Misery

I’ve been wanting to read Misery for years but have somehow not got round to it till now (and miraculously have managed to avoid spoilers).

Paul Sheldon is an author who wakes from a car accident to find he has been ‘rescued’ by Annie Wilkes, a self-professed fan. He has horrific injuries to his legs and cannot walk. The good news is she’s a nurse and has taken care of him, up to a point. The bad news is she has told no one he is at her remote farm and she isn’t going to let him go.

Paul needs surgery and hospital treatment. Annie is more concerned with reading his latest paperback. She is devastated when she realises he has killed her favourite character from his historical romance series, Misery Chastain. She insists he has to show more bring Misery back – and under the circumstances he doesn’t feel he has a choice.

This is a great thriller. The writing is taut – there is none of the verbosity of later Stephen King novels (I’ve always assumed he just got too big to edit). Like a writer’s life, most of the novel takes place in one room but King makes that confinement absolutely gripping.

You can also read this as a book about creativity. It is writing that keeps Paul sane and even leads to an odd alliance with Annie. They discuss deus ex machina and the distinction between realistic and fair plot devices fiction. While writing the next instalment of Misery’s melodrama (the extracts provide some light relief), Paul describes the ‘gotta’ feeling a story can engender and his own inner conflict. Finishing the novel will mean Annie has no further use for him, but still he keeps writing, because he has gotta know how the story ends.

There is also the fraught question of the relationship between author and fan. There is the paradoxical nature of author worship – on the one hand Annie attributes almost magical powers to Paul’s ability to create, on the other she thinks she can coerce him into giving her the story she wants.

King has written about how Annie is a metaphor for his addiction – she is both nurturing and destructive, she takes away his pain, but only on her terms. Paul in turn attributes magical powers to Annie – overawed by her strength, her power over him, her apparent indestructibility.

Misery is unusual for King in that it has no supernatural elements. While Paul’s kidnapping may seem unlikely, there have, shockingly, been comparable crimes which show that such a scenario is possible. The realism means we identify with the full horror of Paul’s situation and wonder how he can possibly get free. Misery is simultaneously a book you can’t put down and a masterclass in how to write a book you can’t put down. The gotta got me.

This review first appeared on my blog https://katevane.wordpress.com/ show less

"Good Christ." (pg. 358)

I've long grappled with the question of the worth of Stephen King, and those usual conflicts – is it story, or junk? Is a Big Mac meat? Does it have protein like they say? – returned in Misery. I should have enjoyed the book more, because my usual misgivings about King were not present. His usually gamey prose was sharper, he did not go into his usual random 'hey, buddy' digressions which a less successful writer would have cut by an editor, and he stayed away from the dorkier supernaturalisms that he often writes. Don't get me wrong, Misery still feels like Stephen King (the first line is 'umber whunnnn yerrrnnn umber whunnnn fayunnnn') but it's a sharper, focused King – the born storyteller, delivering a show more psychological thriller with two main characters who come alive. So why did I begin to feel unhappy, a bit queasy?

To those who have read the book, it might seem obvious why I would become 'queasy'. Without giving away any spoilers, the book takes a turn, at a crucial point, away from its compelling psychological suspense and into hyperviolence and the cheaper, pulpier vein of horror. I like to think I have a strong stomach for depravity in fiction, even if it's not my thing, so I was a bit surprised that I began to feel more negatively about the book at this point. The shift in events made sense for the story. It was all well-written (although I felt the ending was weak). There is, bracingly, never anywhere to hide when King's at the wheel. So why the unhappiness?

I think it's because the sour, sullen feeling gets to the root of why I have this immovable love-hate (or, more accurately, like-hate) relationship with King's books. Until this crucial moment in Misery, the bottle-episode, character-driven, slightly metatextual masterclass in suspense writing was almost rising above itself. It felt Hitchcockian, like Rear Window. It almost – as strange as it is to say for King – felt classy.

The book has, in Annie Wilkes, a truly vivid villain; one of the best I've read. "Not all her gear was stowed right; lots of it was rolling around in the holds" (pg. 33), and you can really feel the tension, the danger of her. Consequently, you focus on every eye twitch, every shift in tone as she speaks, just like her captive Paul does. Similarly, Paul, the writer imprisoned by his 'number one fan', is brought to life by King; it's obviously harder to do than the depraved Annie, but King captures not only the sadism of writing and writer's block (the typewriter "grinned resplendently at him with its missing tooth" (pg. 75)), but Paul's mental degeneration. Part of the reason the horrific turns in the story have their effect on the reader is because King has written them so well.

But part of it may also be something else. I know this may come across as a rather wanky thing to say, but there's something almost bourgeois about King's fetishization of violence, like there's a certain kind of audience who like such vivid and depraved incidences of violence because it's the only safe way to indulge. Bear-baiting and public hangings of the riff-raff are illegal nowadays. Circus freaks are unfashionable. You've already recorded that poverty porn on Channel 4, and wife-swapping is only on at Geoff's house on Thursday nights. So read your Stephen King to titillate you.

