A few years ago I was working as a grounds keeper for an
assisted living home. It wasn’t a hard job, and one of the perks was my ability
to plug in my headphones and get to work. Well, once I had listened through the
songs on my iPod more times than I could count, my Dad hooked me up with some
audio books. I listened to probably 10-15 books over the course of that summer.
This was so much better than listening to the same songs over and over again.
However, when that really good part of a book comes up, as it inevitably does,
I would find myself zoning out and just standing there listening intently to
the person reading the story. I can only imagine what I looked like to the rest
of the world, but as every good book should do, I was in another world. A world
where the detectives were close to finding the bad guy, the misfit was close to
saving the world, or where little blue men that curse, drink, and steel were
real and had a very think accent. In the words of Stephen King; “ books are
uniquely portable magic”.
Now,
this babbling does have something to do with this blog, I promise. But before I
fill you in on exactly how, let me first tell you a bit about my family. We are
huge nerds, plain and simple. We love Firefly, and good music. We watch
Jeopardy together as a family, and shout the answers out at Alex like we were
on the show. (Which is why we will never go to a taping of Jeopardy, we
wouldn’t be able to sit quietly and would be asked to leave I’m sure.) We are
also huge readers. Almost everyone in my family has at least one book going at
a time, and if we all read the same book, we enjoy sitting together as a family
and talking about that book. We talk about our favorite parts, what we thought
about this or that, and so on. This is one of the many things I love about our
family. Whether it is a good book, movie, or show, we can sit around and have a
real conversation about it.
My
love for reading was not always there. I wasn’t always they best reader, or the
fastest, and when you’re young reading can seem like homework. My parents
always read to us as children, and encouraged us to read as we got older.
Eventually, my love of books sparked, and now I don’t know how I ever lived
without it. My book wish list is bigger than my imaginary pinterest closet. I’m
the girl that watches Beauty and the Beast and thinks, if a man every loved me,
he would give me a library. (Side note, I am also somewhat of a Disney freak as
well, that may show itself in this blog).
So long story short-ish… I love to read. Now that I have a Kindle, oh
my! A device that holds countless books that can fit in my purse, what! And if
I don’t have it, I now have the app on my phone, so my book is always with me,
brilliant. It also tends to get me in trouble. With one push of a button, I can
buy a new book, that’s dangerous. Then it tells me other books I might like and
I can pre-order ones I am waiting for. It’s true; my Kindle is my enabler and
my dealer all in one.
Anyway,
back to what all that has to do with this blog. Well, two of the audio books I
listened to that summer were Stephen King books. The first was a collection of
short stories, and the other was A Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. The short
stories were so interesting, and really made me think. One in particular really
struck me. It was about a man visiting his terminally ill mother. Now I don’t
remember exactly how the story went, but it had something to do with him
somehow potentially relieving his mother of her suffering. I thought about that
story for a long time. The problem was, I wasn’t sure that I thought what the
man did was wrong, and that bothered me. I knew it was, but there was a part of
me that wondered.
So
then my Dad put The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon on my iPod. I was in the
mindset of everyone else that has never read a Stephen King. I was prepared to
be scared and honestly, not like it. I am a total chicken when it comes to
scary things. I hate Halloween, especially the scary movie trailers, and I
can’t watch Criminal Minds after 2:00 in the afternoon or I don’t sleep. See
what I mean? Total baby! So I wasn’t sure how I would do with this. He is the
king of horror after all. But the more I listened to this story, the more I
realized it wasn’t anything like I imagined a Stephen King story to be at all.
Nothing really jumped out and scared me like I was prepared for. I felt for
this poor girl, and remember I couldn’t stop listening. I went to a store with
my Dad, and he giggled at me because I asked if I could wait in the car while
he grabbed what we needed. Being another of my enablers when it comes to my
reading addiction, he understood why I didn’t want to go in, and braved the
store alone. I couldn’t stop; I had to know what happened.
After
that story, I read Salem’s Lot. Again, not at all what I had expected.
Then I read It, and I was hooked. I believe that is ultimately where my
love for Stephen King’s work actually began.
Stephen
King is a brilliant writer, in my opinion of course. He has a way of bringing
back emotions while you are reading, and that is a talent. Let me try to
explain what I mean by this. In It, the little brother of Bill goes down
in the basement to get the wax to put on the boat Bill has made for him. The
little boy is scared to go down there, it is dark and wet and cold. He reaches
around the door, feeling for the light switch. He is sure that something is
going to reach out of the darkness and grab his hand before he can turn the
light on. While I am reading this, I am remembering times I have done this very
thing, scared that something is going to reach out and grab my hand before I
can turn the light on. I am not sure if that explains it or not, but that is
the only way I can think to describe it. He taps into emotions we have all felt
and is able to make us feel them again, and not just with fear.
He
is also honest in his writing. Not everything turns out great in the end, and
not everyone is perfect apart from the bad guy. He shows that humans are
flawed, and that everything isn’t always black or white. The hero in the story
isn’t the night in shining armor that has never wavered and never made a
mistake. His heroes are human. They aren’t always good people, and they
sometimes they almost don’t help out of fear or pure selfishness.
And
of course, not all of his stories are scary.
Now,
when you tell people you are a Stephen King fan, unless they are also a fan,
you tend to get that what is wrong with them look. They have the same mindset I
did before I read my first King book, that he only writes evil scary things.
But now I know that is not the truth.
I
am not trying to sound Annie Wilkes-y at all here, but I do have a love for his
work. It is a goal of mine to read everything that Stephen King has every
written, very aware that that is a very big undertaking. I thought, why not take
a page from Julie and Julia and write a blog about it. So that is what I
am going to do.
I
would like to read his books in chronological order by date of publish, but as
my book budget is nowhere near as big as I would like it to be, we may have to
skip around. This blog will be my opinions of the books or stories, and will
most likely differ from yours. That’s ok! Leave me a comment (but be nice
please), I would love to hear your point of view. I will also try really hard
to not spoil anything for anyone. I will try really hard to not give anything
away, and if I do, I will try to warn you first.
So
there you go! A long introduction to what I hope is an interesting blog. I also
hope that this blog sheds a little light on the misconception of Stephen King
and his works. From one Constant Reader to another….I hope you enjoy!
