Monday, July 4, 2016
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Stephen King: 'Salem's Lot pp. 1-87
The prologue to 'Salem's Lot always intrigued me, mainly because although King doesn't state it outright and there is plenty of room to manoeuvre in the opening of the book, it pretty much tells you that no matter what is about to happen in the next few hundred pages, Ben Mears is going to survive and he is going to have a young boy with him. The prologue names neither of the characters involved, but when you then move to the opening chapters and meet Ben Mears returning to the home where he spent four years of his youth, you immediately identify that this is the most likely character being described. This does then give you cause to believe that he will survive some calamity, given that he has to return to the Lot.
A week later he awoke sweating from a nightmare and called out the boy’s name.
‘I’m going back,’ he said.
The boy paled beneath his tan.
‘Can you come with me?’ the man asked.
‘Do you love me?’
‘Yes. God, yes.’
The boy began to weep, and the tall man held him.
Excerpt From
King, Stephen. “Salem's Lot.”
So the opening establishes Ben Mears, returning to town after what appears to be a traumatic death of his wife. It establishes his credentials as a former resident, and that the spooky house on top of the hill - the Marsten House - has some history with him, and that the mystery that surrounds the previous occupants is one of some interest. It also quite quickly establishes the mutual attraction between Ben and Susan Norton, and the likely problematic appearance of Susan's current boyfriend into the picture at some point.
The early passages here set up the Marsten House as a central figure in the coming story. Perhaps it is just me, but in writing this doesn't it seem just a little convenient that at the very same time Ben returns to town and wishes to rent out the Marsten House to live in and write his new novel, that the house, which has been empty for all those years, is suddenly sold? I mean, just a little too convenient? Yes, I know it is a fictional horror novel, and reality takes a backwards step in this regard, but come on. No one wants it, then two different parties want it within days of each other? Yeah OK Bill, leave it alone.
There is a lot more set up here in this book than there was in King's previous book Carrie. The characters of Eva Miller, Weasel Craig, Win Purinton and Mike Ryerson, to mention just a few, all within that instance of the morning ritual, shows a more elaborate effort in bringing to the reader's attention the folk of 'Salem's Lot, and suggesting that their roles in the story ahead will be somewhat significant.
The early passages here set up the Marsten House as a central figure in the coming story. Perhaps it is just me, but in writing this doesn't it seem just a little convenient that at the very same time Ben returns to town and wishes to rent out the Marsten House to live in and write his new novel, that the house, which has been empty for all those years, is suddenly sold? I mean, just a little too convenient? Yes, I know it is a fictional horror novel, and reality takes a backwards step in this regard, but come on. No one wants it, then two different parties want it within days of each other? Yeah OK Bill, leave it alone.
There is a lot more set up here in this book than there was in King's previous book Carrie. The characters of Eva Miller, Weasel Craig, Win Purinton and Mike Ryerson, to mention just a few, all within that instance of the morning ritual, shows a more elaborate effort in bringing to the reader's attention the folk of 'Salem's Lot, and suggesting that their roles in the story ahead will be somewhat significant.
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E8
What interests me most about this episode is that it is so highly regarded in the Twilight Zone universe. In 2009 Time magazine named it the third best episode ever. That's a big call in my opinion. It's not a bad episode, and the cast is excellent, with actors such as John Larch, Cloris Leachman, Don Keefer and a young Billy Mumy in is pre-'Lost in Space' days. And yes, the story line, consisting of a 'monster' in the form of a six year old boy who can read minds and can dispose of those that displease him, is a good one in a Twilight Zone universe. But really - up with the best episodes of all time? I'm not able to commit to that. I can see why its quirkiness and unusual story would appeal to a certain viewership. In many ways, MY viewership is the kind this episode would target.
I think what actually brings this episode down in my own estimation is that I saw Twilight Zone - The Movie before I saw this episode, and the remake of this story is in the movie, though with a twisted script that does change not only the ending but the real creepiness of the story. In the movie, this is the story that least interests me. This original episode is much better, though could probably have exploited scenario more with Anthony's character than it actually did. It's good, but top 10? No. Sorry.
Rating: Who wants to listen to Perry Como? 4.5/5
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E7
Wow. What a cast! Forget about the story for a moment, but just look at the names of the actors who clamour together here for a bit of Twilight Zone trivia. Firstly the main protagonist Conny Miller is played by Lee Marvin, in a role of different emotions than what he is renown for. Then there are the men involved in capturing and killing the outlaw Pinto Sykes - Lee Van Cleef, of many different roles including his great turn in 'The Good, the bad and the Ugly', Strother Martin, who would eventually give Paul Newman hell in 'Cool Hand Luke', Stafford Repp, who would go on to play Chief O'Hara in the 'Batman' TV series, and James Best, who apart from many roles over a long career was the brilliant Roscoe P. Coltrane in 'The Dukes of Hazzard' series. Fantastic actors all.