Misery changes – in retrospect, with a sense of inevitability – from a sharp psychological thriller into something of a video nasty. Many readers will like this plunge into shallow violence, but it's not for me, even if I find it silly to clutch pearls about it. It seems King, for all his talent, can't help but go low. The strange thing is that many will see it as heroism that he has gone there. There's a sort of sanitised image of King nowadays – borne of his phenomenal success and equally phenomenal work-rate – that seems a bit off-kilter with the content of his stories, which is often indulgent body horror, subverted Americana and teenage rape fantasies. I suppose my lingering dissatisfaction with King comes from bewilderment that people can knit all that together into a man of American letters, even taking into account King's impressive ability to draw you into a story.

Perhaps it's the case that only the writers who are capable of going high can go so low. Even so, it's not so much that you feel like King's wasting his gift. Some writers can go to places you don't want them to go and they bring back something of worth (Nabokov in Lolita, for example), and other writers seem to go there just to find somewhere quiet where they can pull the wings off flies. King seems like he's doing what he's born to do.

It's like a McDonald's has just opened up at the end of the street. You want to eat healthily, but the McDonald's is right there, and the smell of greasy chicken and chip fat is wafting in on the breeze. It's not that you want it to go away, or that you want more willpower. Rather, it's that you wished McDonald's, and fast food in general, had never existed. Because you know you'll always gorge on it much more readily than you ever would a more refined meal. And you hate yourself for that, not them. So it is with King. You read him with greater ease than you would a much better author. Misery becomes something equivalent to a hate-watch; it pulls you in, despite yourself. It makes you feel sick, makes you feel shabby compulsion and, yes, misery too. And I'm still not sure that's a good thing. show less

Paul Sheldon is the writer of the bestselling series that has Misery as the main character. And he’s finally done with the series and kills her off for good. He’s gone out to celebrate this relief. Misery made him money, but he was bored of writing about what fans wanted to read. But then a car accident happens, and he wakes up splintered and in pain, in the remote mountain home of his rescuer, Annie Wilkes.

The great news is that Annie was a nurse and has painkilling drugs. The bad news is that she has been Paul’s number one fan. And when she finds out what Paul has done to misery, she doesn’t like it. Oh, no, she doesn’t like it at all…

I found this story so fascinating and thrilling. It goes without saying that it show more captivated me instantly. Stephen King has this remarkable ability to take you in some deep waters, where you freak out before you are able to fully admire his work. Because there is so much more to this story than just a psycho fan with a para-social relationship.
How about we start with Paul first?

His relationship with his character, Misery. He hates writing about her and he dreads writing those book series. The relief he felt when he finally finished the series. The excitement that he can now start focusing on another book in a completely different genre. And yet, with Misery he found success. Misery is all the fans want to hear about. And the most incredibly disturbing thing happens. In captivity, in such abuse, with so much pain – writing another Misery novel is something that makes him escape reality. Talk about human psychology, eh?

“But both discovered that good advice was sometimes easier to give than to receive.”

So many aspects of this book captivated me. Annie’s history and Paul slowly discovering everything. His close calls and his punishments. His thoughts about the book and the moment he made a certain decision (at the end of the book). The aftermath of everything and how it was all wrapped up… Stephen King didn’t disappoint again and I cannot wait for the next trauma I’m willingly about to accept by reading another one of his masterpieces.

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Este libro no trata sólo de la historia cruenta de un autor secuestrado por su fan. Este libro es una autobiografía del proceso creativo. Este libro demuestra que escritor se nace. Se nace escritor como nace un solo de saxo en el Bebop, como cuando nace una erección. La narrativa es un amor que puede ser alimentado para que se vuelva inevitable sobre todo si tenés la valentía de soportar el fuego de la creación, como si te enfrentases a un caso Combustión Humana Espontánea cada vez que te sentás a crear historias.

Este libro deja claro por qué para dedicarse al oficio de escribir no basta con poner en la información de facebook "trabaja en: escritor".

Misery is the story of a writer named Paul Sheldon whose car upturned in the middle of a blizzard in the remote Colorado mountains and who has been rescued by an ex-nurse named Annie Wilkes. Annie insists she is Paul's biggest fan. Paul is famous for his historical romance novels featuring a heroine named Misery Chastain.
His legs are shattered in the car crash and Annie is nursing her favorite author back to health. Soon after his accident and in between a narcotic induced haze, Paul begins to realize that Annie has him hooked on the pain killers and that she is insane. He also realizes they are in the middle of nowhere and that nobody knows where he is.
The house becomes a prison for Paul and he soon realizes that Annie is not planning show more on letting him leave until he writes a new Misery book just for her.

I have plenty of unread King books sitting on my bookshelves since I have slight OCD when it comes to his books and I must collect them, even if it will take me a lifetime to read them all, especially the Dark Tower series. So what made me re-read a King book? I loved it so much the first time around. Plain and simple. I found that the second time around was better.

