Late nights

20 pages turned into 75 pages. When SK gets cooking, it is hard to put the book down. Just when things seem like they might be slowing, Donna has a lap full of a rabid dog and bites on her. She has rabies and all I can think of is the episode of The Office where Meredith gets hospitalized with rabies and Michael puts together a 5k to cure rabies.

Whew, good thing I don't have to get up early.

Memory Loss

Stephen King is an alcoholic - I wonder how you could not be with all of his horrors running around in his head all the time. He admits that Jack Torrence (from The Shining) is him. Trapped in an hold hotel with your addiction raging up and down the halls and controlling your life. King says that the creative part of him knew in 1975 that he was an alcoholic, but he did not come to the realization until the early 80s.

"There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing at all. I don't say that with pride or shame, only a vague sense of sorrow and loss. I like that book. I wish I could remember enjoying the good parts as I put them down on the page."  -- On Writing, p99

Scary dreams

Reading Stephen King at night, before bed always makes me feel like I am on the verge of a nightmare.
Scary thing in the closet with yellow eyes? Yep, says my brain, we cam do that.
Closet door creaking open? Yep, that too.
Rabid dog trying to attack. Oh yes, that sounds like a fantastic dream!
So before I get in bed, I check the closet door. No need to worry about boogie men under the bed. I took care of that years ago by placing my bed on the floor.

Cujo

Everyone remembers this movie. If it was remade today, they would probably use a Pitt Bull - since those are the dogs of the hour. But I like the idea of a Saint Bernard. They are big dogs, but my only experience with them is from some cartoon with a Bernard coming to rescue people with some sort of alcohol in the little barrel at its throat.

I have a tendency to dislike stories in which animals play a heavy role. You just know that they animal is going to get it in the end and that never sits well with me. Even in this case, where Cujo is mad with rabies, there is still a part of me that does not want him to meet his end.

"In the spring of 1977 Stephen took his motorcycle to a mechanic who lived outside of Bridgton, Maine, "in the middle of nowhere". "I took the bike out there, and I just barely made it. And this huge Saint Bernard came out of the barn, growling. Then this guy came out and, I mean, he was Joe Camber-he looked almost like one of those guys out of Deliverance. And I was retreating, and wishing that I was not on my motorcycle, when the guy said, 'Don't worry. He don't bite.' And so I reached out to pet him, and the dog started to go for me. And the guy walked over and said, 'Down Gonzo,' or whatever the dog's name was and gave him this huge whack on the rump, and the dog yelped and sat down. The guy said, 'Gonzo never done that before. I guess he don't like your face.' And that became the central situation of the book, mixed with those old "Movies of the Week," the made-for-television movies that they used to have on ABC. I thought to myself, what if you could have a situation that was an extension of one scene. It would be the ultimate TV movie. There would be one set, there would be one room. You'd never even have to change the camera angle. So there was one very small place, and it became Donna's Pinto--and everything just flowed from that situation--the big dog and the Pinto."
http://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/cujo_inspiration.html

Realization and Danse Macabre

I think it goes without saying, but I enjoy fiction. There is something about getting lost in the story, falling in love with characters, and living in another world where some of the conventions of this world do not apply. I could be living in a world with hobbits, elves, dragons, telekinesis, magic, levitation, zombies, vampires, you name it. Whatever the case, I just get lost. My eyes fly over the page and I have been known to stay awake until 4am without getting tired or even know that it is 4am. 

I love non-fiction. In fact, I spend more time reading non-fiction than fiction. In reading Danse Macabre, I realized that I labor over every word of non-fiction and that it takes forever. The layout of every sentence is important to the ideas presented in a work of non-fiction. Whereas, in a fiction novel, an author could write in comfortable run-ons and fragments and you could still follow the story. 

Danse Macabre, was both wonderful and painstaking at the same time - around 10,000 minutes of reading. This is King's overview of the horror genre, written in 1980, although I read the 2010 revision.

I am also a person that loves to know what makes people tick. Stories are nice, but I prefer to know why a person decides to hack someone to bits, or turn to drugs, or alienate the people around them. In essence, this study is an ode to what makes the horror genre tick. If you are not a person that enjoys horror and you wonder why someone who spends most of their time practicing yoga and helping others to heal, then I think King answers that question. 

