Tag Archives: Stephen King

11/22/63 by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
A schoolteacher travels through a wormhole to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating JFK.

Review:
11/22/63 started out really strong. I loved the premise and knew that Stephen King would do a lot more than just tell the A-story of Jake Epping, time traveler and would-be history changer. The historical aspects were really well done, particularly through the life Jake builds in small town Jodie, Texas, and the love story is poignant.

However, I felt like the ending was a foregone conclusion, and I didn’t feel like King delivered on the promise he made by setting the opening horror sequence in Derry right at the same time as It. I was expecting a lot more than I got.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
4 new stories that probe what ordinary people might do when faced with evil.

Review:
There were times when I considered putting down Full Dark, No Stars because it went so deep into the blackness. I know that sounds odd, because of who the author is, but for some reason these stories felt compressed in an unpleasant way. When King takes more time to develop his stories and let them breathe, you get some relief from the evil. That’s not the case with these small stories. And because in each one the evil is so intimate, the stories are claustrophobic to the extreme. I much prefer the mode where the evil is externalized to a greater degree. To me, his gold standard for the short form is “The Langoliers,” where you have an outside menace that then causes a moral breakdown amongst a group for characters. Moving among points-of-view provides a bit of an escape and some characters are also freed to find their best selves. Here you do get some glimpses of courage and even heroism, but the overall mood is relentlessly cynical and bleak.

That said, these stories do have solid literary merit, in terms of concept and execution. I guess I just might have too much Christmas spirit to appreciate them now. I might have liked them better in March.

Lisey’s Story by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
Two years after the death of her famous writer husband, Lisey Landon must return to the other world where he both drew his inspiration and unearthed his demons in order to defeat a madman and put her husband’s legacy to rest for good.

Review:
I listened to the audiobook of Lisey’s Story, narrated by the incomparable Mare Winningham, and this was actually my second encounter with the book, which I have read once before. It’s one of King’s most ambitiously intimate stories, delving deep into what he calls the “dark heart of every marriage.”

As Lisey Landon travels back and forth to Scott’s alternate world, home to “the well where we all go down to drink,” she faces demons both internal and external, tangible and terrifyingly supernatural. In doing so, she probes every corner of her life with famous writer Scott Landon, to name the darkness that nearly consumed them both.

I liked Lisey tremendously, though I felt like the conclusion to the storyline involving her stalker ended on an odd note. She’s a wonderfully realized character, and a real woman. I’m not sure I’ll be reading this one again, though. I think I’d actually get bored on a third read, and I don’t want my memories of Lisey despoiled.

Just After Sunset by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
A collection of short stories.

Review:
Just After Sunset offers a lackluster selection of short stories, hardly any of which really grabbed me by the collar. Many of them had a fancy twist ending that could be spotted a mile away (“The Mute”), while others were just deadly dull (“The Things They Left Behind”).

I did enjoy “N,” which evoked the same creepy unease that I so loved in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. However, once it reached the final section it had no more surprises for me. “The Stationary Bike” was hypnotic, particularly because I listened to it while driving a very long stretch of I87 from Albany back to New York City. However, it just didn’t blow me away. Finally, “A Very Tight Place,” which concerns a man trapped in a tipped-over, locked port-o-potty, managed to gross me out, keep me riveted, and surprise me with some nice character touches. I think it’s the best of a subpar bunch.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
An impenetrable dome smashes down over a small Maine town, completely isolating them from the world.

Review:
I devoured Under the Dome, thoroughly enjoying King’s blend of deft characterizations, manic plotting, and outrageously broad social satire. Imagine the world coming to an end–but only over a few square miles, while the rest of America watches helpless to intervene.

In true King fashion, he takes an external horror device and uses it to expose the evil within. I’d call him a Calvinist, except it seems that the only kind of Christian King approves of is the one who has decided God doesn’t exist. Here, we get Lester Coggins, a vaguely charismatic preacher prone to apocalypticism and hypocrisy–always going down on his knees even when negotiating his stake in a drug deal–contrasted with Piper Libby, a minister whose growing agnosticism serves to make her more heroic by the minute. He’s toned down his vitriol against “Christians” in his last few books, but methinks that’s only because his recent works have been relatively intimate affairs with few characters. In addition to Coggins, he gives us Big Jim Rennie, a larger-than-life villain in the form of an obese Selectmen, one of Coggins’s flock who uses some Christian vocabulary but otherwise bears no resemblance to an actual believer. I don’t even have a problem with nominal Christians being satirized, but it seems to me that King’s analysis is stuck in the Falwell 80s. The Cogginses of today are more likely to be preaching wealth and prosperity without ever mentioning Jesus at all. I wasn’t buying that Big Jim Rennie needed Jesus to achieve his political goals. King would have me believe that Rennie actually thought Jesus was on his side and I’m not buying that either. King didn’t make it work because he doesn’t believe that there could be real Christians in the first place.

