Stephen King (1) (1947–)

This is a reread for me - after a little over twenty years. It's interesting to see how the first reading of this book influenced some of my later reading - [[Shirley Jackson]], [[Jack Finney]], [[Richard Matheson]], etc. But I went into this reading intent upon a closer inspection of the literary references in horror and science fiction. So, armed with pad and pen, I embarked. At the end, I had almost 30 pages of notes, a nine-page listing of books and authors, and a feeling I'd just taken show more a graduate class in horror literature.

There are quite a few chapters on film and television that were interesting, especially from a perspective of how they helped to shape and foster these realms. Some folks coming to the book now will not have the cultural context to connect with these chapters, but I found them fascinating.

The best bits of the book, though, are the passages where Uncle Stevie waxes on about his influences, what he read, and how it shaped his own work. There's a deep comparison of [Dracula] and ['Salem's Lot], including a passage where he describes his own real life childhood incursion into the actual Marsten House. There's also a long recollection about how he begun writing [The Stand], a Patty Hearst story, and who is the real life inspiration for Randall Flagg. Additionally, King lays out what horror does for readers, what function it serves - this book is the origins of one of his famous quotes, "We make up horrors to cope with the real ones."

On that note, I thought it appropriate to include a quotation from the book here - not a King quote, but his transcription of a [[Harlan Ellison]] passage from a letter, to identify how well this book holds up some 40+ years later:

"The man has become the most important public figure of our times. In short, he has manipulated reality simply by being bold. In this madman we have an example of one who understands, even subcutaneously, that the real world is manipulable. He has dreamed, and forced the rest of the word to live in his dream."

You probably think you know who that quote references, but you'd be wrong because you're forgetting the part about how this book is 40+ years old - the quote references Ayatollah Khomeini - an indication about the cycles of history and hate and horror.

The book ends with, essentially a Coda from King about writing, and reading, horror fiction. It's fashioned from an interview he did with a reporter who asked him how he could live with himself writing things that played on people's fears. He then narrates the rest of the interview, peppering in vignettes about real life awful violent crimes, essentially bringing home the point that horror fiction accentuates real life horror to help cope that real life horror.

If you're a horror or science fiction or King fan - you really have to read this book. If you're a writer yourself, you should read this book. Oh, heck, just read the damn book.

Highly recommended!!!!!
5 bones!!!!! show less

"I think all worlds are magic. We just get used to it."

When Charlie Reade utters these words towards the end of the novel, they made me realize that I will never write a better review of it than these two sentences. And yet, I'll try - because giving up was never an option for Charlie and not even trying is going to be disrespectful to the young man who told us the story. So here it goes.

Stephen King had been one of my favorite writers since my teen years - I like his style and I like his show more storytelling, regardless of the genre he decides to use for his next story. In the last decade or so, I've rarely read him - as I know I like most of what he writes, I tend to leave him for later so I can explore new authors. Which may be fun but I don't read the authors I really like so in a bit of a shift in my reading patterns, these days I try to read the new books by my authors as soon as they come out.

If you expect straight horror, look elsewhere. "Fairy Tale" is a love letter to the fairy tales (not the watered down versions but the original ones) and to the genres which spawned out of them - horror and fantasy.

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Charlie Reade. He lost his mother when he was young and his father found solace at the bottom of a bottle (or 3), leaving his young son to fend for himself. By the time we meet Charlie, in the year that changed his life forever, the father had dried out and the two men had found peace. Until Charlie hears one of his neighbors crying for help and goes to help, falling in love with the man's dog in the process and finding that there is more than one world and his quiet street contains the gateway to one of those other worlds.

The first quarter of the novel is the story of a 17 years old boy helping a cranky old man and a very old dog called Radar. It can be set anywhere in USA and it is as mundane as it can be. But somewhere under it, we start getting some flashes of something else - a hint of a fairy tale here, a mentioned horror book there. Then Charlie decides to do all he can to save the dog's life and the boy and the dog are off to an adventure - to a world that could not exist and yet exists.

