By Stephen KingLike an abused spouse, I return to reading Stephen King as my first book in 2007, so quickly after being so let down by the conclusion of The Dark Tower series. However, Desperation has been on my list for a while. First of all, there are some interesting tie-ins to the DT series. Secondly, Desperation came out with a "companion novel", The Regulators by "Richard Bachman" (SK's alter ego). I'm not sure if that was just a little gimmick or something that will pan out as actually interesting when both are read together (stay tuned for a review of that book as well). Finally, I caught the first 20 minutes or so of the televisonification of the book, and it wasn't that bad at all. In fact, its a pretty good opening;
Soon after passing a road sign for the town of Desperation that has a dead cat hanging from it, Mary and Peter are pulled over by a local cop in the middle of nowhere. The cop finds some of Peter's sister's pot hidden in the trunk, and arrests the couple. Mary and Peter think they're in deep shit, but it turns out that this shit is much deeper and much shittier than it appears.
The begining is indeed, the best part of the book - which isn't to say that the rest of the book is bad. The problem I find with horror books and movies in general is that they're more enjoyable before you really know what is going on. The mystery is the page turner, but then if it drags on to long it becomes tedious. Once the initial mystery/horror is revealed, King builds the tension in the way he does best: blood and guts.
The world that King creates around his Dark Tower universe is indeed intriguing, and there is a certain satisfaction in picking up on the little tie-ins that connect that world to the worlds of his other novels. Even though these novels are enjoyable on their own, the connections give a sense that each book is a piece of a puzzle.
2 comments:
Excellent opening, indeed. And I agree. You get so intrigued, but rarely can the actual story match one's imagination and anticipation. Still, being caught in the jail with worst to come is a pretty classic bourgeois fear.
Thats a good point- I didn't think about it, but a lot of his work really plays on various class fears, but most of his characters traumas begin with their violent removal from their calm middle class existence.
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