Stephen King seems like an unlikely candidate to write such creepy stories; he just seems too normal to write about masochism and killers and ghosts. The Deathroom is the story of a journalist named Fletcher, who supports a communist revolutionist group with information and gets caught. He appears before a panel of officials, who promise him freedom as they unveil the cruel machine they intend to kill him with. This sets the tone of the story: he soon begins to believe that he’s trapped. The first scene, when he is brought into the interrogation room is terrifying; it’s almost as if you, as the reader, are the one being brought before these officials.
Unlike many standard interrogation room stories where the nervous, sweaty man gets tortured with some science-fiction-like device before spilling the beans, only to have his brains splattered out anyway, King detaches himself from the convention of the genre, opting for a more optimistic ending. He achieves that by painting the officials as almost laughable captors. He makes the seemed ringleader seem like a total stereotype. The exception is the one woman Fletcher takes to calling “the Bride of Frankenstein” for her austere visage and Marge Simpson hair. The torture scene was not as graphic as it could have been, but Fletcher’s escape was a call to a bloodier era as he turns the electrical torture device against them. “One of Heinz’s cheeks either tore open or melted” It was borderline vomit inducing at times, but that’s what readers want with this kind of writing.
Despite the story being set in an unnamed Latin-American country, and having a vaguely political undertone, King doesn’t try to make the American-style democracy the hero. The journalist supports the communists with his whole being, partly because the government of the country framed the revolutionaries for killing American nuns; one of them was Fletcher’s sister. King captures the “nefarious, corrupt government” archetype without making it feel contrived.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
As Birds Bring Forth the Sun
Alistair McLeod’s writing often focuses on family. On a family’s history, the way they live and die. His novel, No Great Mischief explores that ideal of family ties, and of unconditional love. As Birds Bring Forth the Sun also explores a family, and the irony and fickleness kindness can bring. Like No Great Mischief it’s beautifully written, the descriptions of their cú mór glas, Gaelic for “big grey dog”. The kind nature of the father is so touching when he rescues the dog from death, she having been crushed by a wagon real, “ignoring the blood and urine which fell upon his shirt,” He even physically helps the family pet breed.
The story has a clear thru-line, beginning, middle and end, passing down the ripples of the cú mór glas’s story through three generations (The narrator is the great-great-great grandson of the man). The great irony, and climax in the story is that the kindness that is shown to the dog ends with her pups tearing the man to pieces as his teenage sons look on in horror, their opinion of the animal forever changed.
For the rest of their history, family members that see grey dogs see it as an omen foretelling their own death, a cú mór glas a’bhàis, the big grey dog of death. McLeod’s symbolism avoids cliché. He uses grey to represent death, which seems strange since that task has usually been left to the colour black. His sentences read like water, they flow, “The mystery of where she went became entangled with the mystery of whence she came.” The best-written part of the story is the paragraph describing the six dogs killing the father, in defense of their mother It was absolutely heartbreaking to read, but wrapped itself up with the continuation of life.
The story has a clear thru-line, beginning, middle and end, passing down the ripples of the cú mór glas’s story through three generations (The narrator is the great-great-great grandson of the man). The great irony, and climax in the story is that the kindness that is shown to the dog ends with her pups tearing the man to pieces as his teenage sons look on in horror, their opinion of the animal forever changed.
For the rest of their history, family members that see grey dogs see it as an omen foretelling their own death, a cú mór glas a’bhàis, the big grey dog of death. McLeod’s symbolism avoids cliché. He uses grey to represent death, which seems strange since that task has usually been left to the colour black. His sentences read like water, they flow, “The mystery of where she went became entangled with the mystery of whence she came.” The best-written part of the story is the paragraph describing the six dogs killing the father, in defense of their mother It was absolutely heartbreaking to read, but wrapped itself up with the continuation of life.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Wedding: Response
Dennis Bock’s collection of short stories, Olympia is about a seemingly doomed family. It doles out brief moments of tenderness and of happiness, that Bock writes with beautiful prose, but the majority of the stories focus on the protagonist’s sister, Ruby’s losing battle with Lymphoma. Even the ones that don’t touch on her illness seem to end well. This story, The Wedding focuses on the protagonist’s paternal grandparent’s desire to renew their 35-year marriage and the second wedding that follows on a boat called Sweet Memories. Well, if the name of the boat is any indication of the cruel irony to follow, the wedding ends in tragedy as the grandmother, Lottie falls over the side of the boat, and drowns.
Bock writes extremely vivid descriptions. A good example is his description of the class photo Lottie has with her from years ago in Germany. As he describes the four girls in the picture who aren’t smiling, and their various reasons for their austere expressions. Another example of brilliant description is the brown spots the protagonist notices on his sister Ruby’s white shoes while they’re in the family car, on the way to the wedding. A third is the detail about his grandmother’s jewelry sparkling in the sun; that was a perfect image.
During that car scene there’s this whole air of awkwardness, another thing Dennis Bock does well. He captures the sometimes-dysfunctional aspects of the family’s interactions. Even after the grandmother’s death, as they arrive home, they don’t speak, and go into separate states of mourning. He has a tendency to shy away from dialogue, and that alienates the reader a bit, but that’s probably what’s intended.
Bock writes extremely vivid descriptions. A good example is his description of the class photo Lottie has with her from years ago in Germany. As he describes the four girls in the picture who aren’t smiling, and their various reasons for their austere expressions. Another example of brilliant description is the brown spots the protagonist notices on his sister Ruby’s white shoes while they’re in the family car, on the way to the wedding. A third is the detail about his grandmother’s jewelry sparkling in the sun; that was a perfect image.