There is a curse, there is a princess, there is a talking horse, there is a dungeon and fights to the death. There is another portal and evil. And then there is Charlie - the promised prince, the only chance of a kingdom that had fallen to evil.

Some of the details are gruesome but the novel stays mostly in the fantasy genre and rarely crosses into horror. And while the story itself is compelling and keeps you wanting to read more to see what happens next, it is the references to the stories that came before that make this book really great. Some are mentioned directly, some parallels are just left there, some you see from the corner of your eye. From the Disney stories to the old tales; from Lovecraft to Bradbury - all the old tales are there - in a world where a lot of them may just be. Because what if all of those stories are not born in one's imagination? What if they were real... somewhere?

King is not the first to play with the idea of the fairy tales being real somewhere. He won't be the last. The novel reminded me a bit of Jo Walton's [Among Others], albeit a lot more brutal and very different. But the same nod to the old stories and to what came before is there and one can spend hours looking for them and being reminded of the stories that made up a genre. show less

I read Carrie in middle school--it was probably my fourth Stephen King book, after It and Night Shift and Eyes of the Dragon--and although I enjoyed it, this second read made me realize that much of the nuance and impact went over my head. Back then, I didn't have a real understanding of extremist religion or the impact of bullying. Carrie herself was so naive that she as a character felt unbelievable because she was so outside my experience, and I didn't understand how sheltered an show more extremist parent *could* keep their child if they so desired. It was the same with the religion--it was so extreme, so outside my experience, it felt unbelievable. Thirty years later, reading this book as an adult who's well aware of all of these factors and how painfully believable the character and situation are, telekinesis aside, made for a very different read, even when I went in knowing what to expect. The sheer power of the everyday horror, of the bullying and extremism and lack of love even between family, has such an impact, and although I felt the hatred in the story as a child reading the book, it hits much differently now.

I think this is probably a book everyone should read, to be honest, horror lover or not. There's a power to the story and to the humanity of it that goes beyond the story, uncomfortable as it may be. show less

Well, count me in the apparent minority. I actually quite enjoyed this one.

I'm not saying it wasn't without its flaws (really, how many books can you not say that about?), but overall, it gave me what I wanted.

So, let's talk the flaws first, okay? As per usual with most King novels, it's a touch bloated, but the bloat is front-loaded here. You get through part one, and then it picks up steam and gets rolling. So, yes, some trimming could be in order, but the book pays off if you stick with show more it.

...and that, for me, is the major flaw of this book. I also have some quibbles.

I would have loved to have seen it tied to the King universe, but, unless I missed a character reference, I didn't see one. Just one little head nod to Joe Hill, and that was just a namecheck.

The Appalachian setting threw me off a bit, but as they state toward the end of the audiobook, Maine has had more than its fair share, and this was neutral ground for both authors, so I can respect that.

Some said there were too many characters and that they were hard to tell apart. I say you weren't paying attention.

Some said it was too like Under The Dome etc. Well...yeah, in the fact that it centred on a small town going through a major calamity? Yes. Funny how they play out, huh? But really, no, it's not Under The Dome. In fact, I'd say this one worked better, to be honest.

Some said King's pushing his politics too much here. Okay, first off, there's two Kings, not one, and second...Jesus Christ, people, this is a story where all the women essentially go away. Did you really not expect a bit of a message in this one? Really?

But the message, at least to this old white guy's ears, rang true. While there will always be exceptions to the rule, women are the nurturers, women are the peacemakers. Men are, really and truly, very often the ones that play the asshole. Again, yes, yes, exceptions. But it felt pretty accurate to me.

And I also read complaints about the tiger. All I'll say is, think long and hard, and look at what other animal shows up, and I think you can figure out what that's all about.

Finally, for me, the thing that just made the book? Eve Black. She was, as far as I'm concerned, the anti-Randall Flagg. His polar opposite. I fell in love with her in this novel.

So, don't believe all the "this is King's worst book ever" horseshit—because we all know that title belongs to The Tommyknockers, don't we? —and read the damn book. Yes, it's going to be a touch different, because Cousin Owen is a part of it. But so is Uncle Stevie, so it's just fine. show less