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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
The Langoliers
Pg xv- I still believe in the resilience of the human heart and the essential validity of love; I still believe that connections between people can be made and that the spirits which inhabit us sometimes touch. I still believe that the cost of those connections is horribly, outrageously high... and I still believe that the value received far outweighs the price which must be paid. I still believe, I suppose, in the coming of the White and in finding a place to make a stand... and defending that place to the death. They are old-fashioned concerns and beliefs, but I would be a liar if I did not admit that I still own them. And that they still own me.
Pg 5- Factual mistakes usually result from a failure to ask the right questions and not from erroneous information.
Pg 42- That was when Brian felt something—something like a bolt—starting to give way deep inside his mind. That was when he felt his entire structure of organized thought begin to slide slowly toward some dark abyss.
Pg 66- He began to tear a strip of paper from the side of the glossy ad. The long, slow ripping sound was at the same time excruciating and exquisitely calming.
Pg 71- Bethany shrugged and offered Laurel a tired smile which was oddly winning.
Pg 72- His heart was beating slowly and heavily in his chest, like a funeral drum.
Pg 74- Don Gaffney looked toward the man in the crew-neck jersey again and felt a sudden, almost overmastering urge to rip the flight magazine out of the weird son of a bitch’s hands and begin whacking him with it.
Pg 78- A wave of relief rushed over him like a cooling hand.
Pg 115- “You Americans are too foolish not to love.” - Nick Hopewell
Pg 115- “Never believe a writer. Listen to them, by all means, but never believe them.” - Bob Jenkins
Pg 116- “I thought it was really brave,” she said, looking up at him with eyes which suggested she believed Albert Kaussner must shit diamonds from a platinum asshole.
Pg 154- His mind seized on this idea the way a shipwreck victim seizes upon a piece of wreckage—anything that still floats, even if it’s only the shithouse door, is a prize to be cherished.
Pg 156- Calm filled his mind like cool blue water.
Pg 162- ...not that they were likely to see him, anyway. It was as black as an elephant’s asshole in here.
Pg 165- He could smell himself. Even in the dead air he could smell himself. It was the rancid monkeypiss aroma of fear.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Pg 269- “He walked with his hands stuffed into his pockets, trying to let the lake’s quiet work through his skin and calm him down, as it had always done before.”
Pg 270- “Of course I’m all right,” he’d said, speaking as carefully as a drunk trying to convince people that he’s sober.
Pg 309- He supposed that, without its great capacity for self-deception, the human race would be even crazier than it already was.
The Library Policeman
Pg 405- ...the fears of childhood have a hideous persistence.
Pg 422- “She borrows a great many romance novels- Jennifer Blake, Rosemary Rogers, Paul Sheldon, people like that.” [Misery]
Pg 431- “I have never heard an Ozzy Osborne record and have no desire to do so, nor to read a novel by Robert McCammon, Stephen King, or V.C. Andrews.”
Pg 434- He had no wish to incur a second dose of Ardelia Lortz’s anger—the first had been enough, and he’d had a feeling her dial hadn’t been turned up to anything near full volume.
Pg 436- It was good just to find out you still had a heart, that the ordinary routine of ordinary days hadn’t worn it away, but it was even better to find it could still speak through your mouth.
Pg 468- He didn’t believe he was crazy, not at all, but he was beginning to feel that if he didn’t get this thing sorted out, he might go crazy. It was as if he had uncovered a hole in the middle of his head, one so deep you could throw things into it and not hear a splash no matter how big the things you threw were or how long you waited with your ear cocked for the sound.
Pg 584- Naomi screamed. The wind, still rising, screamed back.
Pg 585- “Hurry up! I can smell her goddamn perfume everywhere!” Sam found the idea that the smell of Ardelia’s perfume might somehow precede her materialization obscurely terrifying.
Pg 608- The tale of the irrational is the sanest way I know of expressing the world in which I live. These tales have served me as instruments of both metaphor and morality; they continue to offer the best window I know on the question of how we do or do not behave on the basis of our perceptions. I have explored these questions as well as I can within the limits of my talent and intelligence. I am no one’s National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize winner, but I’m serious, all right. If you don’t believe anything else, believe this: when I take you by your hand and begin to talk, my friend, I believe every word I say.
