Book Review: Stephen King

I just read Stephen King's latest, Under the Dome.

It was awful.

I say this as a confirmed Stephen King fan.  I have been a huge fan of King since the 8th grade, when I read Pet Sematary for the first time.  I went on to devour everything he wrote: novels, short stories, novellas, even screenplays.  I currently own at least one copy of pretty much everything he has ever written.

I am not one of those annoying SNL-style King "purists" who proclaim that everything he has written since 1982 is trash, but there is a definite difference in styles when one considers the different phases of what has been a very long career.  Personally, I think the difference is editing.

His early work was (mostly) stellar: Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, the Stand...these are all masterpieces.  They are also all short.  In the "uncut revision" of The Stand, King confirms that the publishers were much more controlling in terms of editing in those days.  Some semi-stinkers (Christine) and stinkers (Cujo) followed, but beginning in the late '80's and early '90's, King's novels began to routinely run 1,200 pages.  I am estimating, but based on my own recent excursion into noveling, I would guess that puts him in the 400,000 word range, more or less.

In 1999, King was in a serious accident, in which he was struck by a van while walking.  Since then, his work has been markedly different in the opinion of most critics.  He was already losing relevance, however, and most people, including devoted King fans, disliked his newer work.

I loved Bag of Bones (1998, I think).  Other than that, most of his work has been fairly meh.  Last year, for my birthday, Sven got me a copy of Duma Key, which most people hated, but I thought wasn't bad.  It was definitely scary...it kept me up a couple of nights, for sure.

Which brings me to Under the Dome.  It is dreadful.  You know a book is awful when, on page 852, you think, "Finally, we're getting somewhere."  This book is 852 pages of setup for a plot that takes about 200 pages to tell.  In other books, King's penchant for delving into the minutiae of characters not only peripheral, but completely outside the scope of the story, is charming (for example, the chapter of the "uncut revision" of The Stand in which King details just a few incidental deaths that occurred after the flu epidemic had passed).  In this book, it just feels like rambling.  We get character after character after character, and I was bored.

The crazy thing about the book is that there is no setup at all.  He doesn't introduce anything, or anyone, at all: out of nowhere, an invisible dome has settled over a town in Maine.  The book opens with the dome settling in place (with some very grisly, King-like consequences) and the story should just take off.  It doesn't.  I kind of got a picture in my head of King thinking, "What if..." and getting going, which has worked before, but it falls flat here.

One of King's strengths is writing villains, and in this the book excels.  The town of Chester's Mill is "under the dome" for only a few days, but it is enough time for a small-town Hitler to create a climate of hate and terror.  The villain of the piece is truly a bad guy.  There is nothing supernatural about him.  He's just a jerk who, when presented with an opportunity, will do or say anything to keep his power.

Another of King's strengths is making the implausible seem plausible.  It is at this that Under the Dome failed spectacularly for me.  Spoiler: highlight to see, don't read it if you want to read the book: about halfway through, someone decides the dome is the work of aliens, then they figure out it is actually alien children playing with them the way human children play with anthills, so to get rid of the dome, they have to beg the children and convince them that humanity/earth is "real." The idea of the dome is intriguing, I suppose, but the real story is the human one: what happens to these people when they are isolated from, yet completely visible to, the outside world?  The pseudo-sci-fi purpose of the dome just muddied the water for me.  I honestly would have preferred no explanation.

I will say I loved some of the characters, though in a King book, an abundance of characters also means an abundance of death.  Lots of death under the dome.  Suicides, of course, but accidental deaths, deaths from illness, and of course murders also occupy these pages.  It is tiring investing so much in a book without a satisfactory payoff.

The payoff I wanted was twofold: a happy ending for some of the characters I was rooting for, and comeuppance for those I wasn't.  I was only partially satisfied.  To avoid another spoiler, I will just say that the ending was far to abrupt for everything that went into the beginning.  If I were Mr. King's editor, I would have lopped off about 100,000 words from the beginning and added about 50,000 to the end.

