adiva_calandia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adiva_calandia) wrote2009-01-06 01:46 pm
adiva_calandia) wrote2009-01-06 01:46 pm
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I really need to stop reading It right before bed. I know it's dumb, but I'm always like "AUGH STAN'S HEAD IN THE FRIDGE AND BALLOONS OH SHIT well now I have to keep reading because if I go to sleep now that'll be the last image in my head SO I'D BETTER READ THROUGH THE NEXT SECTION."
And then it's all happy and the Losers are banding together and building a clubhouse and it's awesome and OH SURPRISE DEAD JIMMY CULLUM WHO HAS BEEN FUCKING PECKED TO DEATH! Sweet dreams, keed! Just float off to sleep, oh yes, come float.
*FLAIL*
I hate you Stephen King. Really. That's why I keep buying your books.
I keep thinking, as I read It, that's it's a shame that it's been made into a movie already -- but then, the only character I'd really have a chance at playing would be Bev, and at this point I am too old for 1958!Bev and too young for 1985!Bev. Le sigh. Then I started going through other King books I've read, thinking about the movie possibilities (this is one of my most common daydreams -- how would adapting this or that book to film work, who would I cast, and who could I play), and, well, most of King's stuff has already been made into movies, hasn't it. And moreover, they're overwhelmingly about men, as far as I've seen. (With the very notable exception of Carrie, and with some remarkably awesome female characters in the books that I've read.) The only books of his I've read that haven't yet been made into movies are the Dark Tower ones, and there are only two really good female roles in that, and I'm obviously not in the running for Susannah.
Aaanyway.
The other thing I've been thinking about with It is why it -- or It -- is scary, and I think the key is that It isn't limited. I can deal with, say, the ghosts and ghoulies in Supernatural, because they're restricted to a certain space. A wendigo is not actually likely to turn up in Alaska. A ghost that haunts a particular painting is not going to get me if I stay away from that painting.
It is presumably limited to Derry, but within Derry, It has no boundaries. Sure, It spends a lot of time in the sewers, or in 29 Neibolt St., but there's nothing stopping It appearing in the goddamn library, and there was nothing really to stop It killing Ben there in the library, or Richie in the town square.
At least, not that I've seen thus far. Perhaps there's an explanation later -- but as far as I can tell at my current point in the book (just after the smokehole and Richie and Mike's visions -- no, wait, I lie. Mr. Keene just told Eddie that hisinhaler aspirator is a placebo) there are no limits to Its power.
So the idea that I could roll over in my bed in Castle Rock, OR, and find a clown grinning at me seems perfectly plausible.
Times like that I fucking hate my imagination. *wry* I did not sleep so well last night.
And then it's all happy and the Losers are banding together and building a clubhouse and it's awesome and OH SURPRISE DEAD JIMMY CULLUM WHO HAS BEEN FUCKING PECKED TO DEATH! Sweet dreams, keed! Just float off to sleep, oh yes, come float.
*FLAIL*
I hate you Stephen King. Really. That's why I keep buying your books.
I keep thinking, as I read It, that's it's a shame that it's been made into a movie already -- but then, the only character I'd really have a chance at playing would be Bev, and at this point I am too old for 1958!Bev and too young for 1985!Bev. Le sigh. Then I started going through other King books I've read, thinking about the movie possibilities (this is one of my most common daydreams -- how would adapting this or that book to film work, who would I cast, and who could I play), and, well, most of King's stuff has already been made into movies, hasn't it. And moreover, they're overwhelmingly about men, as far as I've seen. (With the very notable exception of Carrie, and with some remarkably awesome female characters in the books that I've read.) The only books of his I've read that haven't yet been made into movies are the Dark Tower ones, and there are only two really good female roles in that, and I'm obviously not in the running for Susannah.
Aaanyway.
The other thing I've been thinking about with It is why it -- or It -- is scary, and I think the key is that It isn't limited. I can deal with, say, the ghosts and ghoulies in Supernatural, because they're restricted to a certain space. A wendigo is not actually likely to turn up in Alaska. A ghost that haunts a particular painting is not going to get me if I stay away from that painting.
It is presumably limited to Derry, but within Derry, It has no boundaries. Sure, It spends a lot of time in the sewers, or in 29 Neibolt St., but there's nothing stopping It appearing in the goddamn library, and there was nothing really to stop It killing Ben there in the library, or Richie in the town square.
At least, not that I've seen thus far. Perhaps there's an explanation later -- but as far as I can tell at my current point in the book (just after the smokehole and Richie and Mike's visions -- no, wait, I lie. Mr. Keene just told Eddie that his
So the idea that I could roll over in my bed in Castle Rock, OR, and find a clown grinning at me seems perfectly plausible.
Times like that I fucking hate my imagination. *wry* I did not sleep so well last night.
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There are some books with female protagonists. Some of them are pretty flawed, as King is, basically, putting himself through 'writing female characters as independent human beings' boot camp, but they exist.
