Now, it seems book reviews are rare in this forum, but I just had to write something down about this, so here goes:
Different Seasons is a collection of four long stories by Stephen King and it is very different to some of the stuff that he has been writing, hence the title. They aren't horror stories, and I am hesitant to confine them to one specific genre (like King I don't really like the concept of the genre) but I guess they are a mixture of mainstream and literary fiction. Either way, they range in the top of what I have read of King (about ten novels and neither It nor The Shining).
Some might recognise the title of the first story in the collection Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from the film version which received much praise. It is a remarkably quick read this story, only 130 pages taken into account that the plot stretches out over a period of around thirty years or so, and could easily be turned into a full size novel without losing its appeal. We follow the life of Andy Dufresne a man innocently convicted of the murder of his wife and his hardships in prison, his friendship with Red, the narrator, and his relationship with the warden. It is a story about hope and despair, of confinement and the consequences, of finding the truth and of many other things.
Right from the start I found great involvement with the story and one the main reasons for this, and also one this (and The Body) is the language of the narrator who gets all the slang of the time period and of the place, and it contributes immensely to the overall qualities of the story.
The Apt Pupil is the longest of the four and the one I enjoyed the most, and it tells the story of a young school named Todd boy who discovers that one of the neighbourhood residents is a former high ranking SS officer. Todd is a strange boy; he doesn't go the authorities like most would, in stead he blackmails the old man to tell him stories of the war and how he tortured the Jews in the concentration camps, all the "gooshy parts," as he puts it. The beauty of this story lies in the relationship between and characterization of the two and how they evolve throughout the story. Initially you actually feel sorry for the old man, because he just seems like a nice old granddad with arthritis and not like any sort of evil person, and you feel antipathy towards the boy because of his sick and intense fascination with blood gore.
The Body has also been made into a film called Stand By Me, and is a tale of four boys who go out into the woods to find a dead body and on the way there talk, fight and play like boys do. It paints a great picture of boyhood, friendship and of the true joys of life. It is also titled Fall from Innocence, because the four boys' journey through the woods along the train tracks is too a story of growing up realizing what death really means and realizing that life isn't all fun and play, it can be both serious, filled with pain and complicated.
The Breathing Method is to my mind the weakest of the four stories, partly because it doesn't quite fit into the collection with it being slightly more horrific than the rest, and partly because the plot don't really seem that important. It is about a man who goes to a mysterious club and hears a tale of a pregnant woman and her difficulties. The story itself doesn't make much sense and unlike the three previous stories, it doesn't have any message or deals with any important theme. Well, perhaps I'm being too hard on it, the themes of controlling oneself and that determination means a lot are present, but the other stories are just much better.
In short, King's qualities lie in his deep characterizations and feel for real and important people, and that makes this collection a really good. If you have read some of King's other works, Different Seasons will show, that he can write something other than horror, and if you have never read King before, this collection will introduce you to his amazing qualities without scaring you away with unnecessary blood and gore.
Different Seasons is a collection of four long stories by Stephen King and it is very different to some of the stuff that he has been writing, hence the title. They aren't horror stories, and I am hesitant to confine them to one specific genre (like King I don't really like the concept of the genre) but I guess they are a mixture of mainstream and literary fiction. Either way, they range in the top of what I have read of King (about ten novels and neither It nor The Shining).
Some might recognise the title of the first story in the collection Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from the film version which received much praise. It is a remarkably quick read this story, only 130 pages taken into account that the plot stretches out over a period of around thirty years or so, and could easily be turned into a full size novel without losing its appeal. We follow the life of Andy Dufresne a man innocently convicted of the murder of his wife and his hardships in prison, his friendship with Red, the narrator, and his relationship with the warden. It is a story about hope and despair, of confinement and the consequences, of finding the truth and of many other things.
Right from the start I found great involvement with the story and one the main reasons for this, and also one this (and The Body) is the language of the narrator who gets all the slang of the time period and of the place, and it contributes immensely to the overall qualities of the story.
The Apt Pupil is the longest of the four and the one I enjoyed the most, and it tells the story of a young school named Todd boy who discovers that one of the neighbourhood residents is a former high ranking SS officer. Todd is a strange boy; he doesn't go the authorities like most would, in stead he blackmails the old man to tell him stories of the war and how he tortured the Jews in the concentration camps, all the "gooshy parts," as he puts it. The beauty of this story lies in the relationship between and characterization of the two and how they evolve throughout the story. Initially you actually feel sorry for the old man, because he just seems like a nice old granddad with arthritis and not like any sort of evil person, and you feel antipathy towards the boy because of his sick and intense fascination with blood gore.
The Body has also been made into a film called Stand By Me, and is a tale of four boys who go out into the woods to find a dead body and on the way there talk, fight and play like boys do. It paints a great picture of boyhood, friendship and of the true joys of life. It is also titled Fall from Innocence, because the four boys' journey through the woods along the train tracks is too a story of growing up realizing what death really means and realizing that life isn't all fun and play, it can be both serious, filled with pain and complicated.
The Breathing Method is to my mind the weakest of the four stories, partly because it doesn't quite fit into the collection with it being slightly more horrific than the rest, and partly because the plot don't really seem that important. It is about a man who goes to a mysterious club and hears a tale of a pregnant woman and her difficulties. The story itself doesn't make much sense and unlike the three previous stories, it doesn't have any message or deals with any important theme. Well, perhaps I'm being too hard on it, the themes of controlling oneself and that determination means a lot are present, but the other stories are just much better.
In short, King's qualities lie in his deep characterizations and feel for real and important people, and that makes this collection a really good. If you have read some of King's other works, Different Seasons will show, that he can write something other than horror, and if you have never read King before, this collection will introduce you to his amazing qualities without scaring you away with unnecessary blood and gore.
