The Birds and The Bees Float Down Here, Too.

For once, I was not perusing the community library, scanning for something interesting, something that would pop out and scream at me. This time, I had subscribed to a service: Audible (This is not a paid advertisement by Audible and I was not compensated in anyway.) Audible is a monthly subscription service that, for the price of like 15$ a month, allows you to buy 1 free audiobook and unlimited reduced-price audiobooks per month. My first audiobook was free, but I decided that I really wanted to get my money's worth, so I looked for the longest book I could find. Stephen King's novel, IT clocked in at just under 45 hours, so I figured it would be PERFECT! Little did I know, this would be one of the craziest rides ever.

Let me start by saying that this book can be fairly hard to follow. It's long, some of it is fairly useless, but it is all thrilling, exciting, and incredibly well-written. This story follows the life of six kids that attempt to defeat the very embodiment of fear itself.

Honestly, I'm not going to try to explain this book to y'all. It's so long and involved that I'd have to take about 45 hours to explain it, and in the end I'd just play the damn audiobook for you. In short, this story is about six kids who fight the embodiment of fear when they were young, forget about it, return to their hometown as adults, and then fight (and ultimately destroy) the same embodiment of fear. It's a horror book, but in so many ways it wasn't about terror, it was about courage and human resilience. It was about eternal love and hope and fear. Most of all, it was about faith. Seriously, this is a damn fine book.

This will be a shorter post because there is just SO MUCH to focus on, and I have SO LITTLE time, so I'm only really going to focus on one big aspect of the book: sex. Through the novel, each character struggles with sexual desire. The schoolyard bullies would regularly strip down with each other and play, childhood crushes developed, and (most interesting of all,) Beverly's father was terrified of the idea of Beverly losing her virginity and becoming "impure". However, when Beverly does have sex, King portrays it in a very interesting light. It is not the same kind of fling that is found in modern society, it is an everlasting and eternal love. It is used to bind the six kids together for all eternity, making Beverly's father's fear so strange.

In many ways, Beverly's father was not afraid of Beverly having sex, so much as he was terrified of losing Beverly to someone else. He had this unrealistic attachment, he viewed her as his object, not his child, so he abused her and lived in fear that someday, Beverly would fall in love and leave him. He was afraid that Beverly would engage in sex because sex is not just a quick fling, it is not just a short little blip in someone's life, it is an act that binds people together for eternity.

This act also casts the bullies' actions in a strange light. While they never actually had sex, they had a strange phallic obsession while hanging around each other, leading the reader to believe (much like Freud would argue) that these boys had very difficult home lives. These kids were tormented in a way they should not have been, and this is later revealed to the reader as King begins to describe the home life of Henry Bowers. It also resembles their own strange way of bonding. These boys engage in sexual play (reminiscent of that found in Brave New World) and it is through this that they being to bond, not in the usual way children bond through imaginary play. By placing this in his novel, King effectively created a Twilight Zone-esque aura to the friendship of these boys. Something felt amiss, something felt odd, but you couldn't quite place your finger on what exactly was so off about this relationship (besides the fact that these boys were horrible people).

Okay, that's my sermon for today. I think I ought to list off pros and cons now, before I begin to launch into a whole other ordeal.

Pros:
Jeezum Crow this book was good. The characters were amazing, the plot was enthralling, and it had its literary side without sacrificing for entertainment (though I wouldn't mind to see King use a touch more literary influence. I know that he is capable of it!).

Cons:
My real issues with this book are highly technically. I loved his writing style and everything about it, I just had a difficult time managing all these different characters, their backgrounds, their futures, distinguishing between past and present, AND reading all 20 billion pages of this book without forgetting a single detail. If you were to ask me what happened in the first chapter, I would honestly not be able to tell you because there was just so much information crammed into such a little book. Also, at one point, Beverly's husband is supposed to come down to Derry to get her and beat her up, but he never really shows. Maybe I missed something, but that felt like a HUGE plot hole to me.

My Rating:



3 Delicious slices of pizza! It almost got four, but I just couldn't get past the length and confusion! Alright, I'll see y'all next Wednesday at Noon! Be sure to follow me on Twitter, subscribe, and comment below!

The Long (But Incredible) Walk

Once again, I found myself at the Community library (quite disappointed with my last choice, $10,000,000 Marriage Proposal) when I happened past the Stephen King section, seeing a book mis-shelved. A book by Richard Bachman had been shelved in King's section. Confused, I picked up the book, only to find that Stephen King had a secret alias that I had never heard of! You could not believe my elation! It was as if I had uncovered a secret gem, despite the fact that this alias was actually a well known fact. Then I noticed something else. The title of this book was called The Long Walk. I picked it up, mostly because I have a habit of reading while taking long walks, or pacing around my house. Ever since I bought a Fitbit (or rather, ever since I allowed my Fitbit to take over my life) I have become a slave to getting more steps, so I began walking while reading to increase my step count (I know, I know, it's super weird). For these highly superficial reasons, I decided to check out this book.