"We take refuge in make-believe terrors so the real ones don't overwhelm us, freezing us in place an making it impossible for us to function in our day-to-day lives. We go into the darkness of a movie theater hoping to dream badly, because the world of our normal lives looks ever so much better when the bad dream ends...Perhaps we go to the forbidden door or window willingly because we understand that a time comes when we must go whether we want to or not...and not just to look, but to be pushed through. Forever."

And this works as an explanation for me. It is not that my life is horrible but in comparison to Rick from "The Walking Dead" my life is a walk down easy street. 

The horror genre also provides an escape for the over active imagination. The mind that can dream up zombies, haunted houses, or as was the case last night, ghostly beings that take over the bodies of friends at night as we live in a home in the middle of nowhere, can find freedom in the terror on a page or movie screen where the main character lives and the "bad guy" dies. Knowing that Stephen King is an adult who sometimes turns the light on at night and snuggles up to his wife because he has woken up from a nightmare and is still afraid of the dark, makes me feel a certain kinship to him. It also dissolves the shame I once had for doing the same thing. In the overactive imagination wonderful art is produced, but there is always something lurking in the shadows.

Triumphant Return & Roadwork

Whew...months of slogging through rather difficult and somewhat depressing reads, time spent relaxing, but I am finally through!

In order to be 100% transparent, inaction / stagnation are traits that I can't abide. Characters (and people) that stagnate hold no interest for me. They are one dimensional, and dare I say it, boring. I live for growth, realization, epiphany, and painful awareness of one's motivations in life. With that in mind, I have no problem telling you that it was with resentment that I pushed my way through Roadwork.

Roadwork is another of King's works written as Richard Bachman. This work is about a man, Barton Dawes, who is going to lose his home to a freeway. Rather than allow the state to buy his house and look for a better home, he is paralyzed by depression. Barton destroys his marriage, his career and his life with his inability to move forward.

The saving grace for Roadwork and Barton are the references to a son that died - which are the only parts of the book that I really enjoyed. The reader is led to believe that his motivations for wanting to remain are that all memories of a happier time, with his son and wife, are alive in this house. We are led to believe that perhaps Barton Dawes believes that outside his home he loses his child. But it is just an allusion and Barton does not come to realize this, as far as we are aware. Instead, we are left to read pages and pages of painful stagnation and action without motivation.

Firestarter

The first time I read this, I had a hard time. The father, has the power to mental dominate other people. But his power comes at a price, it gives him terrible headaches. Those headaches are a lot like migraines. Reading and talking about migraines, for a person that gets them, is not an easy thing to do. In a way, it gives you your own phantom headaches. Ugh. That is what I remember about reading this book, having terrible headaches.

That and how cool it would be to be able to light fires with your mind and your will. Forget about the cost, I really wanted to be able to do that. I would have been happy to have the mental domination power - even if it was just to trick the bank into giving me tons of money.

I never did see this movie, even though I loved Drew Barrymore as a child. I think I may have to rent it.

The End Zone

I did not really think about the ending of this book as I was reading it. But it ended up being quite disturbing when I got there. John Smith arrives at a town hall meeting for a Representative, which is not that far off from what took place in Tucson, January of 2011. It was a very strange thing to be in the mind of an individual bent on assassinating a Representative and to be sympathetic to his plight.

John Smith has a car accident that leaves him in a coma for 4 years. When he comes out of his come he becomes telepathic – through touch. That means that when he comes into physical contact with someone, he can hear their thoughts but also see pertinent information about their future and their past. He touches Jimmy Carter and sees that he will be president. He touches his former girlfriend and tells her where her lost wedding ring is. It all seems innocuous enough, but what happens when you touch someone and see that they will destroy the peace in your nation? What is a man to do when he is armed with information that will change the world, for the better? 

In John’s case, he decides that he must end the life of a Representative from New Hampshire. That seems to be the only way that he can prevent what may well be a nuclear war. Given that I was there for the rest of the work, this seems plenty believable – John is a very sympathetic character and seems in control of his faculties and not insane. As readers we get to see that his target is insane and unethical and will do great damage.  

