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Showing posts with label Stephen King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen King. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Curses Can Be Broken

 A friend of mine recommended Fairy Tale by Stephen King.  I tried it.  I found it odd that every time I was going to quit reading it, the story became interesting. As it came out to be, I read the entire book.  It is ridiculous, but it is a fairy tale and they are ridiculous.

The narrator is the main character.  Charlie Reade is likeable, strong, honest, and everything a hero should be.  Since Charlie's mother died, his father became a drunk.  Charlie prayed to God to have his father to stop drinking.  Being in a similar situation, I know praying to get someone else to change doesn't work.  Free will!  But Charlie made a bargain with God that if his father stopped drinking, Charlie would dedicate his life to doing good deeds.  Again, I know from experience, that making bargains with God results in outcomes that aren't what you want.  However, they are in a way.  I guess God is just smarter than us.

Anyway, back to the story of Charlie Reade. Charlie's good deed was helping a grouchy old man and his dog.  Through this man, Mr. Bowditch, Charlie finds gold (literally).  A hole in Mr. Bowditch's shed leads to another place and time.  Remember this is a fairy tale.

Charlie's adventures in this new land is the story.  They're hair raising, but this is not a scary Stephen King book.  I did not have nightmares.  I found how the two worlds, above and below the ground come together, interesting.  It was a different type of book for me, and Stephen King.




Monday, October 2, 2017

Stephen King is Too Good


Once upon a time, I read a Stephen King novel.  Salem's Lot was about vampires.  I know vampires are ridiculous.  But still.  I remember being alone at night and deeply engrossed in the story.  When I looked up, it was dark.  I had to pull down the shades.  And I didn't want to look out the windows.  So I walked to each window, backwards, felt around behind me and pulled down the shades.  Then I went to my jewelry box and searched through my necklaces for a cross.  It couldn't be just a cross; it I specifically had to have a corpus on the cross.  Jesus protect me!

That night I couldn't sleep and swore I would never read another Stephen King book.

October's Book Club book is 11/22/63 by Stephen King.  Everyone assured me that there were no vampires in it.  That is true.  But the book kept me awake last night, again.  Now I'm walking around like a zombie vampire.

It's not scary, just too real.  It's about the assassination of President Kennedy.  I was in high school and remember it well.  But I forgot how polarized the country was, at that time.  It is uncanny similar to today's political environment.  The early 60's was politically divided by the north and south and democrats and republicans.  Just like President Trump couldn't do anything right, neither could Kennedy, according to their foes.  "Haters."  Then and now.

Just like statues are being torn down, so weren't some then.  In Texas, their state flag flew above the US flag, which was upside down signaling distress.  The similarities between then and now kept me awake. This time I was frightened for our country, not because of the vampires and zombies.

Stephen King is too good a writer.

Not Ship-Shape

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