Stephen King Book Club - A book a month, chronologically
06-02-2014
, 12:23 AM
06-05-2014
, 10:42 PM
'Salem's Lot (spoilers below!)
I'm going to start off with the bad here, just as Stephen King does when he begins his book at the end. If there's one thing about this otherwise solid book that I just can't stand, it's that I'm told in the first few pages who survives, and this revelation removes a great deal of tension from the book. I understand that King's trying to do something a little different, but it just doesn't work. The symmetry he builds between the fire in the '50s and the fire Ben and Mark set at the end does a good deal to allay my distaste for the way he begins the book, but it's still a very inauspicious start.
Besides the suspense being shattered from the get-go, there's not much to dislike about 'Salem's Lot. It does seem like King wrote a much longer book and had it pared down by his editor -- it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does leave certain characters under- or inconsistently-developed. Or maybe King just isn't yet quite as adept as he would become at character nuance. Mark Petrie is one example, as his character goes from icewater during his first few encounters with vampires to ordinary boy then back to icewater at the end. It seems like King sometimes looks for a quick fix to showing emotion in a scene by having the boy break down. It doesn't happen often, and overall Mark is a pretty good character, but it happens enough to notice. I would've also liked to have seen a little more development on secondary characters like Father Callahan or Dr. Jimmy Cody. Even though they are pretty well-drawn characters and play large roles in the book, I feel like I never really get to know them as well as I do Matt Burke or Susan Norton.
Townsfolk characters range from being drawn poorly in a few cases -- Homer McCaslin, Delbert Markey, and Glynis Mayberry are all mentioned several times but remain completely forgettable -- to brilliantly. This latter group includes town gossip Mabel Werts, dump custodian Dud Rogers and his lusty little tramp Ruthie (also the implication, after Dud has turned, that he's been chowing down on rats was just awesome), cheating wife Bonnie Sawyer and her love triangle, and boarding house matron Eva Miller to name a few. King's skill at weaving all their subplots together isn't as excellent as it later becomes, but it's still damn remarkable and obviously one of his strongest suits.
Our main character Ben Mears (surprise! a novelist) is a serviceable protagonist, if not one of King's absolute best heroes. Same with Barlow as the villain -- what could be a more archetypal villain than a vampire? It seems as if the supernatural good versus evil battle, though the driving force behind the plot, is almost secondary to the inner battles of the town. I think this becomes a sort of trademark to King's work -- the question of what evil really is: some force outside ourselves that can't be comprehended or something lurking deep down inside ourselves? Or is it a combination of both?
One exceptional tactic King uses to heighten the reader's perception of impending doom is to keep master vampire Barlow out of the picture for the entire first half of the book. We get a hefty dose of his intermediary familiar Straker, who charms the pants off the town while creeping them off the audience. By splitting the book in halves devoted to first Straker and then Barlow, King slowly ratchets up the horror and doesn't let his audience sleep, eventually reaching a fever pitch in the final confrontation.
Some of my favorite scenes are where King takes us on a journey through the town, going from bar to diner to house to trailer as if we were peering through Mabel Werts's binoculars. We're given little snippets of Sandy McDougall abusing her infant and Larry Crockett making deals with the devil, painting a vivid picture of Jerusalem's Lot like it's some twisted Norman Rockwell painting.
King's prose shines, as it almost always does. At once simplistic, garish, empathetic, brutal, despairing, immediate, and even downright flowery, he has the ability to get under a reader's skin like no one else. A great example is the beginning of Chapter Ten (The Lot III):
Freakin' poetry, man. No doubt the town is the true bloodsucker in 'Salem's Lot.
As an aside, I was wondering exactly where 'Salem's Lot fits in the pantheon of vampire literature. Before the 18th century, it appears that there wasn't a whole lot written about vampires. Of course, Bram Stoker basically invented the modern incarnation of the vampire. But before 'Salem's Lot dropped, there hadn't been a significant vampire novel published since "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson twenty years previous. I guess you might say that the success of 'Salem's Lot paved the way for the Anne Rice classic "Interview with the Vampire," published the following year. Henceforth, vampires became more romantic figures, which really opened the floodgates to inundate modern culture with night walkers. So, in an indirect way, we have Stephen King to thank for such masterpieces as "Twilight".
