Reading Stephen King

[darkemeralds]

My week's vacation has been filled with good things: long bike rides in bright, cold sunshine, lots of knitting, a visit to my good friend roseambr (who is housebound following some foot surgery), a session with a spiritual healer, and some really good reading.



I've spent...let me see...about 35 hours of the last six days or so listening to Craig Wasson's narration of Stephen King's latest, 11-22-63: A Novel.

I haven't read King in ages, but I've admired his writing since I encountered Night Shift in 1978. He may be a mega-bestselling hack, but damn, he's a gifted one. Unlike other mega-bestselling hacks I'll admit to having read (*coughDanBrownJohnGrishamMichaelCrichtoncough*), King actually writes well. His prose is transparent. His characterizations are strong. His novel structure is beautifully controlled. And he elicits emotion in the great-novel tradition: through empathy, which he elicits over and over again with the just-so detail of character, setting, and action.

I found 11-22-63 really, deeply satisfying. It is, to say the least, long. Nobody really edits King anymore, I don't think, and there's something wonderful about that. He spins a detailed, well-controlled story--in this case, involving time-travel--and though one could argue that his stroll through the novel's landscape could have been slightly less leisurely, in the end you can see that every step of journey was aimed directly at the destination. I was never bored, and there was never a spot where, if my concentration wandered and I zoned out on a sentence or two, I felt I could just shrug and move on: I hit the 30-second back button a lot because I didn't want to miss any details.

Stephen King reads his own afterword in the audiobook (some historical notes, acknowledgments, and a glimpse into the truly gargantuan research efforts involved in the writing), and you realize that the narrator you've been listening to for 35 hours, Craig Wasson, sounds just like him.

Wasson does a nice job. His character voices are distinctive, and his acting is good--light-handed and accurate, enhancing the narrative rather than pulling me out of it. I rarely felt that he was stumbling over text he hadn't quite comprehended (a huge achievement in a book of this size), and he is consistent across all those tens of thousands of words.

Somewhat less good are his dialects. His various Southerns strike my ear as slightly more stereotyped than accurate, and he misses pretty completely on a Russian, though his German one isn't bad. The story calls for Texas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, and Boston Mainline accents, and one really famous voice that will always sound like a caricature no matter who does it--President Kennedy--but I'll give Wasson this: he makes a distinction between a Maine accent in the 1950s and the homogenized one of the 2010s that nails the sense of the past as a foreign country the way the written text couldn't have done.

"Is it really scary?" my sister asked me when I recommended it to her last night. It's a natural question to ask of a King novel. This one isn't. It has its share of graphic (strictly human) violence, and a certain amount of the bodily effluvia and sordid American urban ugliness that King always seems to favor as set dressing. There are a couple of nice steamy-but-not-porny love scenes.

Mostly, it's intriguing. It builds to downright thrilling at the climax, and has a long, satisfying denouement. King moralizes a bit, and lets his political flag fly (though since his is like mine, that's a plus). If I had to single out a flaw, it would be that Jake/George, the POV character, as a well-read English teacher familiar with science fiction, really should have known better than to do any of what he does in the story. You have to overlook that key disconnect in the early pages in order to let the novel unfold.

But it's worth it.



I made significant progress on my current knitting project, a pale-gray Aran-style cardigan, while listening to 11-22-63 (that is a really hard title to hold in the mind!), and now Jake Epping/George Amberson, the Yellow Card Man, and the tail-fins of 1950s American gas-guzzlers are entwined in the moss-stitch and cables of the left sleeve.

It's cold and sunny again today and I'm going out in a few minutes to treat myself to a pedicure.

Then I'm gonna start on Death Comes to Pemberley. I'll get back to non-fiction next week.

Comments

[executrix]

I liked 11-22-63 also. I think that King is a lot like Trollope--OK, not the most coruscating talent, and not entirely immune to the prejudices and foolishness of his time, but an honest craftsman who really tries to improve, tries to stretch a little bit, and tries to give full measure to his customers.

[darkemeralds]

That seems like a very just assessment.

And I do feel I got full measure--as I have felt with all of King's books that I've read.

[communicator]

Yes I agree. I was half way through 11-22-63 when I lost my i-Pod! Now I am waiting for my Christmas present so I can find out what happens next.

[darkemeralds]

Ack! I'm sorry you lost your iPod!

The story is well worth pursuing to the end. I'd call it a page-turner, but...pages? LOL. I did keep finding excuses to do non-auditory things so I could keep listening--for hours on end.

[tehomet]

Glad to hear a) from you and b) that you're enjoying your time off.

Believe it or not, I've never listened to an audiobook, podcast or podfic. Hearing problems prevent me having much truck with such. So this description was delightfully insightful. For one thing, I didn't know the people who read the books for audiobooks actually do accents! That's cool.

Wasson... makes a distinction between a Maine accent in the 1950s and the homogenized one of the 2010s that nails the sense of the past as a foreign country the way the written text couldn't have done.

