1Bookmarque
This group is mostly inactive, but since Uncle Steve is still producing work and I've started listening to a Stephen King podcast (The KingCast), I have a new angle for reading his books that I thought I'd share.
I'm going through and picking out some that I've been meaning to re-read for ages and doing just that. When done, I sometimes watch an adaptation or just listen to the podcast episodes dealing with those stories. It's been interesting and my latest is Salem's Lot which is an old favorite and not only has a couple of adaptations, but a short story from Night Shift is a follow up to it so I'll hook that on when I'm done the novel.
The KingCast episode about that short story is done with guest Scott Synder who collaborated with King to make a graphic novel - American Vampire which was expanded into a series, not all necessarily with King, however.
Anyway, I'm also reading his latest collection of short stories You Like it Darker and am comparing/contrasting his style between them to see what's changed and what hasn't. Quite fun.
I'm going through and picking out some that I've been meaning to re-read for ages and doing just that. When done, I sometimes watch an adaptation or just listen to the podcast episodes dealing with those stories. It's been interesting and my latest is Salem's Lot which is an old favorite and not only has a couple of adaptations, but a short story from Night Shift is a follow up to it so I'll hook that on when I'm done the novel.
The KingCast episode about that short story is done with guest Scott Synder who collaborated with King to make a graphic novel - American Vampire which was expanded into a series, not all necessarily with King, however.
Anyway, I'm also reading his latest collection of short stories You Like it Darker and am comparing/contrasting his style between them to see what's changed and what hasn't. Quite fun.
2Bookmarque
I completely forgot I posted here and I'm still doing my SK project, so this is from last year when I read S.L. -
This is probably my 4th time reading this book and while some of it remains in my memory (like the thing with the teeth at the end), a lot of it evaporates with time and so feels fresh.
Notes while reading -
The newspaper article at the beginning raises so many questions and creates so much curiosity in me as a reader - love it because it’s such a great device.
p 28 - King did meet cute before it was a thing, he’s such a romantic. Because this is only his second book, if you read it at the time (or at least before many other books) you wouldn’t know how doomed they are.
p 54 - First a murder/suicide and now an imapled dog - the reason Barlow came or a result of it?
p 66 - Straker is chilling and great - so many shades of Leland Gaunt.
p 85 - “It became unspeakable.” So much economy. Similar to his descriptions of vampire attacks as having them fall on their victims - they fell on him - leaves so much to your imagination which is always worse than whatever a writer can describe.
Catching a lot of the references to Dracula and the parallel characters and situations. They aren’t 1:1 exactly, but darn close. At some point Ben and Jimmy refer to Matt as their Van Helsing.
p 163 - careful what you wish for Callahan.
Back when this was written, King just said that rock-and-roll was playing, now he’s say it was Guns and Roses or a specific song. He became much more exacting with pop culture references in later years.
Ben’s book about the Marsten house as an evil entity is so similar to the Overlook in the Shining in terms of concept. I wonder…
p 184 - Can’t recall how everyone in Dracula became convinced that they were dealing with vampires, but here it goes - 1 down and many to go.
p 343 - Mark’s observation that something is different in the Marsten house is chilling, but I don’t think it was ever resolved, at least not that I noticed. With Straker dead, will there be time to recruit a new protector?
p 375 - Blue chalk - as in pool cue chalk? (turns out to be a definite YES!)
p 396 - Now Jimmy has something he can’t put his finger on and it’s chilling, too, but I don’t recall that it had any real bearing.
So Callahan leaves town on a bus. What happens to him? Is he going to be the master of his own little nest of vipers? I hate this dangling plot element, but fans won’t be left hanging too long as he makes a reappearance in Wolves of the Calla. Too bad I’m not a Dark Tower fan.
This book also signals King’s love for portraying young boys and their journeys into manhood through trials and tribulations - some fairly normal as in The Body, but mostly via supernatural and very scary means. In this case, Mark Petrie is one tough kid who has his entire world (and psyche) destroyed by Barlow and his minions. Having just started Needful Things on the heels of S.L. I can see Brian Rusk shaping up to be a similar figure. Jack Sawyer from The Talisman was another.
There’s a long-tail coda to the novel in the short story One for the Road which appears in Night Shift. It takes place a few years after the end of S.L. and it’s darn good.
This is probably my 4th time reading this book and while some of it remains in my memory (like the thing with the teeth at the end), a lot of it evaporates with time and so feels fresh.
Notes while reading -
The newspaper article at the beginning raises so many questions and creates so much curiosity in me as a reader - love it because it’s such a great device.
p 28 - King did meet cute before it was a thing, he’s such a romantic. Because this is only his second book, if you read it at the time (or at least before many other books) you wouldn’t know how doomed they are.
p 54 - First a murder/suicide and now an imapled dog - the reason Barlow came or a result of it?
p 66 - Straker is chilling and great - so many shades of Leland Gaunt.
p 85 - “It became unspeakable.” So much economy. Similar to his descriptions of vampire attacks as having them fall on their victims - they fell on him - leaves so much to your imagination which is always worse than whatever a writer can describe.
Catching a lot of the references to Dracula and the parallel characters and situations. They aren’t 1:1 exactly, but darn close. At some point Ben and Jimmy refer to Matt as their Van Helsing.
p 163 - careful what you wish for Callahan.
