The Stephen King thread

[Maiden Voyages]

Best author of our time. The Stand is my personal favourite but Ive not read a bad one yet.

 

[Ariana]

I finished reading Sleeping Beauties a couple of days ago - King's collaboration with his son Owen. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say I have mixed feelings about it at best. On the surface, it's a decent apocalyptic thriller, with some interesting characters and some nice sub-plots. But who wants to read books on the surface, right? I'm not sure I care for the sociopolitical messages in the book and I certainly think the final plot development left me with more questions than answers. I'd be curious to know what you guys think if you have read it.

 

[JudasMyGuide]

Stevie has been kinda hit or miss since the accident, IMHO. The synopsis looks interesting, but now I'm doubly afraid after your assessment

 

[Ariana]

The synopsis looks interesting, but now I'm doubly afraid after your assessment

Rightly so. I know he's of the opinion that not everything in fiction should have its reasonable explanation and that he compares a novel to a magic show, where the explanation would just kill the buzz, but this is taking magic to extremes. Like, there's not even a hint at trying to make things believable.

 

[Maturin]

King was always hit or miss, @JudasMyGuide.

 

[JudasMyGuide]

Rage (1977)

Out of all the King books I've read so far, this one has been the one that took me the most time to read, in spite of its relative brevity. Indeed, it took nearly a year for me to actually get back to it and finish it. Not everything is King's fault, though - the last year has been pretty hectic. Studying theology has drained me a lot and when I did not have to reading anything for the school, I either invested my time into something I actually liked (like Flannery O'Connor or Malazan Book of the Fallen) or I had to read something for the "book club" me and my wife have with our previous parish priest and some other friends (man, MacIntyre's After Virtue really is unbelievably great and thoughtful) or there was some kind of clusterfuck at work or we were moving (and we really love the new flat)... but yeah, I'm gonna be honest and say that this book was really bad and it was really hard for me to pick it up again.

Wait, did I say King book? I'm sorry, it's actually "Bachman" book. You see, out of necessity (because his then publisher was not at all crazy about the idea this relatively new writer might release more than one book per year) and curiosity (to quote Wikipedia: "Bachman was also an attempt to make sense out of his career and try to answer the question of whether his success was due to talent or luck. He says he deliberately released the Bachman novels with as little marketing presence as possible and did his best to "load the dice against" Bachman. King concludes that he has yet to find an answer to the "talent versus luck" question, as he felt he was outed as Bachman too early to know.") King as adopted a pseudonym in Richard Bachman (Richard as in Donald E. Westlake's long-running pseudonym Richard Stark, Bachman as in Bachman-Turner Overdrive - yay!).

Behold, a photo of "Richard Bachman":

(actually Richard Manuel, an insurance agent of King's literary agent at the time).

At least the second aspect above was completely moot - as it were, King simply couldn't know about that talent/luck question, because - and I'm adamant about this - he deliberately tried to change his style and approach as much as possible - not so as to be completely unrecognisable (indeed, a bookstore clerk Steve Brown has noticed the similarities and "outed" King), because King as an author is quite distinct, but enough for people to be able to say they like King, yet dislike "Bachman". That's also the case with yours truly.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but if I had to somehow explain my general hostility to most Bachman books (and I guess I should, since I created this thread and all), I'd say that Bachman is this "B-Movie" version of King. Which might be funny, because King himself is no stranger to the B-Movie aesthetics, but Bachman is like this cheaper, more exploitative version of King. But that still doesn't explain it. You see, while the Bachman books are often even bleaker and bloodier, they are usually not more "disgusting" (which I'd consider to be a part of the aforementioned more exploitative approach); on the contrary, they feel much more "run-of-the-mill" and down to earth. But that also means they are quite often boring. Sometimes they at least pack an interesting idea (Running Man, Regulators), but just as often they feel like either a pulp magazine that you read once and throw away or a script to a very cheap late night TV movie (Roadwork, Thinner).

