Stephen King, what a guy. I said I’d write about him, so I’m going to. I can’t get him out of my head anyways, so I might try putting him into yours.
I listened to the Misery audiobook on my way to and from work today, and let me tell you: That Scene, you know the one, it’s a hell of a lot worse in the book, and by worse, I mean better.
Misery isn’t my favorite Stephen King book, that honor goes to Cujo, but it’s damned good. Why is Cujo better than Misery? Because it’s truer to his strange and arcane form. Before he started trying to break out of that stereo type, and far before he went proudly back to it.
Cujo is better than Misery because it’s set in Maine.
People say you can’t really get Tolstoy unless you read it in Russian, and a few will go so far as to say you’ve got to live in Russia,
better yet, you’ve got to be Russian.
The more I read Stephen King, the more I believe that to be true. I’m not suggesting King is as good as Tolstoy, the Mainer himself would likely slap me for even suggesting it. But I do think it says something interesting about first languages.
I listened to the Misery audiobook on my way to and from work today, and let me tell you: That Scene, you know the one, it’s a hell of a lot worse in the book, and by worse, I mean better.
Misery isn’t my favorite Stephen King book, that honor goes to Cujo, but it’s damned good. Why is Cujo better than Misery? Because it’s truer to his strange and arcane form. Before he started trying to break out of that stereo type, and far before he went proudly back to it.
Cujo is better than Misery because it’s set in Maine.
People say you can’t really get Tolstoy unless you read it in Russian, and a few will go so far as to say you’ve got to live in Russia,
better yet, you’ve got to be Russian.
The more I read Stephen King, the more I believe that to be true. I’m not suggesting King is as good as Tolstoy, the Mainer himself would likely slap me for even suggesting it. But I do think it says something interesting about first languages.
I feel that I, and many of my friends, have closer access to King, more of an ability to enjoy his writing because we are from and live in New England. Let alone the fact that he writes in English, and in a very American way, he writes from and about New England. The vast majority of his work is famously set in Maine, it is about Maine and Maine is close to Vermont. The strange lonely dead end roads, the strange, lonely dead end people. The old cops, the gossipy mothers, the abusive husbands, the stacks of cord wood, the chickens, the rabid dogs, the ghosts, the murderous nurses, the made-good ad men, the writers, the maidens, the fast cars, the beer, the want to get out, the need to get back, the snow, the dark, the light, the heat, the ocean, the trees, the dead falls, the semetaries, the old timers, the mice, it’s all in there and in ways I don’t think you can really evoke without having lived it, at least a little bit.
I love Stephen King because I love New England, and so does he.
I love Stephen King because I love New England, and so does he.