My other critique of the novel comes in its lack of a compelling protagonist. Big Jim Rennie looms so large over the pages of the book, and his heroic counterpart, Dale Barbara, a retired military man now slinging hash at Sweetbriar Rose’s, doesn’t match him in intensity. The others on Barbie’s team all have their moments, but none pop the way that the baddies do. Big Jim’s goals are very clear; the rest have only survival on their mind, but because they can’t escape they’re all trapped in a reactionary mode. I didn’t really latch on to any of them emotionally, so I ended up that same reactionary place.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
Roland the gunslinger reaches the Dark Tower he’s been pursing for a thousand years.

Review:
Obviously there’s a lot more to The Dark Tower, book 7 in Stephen King’s epic series of the same name, than my one sentence synopsis implies. But essentially, that’s it. And, honestly, was Roland’s not reaching the Tower ever an option for King? The suspense has never been “will he?” but “what will it be like?”

But before Roland can reach the tower, he and his ka-tet (a former junkie, a legless woman, a kid, and a talking dog) have to save the world. And to do so, they need to save Stephen King himself from the car accident that nearly took his life in 1999. If King dies, the Tower falls and all of the universe will wink out of existence forever.

In every other version of America that Roland and co. have visited, the existence of the Tower and Roland’s quest have been unknown. Here, Roland goes to a version of New York City where his own Tet Corporation is protecting the rose that called to him from the empty lot. It’s a bit disconcerting to hear regular people using Calla-lingo and referring to things like Gan and the Prim and the can toi. It’s almost like seeing the story in its underwear. For me, it takes me out of the world of the story in a way that not even King’s inclusion of himself did.

Roland also has to face down his nemeses, the Crimson King and his bastard son Mordred. A bit anticlimactic, almost rushed–but King more than redeems himself with the nightmarish Odd’s End sequence. And the poignancy of the shattering of the ka-tet has depth and resonance to spare. King executes all of the emotional elements beautifully.

So what does it all mean? Well, ka is a wheel, and time is a face on the water. But like Ray Bradbury knew, one tiny breath can topple an empire. Am I satisfied by the ending? That’s not really the point. Do I think it’s the right ending? Yes. I may not like it, but I don’t think King could’ve ended it any other way, not with the cosmology and theology operating in the series. I don’t at all agree with his conception of ka, the cruel bitch that makes suckers of us all. I would love to see Roland’s journey rewritten in a universe with a good and sovereign God rather than fickle ka. It’s an interesting thought exercise.

I’m now curious to reread some of his post-Tower works to see if King fully exorcised Roland’s ghost, or whether he’s still on the path of the Beam. I did borrow the first two comic book compendiums from my brother, but I’m not going to read them. I don’t like comic books or graphic novels, and I’m not interested in reading Roland’s story in chronological order.

I think that might be my last reread of the Dark Tower series. (I doubt that’s true, but I’m not keeping the books in my permanent library.) Ultimately, the darkness of the meaning of the series overshadows the myriad pleasures I take from the storytelling.

Song of Susannah by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

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Synopsis:
Roland’s ka-tet disperses through New York City in various whens, trying to save the rose, find author Stephen King, and save the Tower–quite possibly from Susannah’s demon baby.

Review:
Book 6 in Stephen King’s epic series, Song of Susannah is the darkest, bringing some of the darkest scenes in all of King’s writing.

It’s also a relatively short book, though no less dense than Calla or . The early books seem almost minimalist in comparison with the baroque tapestry that the plot becomes in these late books. I’m utterly amazed at the skill with which King keeps all of the different threads clear for the reader, even when dealing with complex issues of time travel and other dimensions.