I'd say that the worst thing about Bachman books is the way the characters are created and handled. Stephen King creates his characters masterfully and with a lot of care. In two, three sentences, he summons these personalities that seem to be made of real blood and flesh and bones. You care about them before the very first page is finished. Whether it's tens of characters like in The Stand or It or just a few, like in The Shining, these characters live their own lives and fill the work with their presence - in the end, you care about pretty much everyone. By the way, I have heard this confirmed even from people who are not that crazy about him in general, so I believe it's not just fanboy wank. That can't be said about any of the Bachman books I have read so far. The characters are bland, interchangeable, boring, dead inside. The result is that the Bachman books fall victim to the eight deadly words - "I don't care what happens to these people". If that was King's intention, it was certainly a most unfortunate one. I'll apply this to the book at hand in a short time.

Rage... has an interesting premise, or, possibly, had one at the time it was written, but it completely fails to deliver upon it. After the first bout of violence, when Charlie shoots two teachers, everything grounds to a halt and we watch the interactions in the classroom, the interactions between Charlie and the people outside the classroom and witness various flashbacks from various characters. Okay, so far it's good, I have nothing against a good psychological thriller. But then we see that all of the above are completely bland - the interactions in the classroom are boring and do not interest you at all, because it all boils down to 70s/80s class dynamics we have alreay seen and read about many times in many books and movies... and it brings nothing new to the table. The interactions between Charlie and the authority figures outside always boil down to the "cleverer-than-thou-obnoxious-sarcastic-teenager vs clueless-bureaucrat-sweating-and-panicking" scene of some sort and the flashbacks... are completely and utterly superfluous. Yeah, you get some transgressive or awkward or insides-turning stuff in the form of the father proudly yapping about the Cherokee Nose Job or Charlie's first sexual encounter... but there's not much of that and you have to get through entire pages of nothing to get to that. And it really isn't worth it.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem is indeed with the characters, as I've mentioned above. Charlie is way too whiny and boring to be an interesting character or a bone-chilling villain, yet too inhumane for the reader to actually feel any kind of pity. From the first pages to the last one I didn't learn anything about him to actually care in the least bit. I already don't remember any of his classmates, or who was who and I finished the book about five days ago. Fuck it, fuck it all. This is the biggest waste of paper I have ever read coming from King and I'm utterly shocked this was his follow-up to (one of) his best work(s) ever. And then in the end we get this kind of pseudo-Lord of the Flies homage where the classroom proceeds to bully the alpha male of the class on Charlie's behalf. That was absolutely nonsensical, not coherent with the rest of the book and served no purpose. If you ask me, my guess would be it was supposed to show us the fragile state of society, where it's easy to become sociopathic and "villainous", because (in the words of Ledger's Joker) "all it takes is a little push." First of all, I don't agree (and even Joker's experiment failed, mind ye, even in such a hellhole like Gotham), but let's imagine I did - then still the execution would be terrible, coming out of nowhere and telling us exactly nothing.

As a post-scriptum, let's say that because of the very premise of this book the book would never have come out today, definitely not. Not that school shootings as such were unknown at the time - there has been a school shooting in the US almost every year in the past 50 years or so (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States), but our society tends to become more sensitive to these things over the years, so this book has became a very controversial entry in King's bibliography. And after there have been incidents of school shootings actually inspired by the book (the December 1997 shooting by Michael Carneal in Kentucky allegedly being the straw that broke the camel's back), King has allowed for this work to become out of print. For some time, it was available in the Bachman Books omnibus along with the other works, but to my knowledge, all new versions thereof have been completely Rage-free. Also, King has commented on the topic in his 2013 non-fiction essay Guns (which we'll tackle further on down the road, possibly in an appendix of sorts). Unfortunately, it was only this real-life influence, not the book's quality that made King reconsider. Anyway, you have to track down those original prints second-hand or download it online. Either way, it's not really worth it.


Like I said, this book took me a long time to finish, so take these "soundtrack picks" with a grain of salt, I'm not really sure about some of these, yet I tried to do my best.

I believe Darktown Strutter's Ball was mentioned

(if not, can someone offer a correction?)


