Huh? Not to be rude, but what world are you living in?
The ending of Rage always annoyed me. The central character has taken his high school class hostage, shot and killed two teachers (for obvious reasons, the story has recently been taken out of print), engaged in a shitload of Catcher-in-the-Rye ramblings and then for some reason, all the students succumb to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome on acid and attack one the students (not the shooter) who previously had been one of the most popular, so traumatzing him that he ends up in a hopeless catatonic state (!)
What. The. Fuck.
Consider how good a book “Rose Madder” would have been if there had been no supernatural element at all. It would have been a tight, scary thriller with one of King’s nastiest villians ever. The supernatural portrait thing was wholly unnecessary and quite lame.
King books with good endings:
Firestarter
Carrie
The Dead Zone
The Shining
Eyes of the Dragon
Dogzilla, I have to pipe up too - why WOULDN’T 11-year-old boys be capable of having sex? How exactly do you think a guy’s anatomy works?
It was Arnie, Arnie Cuntingham. 
Sorry, couldn’t resist. And btw, Christine is alive, she will always be alive!!!
I was really into the Library Policeman until the end. It was such a freaky story, but then ending was just a tidy wrap-up. That does seem to be the way when he wants to resolve horror.
That’s why I like Gerald’s Game. The whole scene where she’s trying to get the glass of water gets me every time. And to find out the boogieman was real, not as a boogieman but as a psychopath…wow.
Argh! I loved this book when I was fourteen. I can’t believe I got his name wrong!
Let me add to the crowd in saying I enjoyed “Rose Madder” up until the point it suddenly went from a tense thriller about a battered wife escaping her husband to a supernational fastasy trip fest.
Also with “The Stand”, “The Stand” would’ve been one of my favorites if it wasn’t for the entire Hand of God crap that suddenly came out of nowhere. Talk about a letdown (plus the afterwards in the Expanded Edition wasn’t any fun either).
A couple of his books don’t have bad endings per se, but they do suffer because he seems to kill of one character to many, ie “Desperation” - the kid is going to be completely f*ucked up in trying to rebuild his life after his entire family is killed off. King should’ve at least left the dad alive, instead of having a BIRD kill him.
I really enjoyed It, though I didn’t really like how It was a girl. That was really pretty strange to me. I also didn’t see the point of the sex scene. Was it to clea their heads…or what was up with that. I really liked The Long Walk, though I don’t get the hand on his shoulder. I think his earlier books are really quite good, while the ones made in the 90s aren’t as good. But I still have a lot more to read.
Oh, BTW, when did he use cocaine!?!?
Apparently while he was writing Tommyknockers. I think King is at his best when writing vignettes. The short little blurbs about how the Tommyknockers affected the residents of Haven, and how people died in The Stand in the expanded version. Quick, gory, to the point.
“On Writing” is a great Stephen King nonfiction book, combining the story of his life (including cocaine use, intervention, and the accident) with information on writing. “Danse Macabre” is a great Stephen King nonfiction book about the horror genre, but it’s very out of date and needs a update.
I think these two books prove that King is not a great horror fiction writer, but a great writer of horror fiction. He knows his craft.
I admire King, as I admire anyone who grew up in poverty and overcame it. He has had a bunch of adversity in his life, and is now definitely living on borrowed time. The accident would have killed a smaller person, King being 6’3" and weighing around 220 pounds.
I just have to say, from the heart, that this phrase that you have turned perfectly sums up how I reacted to that book.
No. Eight year old boys can generally achieve erection, and 11 year olds can reach orgasm. I don’t think the scene was necessary, but it’s not unrealistic.
My one and only bitch with It is the “unhappy ending” epilogue. It’s already been established that the Losers forgot each other because It made them do so. There’s no reason for them to forget each other again; in fact, it’s downright unfair. Other than that, it’s perhaps the closest to perfect that I’ve ever found in fiction. I’m looking forward to the forthcoming six-hour mini-series, which will hopefully do more justice to the book than the three-hour one from 1990.
Re: Cujo. Anyone bitching about this has never seen a St Bernard. They weigh as much as a grown man, and anyone sane would think twice about taking one on even if it weren’t rabid.
Re: The Long Walk. By my best guess, Art Baker dies around noon on May 5th and Pete McVries dies no more than two and a quarter hours later - Baker dies just afer they see the “49 Miles To Boston” sign and McVries when they’re 40 miles out. Stebbins doesn’t die until eight in the evening, and during that time Garraty hasn’t spoken to him at all. I think Stebbins dies of a heart seizure when Garraty touches him; like Garraty, he has drawn totally into himself and doesn’t even realise there’s anyone else on the road, that there’s anything to do but walk. As Garraty thought when he saw Olson’s greying hair, the Walk has become the entire of their lives. As to the hand, that’s certainly a Squad man trying to attract Garraty’s attention so the Major can award him the Prize.
The big glitches in The Long Walk are the numbering - 30+ names between Fenum and Garraty? - and the fact that the Walkers see the “49 Miles to Boston” sign after they enter Massachusetts when Boston is only 35 miles or so from the northern state border.
Re: The Stand. The whole point of the stand is that God will intercede for Boulder only if Larry, Glen, Stu and Ralph are willing to sacrifice themselves. Bitching about deus ex machina in this instance is like a Catholic bitching that man’s sins were redeemed because Jesus was crucified.