Reading about John’s entry into the building was no big deal. But as soon as the words ‘town hall’ came into play, my hair stood on end. I became fearful that I would be reading a replay of events last year. Thankfully John is a poor shot and he is the one that is released of his misery – all ends well. But it gives me chills to think that the man who shot Giffords may have had the most rational explanation in his mind for the atrocious act that he committed.

Next up: Firestarter

In the Dead Zone

is apparently where I put all my memories of this book. Not a slow read at all! Perhaps I got the book confused with the movie - which was very slow (and what were they thinking when they cast Christopher Walken?!?).

My general rule, when starting any new book, is to read the first 30-40 pages without interruption. To me, this insures that I will continue with the book, because I am invested in reading it. Whereas, in the rare cases that I have sat down and started a book and only read 10 pages, I ended up not finishing it. This is all to illustrate the fact that I found The Dead Zone so engaging that I read 65 pages the first night.

The other thing that has struck me about this book is that The Dead Zone is a Richard Bachman book - or Stephen King trying to unite the halves of himself as an author. King's first three books, Carrie, 'Salems's Lot, and The Shining, were horror novels, no doubt about it. Carrie, is not really that scary, but it is disturbing. Then he publishes Rage under the name Richard Bachman - a purely fiction work, with no terrifying elements, at all. TDZ, seems to be a work that encorporates his love of the supernatural with fiction.

When people talk to me about Stephen King and how they do not read his work because they do not like horror novels, I often point out that King is an author that is interested in the exploration of the supernatural, not horror. Sometimes horror and the supernatural dovetail nicely, but I do not think it is his intent to frighten. I then go on to point out how the person talking to me already enjoys Stephen King, they just don't know it. I list off The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand by Me, and they nod about how they really enjoyed those movies. To that list, I will now add The Dead Zone, as a novel they should read.

It All Started

in 1990. My mom was pregnant with my sister. I had gone over to my older brother's place, to visit, but I was probably snooping too. I found an orange book, called the Bachman Books with Stephen King's name in big bold letters. I obviously knew who King was (maybe from watching Pet Semetary with my best friend) and so I grabbed the book. My younger brother and I went to New York and I brought the book with me. By the I finished The Long Walk there was no doubt that I would spend my time reading all of his works. Now, I don't know the exact order that I read his books in, but I do know that IT was the next book I read. 12 years old, sitting in Mrs. Jackson's class reading an 1142 page novel. I was a strange kid.

What is it about Stephen King that I find so fascinating?

Well, you could say that I have a fascination with the darker aspects of life. I am not obsessed with death, or anything like that. Simply put, there is this whole other side of life, where terrible things happen and no one really wants to explore that side. We might feel comfortable watching the news, but journalism is just to report the facts and not opinions. I want to know the mind of the person that commits an atrocity. I want to know what they were thinking, what happened in their past to make them do that. I want to explore the relationships between the attacker and the victim. This is not morbid curiosity, this is just a curiosity about life - all aspects of life.
Now, this does not make me unhappy, it does not make a weirdo in a dark room with frightening pictures on the wall, listening to Death Metal. Most people are probably surprised to find out that I love reading something as "dark and disturbing" as Stephen King, because I am happy, smiley, and I enjoy life. Perhaps the reason that I enjoy life is because I have explored the deeper and darker sides of life.

Why do you, dear reader, enjoy Stephen King?

The Dead Zone

It has been a long time, and as I recall, I was not that impressed with this story. I mean, I did want to be able to do what Johnny can do. But other than that, I remember it being a slow read.

I watched the movie, from 1983, after reading it. Christopher Walken plays Johnny. I forgot that! But now I am kind of excited to read the novel with Walken in mind :)

Synopsis from stephenking.com:

Waking up from a five-year coma after a car accident, former schoolteacher Johnny Smith discovers that he can see people's futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiance married another man during his coma and people clamor for him to solve their problems. When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future.