Thanks, Steve!
I'm going to start off with the bad here, just as Stephen King does when he begins his book at the end. If there's one thing about this otherwise solid book that I just can't stand, it's that I'm told in the first few pages who survives, and this revelation removes a great deal of tension from the book. I understand that King's trying to do something a little different, but it just doesn't work. The symmetry he builds between the fire in the '50s and the fire Ben and Mark set at the end does a good deal to allay my distaste for the way he begins the book, but it's still a very inauspicious start.
Besides the suspense being shattered from the get-go, there's not much to dislike about 'Salem's Lot. It does seem like King wrote a much longer book and had it pared down by his editor -- it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does leave certain characters under- or inconsistently-developed. Or maybe King just isn't yet quite as adept as he would become at character nuance. Mark Petrie is one example, as his character goes from icewater during his first few encounters with vampires to ordinary boy then back to icewater at the end. It seems like King sometimes looks for a quick fix to showing emotion in a scene by having the boy break down. It doesn't happen often, and overall Mark is a pretty good character, but it happens enough to notice. I would've also liked to have seen a little more development on secondary characters like Father Callahan or Dr. Jimmy Cody. Even though they are pretty well-drawn characters and play large roles in the book, I feel like I never really get to know them as well as I do Matt Burke or Susan Norton.
Townsfolk characters range from being drawn poorly in a few cases -- Homer McCaslin, Delbert Markey, and Glynis Mayberry are all mentioned several times but remain completely forgettable -- to brilliantly. This latter group includes town gossip Mabel Werts, dump custodian Dud Rogers and his lusty little tramp Ruthie (also the implication, after Dud has turned, that he's been chowing down on rats was just awesome), cheating wife Bonnie Sawyer and her love triangle, and boarding house matron Eva Miller to name a few. King's skill at weaving all their subplots together isn't as excellent as it later becomes, but it's still damn remarkable and obviously one of his strongest suits.
Our main character Ben Mears (surprise! a novelist) is a serviceable protagonist, if not one of King's absolute best heroes. Same with Barlow as the villain -- what could be a more archetypal villain than a vampire? It seems as if the supernatural good versus evil battle, though the driving force behind the plot, is almost secondary to the inner battles of the town. I think this becomes a sort of trademark to King's work -- the question of what evil really is: some force outside ourselves that can't be comprehended or something lurking deep down inside ourselves? Or is it a combination of both?
One exceptional tactic King uses to heighten the reader's perception of impending doom is to keep master vampire Barlow out of the picture for the entire first half of the book. We get a hefty dose of his intermediary familiar Straker, who charms the pants off the town while creeping them off the audience. By splitting the book in halves devoted to first Straker and then Barlow, King slowly ratchets up the horror and doesn't let his audience sleep, eventually reaching a fever pitch in the final confrontation.
Some of my favorite scenes are where King takes us on a journey through the town, going from bar to diner to house to trailer as if we were peering through Mabel Werts's binoculars. We're given little snippets of Sandy McDougall abusing her infant and Larry Crockett making deals with the devil, painting a vivid picture of Jerusalem's Lot like it's some twisted Norman Rockwell painting.
King's prose shines, as it almost always does. At once simplistic, garish, empathetic, brutal, despairing, immediate, and even downright flowery, he has the ability to get under a reader's skin like no one else. A great example is the beginning of Chapter Ten (The Lot III):
Quote:
The town knew about darkness.
