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Misery by Stephen King
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Misery (edition 1988)

by Stephen King

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
15,201204353 (3.98)1 / 273
Fiction. Horror. HTML:

Paul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rabid readerâ??she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.

Now Annie wants Paul to write his greatest workâ??just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty.


… (more)

Member:ConnieJo
Title:Misery
Authors:Stephen King
Info:New English Library Ltd (1988), Paperback, 384 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:read, own, fiction

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Misery by Stephen King

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 Folio Society Devotees: Misery Stephen King1 unread / 1Carl64, September 2023

» See also 273 mentions

English (191)  French (3)  Italian (2)  Danish (2)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Hungarian (1)  Spanish (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (202)
Showing 1-5 of 191 (next | show all)
Altamente recomendado, una historia impecable del genio Stephen King. Engancha desde el primer momento, aunque debo admitir que en ciertos momentos de la narrativa de "Misery" me resultaba un tanto tedioso. No obstante, es una parte esencial de la novela para comprender la obsesión de Annie. Un clásico del terror muy digno de recomendación. ( )
  GusWoltmann | Feb 4, 2024 |
An absolute chore to get through and quite literally misery inducing. Shame because I've come to like King. ( )
  MichaelH85 | Jan 23, 2024 |
This book is proof that horror is much more effectivewhen you do not have otherworldly monsters roaming around. What human mind can conceive can truly be horrendous.

We follow Paul Sheldon, successful novel writer, as he survives heavy accident in the snowy mountains only to be saved by Annie Wilkes, hermit nurse living in the wilderness. She is Paul's "greatest living fan" and she saves him ..... for a reason.

We follow Paul as he experiences terrifying torture at the hands of Annie as he tries to figure out what is going on. We follow him as he tries to wake from limbo like state, unable to determine what is real or not. His suffering is horrible - from excruciating pain, overdosing with the narcotics [and retrieval symptoms] to body mutilations inflicted by Annie for being bad, bad ... very bad. But all of these physical attacks are nothing compared to the mental breakdown Paul is going through.
We see how Annie systematically destroys his mind that he finally finds himself in the subservient role - forever target of Annie's irrational bursts of anger where she "teaches" Paul one of her depraved life lessons - one that enables him to find a niche to survive this nightmarish situation - writing a dedicated novel to Annie with hope (beyond hope) that he will survive. He gets so terrified of what Annie can do that he decides not to fight back at all, to stop even trying to escape because of that crucial, defeating "what if I fail". Being completely broken Paul will finally strike at Annie but only because he knows everything has come to an end so what actually is there to lose. But even his last act ends in the way it ends due to sheer luck.

And in this systematic breaking of ones spirit, forcing the person to live constantly in fear, never knowing what next day will bring out, under constant duress that forces one to forego will to live normal life lies the true horror of this story. Annie's destruction of Paul is complete, so complete that at the end he can do nothing else but continue writing, hiding in the hole-in-the-paper from where he can observe adventures of his characters. But always in the background Annie lurks, Annie with the punishment for the bad bad Paul.

Both characters are excellently portrayed. Entire book is based on interaction of torturer and her victim but story is constructed in such a great way that you don't get bored for a second.

This psychological violence cannot but bring the parallels with the current situation worldwide. Is it not that media acts as Annie, leaving us for the few days to live normally before screaming at us with horrifying statistics and news ("nothing will ever be normal again", 'people will die in troves", "latest news indicate that in a few years new event will happen, WORSE THAN NOW" etc etc) not unlike Annie wielding the axe and beating the Paul or mutilating him? We live in constant fear (even if not entire populace huge chunk of it unfortunately does) and constantly we are being told "this will not end .... . never will it end .... doomed, doomed, dooomed" in a way unlike Annie's ravings during her bad days. I just hope we as a society will have at least half of mental stamina possessed by Paul (which is actually .... funny and sad at the same time).

True horror novel. Lean and mean, not one excessive chapter in this book. Stephen King at his best. Unfortunately for people living in early 21st century I do not think it will be as shocking as for the readers when book was published (mid-1980's if I am not wrong) because we have Annies terrorizing us through the screens and radio and unfortunately we show no initiative to prevent this from going on but accept to live in constant fear and the dark world of humiliated and deprived humanity. ( )
  Zare | Jan 23, 2024 |
For my first Stephen King book, it wasn't bad. I liked it, it was a good read. Not the greatest but I found myself intrigued and wondering what was gonna happen. I feel like it could have been about 100 pages shorter, had some of the long descriptions been cut out. I found myself saying "get to the point" a lot, but it wasn't bad. I liked the development of characters in it and the progression and the psychological horror in it. ( )
  NovaQueen27 | Jan 11, 2024 |
Loved this book. It was hard to read many parts as it was just so gruesome but so good!!! ( )
  HauntedTaco13 | Dec 29, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 191 (next | show all)

» Add other authors (18 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
King, Stephenprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Crouse, LindsayNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Giusti, BobCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hill, AmyDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Stuart, NeilCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

— Friedrich Nietzsche
Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery.

— Montaigne
It's no good. I've been trying to sleep for the last half-hour, and I can't. Writing here is a sort of drug. It's the only thing I look forward to. This afternoon I read what I wrote. . . . And it seemed vivid. I know it seems vivid because my imagination fills in all the bits another person wouldn't understand. I mean, it's vanity. But it seems a sort of magic. . . . And I just can't live in this resent. I would go mad if I did.

— John Fowles
The Collector
"You will be visited by a tall, dark stranger," the gipsy woman told Misery, and Misery, startled, realized two things at once: this was no gipsy, and the two of them were no longer alone in the tent. She could smell Gwendolyn Chastain's perfume in the moment before the madwoman's hands closed around her throat.

"In fact," the gipsy who was not a gipsy observed, "I think she is here now."

Misery tried to scream, but she could no longer even breathe.


— Misery's Child
"It always look data way, Boss Ian," Hezekia said, "No matter how you look at her, she seem like she be lookin' at you. I doan know if it be true, but the Bourkas, dey say even when you get behin' her, the godess, she seem to be lookin' at you."

"But she is, after all, only a piece of stone, Ian remonstrated.

"Yes, Boss Ian," Hezekia agreed. "Dat what give her powah.

— Misery's Return
Dedication
This is for Stephanie and Jim Leonard, who know why. Boy, do they.
First words
umber whunn

yerrnnn umber whunnnn

fayunnn

These sounds: even in the haze.
Quotations
"I'm your number-one fan!"
Then he would look at the blank screen of his word processor for awhile. What fun. Paul Sheldon's fifteen-thousand-dollar paperweight.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Horror. HTML:

Paul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rabid readerâ??she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.

Now Annie wants Paul to write his greatest workâ??just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty.

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Book description
Paul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rabid reader - she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house. Now Annie wants Paul to write his greatest work-just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty... (0-451-15355-3)
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