In Which We Discuss Dolores Claiborne

When I was younger - between the ages of nine and sixteen - I used to be off school a lot.  When that happened, my grandmother would take me to Bearwood with her, and we'd look in all the charity shops up and down the high street.  I'd come away with piles and piles of books, which I'd start on in the pub, over a coke while my nan had a lager and caught up with her friends.

Dolores Claiborne was one of these.  I remember reading it and getting through the first hundred pages before we left, and I think I finished it later that same evening.  It's told in the second person, in one long confession by Dolores herself, something Stephen King hadn't done in long fiction before.  It's a pretty short book, somewhere between 200 and 250 pages, and it gave me a real bad case of the gottas.

Dolores Claiborne is linked to Gerald's Game via the eclipse that both Dolores and Jessie witness, during which they receive odd glimpses of one another.  I'm not sure which of the books I read first - it really makes no difference - but I think it was this one.

James Smythe points out that this is only Stephen King's second novel with a single viewpoint, the first being The Body.  I hadn't realised that - though obviously I noticed the second person aspect as being unique.   I also hadn't really noticed the dialect the story was told in; I knew it was there but it didn't impinge on my experience.  Of course, one of my favourite books is Lorna Doone.

Stephen King is very good at keeping track of multiple characters in an overarching third person narrative, but, like Gerald's Game, it's where he limits himself that his skill really becomes apparent.  I also feel that Stephen King writes excellent women.  I've noticed that authors with daughters tend to be better at it, though I've not done any sort of formal survey so this observation might just be a coincidence.  I'm thinking of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman when I make that sort of statement.  As well as having a daughter Stephen King was raised by a single mother, and is married to a woman with five or six sisters, so he's definitely had the opportunity to observe women in their natural habitat; he doesn't see them as being exotic beings or people very different from men, which we're not, in many ways.

I also like the discussion and use of the word 'bitch'.  It's used in a reclaiming way; sometimes being a bitch is all you've got to hold on to.  It's not a word I'd use on anyone else, who isn't fictitious, but I love bitches in fiction.  Strong women, who do what they need to do.

The book - which was the best-selling American novel of 1992 - was made into a movie in 1995, starring Kathy Bates who also appeared in Misery.

The next book Stephen King published was Nightmares and Dreamscapes, a collection of short stories that I've also read before.  After that it'll be Insomnia, followed by The Green Mile, both of which I've also read previously.  Then we'll be back on to a long string of books I've not read before, starting with Desperation.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 33/52

Seven books last week!  That's the 24th to the 30th of March.

I found the first three Georgia Nicolson books in The Works for 50p each.  Actually, they had the other six or seven in the series as well, but I found they stop being fun after the first few.  That or I grew out of them.  I first read them when I was fifteen, so it may be that the first three snuck into my field of view just in time.

The Works sells books which couldn't be sold in bigger stores - that's why they're so much cheaper.  I think someone must have put in a order for all the books when Louise Rennison died, expecting them to sell.  Sad.

I also read the Artemis Fowl books as a teenager, but I'd not read the graphic novel before.  I feel like it loses something in the translation; the scene with Butler and the troll is less badass without Foaly's commentary, and the secret code from the bottom of the pages is missing.

I also read Dolores Claiborne as a teenager.  That's one I need to write a longer post on, since it's part of my Stephen King project.  You won't be seeing any more posts for a bit; the next one, Nightmares and Dreamscapes is over 900 pages.  I've also read that one before - again, as a teenager if I recall correctly.

I didn't read The Naughtiest Girl in the School as a teenager; I actually read it when I was seven.  It was the first book I ever read, in fact.  This was the abridged audiobook, with a full voice cast.  It was quite nice actually hearing the piano pieces - I'd totally forgotten about that.

The Darkest Minds was a new one to me; another audiobook, one that my partner recommended.  It picked up a lot near the end, but I'm not feeling a huge urge to listen to the sequels.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 32/52

Only three books last week; 16th to 23rd March.  One I'd read before, but as an audiobook this time, for a bit of a change, one I've had on my kobo for a solid three years before finally getting around to it and a library book which I read for a bookclub.