It knew about the darkness that comes on the land when rotation hides the land from the sun, and about the darkness of the human soul. The town is an accumulation of three parts which, in sum, are greater than the sections. The town is the people who live there, the buildings which they have erected to den or do business in, and it is the land. The people are Scotch-English and French. There are others, of course -- a smattering, like a fistful of pepper thrown in a pot of salt, but not many. The melting pot never melted very much. The buildings are nearly all constructed of honest wood.... The land is granite-bodied and covered with a thin, easily ruptured skin of topsoil. Farming it is a thankless, sweaty, miserable, crazy business. The harrow turns up great chunks of the granite underlayer and breaks on them. In May you take out your truck as soon as the ground is dry enough to support it, and you and your boys fill it up with rocks perhaps a dozen times before harrowing and dump them in the great weed-choked pile where you have dumped them since 1955, when you first took this tiger by the balls. And when you have picked them until the dirt won't come out from under your nails when you wash and your fingers feel huge and numb and oddly large-pored, you hitch your harrow to your tractor and before you've broken two rows you bust one of the blades on a rock you missed. And putting on a new blade, getting your oldest boy to hold up the hitch so you can get at it, the first mosquito of the new season buzzes bloodthirstily past your ear with that eye-watering hum that always makes you think it's the sound loonies must hear just before they kill all their kids or close their eyes on the Interstate and put the gas pedal to the floor or tighten their toe on the trigger of the .30-.30 they just jammed into their quackers; and then your boy's sweat-slicked fingers slip and one of the other round harrow blades scrapes skin from your arm and looking around in that kind of despairing, heartless flicker of time, when it seems you could just give it all over and take up drinking or go down to the bank that holds your mortgage and declare bankruptcy, at that moment of hating the land the soft suck of gravity that holds you to it, you also love it and understand how it knows darkness and has always known it. The land has got you, locked up solid got you, and the house, and the woman you fell in love with when you started high school (only she was a girl then, and you didn't know for **** about girls except you got one and hung on to her and she wrote your name all over her book covers and first you broke her in and then she broke you in and then neither one of you had to worry about that mess anymore), and the kids have got you, the kids that were started in the creaky double bed with the splintered headboard. You and she made the kids after the darkness fell....
It knew about the darkness that comes on the land when rotation hides the land from the sun, and about the darkness of the human soul. The town is an accumulation of three parts which, in sum, are greater than the sections. The town is the people who live there, the buildings which they have erected to den or do business in, and it is the land. The people are Scotch-English and French. There are others, of course -- a smattering, like a fistful of pepper thrown in a pot of salt, but not many. The melting pot never melted very much. The buildings are nearly all constructed of honest wood.... The land is granite-bodied and covered with a thin, easily ruptured skin of topsoil. Farming it is a thankless, sweaty, miserable, crazy business. The harrow turns up great chunks of the granite underlayer and breaks on them. In May you take out your truck as soon as the ground is dry enough to support it, and you and your boys fill it up with rocks perhaps a dozen times before harrowing and dump them in the great weed-choked pile where you have dumped them since 1955, when you first took this tiger by the balls. And when you have picked them until the dirt won't come out from under your nails when you wash and your fingers feel huge and numb and oddly large-pored, you hitch your harrow to your tractor and before you've broken two rows you bust one of the blades on a rock you missed. And putting on a new blade, getting your oldest boy to hold up the hitch so you can get at it, the first mosquito of the new season buzzes bloodthirstily past your ear with that eye-watering hum that always makes you think it's the sound loonies must hear just before they kill all their kids or close their eyes on the Interstate and put the gas pedal to the floor or tighten their toe on the trigger of the .30-.30 they just jammed into their quackers; and then your boy's sweat-slicked fingers slip and one of the other round harrow blades scrapes skin from your arm and looking around in that kind of despairing, heartless flicker of time, when it seems you could just give it all over and take up drinking or go down to the bank that holds your mortgage and declare bankruptcy, at that moment of hating the land the soft suck of gravity that holds you to it, you also love it and understand how it knows darkness and has always known it. The land has got you, locked up solid got you, and the house, and the woman you fell in love with when you started high school (only she was a girl then, and you didn't know for **** about girls except you got one and hung on to her and she wrote your name all over her book covers and first you broke her in and then she broke you in and then neither one of you had to worry about that mess anymore), and the kids have got you, the kids that were started in the creaky double bed with the splintered headboard. You and she made the kids after the darkness fell....