Even cooler.

I made significant progress on my current knitting project, a pale-gray Aran-style cardigan, while listening to 11-22-63 (that is a really hard title to hold in the mind!), and now Jake Epping/George Amberson, the Yellow Card Man, and the tail-fins of 1950s American gas-guzzlers are entwined in the moss-stitch and cables of the left sleeve.

I love your way with words.

I mistyped 'I love your way with works' there and had to go back and correct, but having seen some of your handiworks (your Serenity needlework and your recent DIY project spring to mind) I guess it's true either way. :)

[darkemeralds]

Audiobooks have been the salvation of my intellect in recent years. It now seems that the loss of attention that led me to them in first place was due to a decline in estrogen (rather than to either a moral failing on my part, or some evil inherent in the internet). Bio-identical hormone replacement has given me back my mind, and I can once again read texts, but I really love being able to "read" and do another activity at the same time.

Audiobooks have given me the patience for washing my dishes, ironing, knitting, and pedaling over the same routes day after day. Not to mention for tackling really long books like King's latest.

Thanks for a lovely comment.

OT: Jazz Shoes

[executrix]

$17! And they look ideal for Zumba! (They also have an ankle boot for the same price).

http://www.dance4less.com/GS60DD_dance_shoes_clearance.htm

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[darkemeralds]

TERRIFIC resource! Thank you!

My first pair of Blochs is still in good shape (I'm pretty careful not to wear them outdoors), but when I'm ready for my next pair of dance sneakers, the price at Dance-4-Less is at least 30% lower than what I paid.

Thanks!

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[executrix]

A storefront around the corner from me that is now a Thai restaurant used to be a minuscule dance studio with a few shelves of merchandise had ultra-soft jazz oxfords, which I *did* wear outside even though I know I shouldn't. I literally loved them to death.

A friend of mine re-gifted a key ring--it has a tiny little Bloch toe shoe as a charm. With a real sole and a shank!

Err, I didn't actually get around to doing a post, but Wednesday was my fourth week of Zumba class.

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[darkemeralds]

Really? I am excite! I take it from your mention of four weeks that you like it? I look forward to your comments on the experience.

After a work-schedule-enforced hiatus of almost two full months, i'm resuming my three-class-per-week Zumba regimen tomorrow evening, and i can hardly wait.

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[executrix]

My gym only has Zumba classes twice a week--Wednesday night, which I didn't start taking until after I didn't have CSA on Wednesday nights anymore--and Saturday, at the same time as my yoga class, which I do *not* consider optional.

I'm still really doggin' it on the jumps, and I frequently find myself muttering, "one-two-three-four-five-six-seven? There is no seven in ballet" and reminding myself where I am.

I'm not sure if there are actual official Zumba Steps or just a Zumba Philosophy, but if you do the step where you kick one foot up to the side to touch your hand, with the other arm extended up, breaking the wrist...that's a Fosse step! From Turkey-Lurkey Time from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

OF COURSE the one step I would master quickly would be the Slut Grapevine, but Week #3 I was facing in the wrong direction *most* of the time during the Picasso. (...which is what I call it because when you do a contraction back with your arms extended and head down, it looks like a Minotaur...)

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[darkemeralds]

Hah! You are WAY ahead of me in naming or identifying the steps. I'm still purely kinaesthetic, kind of, "Oh, yeah, this is that one. And here comes that other one I remember."

I'm not as conversant with real dance as you are, but I definitely recognize general styles, and yeah, Zumba's not afraid to borrow. I had one teacher who included some reasonably authentic hula steps in a number. We had a South African-feeling one a couple of times. Indian "Bollywood" style is not uncommon, and there's a sort of Ricky Ricardo Cuban-feeling one that I don't know the name of (but which is REALLY vigorous).

It's amazing, however, how clearly the various cultural images and ideas come through in the steps, even if I don't know what they're called.

I think Grapevine is the only one whose name I associate with an actual action.

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[executrix]

I suspect that if I actually knew how to do any Latin dances a lot of stuff would be chuffin' obvious, but when I grew up in the 60s, *nothing* was daggier than partner dancing. I think the Picasso is actually a cha-cha with a contraction, and I think we do rhumba basics but turning.

During the kick combination at the end I whispered, "You know what we need? Hats!" because it's a lot like the end section of "One" from "A Chorus Line."

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[darkemeralds]

Have you been subjected to the All-Arms dance?

My Monday-Wednesday teacher likes that one. It's torture to music. You vamp a little and bounce around to keep your mind off your pain, but it's mostly good old arm exercises (small, fast, tight circles with arms extended out to the sides...) for four minutes that feel like thirty.

Re: OT: Jazz Shoes

[executrix]

Nooo! We don't! Wilson always has more footwork than arms. What we do have and I wish we didn't is a clock in the room, I keep LOOKING at it.