The episode itself plays out neatly, building the tension in a slow burn that keeps you guessing throughout while watching these marvellous actors at work. The conclusion leaves you in one of two minds, and leaves enough questions unanswered as to give you plenty of food for thought.
Rating: Don't fear the reaper. 4/5
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Stephen King Book #2: 'Salem's Lot
Book #2. 'Salem's Lot. First published October 17, 1975.
My first experience with 'Salem's Lot was in fact the 1979 TV movie. The time that I first saw this, it was on late on a Friday night, when my parents had their friends over for a cards night. I was in the TV room, flicking through the channels, and I found this, so I started watching. It was split in two, over two nights, and the part I was watching finished with the burial of Danny Glick, and with Mike Ryerson jumping down into the grave to open the casket, and then be attacked by the vampire-ised Danny, and the show ends at that point. To say it scared the bejeezus out of me (I was probably 12 at the time) would be an understatement, and sleeping comfortably didn't occur for a few nights after that.
Eventually I came to know that it was based on a novel by a guy called Stephen King, and when I then discovered the film Cujo a couple of years later, I knew it was time to search this author and his books out.
I have read this a number of times over the years, I would say about five or six times. I have always enjoyed it when I actually pull it out to read, but it hasn't been one of the first cabs off the rank in that respect. I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with Ben and Susan and the others as I head back to the marked township of Jerusalem's Lot.
I have read this a number of times over the years, I would say about five or six times. I have always enjoyed it when I actually pull it out to read, but it hasn't been one of the first cabs off the rank in that respect. I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with Ben and Susan and the others as I head back to the marked township of Jerusalem's Lot.
Review: Carrie
Carrie by Stephen KingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
On the surface, Stephen King’s first published novel could have been subtitled “The Ugly Duckling Goes to the Prom”, such is the simplicity of the under current storyline. ‘A picked-on and teased girl named Carrie White, who lives alone with her religiously stubborn mother, is an outcast in her school group, until the popular girl sees the error of her ways, and convinces her popular boyfriend to take the unpopular girl to the prom rather than herself, in order to atone for her wrongdoings, but also hopefully to bring the ugly duckling into the world for everyone to see she is really Cinderella’. The fact that Stephen King writes this basis of the story so well is an important facet, as everything that occurs outside of this, in the paranormal world, would never work so well if the actual base of the story wasn’t so strong. That what occurs in the book is so left of centre is the beginnings of what would become the Stephen King phenomenon.
What makes this so readable is that it is compact, and rather short in the scheme of the massive novels that were to come. But the story here is told in short, readable sections, such that it can be read in snatches between classes or in the bath or before sleep without having to commit to large sections. It moves back and forwards between what is happening at the time of the story, and then publication a few years in the future, describing the events with the element of hindsight. It is an effective method of keeping the reader informed of what is happening and what is going to happen, though it does give away some of the elements of surprise and suspense that would normally be the case, as events and even deaths are announced before they actually happen in the book’s present day.
What is evident immediately is King’s ability to draw you in to the story and how he allows you to determine for yourself whether you like the characters and whether or not you believe they are good or evil. He doesn’t write the people in his story to essentially be autonomously a particular character, he gives you enough leeway to decide for yourself if they are likeable or deplorable. Of course, who doesn’t enjoy a particularly evil person getting away with bad stuff, especially when in most cases they then find an even more evil end to their affairs. Perhaps here in Carrie, it is the number of innocents who are carted off that may disturb some of the light hearted readers. And the scale of the destruction. But wow, when she blows, she blows!
I still enjoyed revisiting Chamberlain again, and bathing in the blood that is released in so many ways during the course of the novel. Yes, King can write about women (no doubt with not just a little help from his wife Tabitha on this one), and he can write about the paranormal, and he can sure rain death and destruction on all who inhabit his stories. It may not be as fleshed out as many of his long novels to come, but many people will enjoy the fact that the story moves along and concludes itself without having to wades through thousands of pages.
Rating: Blood in the streets. 4/5
View all my reviews
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E6
Mirror mirror on the wall?... Well, not quite, but I suppose when it comes to trying to explain away evil and evil doings, a mirror is as good a place to start as any. Because this is what we have. When a South American dictator overthrows another South American dictator to stop the carnage that is occurring, but then decides to keep up the carnage as he believes everyone is out to get him... well, it's a vicious circle that plays out, isn't it. And this story certainly plays that out, with the help of a mirror, that by all accounts is able to reveal ones enemies in its reflection. The inevitable follows from this point.
