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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
4/5
I rather enjoyed this book. I was quite wary of the bo0k going into it because it's definitely not one of his most popular books. However, I personally thought it was one of his best (that I've read - I'm not a Stephen King expert, nor have I read many of his books at all.) It was different, but I liked it.
I enjoyed the characterisation - witty, at times, but also questionable in morals. I liked the mental health aspect of it. I much preferred this ending to his sci-fi/fantasy endings, as it actually made sense to me this time. There was no ridiculous higher being/monster dying gruesomely at the hands of biker kids or idiotic adults. It was just a plain and simple human stand-off.
Still, I wish the ending had more to give. I would've liked to know a bit more about the reasoning behind his action, I didn't feel like that was fully explored. I definitely found towards the end of the book that I was preferring learning about his past than reading his present life with the baby (which was very repetitive). Regardless, I really liked this book.
I rather enjoyed this book. I was quite wary of the bo0k going into it because it's definitely not one of his most popular books. However, I personally thought it was one of his best (that I've read - I'm not a Stephen King expert, nor have I read many of his books at all.) It was different, but I liked it.
I enjoyed the characterisation - witty, at times, but also questionable in morals. I liked the mental health aspect of it. I much preferred this ending to his sci-fi/fantasy endings, as it actually made sense to me this time. There was no ridiculous higher being/monster dying gruesomely at the hands of biker kids or idiotic adults. It was just a plain and simple human stand-off.
Still, I wish the ending had more to give. I would've liked to know a bit more about the reasoning behind his action, I didn't feel like that was fully explored. I definitely found towards the end of the book that I was preferring learning about his past than reading his present life with the baby (which was very repetitive). Regardless, I really liked this book.
Stephen King, Blaze (Scribner, 2007)
My initial thoughts on this book were running somewhere along the lines of “if you like Stephen King novels in general, you'll like Blaze”. It seemed a pretty safe thing to say, really. And then I started reading reviews, both from the pros and the user community, and I found out just how wrong I was. Man, this book has been savaged up one side and down the other. And while some of those bad reviews you can easily dismiss out of hand (someone actually called the book “overly wordy”, despite, at 285 pages, it being King's shortest novel in some thirty years or more), enough decent criticisms emerged that taking the safe path in my own review seemed like the wrong way to go; I'm actually going to have to defend this sucker, and that's not something I ever thought I'd have to do when reviewing a King novel.
If you've read anything at all about the book, you know two things: first, that it's a “trunk novel”, as King calls old pieces he pulls out and polishes up, and it's one of the very few that had not previously been published; and secondly, that it's a backhanded homage to Of Mice and Men. (You will also find out, whilst reading the introduction, that King really, really hates most of the Bachman novels. I find this depressing; Rage remains one of my favorite pieces of early King.) You can tack those two things together into a kind of patchwork and have a basic idea of where this book is going, but there's a third piece you need to add—King worked on it during the days when he was writing hard-boiled crime fiction (viz. “The Fifth Quarter”, another of my early-King favorites), and this book has a streak of Hammett about a mile wide running through it. Okay, now that the scene's set, a very oversimplified version of the plot: Clayton “Blaze” Blaisdell (Jr.) was a very smart kid, until systematic abuse from his drunk father turned him into a brain-damage case. There's still smart kid locked up in there, it's just that Blaze can't get to it often. After Blaze got out of the orphanage where the state stuck him after the head-injury incident, he hooked up with George, a small-time con artist, and the two of them made their money on the dark side of things. Like most petty criminals, they always talked about the big score, the one on which they could retire. Then George goes and gets himself killed, leaving Blaze on his own. And between the smart-kid stuff inside his head and the voice of George, which keeps popping up between his ears, Blaze gets the idea that he might be able to pull off the big score himself: the kidnapping and holding for ransom of the infant son of the town's richest family. Once we have the setup, the story is told in parallel: we get the present-day kidnapping storyline, and a past storyline that details Blaze's coming up through the orphanage, meeting George, and embarking on a life of crime.
I guess it does make sense that if you're looking for the usual supernatural-horror Stephen King novel, and you find yourself confronted with what is in essence a piece of noir fiction, you're probably going to be disappointed. Kind of a bummer, because King is often at his best when he's writing noir (viz. The Colorado Kid), even when he puts his own spin on it (viz. “Umney's Last Case”). While no one would ever confuse Blaze for one of the books that often get King tabbed for Shakespearean immortality among his more fanatical defenders (in my case, those books have always been 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and Misery, along with a handful of stories from Night Shift), this is good, solid work. It was probably for the best that King did some rewriting and revising along the way, but since I'm never going to see the original manuscript, I'll just take it on faith when King tells us that in the preface. And the whole homage thing? Why are you letting that bother you, folks? Remember that The Dark Tower was an homage to Browning.