As I mentioned before, this book is SCARY. I really freaked myself out the other night when I got to the scene where Jake and Pere Callahan enter Susannah/Mia’s hotel room and fall under the glammer of Black Thirteen. It was about 11pm, and I was reading in bed with my little book light. Superfast Toddler was asleep in her bed, which is right next to ours because she still nurses at night. At the peak of the scene, she wakes up–which is my cue to turn off my book light & climb into her bed to nurse her. However, this time she used her superstealth so that when I turned back after putting my light & glasses in the drawer she was sitting right over me in the pitch black and she just whispered “Mommy.” I about jumped out of my skin!

There’s a long way to go before the climax of the series. For some reason, my memory put Fedic and the Breakers in this book, but I’m wrong. Song of Susannah feels very much like a transitional book, more of a collection of great scenes than one big story.

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

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Synopsis:
Roland and his company prepare to defend a town that sees half of its children kidnapped and “roont” once a generation.

Review:
Wolves of the Calla is still my favorite of the Dark Tower books. I think it’s because it has the best standalone story of the bunch. Calla Bryn Sturgis, the town, has the feel of the American frontier, and watching Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy prepare to do battle against the kidnapping Wolves is fraught with suspense, tension, and action.

I had forgotten all about Pere Callahan, whose story takes the B-line here. Callahan, of course, was one of the main character’s in King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, and his introduction marks the beginning of the intertextuality that will pervade the rest of the series. I’ve never had a problem with King’s insertion of himself into the story, because I think it works with what he’s trying to accomplish. But I remember being nervous the first time I read Calla, worried that he was about to wreck the series I’d become so heavily invested in.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so I’ll save a lot of my thoughts for the next book. But this rereading of Calla was no less enthralling than past reads, and I still get goosebumps when Roland dances the commala. I think this book contains some of King’s finest writing, and that’s saying a lot.

The Waste Lands by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

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Synopsis:
On his quest to the Dark Tower, Roland the gunslinger and his companions move through a ghastly post-nuclear landscape in search of a train that is certainly alive and not certainly safe.

Review:
Whenever I start reading The Waste Lands, my heart aches waiting for Roland and Jake to be reunited. In my opinion, Jake is one of King’s best characters. Of course, he’s twinned with Jack Sawyer from The Talisman, and I think that I can’t help but bring those associations with me to the read. (Speaking of, this retread through The Dark Tower is totally making me itch to re-read The Talisman and possibly even Black House, though the latter was dark in a way that I don’t think I could handle now that I’m a mom.)

I tend to glaze over during the Lud sequences, I think because I know that they don’t matter to the mythology in the same way that Shardik and Blaine do. I do love the element of chaos brought by the Tick-Tock Man. It’s here that King’s theology begins to come together, with the notion of ka (destiny) butting heads against the equally potent random. King is thoroughly uncomfortable with putting his protagonists in the hands of either pure fate or pure chance, and it’s the working out of this tension that gives the series its intellectual depth. Theologically I can’t agree with him, but his notions do make for great storytelling.

Blaine terrifies me. That is the truth.

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

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Synopsis:
The gunslinger steps into the lives of three different New Yorkers, and must figure out how they fit into his quest before he dies of an infection.

Review:
The contrast between The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three always astonishes me. As King puts it in his introduction, in book 2 of the Dark Tower series the story really takes off. I always spend the first few chapters mourning the elegiac tone of the first book, but soon am swept away by the power of King’s characterizations.

Eddie’s story always gets me, mostly because of the subtle poignancy of his relationship with his older brother Henry, the “great sage and eminent junkie.” Couple that with a drug deal plotline that takes Scarface to a supernatural plane and I just devour the first huge chunk of The Drawing of the Three. The shootout at Balazar’s is one of King’s finest sequences, expertly plotted and staged and visualized.

I slow down a bit when I get to Odetta/Detta, because King takes Detta to such an odious place that I need to look away. I can’t get too close to her. And because I know Jake is coming (though not until the next book), I end up rushing through the Jack Mort stuff. I love watching Roland work Jack Mort, giving the first hint of the diplomat that we’ll find in later books, but knowing that we’re not going to stay with Jack keeps me from getting too invested in that chunk. Reading it now, knowing the ending, I’m struck by how little of the Jack Mort stuff ends up figuring into the larger mythology. He’s pretty much just a plot device at best, filler at worst, a way for King to take a long time getting where he intends to go. I wouldn’t advocate cutting it, but I do wonder how those scenes would’ve played out had they been written closer together with the later books.