I read Gerald's Game a couple of times, but really have no desire to go back again and again. In fact, many novels are a great read once. Some books actually lose something on the second read. The first time through a book, the writer has the ability to surprise the reader. The second time, the reader is emotionally armed up.
There are a small handful of books that are worth returning to again and again. No matter how many times I read these books, they maintain their magic. In fact, I look forward to the little plot twists.
Sometimes rereading a book reminds me of the period of life I first read it in. So reading the Stand takes me back to High School and those long days I sat in summer school reading the book as a teacher droned on.
These "favorite" books are ones I'm most likely to buy special editions of.
So here are a few King books I've read more times than I can count:
Joyland
This book is absolutely delightful! I could really care less about the who done it part of the murder mystery, this story is all tone and setting. We get a behind the scenes look at the old amuse park and a trip back to the 1970's.
King spares the reader the typical "who done it" -- even though that is a central part of the book. There is no running around, room to room trying to put clues together.
The novel focuses on first love -- and next love. The love we find in the midst of a broken heart. Can that love be trusted? Is it real? Can we really love when we're on the rebound? This is actually a pretty complex emotional equation King sets up for a short book. Kings skill at depicting relationships is superb.
Early on, man suggested that Joyland would be "vintage King." I disagree. Joyland is not like Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Dead Zone or any other King novel. It's stronger. Much stronger. The characters are deeper and the story is told with a depth of maturity King could not bring to earlier novels. So it may have elements we saw in King's younger work, this is ultimately the work of a seasoned writer.
Favorite Scene: Mike's visit to the amusement park.
Favorite Character: Mike.
First read: 2013
check out my post about the real corpse in a theme park's house of horror: talkstephenking joyland journal
The Stand.
I love the entire book and was so happy when it finally came out in audio. Have read it both as the abridged version and unabridged. Both are delightful. There are lots of little sub stories that run through the book that are easily forgotten. And, I could travel with Larry through that tunnel a hundred times and still be scared.
Favorite scene: I like the final scene in Las Vegas. The hand of God reached down and took evil out. That's pretty gutsy writing.
Favorite character: The Walkin' Dude. Flagg. I love it that King dared to give us evil personified. And he wasn't a seething dark monster oozing goop -- he was one cool dude. Of course, if you made him unhappy, he had a few tricks up his sleeve to return the favor.
First read: High School.
Needful Things.
It's been too long since I've read this book! Time to come back. I think Needful Things is not given enough credit as a strong, character driven book.
Favorite character: One complaint sometimes leveled against Needful Things is that it lacks likable characters. There were certainly people I liked! How about Sherif Pangborn and his girlfriend, Polly Chalmers.
The book worked, for me, because it was long and had lots of breathing room. King interwove the characters and moved the plot toward a final crescendo that I thought worked on behalf of the town. The final scene with the Sherif being offered a video of his wife's death was goofy.
Favorite scene: When Wilma and Nettie go crazy and hack each other to death in the middle of the street. Yuck.
First read: High School.
IT
This book is many people's all time favorite King book. I like it a lot. I think I would like it even more if I had grown up in the fifties. The story is as a much about childhood and friendship as it is monsters. But King isn't afraid to give us lots of monsters!
Favorite character: Eddie.
Favorite scene: There's so many! I really like the part where Bev hears the dead children calling to her through the drain. The book has plenty of scenes that don't work for me. But the overall narrative and magic of the book simply overwhelms these troubling/dull passages. I like scenes where the kids are running around town, going to the theater and shops in Derry. King transports us to another time; not only the 1950's, but to our own childhood.
First read: High School.
11/22/63
The book is absolutely brilliant. Never mind the awkward means of time travel. Naturally, we all go to the 1950's via our pantry. In fact, like IT, there is plenty that doesn't work in this book for me. When King finally gets down to alternate history, his own mechanisms of time travel distort what might have been. Because of the earthquakes and other things related to time travel, we never get a clear view of the stories promised theme -- what if Kennedy had lived?
But then, mid or late novel, I realized something; this isn't really about alternate timelines! King plays with the "white if" for just a while, but the thrust of the novel is really a love story. A LOVE STORY!
What is so powerful about the book is King's ability to take us back in time. For people like me, who did not grow up in the late 50's and early 60's, it is a grand tour of a place I've never been. King starts by giving us the good, and then slowly begins to uncover some of the deeper evils of the era as the novel progresses.
Favorite character: Sadie. I'm sure I'm supposed to connect more deeply with Jake Epping, but the guy makes so many bad decisions that it is difficult to actually like him. There were many times I found myself going, "really, dude?" But Sadie is emotionally complex and real. I didn't start out liking her, because she seemed like a distraction from the plot. "Why this side stuff about a love story," I asked myself. But she won me over.
Other favorite Character: TIME. Yep, time.
King plows new ground in 11.22.63 with the concept of time itself being obdurate.
What if time wasn't a thing, like a block of wood or even a machine -- what if it was alive? What if time was insulted when people tried to change it? And, the biggie -- what if it could fight back? What if the time line itself was able to protect itself against time-travelers.
Notice how the past is indeed alive as King writes, "the past is sly as well as obdurate. It fights back. And yes, maybe there was an element of greed involved, too." Later in the novel, King says, "The past is obdurate for the same reason a turtle’s shell is obdurate: because the living flesh inside is tender and defenseless." (p. 827) Time protects the people within its shell.
Sadie picks up on the theme and tries to relate to it but she uses the wrong word–malelevolent--instead of obdurate. She hasn't experienced the obdurates of the past the way Jake has! It has beat him to a pulp!
Favorite scene: When the story passes through the IT narrative.
First Read: 2012
Non-King
1. The Pillars Of The Earth2. Cold Sassy Tree
3. The Pelican Brief
4. The Grapes Of Wrath
5. The Martian Chronicles
6. Great Expectations
7. A Dangerous Fortune
8. Piercing The Darkness
9. 1984
What Stephen King books are you most likely to come back to?
What non-King books do you read again and again?
My favorite King revisit novel: It.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite scene:
There are lost of choices to be had, however my absolute favorite scene, for whatever reason, is the story of Will Hanlon and the fire at the Black Spot, also the bits of Will with his son Mike on their farm.
For me, there's something about those scenes that are both classically literary, and American (don't know if that made any sense).
ChrisC
Mine would probably be 'Salem's Lot.
ReplyDeleteIt still has the power to give me the creeps - especially the scene in the cemetery (the one that ends "It became unspeakable")