When I was
15 I had a girlfriend with big curly hair and a gap between her teeth. This being the 90s,
my girlfriend was a fan of Friends,
and from that show she got the idea that we should read each other's favourite
book. This is how I came to read Desperation
by Stephen King, a book I did not like at the time, and which I still think had
a terrible ending, but which contained images and scenes I remember vividly to
this day. That book has stuck with me in a way that the Graham Greene novels I
read that year have not. Having no favourite book, I gave her What a Carve Up by Jonathan Coe,
thinking it would play well with her animal rights obsession, but in the event
she never read it.
While this introduction to King wasn't enough to convert me, the way Desperation kept popping up in my brain eventually brought me back to his work. I got around to The Shining only a few years ago. I found bits of the book genuinely scary, parts of it touching, and other bits ludicrously ill judged, such as the hedge animals that come to life and engage in threatening behaviour. Despite any faults, The Shining is a compelling book. While reading it, I accidentally left it at a friend's house. I felt an urgent need to get hold of another copy the next day, in order to finish reading as soon as possible.
At its core, The Shining is about alcoholism and a dysfunctional family. Jack Torrance, played with such memorable mania by Nicholson in the movie, is a man haunted by his own abusive childhood. He wants to be a better man, but ultimately the anger and addiction within him make him a target for demons. This is a story that has been told many times, and lived many more, but in Stephen King's world the ghosts that haunt the Overlook Hotel, where the Torrances spend the winter, are demons just as real and threatening as any suppressed oedipal rage. Recognisable real-world issues sit side by side with the fact that Jack's five-year-old son, Danny, has psychic powers—a phenomenon called the shining, from which the book takes its name. Drowned women come alive in the bath tubs of deserted rooms. Long-dead men quote Edgar Allan Poe at midnight.
King waited over three decades to start work on a sequel to The Shining. In tone, it is a very different book, but the same kind of imaginative free-reign operates in these pages as in the earlier novel. Danny Torrance, the scared little boy trapped in the Overlook Hotel with his violent dad, has grown up into Dan, a man with his own alcohol problems and dark secrets. He finds a degree of peace in AA meetings and his work at a Hospice, where he can use his supernatural gift to help the dying leave this world. He comes into psychic contact with a young girl, Abra, who has her own version of the shining. Meanwhile, a group of middle aged and old people who tour the country in mobile homes are really a tribe of ancient monsters who feed on the energy of such gifted children, torturing them horribly and burying their bodies in shallow graves.
These monsters disguised as old folks, led by a beautiful woman in a top hat, are reminiscent of Roald Dahl's Witches. They also have something in common with vampires—a point King references perhaps a few times too often. They never really become frightening, and Doctor Sleep is not really a horror novel. It is very suspenseful, masterfully so, and it does have some grim passages, but the aim of the book is not to horrify readers, or even scare them. In a sense, this is a fantasy work, which builds, as so many American narratives do, to an inevitable confrontation.
King writes action incredibly well. Reading Doctor Sleep is like seeing a film in your head. Long stretches of the book amount essentially to chase sequences or showdowns, and yet they are never boring. People jump in and out of each other's consciousness, experience visions and live flashbacks without any of this ever becoming abstract. The writing is visual without ever being too descriptive, and it is simple enough to be almost invisible, yet it manages largely to avoid becoming banal. King is a popular author for a huge audience, and whether this is a consequence or a reason, I think it explains the way he leaves no thread untied. Every idea is explicit, every reference is explained, and every plot point is clarified. This is impressive, given the huge and apparently unrestrained imaginative scope he allows himself. Many authors of more "literary" fiction make ambiguity a point of honour, and while there is doubtless something to be said for letting the reader do some work, King makes ambiguity in fiction look like an excuse to be lazy. Reading this book, I found myself wondering: how many contemporary authors would actually be capable of tying this many ideas and plot points together coherently?
There are things I don't like about King's writing though. He appears to have a desire that his narrative voice will be down-to-earth, but the result is that there are times when it ends up sounding mannered. This is never more obvious than in the bizarrely frequent references to shit and toilets. To me, his dialogue can suffer the same problem. On those occasions when it's supposed to be snappy and witty it often rings hollow. Sometimes he labours a point for several paragraphs where his initial attack at the idea was succinct and sufficient. It must be said that these are all issues that I've had with other works by King, and they are no worse here than usual. Doctor Sleep is definitely not one of the ones where you find yourself asking what the hell happened to the editor. It also bears saying that while the dialogue can sometimes be weak, the characterisation is not, and the different people in the pages of this book are rounded, believable and easy to invest in. King is traditionally much better at drawing men than women, and that's largely still true here, but 13 year old Abra is a likable and believable teenage girl.
One of the major themes of this book is redemption. Every alcoholic has to let go of the awful shit they did in their drinking days in order to stay dry. Stephen King, himself a recovering alcoholic, seems still to be channelling that darkness into his work, but now in a more hopeful and reflective fashion. Dan Torrance's work in the Hospice is part of his way of atoning for the hurt he brought the world. His opportunity to help Abra is also a chance for him to be the man his father was not. But while there is this sense that children provide an opportunity to break away from the pain of the past, there is also an acknowledgement that each child has to find their own way of dealing with the anger and pain passed on.
