I'm sorry, but am I really the only weak link in the Imaginary Stephen King Reading Circle?
Cell was tolerable (it held my attention well enough for me to keep waiting for the good part to come) with an absolutely crud ending.
Lisey's Story I couldn't finish.
Now I'm reading Duma Key, and I feel like if I stop - and oh how I want to stop - I may never pick up another King again.
I mean, WTH? I drooled over King for years. He was zippy, insightful, and memorable. Light but provocative.
I can forgive some of the preciousness of the end-books of the Dark Tower series (and how everything he wrote started tying into it, long after it became heavy-handed and unsurprising). I can shrug off Insomnia, Bag of Bones, and Dreamcatcher as "not my cups of tea." (Although Dreamcatcher's "visit" from It's characters was pretty low.)
But we are rapidly approaching a point where there will be more King books I dislike than like, and when was the last time I did like something he wrote?
(Here I run off to find a chronological list.)
It was The Green Mile, but things were hit-miss-dodgy even before that.
In fact, it looks like you'd have to go back at least 15 years to find long stretches of green escapism.
I used to put King to the side when discussing favourite authors, just to make the playing field more level. I'm not saying he was the best writer or even had the best ideas, but what he did write grabbed my attention and took me on great rides. Now I feel like I'm holding the car keys, jingling them in King's face. "Wanna go, boy? Wanna go for a ride? C'mon boy!" And damnit, I'm not the one who's supposed to be driving!
Imaginary advisers now prod me to make the following obligatory statements:
- Stephen King doesn't owe me anything.
- Stephen King on a bad day still beats a lot of other stuff. (Details on "other stuff" will come to me later.)
- It's "wrong" to tear something down for no good reason other than to engage your mental processes.
- I'm not fit to collect Stephen King's boogers from hotel wastebaskets.
I know.
(By the way, do your imaginary advisers wear robes? Like, with big chains? Wait, like a Renaissance lord? Or do you not have imaginary advisers? I just got mine in the last paragraph or so, and I'm wishing I could do childhood all over again, with my imaginary posse of five or six huffing old men running behind me, counseling my most strategic steps. "Your grace, the clarinet is interesting, but learning how to tongue reeds is not an art for the fickle-hearted." "M'lady, we suggest a small display of aggression - the so-called leader of the Geometries must be made to understand the depth of his insult. Nowhere is it written that the fairer sex cannot learn math and it was wrong for him to proclaim as much." It would have changed everything.)
(If I were a film student, I'd have a thing for movies with imaginary friends. Drop Dead Fred. The Sixth Sense. A Beautiful Mind. Harvey - duh.)
Obviously, don't mind my King rantings. After all, I'm the person who thinks Rage should be brought back into print precisely because of angry students who don't know what to do with their feelings.
I'm about to plop over. Duma Key is by the stairwell, waiting to go back to the library. (I can't even enjoy it for free!) Now I'm back to Beautiful Shadow. I didn't know Patricia Highsmith was born in Fort Worth; perhaps that will be interesting. (Or is it interesting enough that I'm reading her biography without ever reading her?)
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