As a huge King fan, his art of the short story has never ceased to amaze, and this is no exception. Tackling tough life experiences, King adds his macabre twist on several stories in this book. I am not going to break down all of the stories, but here are some truly memorable ones:
"N"- This story was just down-right bone chilling. The accuracy of emotion playing makes you start counting things yourself. The story are notes from a psychiatrist about a patient, N. N suffers from OCD, and like most OCD people, his counting obsession is his way of making sure the world doesn't end. Only problem is, in his case, he is right. N's job is to count things in order to keep a tear between our world and a parallel one from ripping open and spilling monsters into ours. N eventually realizes to keep the world safe he needs to kill himself. Of course, his descriptions make the psychiatrist want to see the tear, and make sure it was just a figment of N's imagination. But he learns the truth, and the cycle starts again.
This story literally took me full circle in the emotion department, making me almost wish myself that the field mentioned in it was real. The descriptions were full and colorful, the characters were entirely too relate-able, and made this reader become completely immersed.
"Things They Left Behind"- One of the most taboo topics in todays society is 9/11. And King knows that. But this story did not look so much at the tradgedy of the grand event, but more how one particular person copes with survivors guilt. A worker from the twin towers had called in sick to play hooky the day the towers fell. One day, stuff shows up in his aapartment. Things that are not his, and noone can account for being left there. Things that were his co workers. The things drive him to the brink of madness, unable to throw them away or destroy them. Ghosts of his coworkers whisper to him in the night. He has to find a way to get rid of the items or end up losing his sanity.
This story was very tear inducing. A sore reminder of what happened that day for sure, but also a reminder that those who did survive are probably still suffering from knowing they should have died. This story gets two big thumbs up in my book.
"The Cat From Hell"- Not the first time King has written about his distaste for felines, this story literally made me gag, in a good way. The descriptions were so vivid that film could not have shown it in any greater detail. While unbelievable, the story itself was humorous, and disgusting all at the same time. I would give a synopsis, but the title says it all!
I can think of several more stories that stand out, such as "Willa", "Special on the New York Times", well really, all of them. This is a FANTASTIC Compendium from one of the greats. A must read!
I really enjoyed these same stories. The Cat From Hell felt really familiar to me, so I went to the end and read the notes he had written on the stories. Apparently, it was the story that put forth the one story in the Twilight Zone movie. I found reading the notes on the stories just as interesting as reading the stories themselves.
ReplyDeleteHave you read any Joe Hill?