Which brings me back to my original premise, if a tad revised. If you like Stephen King novels, you're going to like Blaze. Of course you will, because it's Stephen King, and you like Stephen King. I will, however, plead with you to go into it with an open mind. This is not necessarily a turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy ride; most of King's early works aren't (consider, again, “The Fifth Quarter”). But I can assure you one thing: you will get out of it what you put in. *** ½
My initial thoughts on this book were running somewhere along the lines of “if you like Stephen King novels in general, you'll like Blaze”. It seemed a pretty safe thing to say, really. And then I started reading reviews, both from the pros and the user community, and I found out just how wrong I was. Man, this book has been savaged up one side and down the other. And while some of those bad reviews you can easily dismiss out of hand (someone actually called the book “overly wordy”, despite, at 285 pages, it being King's shortest novel in some thirty years or more), enough decent criticisms emerged that taking the safe path in my own review seemed like the wrong way to go; I'm actually going to have to defend this sucker, and that's not something I ever thought I'd have to do when reviewing a King novel.
If you've read anything at all about the book, you know two things: first, that it's a “trunk novel”, as King calls old pieces he pulls out and polishes up, and it's one of the very few that had not previously been published; and secondly, that it's a backhanded homage to Of Mice and Men. (You will also find out, whilst reading the introduction, that King really, really hates most of the Bachman novels. I find this depressing; Rage remains one of my favorite pieces of early King.) You can tack those two things together into a kind of patchwork and have a basic idea of where this book is going, but there's a third piece you need to add—King worked on it during the days when he was writing hard-boiled crime fiction (viz. “The Fifth Quarter”, another of my early-King favorites), and this book has a streak of Hammett about a mile wide running through it. Okay, now that the scene's set, a very oversimplified version of the plot: Clayton “Blaze” Blaisdell (Jr.) was a very smart kid, until systematic abuse from his drunk father turned him into a brain-damage case. There's still smart kid locked up in there, it's just that Blaze can't get to it often. After Blaze got out of the orphanage where the state stuck him after the head-injury incident, he hooked up with George, a small-time con artist, and the two of them made their money on the dark side of things. Like most petty criminals, they always talked about the big score, the one on which they could retire. Then George goes and gets himself killed, leaving Blaze on his own. And between the smart-kid stuff inside his head and the voice of George, which keeps popping up between his ears, Blaze gets the idea that he might be able to pull off the big score himself: the kidnapping and holding for ransom of the infant son of the town's richest family. Once we have the setup, the story is told in parallel: we get the present-day kidnapping storyline, and a past storyline that details Blaze's coming up through the orphanage, meeting George, and embarking on a life of crime.
I guess it does make sense that if you're looking for the usual supernatural-horror Stephen King novel, and you find yourself confronted with what is in essence a piece of noir fiction, you're probably going to be disappointed. Kind of a bummer, because King is often at his best when he's writing noir (viz. The Colorado Kid), even when he puts his own spin on it (viz. “Umney's Last Case”). While no one would ever confuse Blaze for one of the books that often get King tabbed for Shakespearean immortality among his more fanatical defenders (in my case, those books have always been 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and Misery, along with a handful of stories from Night Shift), this is good, solid work. It was probably for the best that King did some rewriting and revising along the way, but since I'm never going to see the original manuscript, I'll just take it on faith when King tells us that in the preface. And the whole homage thing? Why are you letting that bother you, folks? Remember that The Dark Tower was an homage to Browning.
Which brings me back to my original premise, if a tad revised. If you like Stephen King novels, you're going to like Blaze. Of course you will, because it's Stephen King, and you like Stephen King. I will, however, plead with you to go into it with an open mind. This is not necessarily a turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy ride; most of King's early works aren't (consider, again, “The Fifth Quarter”). But I can assure you one thing: you will get out of it what you put in. *** ½
Not spooky, just a story about a low-IQ criminal. Roughly based on Of Mice And Men. Interesting that the baby in the story is named Joe!
This books is an easy 5/5 for me. I loved this story. It was so sad, but still endearing. Clayton Blazedell Jr. is probably one of my favorite characters I've ever read. Blaze is big, tender, and completely misunderstood. The ending had me so sad! This was one of those stories where even though you know it's wrong you are rooting for the underdog!! Highly recommend.
As "trunk novels" go, this is an okay one. King admits he didn't like it on reread, and I find myself agreeing with him. It's not his best work.
Oh, Stephen King. Or Bachman. Or both. I do enjoy you so. Overall, it was a very compelling, very quick read. Definitely recommended.
King speaks of [book: The Colorado Kid] and [book: Blaze] in the same breath, with good reason. There's a similar feel to the writing. Very sparse. It's still very King-y, in my mind, in the way childhood and location are the keys to each character, but the actual language used is a little crisper than King-as-King. Or maybe that's just the character in question.
(Spoilers)
Blaze really is one of the most sympathetic criminal-protagonists I've run across in quite a while. He has a terrible life that shapes him, and othern than the death of the blueberry farmer, it's hard to point to a moment and go, "This. This is where it all went wrong and never came back. This is the point of no return." It's just one small tragedy piled on top of another.
I enjoyed the ambiguity of George and his post-death relationship with Blaze: is it a real haunting, or is it all just Blaze? I like that Bachman makes a convincing argument both ways and never resolves it. Still, though, George and Blaze aren't the heart of this book; Joe and Blaze are.
