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A review by gbweeks
Blaze by Stephen King, Richard Bachman
4.0
If you haven’t read Of Mice and Men, then you should first (it’s barely even a novella, so won’t take you long). There is a large, powerful guy who is actually very gentle, and slow-witted because of a traumatic childhood event. He has a friend named George who takes care of him. Otherwise, he has no one, and he is prone to doing things that get him in trouble, including badly hurting (or killing) people because he was so strong and unaware. He even calls the baby “Skinner” (p. 216), a term used on Steinbeck’s novel to describe mule drivers.
But I also thought all the time about Raising Arizona, which messed up the mood. I mean, he kidnaps a baby and holds up convenience stores with a stocking on his head (except when he forgets). And indeed, it is a tragicomedy, in the sense that the mistakes he makes are painfully obvious and sometimes kind of funny (such as forgetting to lie).
The book moves along well, and it's one of the better Bachman books.
Bits of King: obligatory mention of Shawshank (p. 45 and p. 241). The realtor for the old Hetton House is Gerald Clutterbuck (p. 221) in Castle Rock, clearly a relative of Andy Clutterbuck from Needful Things.
The strong connection to Of Mice and Men made it clear that not only would Blaze not succeed, but he would be killed. Given this is a Bachman book, I actually thought the baby would die too, and it seems like he almost did, but not quite.
The link with George remains unexplained. Was Blaze smarter than he realized, or was there something supernatural?
But I also thought all the time about Raising Arizona, which messed up the mood. I mean, he kidnaps a baby and holds up convenience stores with a stocking on his head (except when he forgets). And indeed, it is a tragicomedy, in the sense that the mistakes he makes are painfully obvious and sometimes kind of funny (such as forgetting to lie).
The book moves along well, and it's one of the better Bachman books.
Bits of King: obligatory mention of Shawshank (p. 45 and p. 241). The realtor for the old Hetton House is Gerald Clutterbuck (p. 221) in Castle Rock, clearly a relative of Andy Clutterbuck from Needful Things.
Spoiler
The strong connection to Of Mice and Men made it clear that not only would Blaze not succeed, but he would be killed. Given this is a Bachman book, I actually thought the baby would die too, and it seems like he almost did, but not quite.
The link with George remains unexplained. Was Blaze smarter than he realized, or was there something supernatural?