Anyone else read this yet? I stayed up half of Saturday night to finish it. I have been waiting for Stephen King to give us more of the great stuff he is capable of (IMO, YMMV, yadda yadda), and I’m sorry to say that the wait continues.
Lisey’s Story is another book about a famous writer who lives in Maine and makes lots of money and has lots of fans. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve heard this somewhere before… Then, of course, the weird stuff starts. Not to mention the cute little made-up words like “bools” and “bad-gunky”. sigh
It’s not the worst thing he’s done, but don’t strain yourself getting to the bookstore.
I finished it this weekend too, and I thought it was…okay. The concepts were cool, but I would have liked to have gotten a little more information on what exactly Boo’ya Moon *was * and how Scott and his brother discovered it in the first place.
Also, a lot of Scott and Lisey’s “interior language” was annoying as hell. If I saw the word “smucking” one more time, I thought I was gonna scream. That may be just me, though–I have a thing with over-repeated nonsense or unusual words.
Still, it was compelling enough to keep me reading, so I guess it was all right all in all. I can’t decide if I thought it was better than “Cell” (which was far from his best work).
I wish SK would stop trying to be “literary” and write horror books again. *Good * horror books, I mean. Hell, “Carrie” was one of my favorites of his (along with “It” and “The Stand.” He doesn’t write 'em like that anymore, sadly.
I was surprised that there wasn’t a thread about the book already. Maybe people are giving up on King, now that the Dark Tower is finished. Can’t say I blame them, if this is the best he can do these days.
The reviews are mixed, and even the favorable reviews are half-hearted, like they’re trying hard to find something to praise.
When I read new King, I’m remembering old King. When I was reading Cell, it blended in my head with The Stand, and I couldn’t hate it.
But his biggest strengths are his short stories, some of which are high quality and “literary”, and his long, non-pretentious just-tell-the-story horror novels. He fails when he tries to do both at once.
Yeah. Cell could have been really, really good, but it… wasn’t. It was too rushed. Not enough character development. The gore started way too soon. If he’d taken his time, like he did with The Stand, we really would have cared about those people, but as it is… I didn’t.
That being said, I’m still going to buy Lisey’s Story. I’m hopeless that way.
Damn. I hate hitting submit, then thinking of something. Has anyone read The Things They Left Behind? I got it from the library in a two-pack of novellas. Nice story, well-done. I wish he’d write more like that.
I just read The Things They Left Behind. I liked it quite a bit. An interesting story. I do wish it was a little longer, not sure why, I just thought it was way short.
I’ll have to pick up Lisey’s story tomorrow.
I do miss the days when you could go get the new King novel, strain your arm carrying the huge book home and look forward to a nice* long * read.
Reading “Lisey’s Story” now, after picking it up this weekend at Costco, the best price I have found, by the way, for the hardcover edition until it is more widely available as “used”.
My question is, what has happened to King’s prose? Does he think he is Umberto Eco these days, with all his flowery sentence fragments and almost-non-sequiter “asides” in every sentence? Can’t he just tell a story, even in flashback, without the pretentious stylized writing he seems to have adapted in this book? For example:
The lengthy flashback to Scott’s shooting while dedicating the library skips all over the place from the photo of the event she finds with its messages scribbled in both margins, to the placement of the shovel before, during and after the shooting, to the unstunning (at least we were supposed to be surprised, maybe) revelation that she herself wielded the shovel against the assailant, to the crowd at the dedication and the crowd again at the parking lot where Scott collapses, to the ambulance arrival, to the hospital, to her dream about seeing Scott in the hospital after his surgery while floating above the scene on a flour sack—sheesh, it was hard to follow & sort out in chronological order, and I had to re-read parts a couple times to figure out their import.
I don’t want to have to work that hard to read a King novel, really I don’t. And to winterhawk11, gotta agree that “smucking” is already so maddening at not even quite 100 pages into the story, that if I met Lisey face to face, I’d want to slap her senseless for that bit of ridiculousness.
Yesss! Thank you! It was so much like a parody that I started trying to identify the conventions that are specific to him, so I could play in the next “Write such-and-such in the style of X” thread.
As for the flour sack, that was yet another self-reference. He has mentioned before that his mother (or was it Tabitha?) was related to some non-wealthy branch of the Pillsburys.
I just finished reading it. I thought Lisey would turn out to have a traumatic childhood like Scott’s. That’s what I thought all those “Hush, Lisey, be very still now” meant.
I would have liked to have learned more about Scott’s family and how they turned out to be so psychotic. I was confused at the beginning, but as I got further along in the story I understood what everything meant.
(Originally Posted by Savannah
Damn. I hate hitting submit, then thinking of something. Has anyone read The Things They Left Behind? I got it from the library in a two-pack of novellas. Nice story, well-done. I wish he’d write more like that.)
*Can you provide some more information on this? I don’t find it by that title at my library.
*
Well, I liked it better than most of the stuff he wrote near the end of his contract (like Dreamcatcher), when he was cranking out stuff to meet his obligation. This had a better texture, and a rather different narrative style that grew on me slowly.
The fucking smucking is annoying me past all reason. Is King going to explain why Lisey says it? It comes off like a childish affectation and it doesn’t fit the character.
I thought “smucking” was just another part of the Scott-and-Lisey-marriage-vocabulary; at least that’s what I believe I read the other night. I’m still working my way through it. Not a bad read, except for all the made-up vocab and repetition others have already mentioned.