Carol was the library book for the bookclub; originally published as The Price of Salt it was one of the first LGBT novels in which the hero/ines were not murdered, forced to commit suicide or sent back to their straight partners having learned a lesson.  I didn't enjoy it much because I didn't like the viewpoint character; I had no interest in what she was doing or what she thought of anything, which was a slight barrier to caring about the story.  It was a very nice meeting though.

Chimerascope is a book of short-stories, many of them award-winning or at least nominated.  The first one is strongly sci-fi and took me a while to get into, which is possibly why it took me over three years to read it.

Room is the one I've read before.  Twice as a paperback, and this time as an audiobook.  It's got one reader for Jack's voice and a few others voicing the adults.  I also watched the movie a few months ago; Jacob Tremblay is amazing in the role.  I'm sad they wrote the uncle out though; I liked his role in the story.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 31/52

Six books lasy week; three more seasons of Clare in the Community, Needful Things and Gerald's Game, and Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights was the only book was was new to me.  I got it as an audiobook on Audible's daily deal for £2.99, and it was listening to it as an audiobook that got me through it.  I found the opening quite slow and I didn't like a lot of the characters.  It seems to be that Cathy and Heathcliff deserved one another, and it would have saved everyone else a lot of trouble if they'd just fucked off together early on.

I liked Heathcliff more towards the end.  He began to remind me of Snape, if Snape were a sociopath.

I've written a longer post about the Stephen King books here.

Clare in the Community is a radio series starring Sally Phillips.  I love basically everything she's in.

In Which We Discuss Needful Things and Gerald's Game

Reading Needful Things took me a while.  It's a book I've read before and one that I enjoy, but it's also nearly a thousand pages long.

Needful Things is a story about the time the Dark Man took a holiday from bugging Roland and decided to open a little curio shop in Castle Rock.  Shenanigans ensue, in the forms of pranks played as payment for one's hearts desire.  There's an interesting commentary on the advertising industry, something King has said was intentional - he tried to distil the worst elements of the 80s into the plot.  I particularly like the way each person talks themselves into the sale, not on the merits of the item itself but based on the life they believe they will have once in possession of the item.  In at least one case this is heartbreaking; a man believes that once in possession of a fine fox tail to tie to his car's aerial he will drive that car over to a regular AA meeting every week.

The pranks people are asked to play seem innocent at first; they're on people whom the pranker is ambivalent about and don't seem too harmful.  But, in the mind of the prankee they increase paranoia and existing rivalries, until the town reaches a glorious implosion.

The trailer for the movie makes the whole thing seem comedic, and, on reflection, there is a line of dark comedy in there.  Very dark.

I enjoyed the book both when I first read it and now.  It's something of a sequel to The Dark Half and The Sun Dog and also includes characters from The Dead Zone and The Body.  The latter is Ace Merrill, the main bully, who is said to have spent some time in Shawshank between books.  I particularly liked Alan Pangborn and his relationship with Polly, who ends up spending some time thinking about Cujo when she's up on the old farm where that book took place.  At the end of the book, Gaunt moves on to the town where The Library Policeman took place.

A number of these characters also show up in Gerald's Game, or at least at the end.  Most of the book involves one woman, in a room, for three-hundred pages.  These restrictions really allow King's talent as a story-teller to shine.  There's nothing to hide behind; no distractions. Just one woman and her story, and King handles it masterfully.  The flashbacks are used to great effect; in this article, Gladstone points out whatever the chronology is doing the narrative is always moving forwards.  Flashbacks are part of that, no matter when they actually take place, and King handles that like a boss.

The novel also explores the limit of the human body and mind; what can we cope with?  What can we live through?  It really is a masterpiece; I don't think I ever read it in less than two days.

Jessie Burlingame is excellently written, as a fully realised female character.  King even manages some commentary on uniquely female experiences which rings true; possibly due to the women the novel is dedicated to, his wife and her sisters.

Jessie's also an expert at splitting her psyche, assigning different experiences to different segments.  This allows us to have some conversation during the three hundred pages in which she is alone, as she is forced to deal with these issues.  It's a similar technique to that used by Mark Vorkosigan in Mirror Dance, when dealing with being tortured, and it can also be a useful mental trick for making decisions about more mundane issues.