Pg 623- If any of them truly believed in the invisible world it was Megan, who couldn’t get enough of walking corpses, living dolls, and cars that came to life and ran down people they didn’t like. [Christine]
Pg 646- Just another goddamn gadget, Pop thought, opening the door and going in. World’s dying of em. But he was one of those people—world’s dying of em—not at all above using what he disparaged if it proved expedient.
Pg 656- He looked at the strained expression of incredulity on his son’s face and his own strained look broke. He laughed and clapped his son on the shoulder. “It’s only the world, Kev,” he said, “It kills us all in the end, anyhow.”
Pg 696- No; you had to practice those goddamned tongue-twister names until they came out as smooth as shit from a waxed asshole.
Pg 702- Pop suddenly found himself remembering Joe Camber’s Saint Bernard, Cujo—the one who had killed Joe and that old tosspot Gary Pervier and Big George Bannerman. The dog had gone rabid. It had trapped a woman and a young boy in their car up there at Camber’s place and after two or three days the kid had died. [Cujo]
Pg 7
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Attenzione spoiler!
http://nonsempreiosonodelmiostessoparere.blogspot.com/2018/09/four-past-midnight-by-stephen-king.html
http://nonsempreiosonodelmiostessoparere.blogspot.com/2018/09/four-past-midnight-by-stephen-king.html
people look at different seasons as the high watermark of Kings novella writing and they're correct but this is a riproaring wee collection of schlock
Four novellas, all excellent. The Sun Dog shook me just right. The Langoliers is a deserved fan-favorite. But it's The Library Policeman that hit me hardest. I remember the ending being nothing short of absolutely perfect.
There is extremely little that I can add to what so many people have said about this book. So, instead of anything more substantive, I am just going to put out a few impressions.
Four Past Midnight is a collection of four short novels. I intentionally do not use the word novella. I think all four works in this book are too long to be classified as such. I think the only reason they were not issued as separate books is because they are so much shorter than Stephen King’s usual novels and his productivity is so high his publisher was trying not to glut the market.
The first of the four is “The Langoliers”. It is a clever paranormal tale about people waking up on a flight where the pilots, crew, and most of the passengers have suddenly gone missing. This story plays to Stephen King’s best strength. He is a master at character craft. He is even better at creating a whole community of characters, who interact with one another in bizarre or stressful circumstances.
The other thing I like about this story is the use of cosmic horror, which is often my favorite sub-genre of horror. In particular, I appreciate how he does not choose to flush out the cosmology of this story. One is hinted at, but you never know more than the characters do. So you are left with the fun of speculating what kind of wild world they (and we) are living in.
The second novel is “Secret Window, Secret Garden”. I am always up for a good tale with an unreliable narrator slowly descending into insanity... or is he? King does a good job here. Again he plays to his strengths. The protagonist is a writer struggling with creating and sanity, a common theme for Stephen King.
The third novel, “The Library Policeman”, might actually be my favorite of the bunch. In some ways it is primarily a character study of the protagonist. The star of the show is “bad guy”. I think this is one of Stephen King’s creepiest creations. It is right up there with Pennywise the Dancing Clown. I am so much surprised that this story has never been tapped to be turned into a movie.
The last novel is “The Sun Dog”. This one shares a lot of themes in common with Needful Things, which was released at almost the same time. Is the story of a boy who was given a Polaroid camera as a gift. However, whenever you take a picture with it, you get the next frame of a sort of movie from another dimension. The hijinks ensue from that point. It is a deeply unnerving story. If the implications of the story do not disturb you, I would go so far as to say you were not reading it right. My favorite character isn’t the boy who serves as its protagonist. It is Pop Merrill, who was used for the second season of the TV show Castle Rock. I find him to be one of the most intriguing characters King has created. It was a joy to spend time with him.
The Langoliers: 3/5
Secret Window, Secret Garden: 5/5
The Library Policeman: 4/5
The Sun Dog: 4.5/5
Secret Window, Secret Garden: 5/5
The Library Policeman: 4/5
The Sun Dog: 4.5/5
3.5 stars. A solid read, although I did find myself skimming through Secret Window, Secret Garden and The Langoliers. The Library Policeman easily outshines the rest and yet it's somehow the most obscure and the one I've heard the least about.
I don't personally like all of the story but I have a favorite. It is the "Secret Window, Secret Garden." In comparison to other stories, I think this one is more thrilling and even the ending is wrapped perfectly.