That being said, I cannot wait for Mr. King's next book, whatever it is.  I hope I will love it.

Rejection

I wrote a book.

It's a novel. 95,000 words, in its current revision. I've been working hard on it for about a year, based on an idea and outline I started about ten years ago. I'm really proud of it, which means I'm very sensitive about it. Right now I'm very torn: I desperately want people to read it, because I want someone else's opinion about it, but I'm terrified to have anyone read it, because then I would have someone's opinion about it.

What if it's no good?

What if everybody thinks it's just a rip-off of Twilight? It's not, but I'm realistic: it deals with the supernatural, including vampires. I flatter myself that I've put a truly nerdy spin on it: D&D aficionados, should they tear themselves away from their Tolkein, will be pleased.

What if they read it, and I see the "poor Deb, don't hurt her feelings" look in their eyes?

Let me tell you: whenever you are having a crisis of self-esteem, turn to the entertainment industry. I can't tell you how I have been affected by the deluge of responses I have received from the literary establishment.

Phrases like, "didn't capture my interest," "not what we're looking for," and "parakeet-cage lining" have cropped up surprisingly often.

Okay, not the last one. But the others, yes. They are all very polite. They all wish me all the luck in the world. They all tell me they hope I find representation. I understand, from what I read, that even receiving responses to e-mail queries is somewhat rare, so maybe I should be flattered by their rejection.

I'm not feeling it.

The unexpected side effect: I'm finding, as each rejection comes in, I no longer care as much. I'm starting another book, a spin-off of the first, centering around one of the characters in the first book, and I'm getting excited about that. I'm thinking I'll give it another couple of tries, send out a couple more batches of queries, and then I'll just put the darned thing on Amazon, and self-publish. I am not interested in spending the rest of my life in an endless cycle of hope and rejection. After all, some of my family members, and maybe one or two of my friends might buy a copy. That would be neat.

I promise I won't hold it against you if you don't buy one. Much.

Edited to add, after reading your comments: See the top link on my right sidebar for my new book blog. I will begin publishing installments, if you guys want to read it.

Spring Break Adventures III: Galveston

I had totally planned to stay home on Friday, the last real day of Spring Break, and clean house.  I had laundry to do, dishes to wash, and cheese cracker residue to scrape off of every non-permeable surface in the house.

This did not get done.  Princess announced after breakfast that she wanted to go to the beach, so Sven prepared to take Princess to Galveston for the afternoon.  Sven Jr., seeing them leave, began to cry.  Sven sighed dramatically and put shoes and socks on his son.  In other words, Sven was preparing to take both children out of the house for several hours, leaving me there alone.

Like a complete and utter fool, this prospect filled me with dread.  I wanted to be there if Sven Jr. got to walk on the beach for the first time.  I wanted to know if Princess said or did something adorably precocious.  So, instead of taking advantage of the solitude and cleaning the house or napping, I said, "Wait for me!" and joined them in the car.

It was totally worth it.  Galveston still shows a lot of damage from Hurricane Ike, but it's coming back.  Here's a picture of Princess and Sven on The Strand, the historic district next to the pier on the bay side of the island:

The mark above Sven's head is the water mark from Ike's storm surge.  Sven is about 6' tall, so you can imagine how much damage there is to repair.

The good news for me: Galveston Bookshop, my favorite used book store, located on 23rd Street right off The Strand, is fully re-stocked and looking great.  GB had 7' of water in the store, completely wiping out the first floor, but they now have brand new shelves, a beautiful new tile floor, and replenished stock.  Anyone who reads my blog who goes to Galveston needs to check out this excellent book store.  (If you click on the link I provided, you can see pictures of the new look as well as right after the storm.  Very impressive.)

The better news for me: I got to see Sven Jr.'s first time on the beach, as he played in the sand with his sister:

I guess it's okay that the house is a mess.  I think I made the right call.

