Palaver's Stephen King blog

“When someone dies you think about the past.”

Five stories, of very varied length but with recurring characters and a common theme; the Vietnam war. Very few pages of story take place in the actual war, however. This book is about how it affected people, not only those who fought, but those who protested against it or applauded it in the states, and how, somehow, a entire nation was seemingly changed by it, though not a second of actual battle was fought there. Atlantis is, obviously, King’s metaphor for an America that sunk into oblivion and now seems like a myth or legend, the America of the 60’s. He doesn’t romanticise it, but seems to feel a genuine grief over the loss of that mentality. This would be a good book to offer one of those few lingering people who still insist that King is ‘just a horror writer’.

“I can’t stay out here all night, she thought. No one can expect me to stay out here all night.”

A remarkably short novel for King, just above 200 pages. No links to the Dark Tower universe or his other work. Just a story about a young girl lost in the woods. This is Blair Witch horror, where half of the terror comes from the very real fact of being lost and ever more hungry and desperate and slowly going insane; the other half coming from a conviction that there’s something out there. Something hostile, and terrifyingly playful. Trisha McFarland’s one link to the real, civilized world is her Walkman, on which she listens to baseball games, rooting for her hero; pitcher Tom Gordon, hence the title of the book. Read it late at night.

“help r”

A haunted love story, the cover calls it, and it’s as good a description as any. I wouldn’t know how to summarize it, other than with superlatives and hype-words, because this is – hype, hype – in my mind, one of King’s finest. Not only one the scariest, it’s also one of the most moving, funny, poetic and complex novels King has written. Written in first person, which in itself is unusual for King, it reminds me of Peter Straub’s books, being sort of a puzzle, where you only see the whole picture as you finish it and take a step back. While you read it, it’s hard to have enough distance to analyse and discover the clues, the story being – to me, at least – hypnotically involving. Only afterwards, you see the signs for what they are. Other things that make me think of Straub are the theme of dark secrets in the past and some neat details, like mentions of “blue roses” and “Underwood”. No disrespect to Straub, though, but his novels seldom glow with life like, say, Bag of Bones.

Personal trivia: my cousin had the good sense to be in England at the same time as King, so now I own an actual signed copy of Bag of Bones. That’s nice 🙂

“You’re in my house now, the house of the wolf and the scorpion and you better not forget it.”

Published along with The Regulators, Desperation tells one version of the basic story that these novels share. It’s rather confusing, but in a fascinating way, and the books (imho) actually strengthen each other rather than cancel each other out. Desperation is prime King; epic, cruel and moving all at once, utterly absorbing, though there are times when you might want to look away from the horrors taking place in the Nevada Desert. The main theme is faith, and though this is often an important element of King’s novels its rarely been so frankly and seriously explored. We’re talking God, here, no vague concept or Star Wars Force, a biblical God who doesn’t always do what you want but who makes high demands. This may put some readers off but then again, King does not just write to please you.

“Your name is John Coffey.”
“Yes, sir, boss, like the drink, only not spelled the same way.”

Another of Kings experiments, which of course doesn’t mean that the story takes second place. Published in six parts, a month between, these books revive the time-honoured art of the serial story. The tale, taking place mostly on death row some decades ago, contains equal amounts of wonder and horror – all accentuated by the extreme setting of the tale. Now available in one volume.

“Get out of here, that deep part of her mind said suddenly. Get out of here right now.”

Rose gets out, without a plan or thought, leaving a marriage turned into hell and hoping to start again. This is something of a finale to King’s “feminist” theme, a story which is just as moving as it is scary. Almost “realistic”, but with King the supernatural is never far away, nor is it completely absent in Rose Madder.

“There are worse things than insomnia.”

Some inspired person in the alt.books.stephen-king newsgroup said that Insomnia does for old age what IT does for childhood. I couldn’t phrase it better. Except for the theme of trying to cope with old age, this long novel revolves around a pro-choice, pro-life debate gone insane and around Ralph, who is losing sleep and gaining something else. It starts off rather undramatically and smoothly and gradually works its way ever further from what we call reality, with links to The Dark Tower universe. His then pet subject – men beating women – also finds its way into Insomnia, like a preparation for Rose Madder.