James Smythe's post on Needful Things points out that a huge theme of the novel is about how destructive needs can be if not overcome.  His post on Gerald's Game covers his own experience of first reading the novel at thirteen.  I think I was a little older; closer to seventeen or eighteen.

Stephen King's next published novel is Dolores Claiborne another book that I've read before and enjoyed.  I actually read it before Gerald's Game; the two are linked by an eclipse.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 30/52

Six books last week!  That's the 3rd March to the 9th March.

I listened to the first three series' of Clare in the Community a radio show about a social worker.  I listened to the whole eight series' about two years ago and felt like doing it again.

I also listened to Brave New World, which I found quite interesting.  I enjoyed Contact more than the movie.  I liked that it shows women in STEM fields, with some struggles but also just very good at science.

Disclaimer I read for a bookclub, which I ended up missing due to having a migraine.  It's an interesting story marred by truly awful, amateurish writing.  The writer is quite experienced in other media, so it seems odd that she'd do so badly here.  Maybe it was assumed she didn't need a story editor, or maybe it's just that writing prose is very different from writing plays?  I plan to write a long post, pointing out specific bits which didn't make sense.  Oh, and it was also marred by the fact that the 'twist' was easy to see coming, from quite a long way away, though it took the characters much longer to spot it.

In Which We Discuss My Unread Pile

So here's the shot for March;

So far this calendar year, I've bought 15 new books, which is just over one per week and well on track to buying less than 60 new books this year.  Considering I bought 124 in 2015 that's a huge difference!

My unread pile is down to 53; again, on track to getting it below 30 by the end of the year.  Ideally, I'd like to get it below 10 or even 5.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 29/52

Seven books last week!  That's 25th February to the 2nd March.  Bluebeard's Egg and Breakfast at Tiffany's are both library books.  I didn't enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany's because I didn't like Holly Golightly.  She's an annoying little twit and quite self-centred.  Bluebeard's Egg had some interesting stories but like most of Atwood's stories they didn't have a lot of plot.  I like plot.  Plot is awesome.  I enjoy books with plot.  You can do many excellent things without a lot of plot, such as examining situations and thinking about them.  But I quite like when things actually happen.

The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories did have plots.  Most of the stories were pretty Victorian, as it was published in the sixties and included a lot of Victorian work.  I found there wasn't a lot of build-up; most of the stories simply explained the horror and that was the end of it.

I did enjoy the short story by Harry Harrison in the collection, moreso than The Stainless Steel Rat.  It was okay, just not the sort of thing I normally go for; a cyberpunk piracy and conman story.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a book I've returned to over and over in the past decade.  This was the first time I'd listened to the audiobook, which I enjoyed once I'd gotten used to the voice.  I like listening to books on 3x speed; it makes longer books much more accessible.  Which is how I finished the Harry Potter series, though it did make me cry on the bus.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 28/52

Ten books last week - 18th February to 24th February.

It's actually only seven books; Day of the Dead, Seven Deadly Sins, and Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus were all books I read a few weeks ago but didn't date for some reason.

I listened to the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books this week.  I thought I'd read the fifth book before, but now I come to listen to it I don't think I can have.  I definitely read Goblet of Fire back when it first came out.  They've very enjoyable.  I'm reading along with the essays on hpcompanion.

Haunted Heart is an biography of Stephen King.  I rather enjoyed it.  The book goes into the way that Stephen King tries to write away his fears.  It's a kind of superstition; if he writes about it it won't happen.  Which explains a lot.  Speaking of Stephen King The Dark: Tower: The Gunslinger is a graphic novel of part of The Gunslinger.  I'd forgotten half of the plot - mostly because I wasn't paying attention - so it was a nice refresher.

I liked The Psychopath Test better than So You've Been Publicly Shamed, I suspect because Jon Ronson didn't read it to me.  He's a much better writer than he is a reader.

I read Big Fish because I loved the film.  The book wasn't as good.  Less clear and fantastical, and more subtle in a way that was less interesting.

I didn't enjoy The Great Unexpected that much either; Sharon Creech's books are always a bit hit or miss for me.

Finally, Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix.  I'd read Goblet before and I thought I'd read Phoenix but now I've listened to it I don't think I can have.