This is another episode that didn't really grab me, but I must admit that this episode on my DVD jumps and pixelises all the way through no matter how hard I clean it, so it isn't the easiest episode to watch.
Rating: Don't shoot the messenger. 3/5
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E5
Featuring a very young Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters, this one room, two person play is everything that you could want from these two fine actors. That said, perhaps the story and the script could have been tighter or more dramatic, but having said that, the performances of these two make up for any lacking in the script department.
When Jesse Cardiff spends his evening decrying his ability to take on the skills of now-dead champion pool player Fats Brown, saying he would give anything for one game to prove he was the better player, Fats appears in the pool hall, ready to for the challenge that has been made to him. There are conditions of course, with Fats saying that if Jesse can win he will be acknowledged as the greatest player ever, but if he loses he must forfeit his life. Jesse obviously agrees with no thought. From here the story twists and turns, with the conversation between the two adversaries played out wonderfully well by these two terrific actors.
As I said earlier, the story could perhaps have been more convincing, but overall it ticks all the boxes for this kind of episode, and is still a joy to watch.
Rating: Don't pot the white. 4.5/5
Friday, July 1, 2016
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E4
One of many episodes that deal with the oncoming of death or death itself, and what passes beyond this state. Set at the end of the American Civil War, the two central characters are Lavinia Godwin, a woman whose house is on the road where an endless stream of soldiers from both sides of the conflict walk along, and a Sergeant of the Confederate Army, who is played by James Gregory, who also appeared in the original pilot of The Twilight Zone "Where is Everybody?". The interaction between these two, as well as the revelation and realisation of what is happening on the road that passes them, tells the story in a way that gives the viewer every chance to decipher the closing of the tale before it comes to its conclusion.
Here at least we have that feeling that we have drifted into The Twilight Zone, and so the episode can hold its own in that respect. It is interesting that by this stage of the original run of the show, just how many episodes deal with deal and the afterlife, and in what way, shape or form that may come. None of them seem to line up either!
Rating: the long walk. 3.5/5
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E3
Season 3: Episode 3: The Shelter
It's a simple enough premise. Neighbouring families are having a meal together, when it is announced on the radio that an attack is imminent, and that missiles are in the air and on their way. The families scatter to their homes, while the family whose home was the centrepiece in question prepare themselves to go into their bomb shelter, which the other families have just finished chiding them over for building. Of course, now the other families want to be allowed in to this shelter, which is only big enough for the family who built it. From here, the action grows along with anger and fright as revelations and actions grow from this stand off.
Yes, the story is effective in its telling, and cleverly so. It just isn't what I would consider a Twilight Zone episode in the grader scheme of the series.
Rating: Bombs are coming. 3.5/5
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E2
Season 3: Episode 2: The Arrival
For the most part the episode continues to build up to something big, something improbable, and while the final twist at the end is one you may not be expecting, you may well see it as a cop out as well. Oh well, not everything is meant to be completely unexplained.
Rating: The plane that lands itself. 3.5/5
Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S3 E1
Season 3: Episode 1: Two
But is this really what you would consider a Twilight Zone episode? There's no twist as such, and nothing to suggest any part of this has 'journeys' to the Zone itself. It's a post-apocalyptic story that starts with a tense stand off and finishes with a happy ending. A somewhat strange lead off for series three.
Rating: Samantha Stevens meets Paul Kersey. 2.5/5
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Stephen King: Carrie pp. 170-end
I guess one of the things I have had some problems with in regards to Stephen King novels is the endings. Not all of them, mind you, and probably not even half of them, but on occasions it just feels as though the whole story runs out of steam, and the ending feels either rushed or just not in the direction the story was going. While that isn’t the case in Carrie, it does feel like it maybe comes to an abrupt end rather than a fashioned one. And, I guess, given that Carrie’s demise does come quickly once she has disposed of her mother, then perhaps that is appropriate.
This being his first published novel, it is a shorter story in all, and if this was handled later on, I suspect the destruction and morbid slaying of the students at the prom would have been given a bigger expansion. Also the disdain of knocking off Chris and Billy would surely have been brutally and perversely explained in greater detail if this book had been written at a later date, with more confidence in his publish-ability behind him. Even the confrontation between Carrie and her mother just feels as though it lacks something, though I have no doubt that at the time it was published it would have been adequate. Given what he has written since and the vision available to Stephen King as a result, the final battle feels a tad tame in comparison. Of course when this was published there was nothing to compare it to.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Stephen King: Carrie pp. 100-169
The Chris/Billy relationship moves through several significant stages rather swiftly, with each more or less believing they are in control of what is occurring. The few days that separate Billy's thoughts that he would do anything for Chris - even kill, while he is collecting the pig's blood...