Book Review X 2

Recently, I was trapped in the Houston Galleria for several hours.  As far as being trapped goes, it was a good place to be trapped, assuming one has unlimited access to money and a size 2 figure.  For me, once I had purchased clothing for my children and a Build-A-Bear for myself, I found myself facing several empty hours.  Fortunately, a large Border's Books was very near, and I was able to purchase some new books, and I would like to pass them on to you.

1. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Now a Major Motion Picture!)

I haven't seen the movie, but like most people, I heard of it when Kate Winslet began winning awards for it.  It looked fairly short, so I decided to give it a try.  The plot is basically this: a teenaged boy has an affair with an older woman.  When he gets older, after it has ended, he sees her on trial for her role as a concentration camp guard.

This isn't what I would call an "uplifting" book.  The narrator, the teenaged boy, is a sort of wishy-washy, I-want-what-I-can't-have-but-now-that-I-can-have-it-I-don't-want-it kind of guy that bothered me.  I like strong characters, not in the sense that they are strong people, but in the sense that they are strongly written enough to get a sense of them as people, and these characters weren't "strong" in that way.  For me, this book read like a "message" book, but I wasn't ever sure what the message was, and the story wasn't strong enough to really impress me.

Maybe I'll like the movie, I don't know.  My rating: three stars (out of seven)

2. The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir (would make a great movie)

I'm a fan of Alison Weir; she has written non-fiction history for years, and her works always manage to be engaging and lively instead of dry and dusty.  A few years ago she wrote Innocent Traitor, a fictionalized biography of Lady Jane Grey, which was amazing.  Now, she has attempted what I firmly believe no historical fiction writer should: the life of Queen Elizabeth I.

Weir is no fool; she sticks to the early years.  The book opens with Anne Boleyn's execution and Elizabeth's documented response to her change in title, and goes from there.  Weir makes some assumptions about Elizabeth's personality and early life, but they are well-founded assumptions and, for me, they rang true.  Weir deviates from her own historical assertions at one crucial point, and it was at that point that the book rang false to me, but it recovered afterwards.

If you are a fan of historical fiction, or a Tudor buff, give this one a try.  I give it 18 stars out of 19.

Happy reading!

Eclectic Company

Whenever I am asked to describe my taste in music, books, movies, or television, my answer is always one word: eclectic.

Eclectic (from the Latin, meaning "type of eel") just means that my taste varies. 

If you were to look at my iPod, you will find everything from novelty country-western music ("Don't Go Near the Eskimos") to Norwegian acapella folk music (Trio Medieval, who I highly recommend).  I love Beyonce and Bartoli, Mozart and Muse.  I'm not highbrow; I lustily sing along with "The Scotsman" (Oh, lad I don't know where you've been, but I see you won first prize), but I also croon along softly to "Closer" by Joshua Radin, my new favorite slow song.  Generally speaking, eclectic tastes are awesome, leading one to experience far more than someone who labels himself as a fan of one genre.

My eclectic tastes have taken an unexpected turn this week, though, and it is in the field of literature that two of my favorites, all unknowing, are in disharmony.  Yes, I speak of my beloved Twilight, now under fire from the elder statesman of guilty pleasure reading: my man, Stephen King.

Steve (I call him Steve, he owes me that much) and I go way back.  I was in middle school (ca. 1988) when I first read a King book: Pet Sematary.  This book was terrifying to me, said terror enhanced by an adorable younger brother who looked just like the evil little boy in the book, and I should have stopped there.  I didn't, though, and went on to read (and purchase) my way through King's entire list.  It currently takes up about 1/4 of my available shelf space.

Although I am a fan, I am not blind to Steve's faults.  First, in my book, is his tendency to be just a tad wordy.  An example: Insomnia, his aptly named exploration into sleep disorders, elder abuse, domestic violence, and abortion rights, consisted of about 9 pages of actual plot and, by my calculation, 17,456 pages of Kingsian filler.  King fans know what I mean...the 17-page description of the supermarket bagger, whom we have never met, nor ever will see again, but we can finally move on with the story, having learned about this bagger's family history and personal background, including his struggle with bed-wetting and arson.  (King's peripheral characters are always disturbed criminals; I imagine small towns in New England as profoundly scary places.)