As an aside, I was wondering exactly where 'Salem's Lot fits in the pantheon of vampire literature. Before the 18th century, it appears that there wasn't a whole lot written about vampires. Of course, Bram Stoker basically invented the modern incarnation of the vampire. But before 'Salem's Lot dropped, there hadn't been a significant vampire novel published since "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson twenty years previous. I guess you might say that the success of 'Salem's Lot paved the way for the Anne Rice classic "Interview with the Vampire," published the following year. Henceforth, vampires became more romantic figures, which really opened the floodgates to inundate modern culture with night walkers. So, in an indirect way, we have Stephen King to thank for such masterpieces as "Twilight".
Thanks, Steve!
06-19-2014
, 04:02 PM
The Shining (1978)
Published in 1977 and King's first hardback bestseller and third paperback bestseller, this book is somewhat in the shadow of the Kubrick movie in 1980. It's got a number of richer themes than that movie (that, admittedly, benefits from the stripped down themes by being something of a powerhouse in tackling its barer story and subtext), and deals with how the parents affect the child grown, the nature of alcoholism, the anger that parents can feel towards their own kids, and more supernatural elements (a 'bad place'; psychic abilities).
I think I've read this book before - it certainly seemed familiar - but I hadn't realised Danny was only 5 going on 6 in this book. And it's kind of odd to have such a young character as a central protagonist, but it works as we, as adults, can make sense of things he's describing and seeing, but clearly doesn't fully understand. I was also aware of the use of the hedge animals in this, but was surprised how prominent they were.
It's a ferocious book, taking its time to build, but I think it works better than Salem's Lot, say, as it focuses so intently on so few characters, so we get a much deeper character analysis and look into the inner lives of each of them. King uses clear motifs and happenings to reflect the descent of Jack Torrance and how his family life has affected him as a father, and how he opens himself up to the dark influence of the Overlook through his constant fits of rage, self-pity and self-loathing. We get flashes of his horrible father (and we hear Jack start echoing his words as he descends into insane rage), we get angry wasps apparently reviving from the dead and attacking Danny (and here it's not clear if it's entirely the house or Jack's weird, subjective memory), and an insight to how Jack treated one of his pupils before that pupil got a beating from him.
So we get into the heads of Jack, Wendy, Danny and also the Overlook's summer cook, Dick Hallorann. And we also start getting an insight into the dark thing that exists within the Overlook (and there are definite shades of other haunted house stories, in particular The Haunting of Hill House), that's grown there over the years, and has now possibly been unleashed by Danny's powers.
A fine, scary story that really grips in the last act.
8/10
Published in 1977 and King's first hardback bestseller and third paperback bestseller, this book is somewhat in the shadow of the Kubrick movie in 1980. It's got a number of richer themes than that movie (that, admittedly, benefits from the stripped down themes by being something of a powerhouse in tackling its barer story and subtext), and deals with how the parents affect the child grown, the nature of alcoholism, the anger that parents can feel towards their own kids, and more supernatural elements (a 'bad place'; psychic abilities).
I think I've read this book before - it certainly seemed familiar - but I hadn't realised Danny was only 5 going on 6 in this book. And it's kind of odd to have such a young character as a central protagonist, but it works as we, as adults, can make sense of things he's describing and seeing, but clearly doesn't fully understand. I was also aware of the use of the hedge animals in this, but was surprised how prominent they were.
It's a ferocious book, taking its time to build, but I think it works better than Salem's Lot, say, as it focuses so intently on so few characters, so we get a much deeper character analysis and look into the inner lives of each of them. King uses clear motifs and happenings to reflect the descent of Jack Torrance and how his family life has affected him as a father, and how he opens himself up to the dark influence of the Overlook through his constant fits of rage, self-pity and self-loathing. We get flashes of his horrible father (and we hear Jack start echoing his words as he descends into insane rage), we get angry wasps apparently reviving from the dead and attacking Danny (and here it's not clear if it's entirely the house or Jack's weird, subjective memory), and an insight to how Jack treated one of his pupils before that pupil got a beating from him.
