Today is payday for me. I celebrated the fact that my supervisor filled out and turned in my timesheet for me so that I actually got a pay check despite being on vacation by buying myself breakfast at the local Denny’s and then going to see The Dark Knight again. There was only one glitch in my idea. I finished breakfast at around 7:45 (BTW, what was I doing up at 7:45 anyway when I’m on freaking VACATION?!?! I don’t know either.) The first movie didn’t show until 10. And it was only a ten minute walk from Denny’s to the theater.
Thankfully, I brought along a book to read (It by Stephen King, which was one of the first King books I read and which I recall hating when I first read it, although this time through it’s not so bad–then again, it was the ending I thought really sucked and I’m only on page 300 now). And also thankfully between the Denny’s and the theater there’s a pond with a gigantic fountain in the middle of it. This pond is connected to several different waterways, so I stopped on a bridge over one of them and read It while also watching the ducks paddle in the pond.
There was one duckling in the pond and about seven adults. All the adults except the mother would peck at the duckling whenever it swam near to them, so it stuck pretty much by the side of his mother. Now over by the side of the pond there were several rocks, and after a while the other ducks left and Mama Duck jumped up on one of the rocks and began to sun herself.
The only problem was the rock was too high for the duckling to jump up. So he climbed up a different rock.
Now the rock Mama was on was a nice, flat rock, shaped like a mesa. The rock Duckling climbed was…well, a three-sided pyramid. And each time he got up near the top, he would shake the water from his feathers, immediately do a summersault and roll right back into the pond. He did this about six times in a row while I watched.
Now obviously ducks aren’t the brightest creatures in the world. Still, this would have been a cool thing to put into Public Transit to help with the Hampster Wheel of Life metaphor I had going…
Oh well. C’est la vie. Maybe in the sequel… (no, there won’t be a sequel).
July 28th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Did you dislike the ending because they all shagged her or because of his common theme of belief in the power of a talisman enabled magic (in this case, the aspirator, in other cases, a cross or a painting, &c.)?
July 28th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Neither of those. It’s been about 15 years since I read it, so I don’t remember all the reasons why I disliked it. It seemed to me that the ending didn’t fit with the rest of the novel though, that there was a giant disconnect to me. And the sexual aspect might have been a part of it, not so much because of the moral problems, but because these were 11-year-olds. Perhaps if they were 13 years old, it would be more believable. Or if it was even set after the ’60s sex lib movement. But an orgy amongst 11-year-olds in 1958 is pretty far fetched. (Then again, so is Pennywise the Clown…)
So that was probably part of it, but I don’t remember it as being a major issue for why I didn’t like the book. And I don’t mind the talisman aspect (I don’t believe it, mind you, but stories need something to propel them along; and in fact, in ‘Salem’s Lot the talisman didn’t work for Father Callahan, which I thought was well-done for that scene.)
So I think it might just be a stylistic thing. Over the years I’ve gotten more used to his style though. I’m sure it’ll be like the Tommyknockers for me. The first time I read it, I thought it was dumb, but when I re-read it a couple of years ago I thought, “That wasn’t as bad as I remembered it being.” I still think most of what he wrote during the ’80s wasn’t as good as his other writings (but then, that’s when he was in the midst of his alcohol and drug binges).
Actually, I must add exceptions. I read Cell (written in the 2000’s), which was just his reworking of The Stand only not anywhere near as well. That was his worst book ever, except for maybe Cujo. On the other hand, The Dark Half came out in the 80s and I think that’s my second favorite of his book (my favorite being Bag of Bones).
So those are the exceptions that prove the rule… :-)
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:02 am
I am an avid King fan.
You’re right about Callahan, which is why I said “belief in the power of a talisman enabled magic”: in his case, lack of belief disabled the magic of the cross.
I really liked Tommyknockers, although it was long, as it had the nice progression of her character as she slowly lost control.
Never read Cell, and now that you say that, I won’t bother.