Blaze's growing affection for Joe just slayed me. I don't know why the little descriptions of Blaze learning how to care and feed for this tiny human being that completely confuses and delights him affected me so, but they did. Even as Blaze does thing after thing that is on the surface reprehensible (stealing a baby, fatally injuring the old lady, etc), his internal monologue and developing affection for Joe somehow make him deeply sympathetic. You understand how he came to the point that stealing a baby was the most logical thing to do. You know how it all has to end (tragically), yet you can't help but rooting for Blaze to succeed, or to at least be okay. There's a really weird dichotomy created, where you can't help but hope for a happy ending for Blaze, which has Blaze and Joe living "happily ever after," even as you realize you're hoping that a baby grows up happily with his kidnapper. It's not like we're even given monstrous parents to dread Joe's return.
What struck especially keenly for me was the contrast between this inevitable hope (and inevitable disappointment) for the strangely sympathetic Blaze with the law enforcement guys. You're set up in a natural response to Sterling's demonization of the unknown kidnapper of, "But you don't really know Blaze! He's not a monster!" with the fact that Blaze did kidnap Joe and did end up killing that old lady, and fron the outside, he is monstrous. I guess it's the contrast between monstrous acts and a monstrous nature. Sterling is very black-and-white, yes, but ultimately he is trying to find a kidnapper and a(n unintentional) killer. Blaze's death is tragic, yes, but it's hard to resolve the situation in any other way.
What I like, ultimately, about the dichotomy that Bachman creates is that it doesn't offer any easy answers. Blaze is not exempt from the consequences of his horrible actions just because he did many of them with good intentions and what "bad" intentions he had were clearly the result of the accumulated tragedy of his life. Nor is the tragedy and wrongness of Blaze's death diminished by the fact that he was killed by a law enforcement officer who believed he was pursuing a cold-blooded kidnapper and murderer who had just killed the leo's fellow officer. It's the removal of "cold-blooded" from that last phrase that complicates things that might otherwise be fairly simple.
King speaks of [book: The Colorado Kid] and [book: Blaze] in the same breath, with good reason. There's a similar feel to the writing. Very sparse. It's still very King-y, in my mind, in the way childhood and location are the keys to each character, but the actual language used is a little crisper than King-as-King. Or maybe that's just the character in question.
(Spoilers)
Blaze really is one of the most sympathetic criminal-protagonists I've run across in quite a while. He has a terrible life that shapes him, and othern than the death of the blueberry farmer, it's hard to point to a moment and go, "This. This is where it all went wrong and never came back. This is the point of no return." It's just one small tragedy piled on top of another.
I enjoyed the ambiguity of George and his post-death relationship with Blaze: is it a real haunting, or is it all just Blaze? I like that Bachman makes a convincing argument both ways and never resolves it. Still, though, George and Blaze aren't the heart of this book; Joe and Blaze are.
Blaze's growing affection for Joe just slayed me. I don't know why the little descriptions of Blaze learning how to care and feed for this tiny human being that completely confuses and delights him affected me so, but they did. Even as Blaze does thing after thing that is on the surface reprehensible (stealing a baby, fatally injuring the old lady, etc), his internal monologue and developing affection for Joe somehow make him deeply sympathetic. You understand how he came to the point that stealing a baby was the most logical thing to do. You know how it all has to end (tragically), yet you can't help but rooting for Blaze to succeed, or to at least be okay. There's a really weird dichotomy created, where you can't help but hope for a happy ending for Blaze, which has Blaze and Joe living "happily ever after," even as you realize you're hoping that a baby grows up happily with his kidnapper. It's not like we're even given monstrous parents to dread Joe's return.
What struck especially keenly for me was the contrast between this inevitable hope (and inevitable disappointment) for the strangely sympathetic Blaze with the law enforcement guys. You're set up in a natural response to Sterling's demonization of the unknown kidnapper of, "But you don't really know Blaze! He's not a monster!" with the fact that Blaze did kidnap Joe and did end up killing that old lady, and fron the outside, he is monstrous. I guess it's the contrast between monstrous acts and a monstrous nature. Sterling is very black-and-white, yes, but ultimately he is trying to find a kidnapper and a(n unintentional) killer. Blaze's death is tragic, yes, but it's hard to resolve the situation in any other way.
What I like, ultimately, about the dichotomy that Bachman creates is that it doesn't offer any easy answers. Blaze is not exempt from the consequences of his horrible actions just because he did many of them with good intentions and what "bad" intentions he had were clearly the result of the accumulated tragedy of his life. Nor is the tragedy and wrongness of Blaze's death diminished by the fact that he was killed by a law enforcement officer who believed he was pursuing a cold-blooded kidnapper and murderer who had just killed the leo's fellow officer. It's the removal of "cold-blooded" from that last phrase that complicates things that might otherwise be fairly simple.
As the story goes, King wrote this book back in the 70s but didn't release it until 2007 as a Bachman book. It's an alright story, but to me, some of his other Bachman books, such as The Long Walk, blow it out of the water. It didn't have a lot to draw me in and overall I wasn't a huge fan. Excited to move on to the next one.