See, I didn’t get that It made them forget. Mike Hanlon remembered, and probably because he stayed in town and filled the role of Watcher. I think the Turtle made them forget, because otherwise they would have gone insane. It was the Turtle’s way of helping them to cope, since It was not dead and they’d have to come back and deal with It.
Having them forget a second time…well, they’re older now, and maybe as adults less able to handle the horror. But Mike was forgetting too, and his notebooks were fading. It’s sad they had to lose their friends, though.
Another adaptation of the book? When, when? Where, where?
I’ve seen one before. I had to work with one at a vet’s office once. I wouldn’t be bitching if Donna Trenton had been in the car alone and scared to go out. At first she doesn’t want to take Cujo on because she doesn’t want Tad to see her get killed. But he was obviously dying well before she finally got out of the car, probably twelve hours before or more. I just would have thought that when she saw her son start convulsing, that would have been enough.
Although your point is valid. Now that I think about it, she was only able to defeat Cujo when he was practically dead from the illness anyway.
I do think that the fact that Tad died at the exact moment as Cujo was a real real bummer.
I don’t have my copy of It to hand, but it is explicitly stated at one point that It put the barrier in their memories, and during the final confrontation It implies that It did it to them when It says it can restore Audra: “…she will remember nothing just as the seven of you remembered nothing…”. It could have been bluffing about Audra, but It was defenceless and knew It would be killed if It welshed on the deal.
Your Turtledunnit argument makes no sense. You said yourself that Mike didn’t forget and didn’t go insane either. It’s possible that the Turtle blocked out the bit that Mike didn’t remember either, but when It is musing on how only Bill has prepared himself well for the second Ritual and the Turtle tells Bill straight out that it doesn’t interfere in worldly business it’s painfully obvious that the Turtle had nothing to gain from making them forget everything and wouldn’t do it if it did, whereas It did have something to gain and would make them do it.
Also, the Turtle was dead when they forgot the second time. You could argue that the Turtle did it the first time and the Other did it the second, but Occam’s Razor doesn’t like that. No, either the Other was responsible both times, or It the first and either It or the Other the second, but it was not the Turtle.
US TV, US TV, next season, next season.
I don’t remember any references to It making them forget. Not only did Mike retain his memories, but Stan did too. That’s why he killed himself when Mike called. I believe it’s Ben who says/thinks it when he discovers that It’s pregnant, that now he knows why Stan killed himself and he wishes he did it too. So it seems that letting the Losers maintain their memories would be the smart thing to do, if It had that power. My money is on the Other.
Who says that It placed the barrier in their memories?
Oh, and congrats on being the best in Scotland.
Ben and Beverly left together, for his place in Colorado. It’s safe to assume that living together will maintain the bond between them, although they will probably mutually forget what happened in the sewers (both times).
What I do find odd, though, is that none of them ever had a reason to return to Derry before Mike summoned them. Didn’t they ever have to attend a funeral, or anything? Class reunions? They were all successful, and Bill, Beverly and Ben were nationally known: you’d think the school would beg them to return for the reflected glory.
There’s a third: In one of the last chapters - when it’s down to Stebbins, Garraty and McVries - Stebbins force-feeds himself some kind of cracker then coughs it up again, almost intact “and for only the second time since the Long Walk started, was warned.”
That’s actually the third time Stebbins was warned.
As for “49 miles to Boston”, is Boston only 35 miles down via the interstate? The Long Walkers were on (the possibly less direct) US 1.
Well, I’m back. I’m impressed by how long this thread is going on.
Someone said I shouldn’t be complaining about the deux ex machina in the Stand. I dunno, the thing that annoyed me was that everyone was fairly self-sufficient before the end. the characters were strong and brave…in the end it was all worthless, it seemed to me. I guess I just hate when people use the deux ex machina.
Cujo: The thing about this was, I’ve met a lot of St. Bernard’s and they have always been ultra friendly and cuddly. And the whol ething could have been avoided by a rabies shot. It was still a good book though, I just wish Tad hadn’t died.
You’re misremembering. All the Losers began to remember Derry and It when Mike rang them. Bill spells it out to Audra - he says that Mike could have been selling encyclopaedias for all he knew, but then Mike said he was from Derry and it was like a key turning in a lock.
Yes, but he only says that at the end when he’s face to face with It. Also, that’s subjective - the earlier assessment that Stan had killed himself because he couldn’t abide disorder and chaos was probably more accurate.
It helps to look at their jobs. Bill is an author, Ben and Beverly are both designers, Richie is for all intents and purposes an actor and Eddie would also require a certain amount of interesting patter to keep his clients in addition to having to plot routes. In other words, they all have jobs that require creativity and flexibility with the exception of Stan, who became an accountant - a job based around immutable numbers, logic, order and unchanging rules. He had lost all sense of magic and wonder, knew that he couldn’t fight It without those things, and believed the others would be in the same boat. So he killed himself cleanly rather than go back and die horribly.
It’s in the text, when Beverly is thinking about her past. If I could find the damn book I’d quote you chapter and verse, but I can’t. It should be at the start of the chapter called “Cleaning Up”, IIRC.
That’s not a glitch; you misquoted. The actual quote is “…for only the second time since the Walk began, Stebbins was warned”. Stebbins received his first warning right when the Walk began, and this is only his second warning since then. It’s a touch misleading, but entirely accurate.
Read again - at Oldtown they switch roads from US 1 to I-95. You can check the distances off on this map if you like, but it’s definitely not 50 miles.