So we get into the heads of Jack, Wendy, Danny and also the Overlook's summer cook, Dick Hallorann. And we also start getting an insight into the dark thing that exists within the Overlook (and there are definite shades of other haunted house stories, in particular The Haunting of Hill House), that's grown there over the years, and has now possibly been unleashed by Danny's powers.
A fine, scary story that really grips in the last act.
8/10
06-20-2014
, 09:50 PM
King didn't like Kubrick's movie but I can't help but think King's fame has benefited at least in a small part by association over the years.
There are a few of glaring omissions/changes from the movie that are well done in the book though:
1. Much more history is given about the Overlook and the ghosts that are encountered by Jack, Wendy and Danny.
2. Jack's decent from a reformed, loving family man into madness is shown with a great slow buildup. This is basically completely absent in the movie - Nicholson seems crazy from the get-go.
3. The description of many of the ghosts are much creepier than anything shown in the movie.
also, for anyone who didn't know, this is the actual hotel that inspired King to write THE SHINING:
This is the Stanley Hotel located in Estes Park, Colorado, USA. If you go there (which is highly recommended if you are ever in the Denver area), you'll see that they do somewhat shamelessly plug their association with THE SHINING by selling themed merchandise. Also there is a Jack Nicholson impersonator guy who walks around with an axe.
06-22-2014
, 12:46 PM
The Shining (1980)
The one everyone thinks of whenever The Shining is mentioned.
Watched this for the first time all the way through about a year ago, and back then I thought, for the first 40 minutes, I felt I was watching a grossly overrated movie. This second watch, I didn't feel that at all - in fact it seemed entirely balanced with the rest of the movie, although I felt it to be rushing the story somewhat.
The staging and mis en scene etc was very nice, but I kept comparing it to the style/ability of David Lynch, and I feel Lynch is better. In the sound design too, this was absolutely fantastic, but again its 'wall of sound' approach to music and noise as a way to build dread reminded me very much of when Lynch does that - in particular in Eraserhead.
When Jack starts seeing dead people - particularly the previous caretaker, it really started to get great, and I can see why it's well regarded. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Not scary at all, but engaging and intense.
I can also see why King hates it. It's a real bare-bones take on that intricate and detailed story.
9/10
The one everyone thinks of whenever The Shining is mentioned.
Watched this for the first time all the way through about a year ago, and back then I thought, for the first 40 minutes, I felt I was watching a grossly overrated movie. This second watch, I didn't feel that at all - in fact it seemed entirely balanced with the rest of the movie, although I felt it to be rushing the story somewhat.
The staging and mis en scene etc was very nice, but I kept comparing it to the style/ability of David Lynch, and I feel Lynch is better. In the sound design too, this was absolutely fantastic, but again its 'wall of sound' approach to music and noise as a way to build dread reminded me very much of when Lynch does that - in particular in Eraserhead.
When Jack starts seeing dead people - particularly the previous caretaker, it really started to get great, and I can see why it's well regarded. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Not scary at all, but engaging and intense.
I can also see why King hates it. It's a real bare-bones take on that intricate and detailed story.
9/10
06-28-2014
, 12:36 PM
Quote:
Nice writeup diebitter. This is my fav book by King.
King didn't like Kubrick's movie but I can't help but think King's fame has benefited at least in a small part by association over the years.
There are a few of glaring omissions/changes from the movie that are well done in the book though:
1. Much more history is given about the Overlook and the ghosts that are encountered by Jack, Wendy and Danny.
2. Jack's decent from a reformed, loving family man into madness is shown with a great slow buildup. This is basically completely absent in the movie - Nicholson seems crazy from the get-go.
