Book 73: Just After Sunset

This is a collection of short stories by Stephen King. If you know me, you might know that I love Stephen King. I think he is a great story teller. He is one of the all-time best at character development.

YES, he has his problems:

1. not knowing how to end a novel and tacking on some lame Deus ex Machina ending.
2. too much reliance on gore and violence.
3. making too many stories into epic battles between Good and Evil, when it they would have been MUCH more powerful if kept on a smaller scale, about particular people, or even the good and evil inside people in general, rather than bringing God and Satan into it.

If you think you don't like him, or you think he isn't a good story teller, ask yourself if you ever saw either of the decent movies that are based on his writing: Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption. Man, how I wish he'd write some literary fiction some day. I was hoping for that when he announced that he was done writing horror.

I must have been 11 or 12 when I first asked my mom if I could buy a paperback copy of Pet Sematary and she said Yes. I've been hooked, on and off, ever since. Even that darn movie still gets me once in a while. Do you remember when the little back-from-the-dead-boy cuts Grandpa's Achilles tendons with a rusty old straight razor? He was hiding UNDER THE BED (or under something) and Grandpa (or maybe just an old neighbor -- I can't remember) walked too close. That was a good lesson: THERE COULD BE SOMETHING HORRIBLE UNDER THE BED. Sometimes I still jump into bed from about a foot and a half away. And that kid's voice, so innocently asking Grandpa, "Don't you want to play wiff me?"

So, I guess I should talk about this new book some time, huh? I liked it. It has a good mixture of a little gore, a little gross-out, 9/11, nuclear bomb, premonitory dream, some suspense, and lots of human nature. I never felt disappointed in an ending, which was great (see Problem #1 above). I didn't love every story, but when do you ever in a short story collection? If you like SK, you'll like something in this book.

You know how he gets you to relate to the characters so well? I don't know either. But one thing is, he gives them each their own voice. They all have special little vocabulary quirks or pet names for things, or song lyrics that remind them of a certain event. You learn these special linguistic codes and in doing so, you bond with that character. When that certain term arises, you and the character share a little secret language and you know exactly how to decode it. It's similar to having an inside joke with someone in real life.

In his ending Notes, SK hopes that his stories will keep us readers awake at night, and that we'll all develop a sort of paranoia-based OCD (which will make sense if you read the stories). I haven't had any nightmares about any of the stories in this book, and I doubt I'm going to. I haven't developed any increase in paranoia or OCD. Sorry, Mr. King! You didn't get me this time.



As an update on my reading challenge, I'm currently two books ahead of schedule. I'm in the middle of a few books, so I'm 2 books plus 2 x 1/2 book plus 3/4 book plus 2 x 1/8 books ahead of schedule. Something like that. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make it.