finished the Stephen King novel
Apr. 9th, 2022 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeThe last third was definitely the weakest: a big infodump about the shadowy Final Boss (basically Rupert Murdoch). Apparently when you want to indicate that someone's a real-life monster, you make them a pedophile ... Well what that got me thinking about was how a lot of evil in life isn't about what acts a person gets up to with their own hands (or dick), but what they permit or cause to happen by the power they hold. The generalissimos and presidents and supreme autarchs of the world. Putin may never have had sex with someone underage, but there's an awful lot of rape, torture, and murder that's happened at his behest. It makes trying to mark someone as a hands-on monster seem ... unsatisfying, somehow.
I guess this is how we arrive at serial killers as monsters too: the evil that you get up to with your own hands as opposed to sending down orders to the hands of others.
Anyway, I was kind of bored with pedophile Rupert Murdoch, and I was bored, too, with the encounter with the Penultimate (as opposed to Final) Boss. I found myself itching to find out how it would end end: what state would the principal character (and his sidekick; more on her later) end up in? And that I *did* like: there was a fakeout toward one ending and then a different, real ending that I thought was much stronger and that, really, the story was building toward. So good one there, Steve!
About the sidekick girl.
Billy rescues her from death by exposure after she's been gang raped and then nurses her back to health. Just one of those things that happen--rape victim tossed out of a van by the house you're hiding in, you know how it is. In terms of story mechanics, her presence means that within-story you can have someone be an audience for the memoir Billy's writing about his past. You can also have someone who (comes to) adore Billy and who can affirm and support what he's doing. And because she's an external voice affirming and supporting, Billy can do the doubting and self-questioning. Story-mechanic-wise, I get it. But I was a little embarrassed by it: embarrassed to have the author creating a character who's there to admire the main character so unreservedly. Also, she recovered from her rape with remarkable aplomb. She still has panic attacks, but really, she goes from near dead to flourishing in no time. I get that Stephen King is writing a thriller rather than a trauma-recovery story, but it rankled that she recovered from it basically the way you would from a broken arm. Maybe that's how it is for some people, but I don't think you can have her recovery be so linear and uncomplicated AND have her experience used as motivation/propulsion for plot stuff. Anyway. She was okay, I guess, given the type of story she's in, etc., but she felt kind of thin, a puppet moving here and there for the story's sake.
Isn't it said somewhere out there that endings are what's really hard in a book? ... I'd have to stop and think about how broadly applicable I think that little wisdom nugget actually is, but in any case, I definitely felt with this book that the first two thirds were strong and the third third was weak, though the actual ending-ending was good.
Oh: there are also some cute references to the Overlook Hotel in there, which I guess Stephen King fans and even people like me who've heard of the movie The Shining can be pleased about recognizing.
I guess this is how we arrive at serial killers as monsters too: the evil that you get up to with your own hands as opposed to sending down orders to the hands of others.
Anyway, I was kind of bored with pedophile Rupert Murdoch, and I was bored, too, with the encounter with the Penultimate (as opposed to Final) Boss. I found myself itching to find out how it would end end: what state would the principal character (and his sidekick; more on her later) end up in? And that I *did* like: there was a fakeout toward one ending and then a different, real ending that I thought was much stronger and that, really, the story was building toward. So good one there, Steve!
About the sidekick girl.
Billy rescues her from death by exposure after she's been gang raped and then nurses her back to health. Just one of those things that happen--rape victim tossed out of a van by the house you're hiding in, you know how it is. In terms of story mechanics, her presence means that within-story you can have someone be an audience for the memoir Billy's writing about his past. You can also have someone who (comes to) adore Billy and who can affirm and support what he's doing. And because she's an external voice affirming and supporting, Billy can do the doubting and self-questioning. Story-mechanic-wise, I get it. But I was a little embarrassed by it: embarrassed to have the author creating a character who's there to admire the main character so unreservedly. Also, she recovered from her rape with remarkable aplomb. She still has panic attacks, but really, she goes from near dead to flourishing in no time. I get that Stephen King is writing a thriller rather than a trauma-recovery story, but it rankled that she recovered from it basically the way you would from a broken arm. Maybe that's how it is for some people, but I don't think you can have her recovery be so linear and uncomplicated AND have her experience used as motivation/propulsion for plot stuff. Anyway. She was okay, I guess, given the type of story she's in, etc., but she felt kind of thin, a puppet moving here and there for the story's sake.
Isn't it said somewhere out there that endings are what's really hard in a book? ... I'd have to stop and think about how broadly applicable I think that little wisdom nugget actually is, but in any case, I definitely felt with this book that the first two thirds were strong and the third third was weak, though the actual ending-ending was good.
Oh: there are also some cute references to the Overlook Hotel in there, which I guess Stephen King fans and even people like me who've heard of the movie The Shining can be pleased about recognizing.