"Billy said nothing, but of course it was not for Freddy Over-lock, who was an asshole. It was for Chris Hargensen, just as everything was for Chris, and had been since the day she swept down from her lofty college-course Olympus and made herself vulnerable to him. He would have done murder for her, and more."
Excerpt From
King, Stephen. “Carrie.” Random House, Inc., 1974-08-15T07:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
... to where he is already ready to move on from the relationship just a few days later as they are about to put their plan into action at the prom - no doubt all come down to the fact that between the two events, Chris sleeps with him for the first time.
... or...
The boy does everything the girl wants from him, but now he sees that split personality, the psychotic to the meek, and he knows that somehow he has to get away.
"He wondered how long she would last. Maybe not long after tonight. Somehow it had all led to this, even the early part, and when it was done the glue that had held them together would be thin and might dissolve, leaving them to wonder how it could have been in the first place. He thought she would start to look less like a goddess and more like the typical society bitch again, and that would make him want to belt her around a little. Or maybe a lot. Rub her nose in it."Ah, you see? The boy has gotten what he wanted, and now golden exterior has been washed away and exposed the girl's real personality, and he's ready to run away. Just a typical male reaction, right girls?
Excerpt From
King, Stephen. “Carrie.” Random House, Inc., 1974-08-15T07:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
... or...
The boy does everything the girl wants from him, but now he sees that split personality, the psychotic to the meek, and he knows that somehow he has to get away.
I guess it depends on how you read it.
So I got through this part, and things have begun to happen at the prom. Unexplained, terrible things. And Sue has sensed the terror building, and left her home where she has been holed up for the evening, and head into town. The final paragraph I read before putting the book down and going to sleep last night was this:
"She saw the man on the police-station steps cup his hand around his mouth and scream something; unclear over the shrieking town whistle, the fire sirens, the monster-mouth of the fire. Sounded like: “Heyret! Don't hey that ass!” The street was all wet down there.
The light danced on the water. Down by Teddy's Amoco station. “—hey, that's—”
And then the world exploded."
Excerpt From
King, Stephen. “Carrie.” Random House, Inc., 1974-08-15T07:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
The perfect place to end, until I can return, almost like the end of a TV episode, when you have to wait until the following week for the next instalment.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Stephen King: Carrie pp 26-100
The several major confrontations that are detailed within this section of pages of the book are as eye opening in the framework of the story as anything else. The first mentioning of the incident involving things falling from the sky on the White household when Carrie was three years old. The confrontation between school principal and Chris Hargensen father, an almost David and Goliath battle that David apparently comes out on top. The short and sharp confrontation between Chris and Sue at the soda fountain, where Sue stands up against popular opinion for the first time in her life. And the moments between Carrie and her mother, as assertive control in the relationship begins to slip from the grasp of one and become stronger in the other. All of these resonate throughout these pages. As Carrie begins to understand her powers she is increasing her ability with them.
Perhaps the part of the story that doesn't quite ring true for me is the Sue and Tommy relationship, and that Sue asks Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. Really? No matter how bad someone was feeling about what they may have done to someone, would they actually ask their boyfriend to take another girl? While I can roll along with this premise when reading the book, it feels a bit too convenient for the plot for me if I was to be critical of it.
What this section of the book did most for me was make me think about my own childhood, and the bullying that I was involved in, both on the receiving end and - somewhat shamefully on any reflection - the handing out end. For many years I guess I have thought that what I had been involved in was kids teasing another kid, that's all. The teasing involved one particular girl by a group of which I was a part of, and though I would like to hint that my role was a 'minor' one, in the way that Sue Snell's role may be considered a minor role in the shower with Carrie White, that could in fact only be what my mind recalls, and not what the person involved thought at all. Indeed, unfortunately for the girl in question, she also had her first period at a very inconvenient time, during an English class in Year 7, an extraordinarily embarrassing time for her, and one that no doubt was mentioned on later occasions in her (and let's not mince words) bullying. I have no idea how much bullying this girl received, though I am somewhat sure that the few people in the group that I was involved in were not the only ones who teased and humiliated her. She eventually changed schools because of this. And that is a sad indictment on a number of people.
“In the wake of two hundred deaths and the destruction of an entire town, it is so easy to forget one thing: We were kids. We were kids. We were kids trying to do our best. . . .”These words rang strong with me, but only to the point that I feel that, with my own experience, they are a cop out. Sure, the person of our own bullying didn't come complete with telekenesis and then wreak her revenge on us. She was simply forced to move schools to escape us. And maybe we were only kids at that time. But it doesn't make what we did right. And all I can do now is ensure that my kids never repeat the mistakes I made,
Excerpt From: King, Stephen. “Carrie.” Random House, Inc., 1974-08-15T07:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Saturday, June 25, 2016
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