King's writing could be called gimmicky; his reliance on profanity could be called offensive, but I think of it more as unimaginative.  His plot points are sometimes unbelievable, sometimes predictable, but I (and millions of others) keep coming back for more.  Why?  The man can tell a story.  At the end of the day, that's why I read: for the story.

King's criticism of Stephenie Meyer?  She can't write, he says.  Oh, he grants that her story is an interesting one, but he compares her unfavorably to JK Rowling by saying this: "Jo can write.  Meyer can't."  Et tu, Steve?  I know the last few books haven't been as successful, and it's a struggle to stay relevant when one is plugging the latest compilation of previously-published short novels that have been made into movies, but casting one's self as the arbiter of literary taste, in a society that owes it's lack of literary taste at least in part to you, strikes me as a particularly pathetic way to do it.

Now, to anyone who is still with me: this isn't me defending Twilight, because I'm aware of its flaws.  It always bothers me to see someone who should know better jump on a bandwagon of criticizing something popular, because it is so transparently about jealousy.

Take Etta James.  She came out at a concert and made the following statements:  she referred to Obama as "the one with the big ears," then insisted he wasn't "her president."  She then went on to say that "I can't stand Beyonce" and "that's my own song that I've been singing forever.

Gee, I wonder why they didn't ask her to sing at the inaugural ball?  

Opinion aside, Ms. James has something wrong: it isn't "her" song.  It was written by someone else, originally recorded by someone else, and covered several times by several someones else before she got to it.  Her version has been iconic, there is no doubt of that, but that would be like Tina Turner claiming that no one else had ever performed "Proud Mary," or Whitney Houston insisting that "I Will Always Love You" is "her" song, though it was written and originally performed by Dolly Parton.  But I digest...

What Etta and Stephen need to remember is that there are many people out there, just like me, who love it all.  What we don't love is when what we love turns on itself.

That never would have happened in the old days, right?  I mean, did Jane Austen ever write this?

Jane Eyre, the new novel by Charlotte Bronte, stunk worse than Mr. Collins after a day on horseback.  I mean, am I right?

No, she didn't, because she died 30 years before Jane Eyre was published, but you get my point.  Why can't all of the people I love just love each other?  Why can't I exist in a utopian entertainment paradise, in which the characters from Twilight re-imagine Pride and Prejudice, the cast of Scrubs, The Office and Joel McHale dominate television, and Coldplay decides to perform "Viva la Vida" with Beyonce at the Debb awards?

Would that be so bad? 

Mary Sue

I have come to the conclusion, sadly, that I am a Mary Sue. I can no longer ignore the evidence.

Requirement 1: Exotic Beauty. Obviously. I am certainly an "exotic" beauty, if "exotic" means "in a way not currently recognized by humans or the more intelligent mammals."

Requirement 2: Exceptionally Talented. Please. I have written over 7 pieces of music that have been rejected by the prestigious Texas University Interscholastic League Sight Reading Contest Committee. "Keep trying" is typical of the praise I receive for my groundbreaking work.

Requirement 3: Flaws are Endearing Character Traits. Seriously? Everyone who knows me considers me to be without meaningful flaws, as they tell me every time I loudly demand they do so. My physical flaws, if you can even call them that, serve as entertainment to my children, as my son slaps my belly and my daughter plays connect-the-dots with my moles. Jealous?

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Requirement 4: Amazing Powers and Abilities. This is getting ridiculous. I routinely find simple solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems. The other night, there was a crisis in our household- there were no clean clothes for Sven to wear to work. All was seemingly lost, the future of our family in question, until I stepped in to save the day.

On my own, I discovered a previously unknown alcove in our kitchen containing a miraculous being that cleans clothes.