406 Miles...

is how many miles walked by the winner of The Long Walk. By the end, they can't eat, and they are emaciated. They have also probably all gone a little insane. With a story like this, I love that King leaves the ending a little ambivilent - I wont ruin it for you, because this is a story that is well worth the read. If I were in the state that Ray is in at the end of the walk, I might find it difficult to stop walking. I would be worried that I would get shot, even if I knew that I had won.

I think that this story is about the lengths that we go to, to avoid dealing with the difficult aspects of our lives. Escaping a failed relationship, a broken home, grief, happiness, life in general. One character on the walk points out that the walkers are there because they want to die. A valid point, since death is the ultimate escape. More than that, I think they want to escape the parts of their lives that don't work for them. I understand that, life is hard or better yet, life is suffering. In some way, taking this challenge on is taking control of life, by taking control of death. Perhaps that is why I am so fascinated by this story. Not all stories stick with me, but in the 20 years between reading this for the first time, and reading it this time, I had not forgotten much of the story.

Next up, The Dead Zone

Sleeping in my Walk

100 pages left and the Walkers have traveled 200 miles at 4mph, without stopping. When you stop, you die. You do get 3 warnings before the soldiers shoot you, but those 3 warnings happen in the span of 2 minutes. Just enough time to squat and use the bathroom, or have a charley horse.

The Walkers are sleeping on their feet. Try to imagine walking to the point where your feet are raw and aching, you have blisters that keep popping, your toenails are rubbing off, you are eating concentrated food, there are non-stop spectators yelling, and you are trying to sleep while you are walking. Just the thought of my feet swollen and screaming at me makes my skin crawl.

The Long Walk

I LOVE this story. It is the second story that I ever read by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) and it has just always stuck with me. The story is about a group of 100 boys that begin a long walk. They must maintain a pace of 4mph, without stopping. If they lose the pace, or stop, they get a warning. Rack up 3 warnings and you are out - as in shot dead. The last one walking wins a prize - whatever they want for the rest of their life.

I think about this story whenever I walk anywhere.

The other thing that I remember intensely about this book is that the main character has to take a crap as he is walking. I have always been obsessed about how people use the bathroom in certain situations and it bugs me that in many cases you never see it. Like what innovations are made in the bathroom on Star Trek? Or, in 24, did Jack Bower ever take a break to go to the bathroom? Seriously, I never watched that show, but in a span of 24 hours, you need to go to the bathroom, so did they show it? I just have a lot of respect for that disscussion and I was glad to see it in this story.
Stephen King's Inspiration:

In the early '60s radio and TV stations throughout the country organized 50-mile hikes. Stephen says: "I had that in mind. I didn't have a car when I wrote that book. I was hitchhiking everywhere. I didn't finish my 50-mile hike, though. I fell out after 20 miles."

Good has prevailed...

so far...

Like any good Stephen King novel, I was up until 2am, because I could not put it down. That has happened too many times to count. The Stand is one of my ultimate favorites - but I much prefer the unabridged version. There were many places where a hazy memory of 'something more' arose. The joy of this project is that I am going to get to read this book again. If I am lucky it will be in the next 6 months.

One final comparison to Lord of the Rings:
Most people have seen The Return of the King, the end of the journey. It is fitting point out that Bilbo Baggins is writing "There and Back Again, a Hobbit's Tale." This title tells us that we get to read the journey back home - which takes 30 minutes or so in the movie (I secretly laughed a bunch when people kept trying to get up at the end of the movie, thinking it was over).
The Stand has a similar ending [spoiler alert]

After Las Vegas goes up in a nuclear explosion, we are left with Stu in a ditch 300 miles or so from home. The eagles don't come for him, but Tom and Kojak do. The last 60 pages are devoted to Stu's journey home. There is of course the struggle for his life - he has pnemonia and a broken leg - there are high passes, wolves and snow, but he makes it home.

But in the end those last 60 pages are worth it.

Next up: The Long Walk

Halfway through The Stand - or Standing on One Leg

Well, I have reached Boulder, CO - the halfway point of The Stand. My intention when I started reading this version was to see if I could notice the discrepancies between the two versions. I have noticed a few, but more than that, I feel like I have missed things, like maybe I was not paying attention when I was reading. But, I know that is not the case.