During that car scene there’s this whole air of awkwardness, another thing Dennis Bock does well. He captures the sometimes-dysfunctional aspects of the family’s interactions. Even after the grandmother’s death, as they arrive home, they don’t speak, and go into separate states of mourning. He has a tendency to shy away from dialogue, and that alienates the reader a bit, but that’s probably what’s intended.
Someone Got to Eddie: Response
What is my strange obsession with assassins? Perhaps it stemmed from the brilliant, wannabe Kung-Fu flick, Kill Bill. But blood, guts and Tarantino aside, Ian Rankin’s Someone Got to Eddie is gripping, almost difficult to read for its brutality at times. The way Rankin writes the murder of Eddie, the police informant on the Witness Protection Program, is cringe-inducing. “They didn’t want a quick painless death. It was in the contract.” He also uses everyday analogies to describe the gory scene presented to the reader. The killer says the blood that stained the carpet looked “like someone had dropped a mug of tea (no milk) on it.”
There isn’t a lot of dialogue. The speech that’s there is mainly Eddie begging for his life, and the killer mumbling things to himself, or the dying man. In a story that opens with one of the two main characters dying in his living room however, one cannot expect more than that. The minimalist speech Rankin writes does succeed in making the situation a little more real. The murderer/narrator is well written as a character. He often digresses on about one thing or another, chocking up the prattle to his nervousness. The author also paints a vivid picture of Eddie’s final moments, describing a withered old man with tired eyes, a head full of bad thoughts and a lot of enemies. They’re both palpable.
Stylistically I had no quarrels with the piece, but one plot discrepancy made me question its believability. Whereas at the beginning the killer says, “They paid me not to make mistakes. Not that I ever made mistakes…” Not only does he make a mistake –breaking down the door, to make the murder look like a robbery, too early in the crime- and acknowledge it, he also admits to being nervous, visiting the bathroom a total of three times throughout the story. Nevertheless, the overall cringe factor and visceral realness of the story more than makes up for a plot inconsistency.
There isn’t a lot of dialogue. The speech that’s there is mainly Eddie begging for his life, and the killer mumbling things to himself, or the dying man. In a story that opens with one of the two main characters dying in his living room however, one cannot expect more than that. The minimalist speech Rankin writes does succeed in making the situation a little more real. The murderer/narrator is well written as a character. He often digresses on about one thing or another, chocking up the prattle to his nervousness. The author also paints a vivid picture of Eddie’s final moments, describing a withered old man with tired eyes, a head full of bad thoughts and a lot of enemies. They’re both palpable.
Stylistically I had no quarrels with the piece, but one plot discrepancy made me question its believability. Whereas at the beginning the killer says, “They paid me not to make mistakes. Not that I ever made mistakes…” Not only does he make a mistake –breaking down the door, to make the murder look like a robbery, too early in the crime- and acknowledge it, he also admits to being nervous, visiting the bathroom a total of three times throughout the story. Nevertheless, the overall cringe factor and visceral realness of the story more than makes up for a plot inconsistency.
Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie: Response
The opening sentence, "It was as black in the closet as old blood." drew me in right away. The analogy the author uses seems to imply that ghastly things are sure to follow. The protagonist, an eleven-year-old girl named Flavia is imprisoned in the closet by her two older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne but the way Bradley has written it made me assume that she had been kidnapped, and kept confined. After escaping she just waltzes down into the kitchen and her father’s there, reading the paper. The sudden turn from the very austere to the childish confused me when I read it the first time.
Bradley has given his characters such Shakespearian names that it makes it seem feasible that this eleven-year-old girl has a chemical lab, and an obsession with making poison, which she does for her eldest sister, melting it into her lipstick. The three sisters have an estranged, revenge-driven relationship that I, as a product of the reality television generation, find fascinating to watch. The way Ophelia and Flavia talk to each other is just horrible and menacing. It makes me glad Flavia isn’t my sister. The dialogue just so traditionally Upper-Crust English insults like snotrag and grubby little mouth.
The prose itself has a few faults. Bradley has a tendency to use chunky language at times,
“Each had become a recluse in his own antipode, and each forbidden the other ever to set foot across the black line which they caused to be painted dead centre from the vestibule in the front, across the foyer and straight through to the butler’s WC behind the back stairs.”
just seems like too many words to be read clearly. I found myself reading sections of the text over and over in an attempt to absorb the meaning when it just wasn’t clear enough. Despite the abundance of big words, the chapter ends with me craving more; Alan Bradley earned the contract he won over with this chapter.
Bradley has given his characters such Shakespearian names that it makes it seem feasible that this eleven-year-old girl has a chemical lab, and an obsession with making poison, which she does for her eldest sister, melting it into her lipstick. The three sisters have an estranged, revenge-driven relationship that I, as a product of the reality television generation, find fascinating to watch. The way Ophelia and Flavia talk to each other is just horrible and menacing. It makes me glad Flavia isn’t my sister. The dialogue just so traditionally Upper-Crust English insults like snotrag and grubby little mouth.
The prose itself has a few faults. Bradley has a tendency to use chunky language at times,
“Each had become a recluse in his own antipode, and each forbidden the other ever to set foot across the black line which they caused to be painted dead centre from the vestibule in the front, across the foyer and straight through to the butler’s WC behind the back stairs.”
just seems like too many words to be read clearly. I found myself reading sections of the text over and over in an attempt to absorb the meaning when it just wasn’t clear enough. Despite the abundance of big words, the chapter ends with me craving more; Alan Bradley earned the contract he won over with this chapter.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)