Have you read Rose Madder? It's probably the best of his books with female protags until Lisey's Story.
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It's lovely having such well-read people on my f-list to feed my copious-spare-time-wasting!
*BABBLES*
You can see it happen in DT, which is why I love that series so much. In the first half, Eddie is juxtaposed to Roland very sharply, and he's early!King's favorite kind of protagonist; young, dumb, and full of... creativity and smartassery. Susannah is a love interest and quite literally a bundle of stereotypes.
In the second half, Susannah and Roland are juxtaposed, Susannah has her own book, and Eddie is her love interest and Roland's sidekick. I remember realizing someone was going to die and praying King wouldn't flush thirty years of learning not to suck by killing off Susannah. Then I cried when it was Eddie. D:
King has admitted pregnancy kills a story dead, and I think if he hadn't saddled himself with Susannah's pregnancy before he got around to writing Rose Madder, the last three books would be a lot stronger.
Re: *BABBLES*
Hell, I think DT is a really unique opportunity to see how the totality of his writing matures. I haven't read enough of his other stuff to trace specific themes, but, I mean, hell, just the contrast between The Gunslinger and Drawing of the Three. I've met a number of people who surprised me by saying they tried The Gunslinger -- and didn't surprise me by adding that they didn't like it very much. (I actually enjoyed The Gunslinger pretty well, maybe because I read the edition with King's foreword saying "Look, I wrote this when I was 19, some of it sucks a lot and I know it." Of course, I had the added incentive of the DT crowd in Milliways being particularly active then; same reason I made it through so much of WoT.)
Re: *BABBLES*
(Sweeney is the first kind of person, and I am the second. Roland is her character, Susannah is mine; she lives in Colorado and I live in NYC. Make of that what you will.)
Also--if you've only read the revised Gunslinger, do read the original someday. It's better in some places, worse in others, and very interesting in what he chose to change. And in at least one place, I'm very pissed at him for a change, and you should see what it was originally, for better or worse. (It's not a matter of terminology or foreshadowing or a change in backstory/planning--it's... dishonest. What it was before was ugly, but changing it is just whitewash.)
AND--yes. I love watching writers learn their craft, and because King has SO far to come, and yet SO much talent, and there is SO much to read, it's a fascinating, fascinating arc. And definitely, DT encapsulates the whole thing in one big story; if you read DT first, everything else you read by him will remind you of it. The only person I can think of who fits into that same pattern is Terry Pratchett, and maybe Donald Westlake, who I also love the way I love King.
(Dean Koontz is prolific, for comparison, but never gets any better; in fact, I think he's turned into a parody of himself over time, and he was always kind of second-rate anyway.)
Re: *BABBLES*
No kidding -- although let's face it, he deliberately ties so damn much of his other work into that mythos you'd be hard pressed not to be reminded. One of these days I'm gonna read 'Salem's Lot. (And . . . probably spend a lot of time going "DO I DAZZLE YOU?" at inappropriate moments.)
The only person I can think of who fits into that same pattern is Terry Pratchett
That's a really excellent comparison, in particular because I think Pratchett also writes about himself a lot the way King does. (Thinking specifically here about Thud! and Vimes-as-father; I get the sense that King has been writing his autobiography as he lives it, whereas Pratchett goes back and pulls from past experience more.)
Re: *BABBLES*
When I talk about being reminded, I don't mean so much mythos (obvious references to Lud in Rose Madder for instance) as much as--well, when you read Salem's Lot, there is a key relationship that will remind you very much of Roland and Jake's. And it's not that different than Danny and Jack's, either, or several other relationships like that. But Roland and Jake's becomes the archetype of all of them.
Re: *BABBLES*
--Wait, doesn't Cujo have a female protagonist? Which means zip to whether or not she's well-written, but.
*nodnodnod* That makes sense, yeah.
Re: *BABBLES*
He wrote Carrie while he was teaching high school, so she was based on a lot of unhappy girls he saw in that job. But he almost didn't write Carrie, in fact, because he thought it would be too hard to get inside her head. Tabby had to rescue it from the trash and walk him through Being A Girl 101.
Stephen King: Kind of Lazy.
Re: *BABBLES*
Like you with It, I was foolish enough to read that one late at night, when I was thirteen. At my home out in the country, where giant moths with glowing red eyes hurl themselves at your windows every night...
...did I mention the vampires in Salem's Lot get in by flying up to your window and tapping on it? ::shudder::
Re: *BABBLES*
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*drinks spinal nectar happily!*
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Anyway, I think it's awesome.
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(Also, the origin of a tiny punk bisexual girl with a nose ring, tu-tone hair and unflappable attitude who also turns up in Desperation and who I have never ever ripped off for RP purposes.)
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In other words, I think Rose Madder is going to be my next King book on the library list! It's been a year or two since I read any - I read a whole bunch right after DT, and then I think burned out on his style, a little - but it may be time for a return.
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