In Which We Discuss Bag of Bones

Bag of Bones was first published in 1998, shortly before my 10th birthday. It has a lot in common with Rebecca, another book I read a few years ago, although it treats the core elements differently.

This is one of the many novels in which the main character is a writer. If I recall correctly, this was the book where I first found out that King’s novels weren’t published in written order, though it might have been Lisey's Story; sometimes, he wrote too prolifically and would stash a few, as the character Mike Noonan does. When I started this project I did consider making the effort to find out the order in which the novels were actually written and to read them in that order, but I came to the conclusion that that would be unreasonably difficult.

The other day I thought about the fact that Shakespeare’s plays begin to have happier, more optimistic endings as he got older. That was one of the reasons I wanted to read an author’s work in chronological order; to see how it changed as they aged. When I did this with Lisa Jewell a few years ago there were a number of changes. What stood out most was her concern about children, after she had her own.

King’s writing is so prolific that I actually find it harder to step back and see trends. It’s like trying to watch a plant growing by staring at it for every hour of the day. There are trends; for instance, Rage and Carrie, both about teenagers, were written when King was younger – although The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which focuses on a young girl, was published in 1999, when King was 52 and presumably written when he was at least in his 40s. His children make a difference as well; many characters are openly based on King’s family, and he does have a gift for observation.

I remembered Bag of Bones wrong; the first time I read it, it felt like it was a lot more about Sara and a lot less about Maddie. This time, I was waiting for the whole bit with Maddie to get out of the way so we could get to the main story about Sara. I was about three hours from the end – audiobook – when I finally twigged that Maddie was part of the main story.

The audiobook includes an interview with King on the topic of audiobooks. When he first wanted to listen to them, very few unabridged recordings were available, so he would pay his children $18 for each ninety-minute tape recording of a book he wanted to have read. It really is no wonder that King’s two sons, Owen King and Joe Hill, both grew up to be authors.

What is interesting is that relatively few of King’s characters are LGBT, despite the fact that his daughter Naomi is openly gay. Naomi’s life is less open than her brothers’, as she is less of a public figure. Perhaps King also considers her life to be private. I didn't realise, until I read this article, that she's a wheelchair user.  I'm not sure at which point in her life she began using a wheelchair, but it would be interesting to see if King's characters start using them more after that point.  So far, I think it's only been Paul Sheldon in Misery.

The next work of King’s is The Storm of the Century, a TV series for which he wrote the script. I’ve decided that while I will try to watch the series, I won’t try to hunt down the script to read it. I’ll be moving on to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – another book I’ve read before.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read Last Week IV

I started work last Monday, so this week has involved slightly less reading.  Well, actually, it's more complicated than that.  I've had less time for doing stuff in general, but I'm reading regularly on the train and during my breaks, so it's a more regular amount of reading time, and more than I did when I was just playing videogames and watching movies all day.  I did do that sometimes, and barely read anything.

Anyway; this week's books!

I forget whether Coraline showed up on Kind of Book or not.  I do recall that it was very cheap, and since I liked the film and the graphic novel, I figured I should give it a read.  I gave it 4/5 stars.  Because the story wasn't new to me, it's hard to find anything to say about it.

I've had The Donor for a while.  Last time Kobo ran a competition, I used some of my vouchers to pick it up cheaply.  It's initially introduced as a dilemma; twins are both suffering from kidney failure, and their (single) father cannot donate to both of them.  So yeah, it sounds a bit Jodi Picoult-ish.  The book itself goes into their relationships with each other and their past in a way that's a lot more interesting than the actual dilemma, even if the whole thing does twinge on an incredibly unlikely fact.

Spoilers Below

Seriously - no one has ever told Will that two blue-eyed parents couldn't have brown-eyed children?  No one's ever mentioned that to him, ever?  I can understand why no one else would point it out, since they'd probably just assume that Georgie and Kay's mother had brown-eyes, and even the girls themselves might not have looked that closely at old photos.  The author didn't even need to throw that fact in there; their paternity wasn't realised or even suspected because of their eyes, and it could so easily have not been mentioned at all.