Instead, my focus has been to notice the similarities between The Stand and Lord of the Rings. I would not have thought about it if not for reading King's inspiration. LOTR is such an iconic work, such an epic, that it is difficult to not pay homage to it. Yes, you can argue that it is the Hero's Journey and Tolkein was not writing an original story - that's fine. Either way, I love the little ways, overt and covert, that LOTR shows up in this book.
Let's start with the simple fact that both novels are happening in a time when things have collapsed - in both books, people are walking through cities that were once bright and shining. In this 'time after' there comes the epic battle between good and evil. Who will prevail? Mother Abigal, 108 years old, blessed with forsight, is Gandalf, the wizard, ancient and seemingly blessed with forsight. The bad guy, Randall Flagg, uses a black stone with a red flaw that often looks like an eye (the palantir frim LOTR). Not to mention the fact that people feel Flagg as a red eye that sees them from afar. There are many more instances, and I think that I love each and everyone!

A couple of other things to share:

• There is one mention of swine flu. I would not have caught this before, but last year when H1N1 was quite the subject, there was some discussion of the swine flu scare in the 70s.
• Page 122 is the first mention of Oswald (as in Lee Harvey) in a King novel. Interesting, because his latest book (at this writing) is 11/22/63 in which Oswald is featured heavily.
• Larry wonders at how clear the air seems and what "they had been doing to the planet." Notable because in September of 2001, there was an increase in temperature difference between night and day, due to all planes being grounded. Amazing how nature bounces back, after just a couple of days.
• I have a lot of irritation for the mini series that was created, because in my mind, Stu Redman is Gary Sinese and Frannie Goldsmith is Molly Ringwald. I wish that was not so.

Wow, even at 14

Mr. King has been at this a very long time!

Picture courtesy of Lilja's Library

I would love to know what the story was and if they did publish it. It would suck to be the person that passed on SK.

The Stand (Original Version)

It just would not be flu season without reading a novel about a plague!

The abridged version of The Stand. I have never read this version but I have twice read the unabridged, all 1100 pages. I have always wanted to read this version, mostly so I could explore the differences. Hopefully I will be able to do that - although with so many books in between it seems a little unlikely.

I love that he felt this is his fantasy epic, like The Lord of the Rings. I agree, up to a point, because The Dark Tower series is his LOTR epic. I feel qualified to make that statement since I have read his catalog and I have read LOTR ten times. [Why read new books, when there are so many brilliant ones to re-read?]
Stephen King's Inspiration:

For a long time--ten years, at least--I had wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Then, slowly after my wife and kids and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, I saw a 60 Minutes segment on CBW (chemical-biological warfare). I never forgot the gruesome footage of the test mice shuddering, convulsing, and dying, all in twenty seconds or less. That got me remembering a chemical spill in Utah that killed a bunch of sheep (these were canisters on their way to some burial ground; they fell off the truck and ruptured). I remembered a news reporter saying, "If the winds had been blowing the other way, there was Salt Lake City." This incident later served as the basis of a movie called Rage, starring George C. Scott, but before it was released, I was deep into The Stand, finally writing my American fantasy epic, set in a plague-decimated USA. Only instead of a hobbit, my hero was a Texan named Stu Redman, and instead of a Dark Lord, my villain was a ruthless drifter and supernatural madman named Randall Flagg. The land of Mordor ("where the shadows lie, according to Tolkien) was played by Las Vegas.

Night Shift...over

Whew, that was one long read. Funny, because it was a bunch of short stories - not like The Stand at 800 pages (that comes next). Not to mention going on a retreat and not having time to read.

The first time I read this was early on in my exploration of Stephen King. I had read maybe 5 or 6 other books. I did not have an awareness of his catalog. Reading it now, I can see how this collection of short stories is a premonition of the his work - all of these stories were written before 1978, some as early as 1973. It is also an example of King at his best.