I must also mention that the movie version of Misery is one of my favorite King book to film adaptations. I think Paul and Annie were cast perfectly. The film does differ a bit from the novel, but it was well done nonetheless.
The novel really showcases Annie's lack of sanity as well as Paul's fear of her. She often 'zones out' while speaking, leaving Paul terrified and waiting for her to come back to reality.

"Everything she said was a little strange, a little offbeat. Listening to Annie was like listening to a song played in the wrong key." p.11, Misery

Here you have classic King at his best, this is a great scary story and I found myself unable to put this book down. Misery has been referred to as King's love letter to his fans.

There's plenty of horror and nail biting suspense within these pages but there are also glimpses of hope for Paul. I cheered him on as he devised plans on freeing himself from Annie's clutches. The writing in the story is wonderfully descriptive and I felt like I was in the same room with Paul as I read. I wanted him to escape so badly, but I knew the odds were against him.

Annie is a psychopath and you see that very early on in the book. King wastes no time beating around the bush here. I think she is one of his best villains. He does a great job at giving this wicked nurse a background story. She's also quirky, using bizarre old fashioned language, words like 'dirty birdie' and 'Mr. Man' when she's angry.

There's plenty of OMG and cringe worthy moments in Misery and that is just what I have come to expect from a scary King novel.

What made this book even scarier for me is that there's no supernatural forces at work here, no dark magic being used, this is plain and simply realistically terrifying. Technically speaking, in real life a crazy lunatic can hold a person hostage and torture them. I think that's what makes Annie so scary, it seems like someone could really do what she does to Paul.
If you are in the mood for a scary suspenseful story that will get under your skin and have you jumping at the slightest sound, look no further than Misery. When I was done reading this book, I wanted to turn to the first page and read it all over again. show less

My God, what a ride.

As usual, it's been thirty years since I last read this novel, and, in the intervening years, somehow the James Caan/Kathy Bates movie subplanted the novel in my psyche.

To the point where I forgot just how excruciating this novel is. It's painful, and Annie is surely one of King's greatest creations, and Paul one of his most tragic.

But once again, here's a novel that anyone can point to when the "Stephen King is a hack" arguments come up. His handling of these two characters, their interplay, their growing relationship...all of it is simply masterful.

How do I know? Because there's two points, both toward the end of the novel, that could both have been the weakest plot points. One is Annie realizing--and flat out show more stating--that she should kill Paul, but she wants to read the end of that novel he's writing for her. The other is Paul passing up a sure escape when the "David and Goliath" troopers show up because he has his own vengeance in mind by then.

In the hands of the majority of writers--and I don't care how good they are--neither scene could have been pulled off believably. Hell, there was a point where I actually thought, no, this is the part where I say this is stupid, but I couldn't, because it wasn't. He had so cleanly brought these two into a symbiotic relationship of pain and need, that it was the only way the plot could go.

That, my friends, is the joy of watching a master at work.

And once again, and to my mind, even more blatantly this time, we also see a tortured writer both ruminating on the particularly strange magic and art that goes into writing something that is not just good, but wonderful. And I'm not talking the Paul Sheldon character here, I'm talking the subconscious Stephen King character hiding just below the surface of this story.

It's the story of a man who's excesses and substance abuse issues landed him in a messy situation, and he finds himself both hooked on the hard stuff now and, later on, hobbled so he can't escape it. Yet, he still needs to get that next book out, under increasingly horrific conditions. This is a fairly transparent cry out from a brilliant author with a King Kong-sized monkey on his back.

The interesting thing is, King has stated that his original ending to this novel was for Annie to feed him to her pig, Misery, but through the course of the writing, Sheldon proved to be tougher to kill and more wily than King anticipated. Instead, King creates a scenario where Sheldon manages to use his typewriter as the key to his release. I think, to a point, King might have later surprised himself as well with his willingness to survive, and I think, aside from his family, it just may have been his typewriter that kept him going.

Once again, I approached a book that I knew was good, only to come out the other side completely awestruck at how great it was.

I think my top five list of Stephen King books in now numbering about nine. show less

Thrilling. I usually read King expecting (for some reason) to hate the experience, but he always, always surprises me--maybe it would make more sense for me to raise my expectations a little? Annie Wilkes is an absolutely terrifying villain, in part by how bizarrely sympathetic she is at times. King owes more than a little to John Fowles--which he acknowledges--but whereas The Collector was a tight, claustrophobic little book, the length and intensity of Misery perfectly matches Paul Sheldon's interminable, miserable (ha!) experience. This is also a great account of the experience of writing--all writers have their own terrible, terrible goddesses, I guess.Four stars out of five because I felt like the violence got a little silly at the show more end. I don't especially mean in its gruesomeness--Paul's amputations are terrifying--but specifically the scene where Annie stabs a cop with a cross. I mean, could she? Sure? But did she? show less