Let me say, I never once regretted it.

Before I begin, I want to tell you something. One of my favorite parts of this book did not actually take place in the real book. You see, Stephen King wrote an introduction to this book and, while I rarely actually read introductions, it was eye-opening. He spoke about how much he loved having his alias. He imagined a whole life for Richard Bachman, living on a farm with a loving wife. But then, when the media revealed that Bachman was King, he died.  King wrote of a longing for his old alias, just as one would mourn a lost friend. It was a heartbreaking introduction that was also incredibly sweet, but it also got me thinking about the differences between King's writing and Bachman's writing. The truth is, their styles aren't very different, but King is more restrained by his fame, and Bachman has the freedom that comes with a smaller audience and fewer critiques. I love King, but his books are more mainstream horror, and Bachman is more literary. His plots may not be as flashy and quick as It, Carrie, or The Shining, but he makes up for this immensely by writing something that will certainly be hailed as literature, something that will withstand the ages because it is so incredibly deep and fulfilling. God dammit, this book will change the way you see the world! It's AMAZING!

Unlike last time, I'm going to do my best here to prevent spoilers because, DAMN THIS BOOK IS GOOD! It would be immoral of me to spoil any word written. So, let me give you a skeleton of the plot:

Every year, 100 boys apply to be in a walking competition. The premise of this competition is simply: walk for as long as you can, and try to out walk the other 99 boys. Each boy gets 3 warnings, and warnings can be given for stopping or walking slower than 4 miles per hour. After a boy is given his third warning, he is shot and killed. The only way to win is to survive the longest.

This book takes place in a dystopian society, but King (Or rather, Bachman) doesn't outright tell the reader any real facts. Slowly, and mostly by reading in between the lines, the reader comes to understand that the US government (which now has 51 states) is ruled by a man named Major. The military seems to be controlled and any attempt to say anything bad about the Long Walk or the government in general leads to you getting "squadded," which is basically taken hostage by the government and (presumably) killed.  I actually really love the way King/Bachman builds this world in such a subtle way, because it reads less like the Hunger Games (don't get me wrong, I love dystopian fiction) and more like actual literature.

The main character in this book is a boy named Ray Garraty.  Garraty is 16 years old, and his father was squadded. His mom is old and seems feeble, but is only really mentioned twice. Garraty has a girlfriend, Jen. Garraty has no real stated motivation to be on this walk, but somehow this doesn't detract from the novel. On the other hand, it adds so much more to the story. By withholding (or just straight up not having) his motivation for undertaking such a serious and deadly, the real reason for the walk is revealed. This book is highly existential, and Garraty begins to realize that he is not in this walk for any reason at all. He has no reason to continue, except to escape death, which creates an existentialist outlook that is highly reminiscent of Albert Camus' The Stranger. It has the same strange detached horror that follows death, the same oddly disconnected character who is surrounded by death, and the same lack of ambition or drive characteristic of existentialism. This work is truly masterful because, unlike Camus' The Stranger, it is a more more interesting read. Garraty begins as a somewhat normal person, someone who is afraid of death and who is horrified by death, but this walk morphs him into an aimless person who is merely escaping death and walking only because there are no other options. Walking despite the prize of the fulfillment of any wish, as opposed to walking towards it.

I also love how Bachman (and also King) have characters that, at times, almost seem very mature, as if they were adults, but then they use phrases like "low-key" (yeah, I think King invented the phrase Low-key, so that's pretty lit) or "whore," and suddenly you realize (with horror) that these are just KIDS! Ugh, it's so well done! And don't even get me started on Stebbins! He is this enigma of a character, highly reminiscent of Tiresias in Oedipus Rex. He seems to know exactly what is happening and why. He knows the truth, he IS the truth, but slowly even this was worn away. By the end of the walk, he is just another pathetic, meaningless kid. It's heartbreaking, but it couldn't have happened any other way.

Finally, the conclusion. Now, I won't spoil what actually happens (oh, boo-hoo. Quit crying and read the book XD), but I will tell you that, at first, I was not satisfied. It bothered me. It felt... undone, like a rope that is well-made, but frayed at the edges. But then, over time, I began to realize that there is no other way this book could've ended, even if Bachman had wanted it to change or be brighter. No, the ending had to be like this. It was perfect. Existentialistic, but perfect.

Okay, okay, I've talked long enough! Why don't I tell you the rating?

I rated this book:



One delicious, whole, fresh-out-of-the-oven, fire-roasted personal pizza. Yup, that's right, that whole damn pizza is just for you. This book is as good as this super delicious pizza probably was. That's how you know it's super good. Seriously, this is a MUST READ! If you love books, you oughta read this one because, holy cow! it's amazing!!!!!

Alright, that's all for this week. I'll see you next Wednesday when I review some TBD book!