King has said that a lot of his ideas come from dreams that he has. He wakes up and writes them down; some become novels. I had always assumed that what he wrote down became a chapter, or was some how edited away. I might wonder if some of the short stories is Night Shift were the ideas that spawned other works. For example:

• Night Surf - a story about kids in an end of the world scenario where a plague has killed many. The Stand is a novel about what happens when 99.9% of the world's population dies from a flu-like virus.
• Trucks - you may know this story as the movie "Maximum Overdrive," motorvehicles come to 'life' and try to do away with all of the humans. This has reflections of Christine. Although, The Mangler (a laundry folding machine gets a taste for human blood) may be a more appropriate forshadowing of Christine.
• I Know What You Need - a story about a young man who somehow knows exactly what the object of his affection needs. One could draw a parallel, a crooked one, to The Dead Zone. Ultimately they are both about being psychic.

The aspect of King's short story work that I love is his exploration of "bad endings." The short story does not always end well. In the case of Night Surf, the kids are on the beach. They have just come from a dastardly deed and they are enjoying the surf. One of the group has come down with A6. The story ends on a sour note because you know that they are all going to catch it.
I have to say, I love a sad/bad ending. I think it suits reality a bit more. It is nice to focus on the hope that a happy ending provides. But I think it is good to know and explore the fact that things do not always end well.

Next up, the abridged version of The Stand

Night Shift

The first anthology of short stories in this long journey. This one contains some goodies that were made into movies: Graveyard Shift, Lawnmower Man, Children of the Corn, Quitters Inc + The Ledge (in combination they became Cat's Eye), Trucks (Maximum Overdrive - directed by Stephen King), and The Mangler. If you blinked, you missed most of them. 


I am sure that Children of the Corn, is responsible for a fear of remote cornfields. I can say that I have not been in a cornfield, before reading/seeing the movie or since. I am also not likely to venture into one.




Table of Contents:

Jerusalem's Lot

Graveyard Shift

Night Surf

I Am the Doorway

The Mangler

The Boogeyman

Grey Matter

Battleground

Trucks

Sometimes They Come Back

Strawberry Spring

The Ledge

The Lawnmower Man

Quitters, Inc.

I Know What You Need

Children of the Corn

The Last Rung on the Ladder

The Man Who Loved Flowers

One for the Road

The Woman in the Room

Weak and Powerless

Finished Rage last night.

Charlie Decker holds his class hostage after shooting and killing two teachers. Prior to this incident, he beat a teacher that had bullied him with a lead wrench, almost killing him. Yet, the students identify with him and I identify with him. Not his methods, mind you, but his sentiments.

Charlie is a character that is eaten up inside by his lack of power in his own life. He has terrible gastric distress and feels disconnected from life and the people around him. The students that he is "holding hostage" echo this feeling - one of them says that she feels that life is not real. I don't know if this is typical for all teenagers, but I know I felt that way in my teens. It is an odd thing to be told by everyone around you that you need to act like an adult, yet the authorities refuse to let you be one. Old enough to have a baby, yet not old enough to make a decision about your future.

Charlie acts out in the only way that he can fathom. His childlike behavior is rewarded with adultlike consequences and in today's world he would be sentenced to life in prison for his actions. When we do not instill our children with a sense of responsibility nor recognize mental illness, terrible things happen. We are all in this together and this story really brings that home for me. King wrote it as a means of sharing his feelings from high school and I think it is interesting that this sentiment still exists more than 30 years later and bullying, school shootings, and murders are just getting worse. Instead of being out of print, this book should be on everyone's shelf as a warning for what happens when we treat others as invisible.

I happened to hear this song today and thought how much it echoes this story.

Rage

This is the first of The Bachman Books, and also the very first Stephen King work that I read. Most people equate King with horror, but I think that he lives beyond that genre and is a skilled fiction writer. Not sure you believe me? Well, you probably enjoyed "The Green Mile," or "Shawshank Redemption," or "Stand By Me," just to name a few.

King has mentioned that his inspiration for this novel is the frustration experienced as a teen in high school. I think many people can identify with that. Perhaps too many, since the paperback of this novel became associated with a number of high school shootings. After an incident in 1997, where a copy of rage was found in the students locker, King asked that Rage be taken out of publication. I am not a fan of censorship, but I can understand why someone might feel that their work was inspirational in a not so healthy way. This novel is still available in The Bachman Books.