Misery by Stephen King

You know no one is actually reading these? I’m writing for the sake of writing. I don’t know if that’s pure art or pure pointlessness. Never mind.

For someone who claims to not like horror I find I actually do quite like Stephen King. Maybe The Shining kicked my imagination into overdrive but Misery and Carrie deliver thrills without too many chills. And by chills I mean terrifying nightmares.

Let’s start with what I don’t like about this book. I don’t like the use of ‘Misery’ as a name. ‘Misery’ does not work as a name. Especially for a romance heroine. All wrong.

What I do quite like is Paul Sheldon’s slow realization that he actually likes his ‘Misery’ novels. That he isn’t somehow above his most popular work. I do not have a problem with popular authors and I don’t much care for people who do. Books are a form of entertainment and if they do interesting things to your brain that’s all well and good but that should really be in addition to a damn good story. Also popular doesn’t mean bad. Look at Terry Pratchett or maybe Stephen King. There’s some interesting stuff going on.

And why is it always the kind of books read by housewives that get put down? I mean is Twilight really so much worse than the Hunger Games? No, not really but boys are more likely to like the Hunger Games so somehow that makes them better books. Violence doesn’t make things any more worthy.

Rant over. Or at least ready for a sideways topic jump.

Misery is very good. It’s a compelling read. I don’t know if it’s an entirely accurate depiction of mental illness but I’ve read worse. Annie Wilkes has human qualities. I even feel sorry for her some of the time. She’s only mostly an out and out monster. Although she does kill babies which tends to be used as a symbol for people who are just out and out evil. Like The Jew of Malta or something. I’m wondering if you could write an interesting essay on The Jew of Malta and The Mask of Dimitrios. There’s something there I think, if you haven’t read both you will have no idea what I mean and this will be annoying. So enjoy that.

The thing about Misery is it’s one of those books that sticks in your head. There’s images that don’t seem that powerful at the time but you find yourself coming back to them. They lodge somewhere as an expression of something and you can never quite forget them. Not a book you can unread.

 

The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

I’m having a crime sort of moment. Generally I like my crime novels Holmsian and relatively bloodless. Country House murders of the cyanide and tea variety are the kind of thing I like. I enjoy the puzzle of a good mystery but serial killers give me nightmares.

The Mask of Dimitrios is almost an attack on those kind of country house murders. It derides them as essentially unreal. Belonging to the same fictional, civilised England as Bertie Wooster.

The protagonist is the writer of exactly those types of novels. Don’t writers love writing about writers? Two out of three books I read this week dealt in novelists and it was purely coincidence. Whoever said writing was masturbatory narcissism had a point.

Anyway he is drawn into the world of genuine criminal types. It’s all pretty post war and bleak. People act out of rational self interest and people end up dead. The most positive emotion depicted is detached curiosity. People are not nice, they screw each other over as a matter of convenience.

Still it’s not at all bad. It could have done with a less obvious twist in my opinion but maybe it wasn’t really meant to come as a surprise.

The Talented Mr Ripley

 

Damn that film has young Jude Law in it? I should watch that.

On the book, you should read this book.

It’s like Dexter but, you know, much better than that. Even if you kind of know the plot (which we all kind of do) it’s a page turner and it’s clever. The characters feel decently believable. The relationship between Ripley and Dickie has a nice intensity. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book but all good things as it turns out. I know I mentioned Dexter but I probably wouldn’t put Tom Ripley down as a psychopath… though he has a few psychopathic traits but a real out and out psychopath probably wouldn’t make anything like such a good protagonist. The whole thing just made me want to read more Patricia Highsmith so Strangers on a Train immediately became my next stop.

Read this book.