I know it seems unbelievable, but this wonderful discovery only requires that you insert dirty clothes, add some soap, and then turn it on. Sven was amazed, too dumbfounded to approach the beast himself, so I waded in and wrestled his clothes into the belly of the monster. I had no sooner done this, than, lo and behold: its mate was next to it, waiting to dry the clean clothes with the heat from its powerful lungs.

This saved the day, allowing our family to continue. I don't ask for credit, I just ask for jewelry and a massage.

Then I invented the frozen lasagne, temporary tattoo, and angled toothbrush.

I know, it seems unbelievable, but it's all true. So, to critics of "Mary Sues" in fiction, remember- there are some of us really out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Book Review: The Host

In which Deb tries to review The Host by Stephenie Meyer without referencing Twilight more than once per sentence...

The Host bills itself as "science fiction for those who don't like sci-fi," and I would guess that is pretty close to the truth.  I would also imagine the converse to be true- real fans of sci-fi probably won't like this book.  And, adding a third permutation, if you are, like me, somewhat "meh" towards sci-fi, you will probably experience some degree of "meh" about this book as well.

The Host also bills itself as Stephenie Meyer's first book targeted at adult readers.  Rest easy, Twilight fans who liked the lack of cursing, explicit sex, and offensive content in the Twilight series: Stephenie hasn't let you down.  If you were not offended by the Twilight series, you won't be offended by The Host.

Plot summary (nutshell edition): Earth has been taken over by "souls," which are small parasites that attach to the brain of the "host" organism.  The soul takes over the host's body and mind.  Humans, though, have formed some pockets of resistance.  Melanie Stryder, one of these human rebels, has been caught and is given a very special soul: Wanderer, who has lived eight lifetimes on eight different worlds.  Melanie clings to her life tenaciously, however, and Wanderer must decide whether to fight Melanie or join her in the struggle to free humanity from the souls.  There is also a very unique love triangle/square going on.

My take?  While nowhere near as entertaining as  Twilight, The Host did eventually make an interesting, easy read.  There is very little "science" in this book, so I was spared the pages-long explanations about how something works...Meyer states the conditions and limits of her settings and characters and the reader must accept them, and fortunately, her stuff seems to work well.

Frankly, the unbelievable parts for me were in the relationships.  I won't spoil the book, but I will say that elements of the romantic conflict seemed, to me, contrived.  Some of what bothered me were things Meyer has used in Twilight, but for whatever reason, what worked for me in that book bothered me in this one.  Sorry to be so cryptic, but, again- I don't want to spoil anything, and I do think this book is worth a read.

I would give 3.5 stars out of 5.

Twilight

Okay, I have been reading all of the "critiques" of the new reason for my existence, the Twilight series of books. (The movie will join my obsession, possibly, once the DVD comes out.) Some of these critiques are very funny and true, but it doesn't change the horrible truth: I love Twilight. I'm a 33 year old mother of two. Kill me now.

Reason 1 why I love Twilight: Tension. Good, old-fashioned, I-know-they-won't-but-maybe-they-will-no-wait,-they-won't sexual tension. I love it.

Okay, so it's not Pulizter prize-level writing. I don't think it's bad writing, either, because it conveys a compelling story effectively.

Reason 2 why I love Twilight: Rob Pattinson (yes, Kristina!!!) as Edward Cullen. I actually find Rob Pattinson fascinating, but oddly unattractive. As Edward, though, he is my wild teenage fantasy boy incarnate.

It's pure wish fulfillment- scratch any Twilight fan and you'll find a lonely, bookish teenage girl who watched the hot boy and secretly dreamed of him falling for her. The fact that the hot boy in this case is a vampire is even hotter. As the fat girl with straws up her nose, I would dream of being delicate and imperiled, waiting for that beautiful angel-like teenage god to come and rescue me.

Reality, of course, is that most teenage boys are bepimpled and rude. Even Mike Newton would stand out compared to most of the teenaged boys I encounter. (No, I won't tell you who he is, read the book.)

Reason 3 why I love Twilight: Reality sucks. This is better.