I have begun my journey through the bibliography of Stephen King, with his first published Novel, Carrie. Before today, my only other exposures to King was the 11/22/63 mini-series on Hulu, and the first book of the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger.
Carrie felt unadaptable. If it were to be made into a movie, which it has, I can't imagine it would be as good as the story I've read. So much of it takes place in the character's heads, as well as in after-the fact memoirs and newspaper clippings. I thought it was a really unique method of storytelling. Alas, the horror of the book only presented itself in one scene, with Carrie and her mother, towards the end of the book that I will not spoil here. For the rest of the time, my feelings were of pity, not fear. And maybe that's what we are supposed to feel, I'm not sure.
It was quite a short novel, and a good introduction to Stephen King. I will begin 'Salem's Lot.
'Salem's Lot was quite a different story compared to Carrie. Carrie was from the perspective of just a couple people, her tormentor, her sympathizer, and Carrie, primarily.'Salem's Lot, by contrast, is very much about the entire town of Jerusalem's Lot. Our protagonist, Ben Mears, is quite important. But the town moves around him. In one corner, a young housewife abuses her infant child. In another, a hunchback spends his day shooting rats with his peashooter. As the book progresses, and the number of vampires increases, the story becomes increasingly centered on our main characters, Ben, Mark, Matt, Jimmy, and Father Callahn. It really makes you feel that the town is dying around you, and attempts to stop what has been started is futile.
King's writing feels much more polished, his prose impressive.
One interesting thought is Carrie depicted religion in a negative light, where she's bullied because of it, and her mothers extremist beliefs shape her into the monster that destroys Chamberlain. 'Salem's Lot, by contrast, shows how religion can be a Force, with a capital F, of good, smiting evil and protecting society from the things that go bump in the night.
The quality of the book is higher than I can express in writing, and I highly recommend it. Now, onto The Shining.
The Shining is his best work so far, by a long shot. The building of tension throughout the work far outpaces Carrie, and focusing on just a few characters helps flesh them out significantly, compared to 'Salem's Lot. I wonder if the Shining ability is related to, or completely separate from the TK gene exhibited by Carrie White. Like Carrie, the book spoils the climax almost immediately, and the rest of the book is building up to it, until it is no longer a surprise, but still just as horrifying. King also brought back from Carrie the idea to put characters' thoughts, sometimes mid-sentence, in (parenthesis), and it becomes an interesting device that is played with again.
I have many more thoughts, but they are hard to express. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Rage is one of King''s more problematic books, and I can see why. It deals with the topic of school shootings quite lightly, and Charlie Decker is even kind of sympathetic. Like The Shining, in Rage, you learn quickly that Charlie will shoot up the school. Only, this is no premonition. It is happening almost immediately. The other 100 pages are trying to understand why.
He turns it around though, and makes Charlie seem very rational, and the truly insane ones, it is revealed, are the students he's """holding""" hostage.
The book is written quite differently from his other works. Less prose, more slang. Im not sure if what I'm noticing is "Bachman's" voice, or perhaps the 19 year old king (of his published works, this was the first he wrote), or if it is simply a side-effect of having a somewhat unreliable, first-person retrospective narrator.
I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to all but the die-hardest of King fans.
This was an interesting collection of short stories. Not all were of equal quality, but as a whole they were quite good. It was nice to return to the Lot in Jerusalem's Lot and One for the Road. Night Surf made me intrigued for The Stand. Trucks was also quite good. This is a solid collection, that I would recommend. It has a good variety of stories.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Stand. While I certainly felt this book's length, and there were times it seemed to drag, I was always thoroughly impressed with it. It felt almost like there was no suspension of disbelief to be had, the characters and setting were so well realized. If you told me this was a history book of the future, I'd almost believe you. This is a classic story of good versus evil, introducing a key player in the Dark Tower series, which I am really looking forward to. Go read it for yourself.
Returning to Bachman, The Long Walk is a shorter story, which makes you feel every step the characters take. A lot of description of their many aches and pains. Like King is apt to do, he just jumps right into the Walk, and the rest of the novel is attempting to understand why Ray, or anyone really, would even think of participation. We get a glimpse occasionally behind the scenes of the horrors of the dystopian society that created such a sick event. I would recommend it.
While Bachman is definitely King, his stories seem to have a different kind of mood, or way of writing, or something. I can definitely tell it is a Bachman story, not a King one.
I was kind of disappointed by The Dead Zone. A lot of it is really slow, and all in all, most of it is him just kind of living with his pain. I don’t know. The first appearance of Castle Rock and Frank Dodd were quite interesting, and I was sad that it was resolved almost as soon as it began. It was fine, overall.
As can probably be evidenced, I took about a 7 month break on King after the first 60 pages or so. After The Dead Zone, I was pretty burnt out. I am very glad I picked it back up. This is an excellent book. It's all based around the father-daughter dynamic between Charlie and her father, it felt very realistic. I enjoyed it thoroughly.