Different Seasons (1982)

Review of "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" in Stephen King's anthology "Different Seasons":

This irrepressible, inscrutable short story by Stephen King is about bad people who are sort of really good people, and sort of good people who refuse to let really bad things become their way of life.

Red is a murderer, but we get past that in the first pages. Red is the philosopher-king of Shawshank Prison. For my money, Red is the point of the story. He repents his crime, he does the time, he comes to understand Andy Dufresne's untouchable devotion to regaining his rightful freedom, and Red finally, doggedly, walks the line of rock walls in hayfields in Buxton until he unearths the final proof of a friendship, and hope.

Andy remains a mysterious character, right to the end. We know he's innocent, we know he was cruelly and unjustly entombed and forgotten in hell, we know what he did in Shawshank, we admire his motivation, and yet we know the man only as Red knew him. Red was a passive observer, attentive to be sure, and responsive to Andy's intellect and his bulldog determination, but Red never penetrated Andy's mind, never really understood Andy's private self.

For me, as for Red, the man Dufresne had a full-length poster picture of himself taped to the top of his head, and we never were able to get behind the poster and get in to the real Andy.

Enfin, I cheered Andy's escape, and I was happy that Red finally got on the bus to McNary, Texas, and I think the two will enjoy a decent life in Zihuatanejo….and I think they live in a different world that I do not know, and do not want to know.

Not read anything by Stephen king before, as I don't like horror. So this was selected on advice that they were neither bloody nor gory and wouldn't keep me awake at nights. The book comprises 4 very different novellas. The Shawshank redemption is, I think, the best of the bunch - that would have been 4 stars had it been on its own. Apt Pupil was really very unpleasant, with a teen and an old man in a mutually destructive relationship and both manipulating each other and performing acts of murder to purge them selves. Won't be reading that again in a hurry. the third was a group of boys who go on an overnight hike & camp expedition to view the body of a missing child. And the last was a tale within a tale, of a story told at Christmas in a club for the telling of tales.
Of the 4, Shawshank was the one I liked the best, while The Body was a close second. the last story - the one that is most like a horror story I though OK and I didn't enjoy the Apt Pupil. Not to say i thought it badly written, but I just didn't warm to the characters - not that you're supposed to warm to them, i suspect.
Taken all in, it was OK. Might I read another king novel? Yes, i think I might, but I might go for one that's less blood soaked, as that's still not my thing. ( )

Well I looked at all the editions and this book has 4 stories but some if not all? came out in seperate books as well.
So I don't get why I can only add Different Seasons to my shelf, while I also have Apt Pupil as a standalone novel.

Oh well.

$ stories but the best one for me is Apt Pupil. What a great story. So scary. Loved it.

I see this book is also called Shawshank redemption. O is that the story about the guy Arnie? who ends up in jail and tries to find a way out?
Well that story is also fantastic!!!

For those 2 stories alone I say go and get a copy!!! ( )

This is one of the best book written by King in my opinion... My favorite story is the second one, "Art Pupil", maybe because at the beginning the boy is almost as old as me, so it was somehow disturbing see the kind of thoughts he had...
For who is learning English as me might not be a very easy reading, but even having to use the dictionary quite a lot I still enjoyed it. ( )

4 novellas for the master of horror that range in quality form good to great. Ironically, my favorite tale (The Breathing Method) is the only one not made into a movie. ( )