Dylan's It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) is quoted there somewhere, IIRC

Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen is referenced („When she walked, everything jiggled-as Chuck Berry has said in his wisdom, it's such a sight to see somebody steal the show.“)

Charlie mentions listening to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys on the radio while on a date, no specific song mentioned, so let's put here this one, for the irony

Charlie allegedly looks like Myron Floren in his corduroy suit

 

[JudasMyGuide]

But wait, there's more (music, that is):

There is some talk about a folk song about beautiful blue eyes and "never loving the blue eyes again"

So it's probably this classic

Carol is mentioned as probably having a David Cassidy poster above bed

At first, the Beatles are just generally mentioned, but then at Carol's party we get specific mentions

and

Also at her party

 

[JudasMyGuide]

Again from Carol's party

Doun't Touch Me There by The Tubes is referenced

When a character's shot, he sais his side feels like it was struck with Maxvell's Silver Hammer


A jukebox plays Rolling Stones music in one scene

"I was suddenly reminded of that Beatles song that starts off: 'I read the news today, oh boy…' "

Instead of Shankar the dealer had a large collection of bluegrass music, among others the Greenbriar Boys albums

In the same scene the Tarr Brothers are mentioned, supposedly a bluegrass band, however I could not find anything about such band on the web. Anyone can help?

 

[JudasMyGuide]

Again from the scene with the dealer - the Clinch Mountain Boys are recommended and then Blue Ridge Breakdown is played ... which is a standard, but I couldn't finde CMB's recording thereof anywhere on the net, so another song by them must suffice

Also Flatt and Scruggs (the main duo from The Foggy Mountain Boys) play Russian Around ... again, I found no online recording of that, so I put here the song this time, as performed by another band

"Dimly I could hear Mick Jagger and the Stones shouting out 'Hot Stuff'"

"It was all Napoleon XIV stuff..."

(fun fact - this also used to be an intro song to Children of Bodom concerts, maybe it still is)


And last, when recalling the incident when Charlie beat the teacher prior to the events of the novel, he thinks (says?) "It's a treat… to beat your meat… on the Mississippi mud", which is probably a parody of

 

[terrell39]

Anyone watch last year's season 1 of Mr. Mercedes (or the new season that started last week)

Never read the books but I really liked season 1 (even though it was pretty sick at times). Season 2...too soon to call.

I will admit Dr Sleep & all the Dark Tower series are the only King books I have read; but I have seen about 80% of the films. I am currently re-reading the DT series.

 

[mckindog]

@JudasMyGuide Wasn't the Rage written years before it was printed, by a much younger, less-developed writer?

 

[Ariana]

Has anybody read The Outsider yet? I just bought it and will probably start reading it tomorrow, but was wondering if anyone could share an opinion.

 

[LooseCannon]

Stay gold, Ponyboy.

 

[Collin]

Has anybody read The Outsider yet? I just bought it and will probably start reading it tomorrow, but was wondering if anyone could share an opinion.

I had to read it a few years back for one of my classes. Maybe the 8th grade?? I remember not liking it personally. I think I was the only one who didn't though in my class.

 

[The_7th_one]

Has anybody read The Outsider yet? I just bought it and will probably start reading it tomorrow, but was wondering if anyone could share an opinion.

Sorry I didn't read it. I read the review and it looks very interesting. The last one from Stephen King I read was 11/22/63 and it was great. Highly recommended. I've got the Dark Tower saga ready to read in a couple of months.

 

[Ariana]

I had to read it a few years back for one of my classes. Maybe the 8th grade?? I remember not liking it personally. I think I was the only one who didn't though in my class.

I'm confused. I thought it was released in 2018.
But if you study King in school, I'm jealous.

 

[Collin]

I'm confused. I thought it was released in 2018.
But if you study King in school, I'm jealous.

Oh shit. I read The Outsiders. I saw LC’s comment and I thought of the other book.

 

[LooseCannon]

Mission accomplished.

 

[Mosh]

Missed the It discussion. I see that the Watching thread has moved on so I’m taking this to the Stephen King thread.

It's considered perhaps the best horror novel ever

Really? I didn’t think It was even considered the best Stephen King novel, let alone the best in the genre (hard to see it stacking against something like Dracula). There are a lot of great things about It but the book is also pretty flawed and it shows that it was written at a peak in King’s drug use. Not to say it’s bad, I love it despite the flaws. Far from the greatest of anything though imo.

 

[Edington]

Funny, I was in Waterstones (book shop) over the weekend and there was a little handwritten label underneath a shelf of Stephen King's work that said something along of the lines of "You know how people say IT is the scariest book ever written? It's true...". I'd like to read it just to see how scary it is compared to the films, which are both far too comedic to be truly scary in my opinion.