Since I last updated this post in April, Stephen King has added five volumes to his bibliography. I'm going to make a spreadsheet to give you better statistics on this thing.
Interesting. It takes me an average of two weeks to finish a novel and I take a break of two and a half weeks between each one. I'm 54% of the way through, with 43 books left. If I carry on at this rate, it will take me another 1326 days, or 3.6 years. I should be done on the 24th of June 2021.
I've not written an update in a while. I did like the Plant; it's unfinished, though left at a point in which the major villains are dealt with, so it's kind of satisfying. Dreamcatcher, I found a bit meh. Good at the beginning, interesting at the end, lots of less interesting bits in the middle. I'm going to start Black House today, which is the sequel to The Talisman. I'm just looking up the details of what happened in the Talisman to remind me. This is a really long-running project.
Chapter XXI
I feel like I'm going to regret this later, but I'm getting bored of these peace chapters; I want these spoilt children in a war zone.
During the party, count Bezukhov - Rich Uncle Cyril - has his sixth stroke. The Military Governor comes to see him; how nice. Prince Vasili insists on talking to him before he leaves. Everyone is sitting around and whispering. The conversations begin with Uncle Cyril's health, but very quickly turn to his wealth. Vasili sneaks off to speak to his cousin, the Princess Catherine, in her room. I don't think she's been mentioned much before. She and Vasili, along with her sisters, are the direct heirs of the count, but he's asked for Pierre to be recognised instead, despite his being raised by wolves. Catherine protests that the will won't stand because Pierre is illegitimate; Vasili confesses that the count has written a letter the emperor for Pierre to be legitimised. He's trying to get Catherine to destroy it before the emperor sees it, the sneaky little sod. Catherine rejects the idea that an illegitimate bastard could inherit under any circumstances; she's so certain that she ignores everything Vasili is saying. I'm glad she's dicking herself over; I don't like her, and I don't think she deserves any inheritance.
Catherine begins to believe Vasili when he says he's spoken to the family solicitor, Dmitri, but then decides to deny she ever wanted an inheritance. She really never did. But still, it's so ungrateful of uncle Cyril, after everything she's done for him (that he didn't ask for).
Catherine continues ranting and Vasili tries to bring her back by claiming that he's sure the will leaving everything to Pierre is a mistake and the count will be glad to destroy it as soon as they remind him that it exists.
By the way, as I work through this, and add gifs and videos, I realise that War and Peace is unaged. I choose these gifs because the characters remind me of one another, despite being over a hundred years apart, and I think that says a lot about War and Peace. People are fundamentally people, and Tolstoy captured that.
The Princess is still ranting and has now begun blaming Anna and Darling Bory; I'm not sure she's wrong. Vasili finally gets out of her where the will is hidden while Catherine vows to give Anna a piece of her mind.
Chapter XXII
Meanwhile, Pierre and Anna are on their way to Uncle Cyril. As they walk in, Pierre spots some people, "who look like tradespeople", scuttering about and hiding in the shadows. Since no one else seems concerned, he decides he won't be either. He's going to see his dying father, that's enough to be worrying about. Also, Anna's directed them up the back stairs, but he decides not to worry too much about that either. They walk past Princess Catherine and Vasili while Catherine is ranting, but, luckily, she slams her door in a rage and doesn't spot them. Anna also reminds Pierre that she has cared for him like a son and will always be there for him, and, unsaid, that kind of care obviously deserves monetary reciprocation.
Anna decides to act like she's exactly where she's supposed to be, and if anyone doesn't know that, that's their problem. Pierre decides he's going to do whatever she says, since he's out of his depth. Poor boy was raised by wolves. He's a bit confused that the servants have all started being deferring to him.
Vasili walks in, tells Pierre that Uncle Cyril (Pierre's father) has asked to see him, and advises him to be brave. He also tells Pierre that Uncle Cyril has had a stroke, which confuses poor Pierre for a minute (what is the Russian for stroke?).
Poor old Uncle Cyril is dying and everyone files in.
For me, The Princess Bride isn't about Buttercup and Westley. Does that surprise you? It's about little Billy, struggling through pneumonia and having a story read to him by his father, and their finally forging a connection. It's little Billy taking that experience, realising that he truly loved stories, and growing up to write and create his own. As an adult, he tries to use that original story to forge a relationship with his own son, and then with his grandson. The story that's being shared is the one about Buttercup and Westley, and I don't want to give the wrong impression; that story is told in full. But in-between that story, in the imaginary 'boring bits' that first the fictitious Goldman senior and then the semi-fictitious William Goldman cut out, is this story, about how we relate to stories, how we love them, and how we share them with others.
The movie then, isn't a remake of the book. It's a different version, a different grandfather sharing the same story with his grandson. You can almost view it as a sequel to the book, another story about how we interact with stories.
I first read the book fifteen years ago, shortly after the 30th anniversary edition was released. That edition has more than the original book, in an odd blend of fiction and reality. While William Goldman is real, his father isn't Florinese, and he doesn't have a son. Nor is Stephen King Florinese...but the story about casting Kathy Bates in Misery and her asking if she could tell her mom is true. And so is all the little trivia about getting the movie made, and the rehearsals. Like Mandy Patinkin slapping Andre the Giant across the face and saying "faster, Fezzik!", or the director recording all of Andre's lines for him verbatim, so he could try to lose his French accent before filming. I feel like William Goldman is really interested in showing the man behind the curtain, especially in light of his work, Adventures in the Screentrade.
There's also a little more to the Princess Bride story, including a little bit more about Inigo Montoya's past and the time he found true love, but gave it up because he was still in the middle of his revenge quest. I love Inigo's story, and I'm sad that Domingo's part is so cut down in the movie.
I feel the same way about Peter Pan, though for different reasons. Some of the movies do have the events of book in full...but they still fail to get across the darker, sadder undercurrent of children being "young and cruel and heartless". Peter doesn't know how to care about anyone else. Every single woman in the book is in love with him, and he doesn't comprehend it at all, but that's more to it than that. He forgets Hook and Tinkerbell and even Wendy for a while. He 'thins out' the Lost Boys when they get too numerous; for Peter, nothing has consequences and nothing really matters, and there's a certain horror in that that I've never really seen in the movies. Lost Boy by Christina Henry takes it and runs with it, in a way that really works (though, I don't really recommend Alice and Red Queen by the same author in the same way; they're less about finding what was originally in the story and bringing it out, and more "how can I make every single element a metaphor for rape and/or torture?").