Doctor Sleep is an entertaining book. It avoids casting a shadow on the memory of The Shining because it is a different type of work that still manages to stay true to the characters and world of the first novel. Strangely it is also quite a comforting book, despite handling issues that have no easy answers.
While this introduction to King wasn't enough to convert me, the way Desperation kept popping up in my brain eventually brought me back to his work. I got around to The Shining only a few years ago. I found bits of the book genuinely scary, parts of it touching, and other bits ludicrously ill judged, such as the hedge animals that come to life and engage in threatening behaviour. Despite any faults, The Shining is a compelling book. While reading it, I accidentally left it at a friend's house. I felt an urgent need to get hold of another copy the next day, in order to finish reading as soon as possible.
At its core, The Shining is about alcoholism and a dysfunctional family. Jack Torrance, played with such memorable mania by Nicholson in the movie, is a man haunted by his own abusive childhood. He wants to be a better man, but ultimately the anger and addiction within him make him a target for demons. This is a story that has been told many times, and lived many more, but in Stephen King's world the ghosts that haunt the Overlook Hotel, where the Torrances spend the winter, are demons just as real and threatening as any suppressed oedipal rage. Recognisable real-world issues sit side by side with the fact that Jack's five-year-old son, Danny, has psychic powers—a phenomenon called the shining, from which the book takes its name. Drowned women come alive in the bath tubs of deserted rooms. Long-dead men quote Edgar Allan Poe at midnight.
King waited over three decades to start work on a sequel to The Shining. In tone, it is a very different book, but the same kind of imaginative free-reign operates in these pages as in the earlier novel. Danny Torrance, the scared little boy trapped in the Overlook Hotel with his violent dad, has grown up into Dan, a man with his own alcohol problems and dark secrets. He finds a degree of peace in AA meetings and his work at a Hospice, where he can use his supernatural gift to help the dying leave this world. He comes into psychic contact with a young girl, Abra, who has her own version of the shining. Meanwhile, a group of middle aged and old people who tour the country in mobile homes are really a tribe of ancient monsters who feed on the energy of such gifted children, torturing them horribly and burying their bodies in shallow graves.
These monsters disguised as old folks, led by a beautiful woman in a top hat, are reminiscent of Roald Dahl's Witches. They also have something in common with vampires—a point King references perhaps a few times too often. They never really become frightening, and Doctor Sleep is not really a horror novel. It is very suspenseful, masterfully so, and it does have some grim passages, but the aim of the book is not to horrify readers, or even scare them. In a sense, this is a fantasy work, which builds, as so many American narratives do, to an inevitable confrontation.
King writes action incredibly well. Reading Doctor Sleep is like seeing a film in your head. Long stretches of the book amount essentially to chase sequences or showdowns, and yet they are never boring. People jump in and out of each other's consciousness, experience visions and live flashbacks without any of this ever becoming abstract. The writing is visual without ever being too descriptive, and it is simple enough to be almost invisible, yet it manages largely to avoid becoming banal. King is a popular author for a huge audience, and whether this is a consequence or a reason, I think it explains the way he leaves no thread untied. Every idea is explicit, every reference is explained, and every plot point is clarified. This is impressive, given the huge and apparently unrestrained imaginative scope he allows himself. Many authors of more "literary" fiction make ambiguity a point of honour, and while there is doubtless something to be said for letting the reader do some work, King makes ambiguity in fiction look like an excuse to be lazy. Reading this book, I found myself wondering: how many contemporary authors would actually be capable of tying this many ideas and plot points together coherently?
There are things I don't like about King's writing though. He appears to have a desire that his narrative voice will be down-to-earth, but the result is that there are times when it ends up sounding mannered. This is never more obvious than in the bizarrely frequent references to shit and toilets. To me, his dialogue can suffer the same problem. On those occasions when it's supposed to be snappy and witty it often rings hollow. Sometimes he labours a point for several paragraphs where his initial attack at the idea was succinct and sufficient. It must be said that these are all issues that I've had with other works by King, and they are no worse here than usual. Doctor Sleep is definitely not one of the ones where you find yourself asking what the hell happened to the editor. It also bears saying that while the dialogue can sometimes be weak, the characterisation is not, and the different people in the pages of this book are rounded, believable and easy to invest in. King is traditionally much better at drawing men than women, and that's largely still true here, but 13 year old Abra is a likable and believable teenage girl.
One of the major themes of this book is redemption. Every alcoholic has to let go of the awful shit they did in their drinking days in order to stay dry. Stephen King, himself a recovering alcoholic, seems still to be channelling that darkness into his work, but now in a more hopeful and reflective fashion. Dan Torrance's work in the Hospice is part of his way of atoning for the hurt he brought the world. His opportunity to help Abra is also a chance for him to be the man his father was not. But while there is this sense that children provide an opportunity to break away from the pain of the past, there is also an acknowledgement that each child has to find their own way of dealing with the anger and pain passed on.
Doctor Sleep is an entertaining book. It avoids casting a shadow on the memory of The Shining because it is a different type of work that still manages to stay true to the characters and world of the first novel. Strangely it is also quite a comforting book, despite handling issues that have no easy answers.
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