Finished Book #27

Property of Stormberry

 Today I finished reading Carrie, by Stephen King. This would be the second Stephen King book I've read in my life, the first being "Thinner". I have not been a fan of Stephen King, nor have I ever claimed to be, in case you wonder. Also, it worths to notice that I haven't been drawn to the horror or terror genre, mostly because I don't really get scared by books. I do get scared by movies - I guess that's due to the surprise effect in the visuals of the movie, or the way things can be hinted or partially hidden in the film, that can't be equally hidden in the text.

The first book was a gift from an old friend of mine, and I read that book back in the last millenium. (Yes, I'm that old). The text was interesting, but even back then I felt that the story was somewhat lacking. In those days I didn't journal as profusely as I do now, and I never thought about journaling about what I read. Internet was also quite incipient and I wasn't in a place where access to internet - how ever primitive - was even possible. The large majority of people didn't have mobile phones or cellphones, and computers were used - if one had access to it - to compose a text on "Word Star" or "Word Perfect", or play Solitaire. So yes, I don't have any records on reading Thinner and my impressions of it, other than what I remember. I didn't dislike the story, I found it interesting, but not really scary.

After that, I never really felt interested in picking up a Stephen King book or watching any movie inspired in his books, even though I have, though I did so often without knowing they were inspired in his books. And I did watch Carrie, with Sissy Spacek.

As time went by, I've got the book "The Shinning" given to me twice, once in Spanish and once in English. I ended up gifting one of them (the one in Spanish), and yet, I didn't feel like reading any of the books. Then, in a Book Fair I bough 11/22/63 book, not knowing that it was by him. Yes, the author was on the cover of the book, BUT when I am at a Book Fair I buy books in a trance, so I didn't know. I guess if I have noticed the author I would have put down the book.

I have some friends who love Stephen King to madness, and so the idea of reading him was percolating in my head. Even though I had two books (I have lost my copy of Thinner, but I won't replace it), I thought of buying some "entry level" books or something that might be closer to my liking. So I  bought Carrie because I have seen the movie and I have liked it, and I bought Salem's Lot because somewhere it there it talks about witches, and if a book has anything to do with witches, I'll read it. It's not guaranteed that I'll like it, but I will read it.

This year I've been burning through books up to the point where I reached my goal (24 books) early, and so I kept on reading (because, yeah, I like reading), and as I finished book #26 two days ago and this is Stephen King's birthday month, I thought I'll read one of his books, and so I picked Carrie. I read the book in two and a half days, or more like two days. I could have read it in one day, but... there were things that I didn't enjoy all that much to keep me glued to the book. The narrative didn't have such a good flow, as all the article and deposition inserts tended to break the rhythm, but the story was kept at a shallow enoigh level - a gossip level, or with a gossip feeling - that succeeds in keeping you hooked. It reads like an interesting mix, like a sort of scrapbook-like story, full of notes and papers interspersed with the story itself, as if it were a journal detailing the case, and peppered with all these clips and folded papers, yet still, the flow of the story was often broken.

I didn't enjoy many of the depictions of sex or abuse as they seemed to me to be told from a point of view that looked on things with either disrespect or disgust. It's not like Mr King was disrespectful, but the point of view from which it was told was one of someone with a mind full of disdain towards the characters, if that makes sense. That made it hard for me to read, and that halted me from burning faster through the pages. I actually had to put the book down several times to come up for air.

Another thing I missed was depth. There were no deep thoughts or glimpses of deeper thinking and philosophy from the writer. I did highlight things and did write on the margins here and there, but not nearly as much as on any other book. There was not much that I would have found memorable, and part of it - when I found it memorable - was under the influence of the book I have previously read.

I finished the book, closed it, put it on the shelf and picked a new one, almost hardly looking at it.

My next reading is "The Women's Room", by Marily French, and this one has me underlining and highlighting from the forewords on.