite of his books (although it is high up the rankings), but more in the reading experience.  I've spoken of my sometimes very simplistic approach to reading novels and my willingness and belief in the act of submitting to the narrative.  In this respect, The Green Mile was made for me.  He just takes hold of you and guides you through the a story which, I find it easy to forget, is pretty fucking dark.

I was happy to find myself so attached to the book and especially happy to find that I can make the time to dedicate to the book.  I knocked it off in a week around all of my usual commitments (I'm sure it being written as a serial novel helped with the pacing and keeping the whole thing going) a probably a lot less farting around than I'm used to. Same again please Matthew.

I've noticed that my posts are getting briefer and briefer and have questioned whether I should have more to say about the books and, more importantly, what I'd actually say.  Any sort of plot synopsis seems a little redundant, as I'm not writing a book report or reviews per se.  It must be pretty clear that I'm not casting much of a critical eye on them, either.  You'd be better of heading over to James Smythe's series on the Guardian book blog - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/rereading-stephen-king  Previously, I've looked at how well a book got under my skin and whether they managed to scare me.
The Green Mile didn't really do either.  Maybe because I've already seen the film, maybe because even the grisly description of Delacroix's demise didn't even make me flinch.  I'm aware that this sort of talk is a stone's throw from sociopathy.  Shit.  Nah, it can't be that.  It must be due to overexposure and an increasingly logical and matter of fact approach to the effects of gross acts of violence on the human body.  Fun.

So, my future goal is to find out a way to make these intricately described physical violence shocking again.  Ideas and suggestions will be warmly received.

Other media fascinations:

Ears
Pure Love - Anthems
Baroness - All
Torche - All

Eyes
Game of Thrones
The Walking Dead
Downton Abbey

Words and Pictures
Y: The Last Man



The Green Mile - 28th Jan 2013

It's going to be hard to read this one without visualising the characters from the film.  I'll give it a go, though.

Rose Madder: 12th - 26th Jan 2013

I liked this book. It may have had a lot to do with my having hunkered down and rattled through it - comparatively speaking, at least. If only I can maintain this sort of momentum, I won't need to begin each review with a lament on how much more I'd have got into and enjoyed the book if only it hadn't taken me months to get through it.

Rose Madder is a page-turner with a very real horror executed by a very real villain towards (as we can typically rely with King) well-realised characters. The supernatural element is a bit hit and miss, but not total horseshit. Overall, the book sits on my "good" pile.

I haven't got much else to say about the book. That's not really true. There's a lot more I could say, but it would just be arguing with other people's comments and reactions to the book. I'm not really interested in going down that road.

Rose Madder: 12th Jan 2013

Here we go.

Insomnia: 23rd Oct 2012 - 12th Jan 2013

I'm an arsehole. Nothing you didn't already know, of course, but here's why this time. Two and a half months to read a 700+ page novel is fucking nuts.

I've been banging away at a few comics - finally finishing Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan, getting caught up with Joe Hill's tremendous Locke & Key, making some progress with Bill Willingham's Fables and making a start on Brian K. Vaughan's Y The Last Man - so there's the reason. It's not an excuse though, when I charged through the last couple of hundred pages of Insomnia lamenting not having kept up any sort of momentum.

For momentum would have made the book a lot better. I had a few moments of thinking "christ, this is dragging" and, while it didn't approach The Tommyknockers' level, it did a fair bit of limping.

More than anything, it just didn't grab me. I liked the characters of Ralph and Lois just fine, but the book just didn't thrill me. I'll admit the closing pages hit me, but you'd have to be hollowed out not to feel a bit of something at the closing events.
Check me out, writing spoiler free reactions.

Having read the bulk of the book in November, I'm struggling to say much more worth saying. I think I've promised myself I'll hammer the next book each time I've finished the last so I won't kid either of us this time.

Edit:
I've just read Laura's review on her blog, Devouring Texts, as I generally do once I've finished a King book and, while the points she made didn't make me buzz off the book, I will admit to being a sucker for references, links, nods and winks to others of his works. The Dark Tower isn't as dear to me (yet?) but the Derry refs did have me in nerd-glee.

Proof of Life - 2012 non-King highlights

As last year drew to a close, plenty of people made "Best of" lists. I've done it in the past but won't this year.

When it comes to film and music, I just didn't see/listen to enough stuff to produce a meaningful list. It would just illustrate how closeted I've been and how narrow my tastes have become.
So, instead, here are a few of the things that have moved or thrilled me in 2012. Some of them may not have been released this year, but it's my list.


Skyfall
I’m not much of a Bond fan. I appreciate the kitsch of the Connery and Moore eras but I’m no die-hard. With Daniel Craig’s first two additions to the canon, I offhandedly judged it as a dying franchise that should probably be put out to pasture. Come Skyfall, I wasn’t overly excited. I ended up seeing it as there wasn’t much on at the cinema that week and I was swayed by the positive things I’d heard. Javier Bardem and Sam Mendes’ involvement gave me that final push.

As it turns out, I loved it. Absolutely loved everything about it. Well, apart from the shitty theme song.

Listener
The song Wooden Heart was the single most moving/affecting/perception-shifting piece of art I witnessed last year.

It’s not the most immediate and accessible style (I first came to an almost a cappella version of Wooden Heart that initially baffled me) but, hearing it in conjunction with the video, something clicked and it just floored me. The rest of the album, also called Wooden Heart, is just as good.




Joe Hill
Aside from the obvious motivation for recommending his works to me, my first introduction to Joe Hill was as the writer of the Locke and Key comic book series - http://www.idwpublishing.com/lockekey/

From there, I stumbled up his second novel, Horns, in my local library and now I’m programmed to devour anything he produces.

Both are fantastic. Joe is also seems a very nice guy. You can get to know him better on Twitter - @joe_hill, his website http://www.joehillfiction.com and his Tumblr – http://joehillsthrills.tumblr.com


Bob Mould on Letterman
I’ve been a fan of Bob’s since the Sugar days when, at the tender age of 14, I heard If I Can’t Change Your Mind from the album Copper Blue. This performance of The Descent from the album Silver Age on Letterman had my jaw on the floor. Describing things as ‘raw’ and ‘honest’ is unfathomably clichéd, but this is just that. The guy’s in his fifties too. I love him.
Oh, I also listened to the audiobook of him reading his autobiography -See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody - last year. I’d definitely recommend it for fans.

Insomnia: 23rd Oct 2012

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

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

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

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