3. The description of many of the ghosts are much creepier than anything shown in the movie.
also, for anyone who didn't know, this is the actual hotel that inspired King to write THE SHINING:
This is the Stanley Hotel located in Estes Park, Colorado, USA. If you go there (which is highly recommended if you are ever in the Denver area), you'll see that they do somewhat shamelessly plug their association with THE SHINING by selling themed merchandise. Also there is a Jack Nicholson impersonator guy who walks around with an axe.
King didn't like Kubrick's movie but I can't help but think King's fame has benefited at least in a small part by association over the years.
There are a few of glaring omissions/changes from the movie that are well done in the book though:
1. Much more history is given about the Overlook and the ghosts that are encountered by Jack, Wendy and Danny.
2. Jack's decent from a reformed, loving family man into madness is shown with a great slow buildup. This is basically completely absent in the movie - Nicholson seems crazy from the get-go.
3. The description of many of the ghosts are much creepier than anything shown in the movie.
also, for anyone who didn't know, this is the actual hotel that inspired King to write THE SHINING:
This is the Stanley Hotel located in Estes Park, Colorado, USA. If you go there (which is highly recommended if you are ever in the Denver area), you'll see that they do somewhat shamelessly plug their association with THE SHINING by selling themed merchandise. Also there is a Jack Nicholson impersonator guy who walks around with an axe.
06-28-2014
, 12:40 PM
The Shining (1997) (TV miniseries)
Very, very average telling of The Shining. I appreciate it's much, much closer to the source than Kubrick's (which isn't that different to be honest, except the ending, but it is more the edited highlights of the source), and sometimes it worked well. The much better build up to Jack Torrence downfall, for example. The hedge animals were scary when they were hedges (they looked really terrible when they actually moved), and I thought the one standout otherwise was Rebecca De Mornay, who I thought came across much more like the literary Wendy than Shelley Duval. The kid was annoying at first, but got better, but the whole execution was heavy handed, and screamed 'TV miniseries'.
Smaller than the Kubrick version in every way.
4/10
Very, very average telling of The Shining. I appreciate it's much, much closer to the source than Kubrick's (which isn't that different to be honest, except the ending, but it is more the edited highlights of the source), and sometimes it worked well. The much better build up to Jack Torrence downfall, for example. The hedge animals were scary when they were hedges (they looked really terrible when they actually moved), and I thought the one standout otherwise was Rebecca De Mornay, who I thought came across much more like the literary Wendy than Shelley Duval. The kid was annoying at first, but got better, but the whole execution was heavy handed, and screamed 'TV miniseries'.
Smaller than the Kubrick version in every way.
4/10
06-28-2014
, 01:34 PM
06-28-2014
, 02:42 PM
Quote:
The Shining (1997) (TV miniseries)
Very, very average telling of The Shining. I appreciate it's much, much closer to the source than Kubrick's (which isn't that different to be honest, except the ending, but it is more the edited highlights of the source), and sometimes it worked well. The much better build up to Jack Torrence downfall, for example. The hedge animals were scary when they were hedges (they looked really terrible when they actually moved), and I thought the one standout otherwise was Rebecca De Mornay, who I thought came across much more like the literary Wendy than Shelley Duval. The kid was annoying at first, but got better, but the whole execution was heavy handed, and screamed 'TV miniseries'.
Smaller than the Kubrick version in every way.
4/10
Very, very average telling of The Shining. I appreciate it's much, much closer to the source than Kubrick's (which isn't that different to be honest, except the ending, but it is more the edited highlights of the source), and sometimes it worked well. The much better build up to Jack Torrence downfall, for example. The hedge animals were scary when they were hedges (they looked really terrible when they actually moved), and I thought the one standout otherwise was Rebecca De Mornay, who I thought came across much more like the literary Wendy than Shelley Duval. The kid was annoying at first, but got better, but the whole execution was heavy handed, and screamed 'TV miniseries'.
Smaller than the Kubrick version in every way.
4/10
You might find the commentary I edited and mixed better than the miniseries (it was a bunch of separate recording sessions edited together). However, it's been over ten years since I did it, so who knows if it's any good? I seem to remember it was, but that was a long time and a lot of work ago.