End Spoilers.

I gave it 4/5 stars because I enjoyed the journey.

Rage I've read before.  It was Stephen King's fifth published novel, though one that he started in High School.  It's no longer in print, though it does seem to be included in the Kindle edition of The Bachman Books, and you can still pick up second hand copies.  I gave that 4/5 stars as well.

I picked up Thank You For Smoking because Kind of Book notified me that it was reduced to 99p. I'd heard of the movie and thought of watching it, though I never actually got around to it.  Anyway, I figured I'd just read the book because it sounded pretty interesting.  4/5.

Divergent was another book I found on Kind of Book, and I really should break that addiction.  A friend of mine has been recommending it for ages, and I'm so glad I finally got around to reading it.  It's another dystopian teen trilogy like The Hunger Games or Pretties.  The basic premise is that, in this society, sixteen-year-olds are given an aptitude test which indicates which of five societal groups they are best suited to being before choosing which of those groups to belong to for the rest of their lives.  I predict it will follow the essential path; the first book introduces the society, focusing on one member who doesn't quite fit into it as they come up to a specific occasion where they are to take on their adult role within society.  They train for this role for a while, learning more and more, until they - or she, usually she - accidentally breaks society due to their personality being incompatible plus some kind of megalomaniacal Big Bad trying to take over.  During the second book, our societally unacceptable heroine will join some rebels, at least one of whom will have important technical knowledge.  Finally, she will triumph in the third book.

All of that isn't to say that I don't enjoy this kind of thing, or that I won't read more of it.  Another 4/5.

In Which We Discuss The Shining and Rage

It took me quite a long time to finish The Shining. According to Goodreads, I started it on the 4th and finished it on the 28th. That's unusual for me, and not just compared to Rage, which I started on the 30th and finished earlier today, the 31st.

The Shining was Stephen King's third published novel, following Carrie and 'salem's Lot.  Rage was his fourth, though he actually started playing with the idea while still in high school.  In contrast, he began Carrie after college (uni).

I've never even seen the movie of The Shining - which, apparently, is not a very faithful adaptation anyway - so I came to it completely fresh.  I don't know why I found it so hard to get through.  It's not like I abandoned it and then came back and read it in chunks; I just read a chapter or two a night every other day.  That's very unusual for me.  During that same time period I read quite a few other books, but if I'd left one this long without finishing, I normally would have just given up.

Rage, on the other hand, I'd read before.  As I said, it was started when Stephen King was in high school, and published in 1977, three years after Carrie and the same year as The Shining.  It was published under the name Richard Bachman, and my edition of The Bachman Books has an essay on "Why I was Bachman".  Essentially, it has to do with wondering if his success was pure luck or talent, and with wanting to publish more than his publishers deemed necessary.  In the essay, Stephen King describes how The Beatles dreamt of just going for an anonymous tour as Randy and the Rockets.

"They would wear hokey capes and masks a la Count Five, he said, so no one would recognise them, and they would just have a rave-up, like in the old days.

When the interviewer suggested they would be recognised by their voices, Paul seemed at first startled...and then a bit appalled."

Later in the essay, King points out that the Beatles would have been recognised before they even opened their mouths, by George's guitar licks.  Since day one, he's been getting letters asking if he was Richard Bachman.

Since Bachman died of cancer-of-the-pseudonym in 1985, three years before I was born, I have never not known that Bachman and King were the same person.  So I can't comment on whether I would have guessed or not.

The next book on the list is Night Shift, a collection of short stories King published in a variety of magazines - including playboy - throughout the previous years. 

Some edits, while I remember;

King's goal, with The Shining was to write more than simple horror.  To have a character driven by inner demons as well as outer ones.  The film is a very unfaithful adaptation, but this does come across in the book.

Rage was withdrawn from publication following several real school shootings which made King uncomfortable with continuing to publish.  I have it in an old edition of The Bachman Books, and it seems like it's also available in the Kindle edition of that book.