Back when this was written, King just said that rock-and-roll was playing, now he’s say it was Guns and Roses or a specific song. He became much more exacting with pop culture references in later years.
Ben’s book about the Marsten house as an evil entity is so similar to the Overlook in the Shining in terms of concept. I wonder…
p 184 - Can’t recall how everyone in Dracula became convinced that they were dealing with vampires, but here it goes - 1 down and many to go.
p 343 - Mark’s observation that something is different in the Marsten house is chilling, but I don’t think it was ever resolved, at least not that I noticed. With Straker dead, will there be time to recruit a new protector?
p 375 - Blue chalk - as in pool cue chalk? (turns out to be a definite YES!)
p 396 - Now Jimmy has something he can’t put his finger on and it’s chilling, too, but I don’t recall that it had any real bearing.
So Callahan leaves town on a bus. What happens to him? Is he going to be the master of his own little nest of vipers? I hate this dangling plot element, but fans won’t be left hanging too long as he makes a reappearance in Wolves of the Calla. Too bad I’m not a Dark Tower fan.
This book also signals King’s love for portraying young boys and their journeys into manhood through trials and tribulations - some fairly normal as in The Body, but mostly via supernatural and very scary means. In this case, Mark Petrie is one tough kid who has his entire world (and psyche) destroyed by Barlow and his minions. Having just started Needful Things on the heels of S.L. I can see Brian Rusk shaping up to be a similar figure. Jack Sawyer from The Talisman was another.
There’s a long-tail coda to the novel in the short story One for the Road which appears in Night Shift. It takes place a few years after the end of S.L. and it’s darn good.
3mainrun
Salem's Lot was the first book from my "Read before joining LibraryThing" collection that I added to my "Read after joining LibraryThing" collection. I first read this book in the late 1970's - early 1980's, when I was in my teens. I remembered a couple of the events that happened, but did not remember the ending when I read it again in 2011.
I gave it 5 of 5 stars because it meets my definition of a 5 star book: Books I would like to read again. It earned the grade too, as it is an enjoyable read.
I reread this book after reading King's fifth Dark Tower book, "Wolves of the Calla." As you mentioned, Callahan was in both books. I was disappointed when reading the character's dialog in "Salem's Lot." It did not sound like the same person that was in "Wolves of the Calla."
I gave it 5 of 5 stars because it meets my definition of a 5 star book: Books I would like to read again. It earned the grade too, as it is an enjoyable read.
I reread this book after reading King's fifth Dark Tower book, "Wolves of the Calla." As you mentioned, Callahan was in both books. I was disappointed when reading the character's dialog in "Salem's Lot." It did not sound like the same person that was in "Wolves of the Calla."
4Bookmarque
Hm. Well, I guess if you traveled back and forth between the two a person might take on different personas for each. I've gotten to part of the way through Wolves of the Calla, but then quit. Three tries to read the series was enough.
5mainrun
Stephen King described my feelings about "Wolves of the Calla" very well on page 476 of the 709 page book: "All the rest had been ritual and preparation, necessary but not terribly helpful." Four hundred seventy six pages of not terribly helpful, not terribly exciting, and not terribly page turning was painful to get through. However, I found pages 476 to 709 of Wolves of the Calla helpful, exciting, and page turning.
6blinkymittens
>1 Bookmarque: You just inadvertently recommended a new podcast for me!
8Bookmarque
The asshole interrupter reminded me to come back to this thread - I'm glad you found the podcast. It's mostly fun, but veers off into movies way more than books and since the hosts are so much younger than I am, it's a bit strange the way they concentrate on certain popular books and basically ignore the rest. The enthusiasm is there though.
9sturlington
I reread Salem's Lot last December and it rocketed into my top 5 King novels. It is so well done, such a slow burn. Here is the brief review I wrote:
A rewarding reread, even if some aspects of the characters and setting come off as a bit dated now. I love the trope of the haunted small town, and I think even more so than being a nice reworking of Dracula, this story excellently conveys the ultimate corruption of a town that was, in a sense, already dead in many ways. King does not flinch when it comes to showing the petty evils of ordinary folk, but he balances that with his everyman heroes, who are also ordinary but are able to become extraordinary when called to it. I can't remember seeing Mark Petrie reappear in any of his later books or stories--I wonder whatever happened to him?
A rewarding reread, even if some aspects of the characters and setting come off as a bit dated now. I love the trope of the haunted small town, and I think even more so than being a nice reworking of Dracula, this story excellently conveys the ultimate corruption of a town that was, in a sense, already dead in many ways. King does not flinch when it comes to showing the petty evils of ordinary folk, but he balances that with his everyman heroes, who are also ordinary but are able to become extraordinary when called to it. I can't remember seeing Mark Petrie reappear in any of his later books or stories--I wonder whatever happened to him?
10Bookmarque
Good assessment and I think my review echos much of what you said. I think it's a brilliant novel and as you said, a nice slow burn.
11sturlington
I'm really glad I reread it as I think I got a lot more out of it the second time. Same with The Shining.
I'm gradually rereading King's earlier works, but jumping around to whatever I feel like at the time.
I'm gradually rereading King's earlier works, but jumping around to whatever I feel like at the time.
12Bookmarque
>11 sturlington: I think The Shining is brilliant in many ways and could be his best novel in terms of how tightly focused it is, but also nuanced with some nice vignettes (Halloran and Danny for example) and dread on 11.
