Jason Kendall introduces the King reading:
About 40 minutes into his address, King opened a file folder and produced the first few pages of his manuscript-in-progress "Dr. Sleep," a sequel to "The Shining." The new novel reimagines Danny Torrance as an 8-year-old boy living alone with his mother, three years after the events of "The Shining."
Fair warning: Like all of King's material, the "Dr. Sleep" opening gets a little graphic, so if you're easily offended we suggest you stop reading here. The following is transcribed from the full video of King's presentation, made public by the Savannah Book Festival and watchable here.
At the urging of the audience, King took a seat and narrated the first few pages of "Dr. Sleep."
"So this is how it starts," King said, and began to read. . .
I'll be fair, and please no one take this the wrong way. I have my doubts about this book. I'm in no way knocking King when I say this, I happen to think his talent's a great as ever and unlike many of the old fans, I like that he's made attempts to be more literary without going obtuse.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I also know every writer is only human, and sometimes the narrative thread can be lost. That's what I think has happened here. I think what's happened is King had the idea for another vampire type novel that got mixed in with a passing fancy by accident, I think Danny Torrence originally had nothing to do with the moment of inspiration.
There's my take at least. I did experience some gratification listening to the prologue, however it was more the kind the occurs when meeting an old acquaintance rather than from hearing a good story.
Sorry if I've disappointed anyone with this.
ChrisC
It's entirely possible that the generation of the novel came about exactly as you speculated, Chris ... but at this point in his career, King is SO far past needing to rely on cheap gimmicks of that nature (i.e., forcing a story into becoming a sequel to one of his classics just so as to reap the benefits of the resultant publicity) that I simply do not believe he would do it.
ReplyDeleteI also don't believe he would risk releasing a sequel to something as near and dear to him -- and to his massive audience -- as "The Shining" unless he genuinely felt he had the goods.
Does that mean "Dr. Sleep" will be as good as "The Shining"? No. It might. But the odds are certainly against it.
I'll say this much, though: the section King reads in that clip sounds (to me, at least) EXACTLY like "The Shining." As good omens go, that one ain't bad. I'm not sure how well that tone will combine with the tone evident in the clip of King reading from a different section of the novel last year. However, I'm more than willing to give King the benefit of the doubt; he's earned it.
I here what you say, and I can always remain hopeful, still so far all the omens I got just weren't encouraging.
DeleteI've even seen this happen before, and I can give the perfect example in just four words: Mark Twain, Huck Finn. The story is fine until the end chapters. What should be straightforward jailbreak with a few satiric barbs thrown in becomes long and drawn out to the point where it's no longer funny and ruins the story and worse undercuts all the development the characters have gone through. In a way that's what I'm worried about the most, cheapening great characters.
However I know it's useless to worry and we'll just have to wait and see. Here's hoping for the best.
ChrisC
It's rare that one finds somebody criticizing Mark Twain for screwing up the sequel to "Tom Sawyer."
ReplyDeleteGod bless you, Internet; you are a source of constant amazement.