FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT JOURNAL 3: Keep Running

About Working Out:

I favorite piece of exercise equipment is my ipod.   I love it.  Pain is still pain, but somehow the time goes faster when listening to a good book.  When I first started working out, my trainer asked me to do several things.  I did everything he asked -- changed diet, faithfully showed up to appointments, changed schedule, started eating breakfast -- except for two things.  First, I did not go to the doctor.  Second, I did not get an ipod.  He said that listening would help  me.  I thought he was nuts.  I told myself I would enjoy the quiet, since I am always craving time to just think.  However, when exercising, all I seem to think about is how much longer I still have on the clock.

A good book keeps you engrossed.  More than that, since I choose to only listen to certain books when I work out, it forces me to get back on the pavement so  I can find out what happens next.

I've been reading the Library Policeman on nights when I go running alone.  It's been too hot to run, and most nights a friend has been going with me.  But the Library Policeman have not driven me out of the house, either.  That is, it's not the kind of story that makes me think, "Wow, I've got to go running so I can listen to the next section of this story."  In fact, almost the opposite!

Keep Running

I went running tonight, even though it is approximately only six degrees cooler than hell here.  The California Desert almost glows with heat.  I fought off the urge to thumb through my ipod and find a new book.  I have not been drawn into the Library Policeman like I am so much of King's work.

The novel is not engaging because there are few surprises in the early set up of the story. Sam needs to do a speech.  Someone suggests library for research, so he goes.  He meets a strange librarian who tells him to be sure to bring the book back or the Library Policeman will come after  him.  Of course (OF COURSE!) Sam forgets to return the book.  This story drags on and on with  information the reader can see coming from a mile away.

I found myself so bored, I began rethinking the story.  Wouldn't it be more interesting if instead of losing the books, Sam deliberately chose not to return them?  Just to tick the librarian off.  But no, he looses the book and goes on a wild  hunt to track it down.  "This is not interesting," I found myself thinking.

Sam decides to return to the library and explain that he lost the books and pay the fines.  A fresh confrontation?  I was suddenly interested.  Only, when Sam got to the library -- it was totally different!  King went Twilight Zone on me!

Here's the crazy thing, I was on the home stretch of my run when Sam decided to go back to the library. But I wanted to know what would happen.  I look foolish walking in circles outside my own house listening to my ipod at midnight.  So I just went right by the house.  So a book that couldn't get me interested in listening to it, actually got me a bit hooked.

What's So Interesting?

This is a crossroads for me and The Library Policeman.  So far every domino has fallen just as I thought it would.  The plot  has not surprised me at all; until Sam walked into the Library and everything was different!  Now King is telling a story that is all new to me.  I can't humm along and go, "uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh."

Perhaps that's one reason I usually enjoy reading Stephen King, I don't typically know what he's going to do next.  I'm left turning pages because I don't know how the plot will shake out, and he doesn't either until it's written.

Surprised When. . . (spoilers, people)

I was genuinely surprised when

• The Nuke Went off in The Stand
• Nick died in The Stand
• The Mist didn't have an ending!
• The two women fought it out int he middle of the street  in Needful Things
• They found all that strange stuff in the kids head in The Dark Half
• Dolores Claiborne executed her brilliant revenge
• Bockade Billy threw me for a total loop!

And, I was genuinely surprised when the Dark Tower ended the way it did.  Knowing that King would do things I would never dream of kept me reading that series.

So, as Holme's would say, the game is afoot!  The Library Policeman is now a complete mystery as to what lies ahead.  I have no guesses.  It's all suspense for me from here on.

What surprises or curve balls has King thrown your way?

Four Past Midnight Journal 2: NOVELLAs

I'm wondering why King's Four Past Midnight gets sold on individual story at a time -- while Full Dark No Stars gets sold as one big book.  Does it matter?  Sure.  It's the difference in 1 audible credit verses 4.  Or, 1 month's payment verses FOUR.  Different Seasons is also broken up.

Know why I like Four Past Midnight? I do think the stories are pretty good.  I also think it is because I read them at a time when reading Stephen King was a little dangerous -- a little naughty.  I was a teen and it was pretty cool to read Stephen King.  I was pretty new to the world of Stephen King, having just come off The Stand and the first few Dark Tower novels, so I had a sense that anything could happen in a SK novel.  King novels did things that would never even come up in the books our High School teachers handed out.  I tried to endure Cat's Cradle, but really didn't know what Mr. Vonnegut was talking about.  King I did understand. 

So my excitement about this book my be as simple as emotional association; I read it when I was happy to be reading anything by Mr. King.  Some of the elements of the stories did disappoint me; but I still liked them.

I LOVE NOVELLAS!

I was first introduced to the wonderful world of Novella's with John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down.  It was a great story -- and it was short!  As a kid in school, I was a big fan of the entire idea of a short novel.  The only problem was, the teachers wanted us to read those short novels faster.  The short novel was far better than the chopped novel -- parts of novels all cut up in "reader" textbooks.  Who wants to read the Readers Digest version of Great Expectations?

Novella's are often written in a big burst of energy.  They are just short novels that feel like the author is exploding all over the page!  It seems like you can sometimes feel the writers raw energy as he works, pressing an idea forward as if he is about to get run over by a train.

Animal Farm has been inflicted on numerous school children -- and for good reason!  Orwell tells his story with that raw energy of an idea being hammered out.  The story is a parable of government and power; how those promising to help  the underdog quickly use power to get special privileges.  Animal Farm is more than a Social Studies lesson, it's brilliant writing.  Farm Animals plot the overthrow of a farmer; I thought it was a great story!

My favorite King novella is THE MIST.  Again, you can feel King's energy flowing as he writes.  He is driven by a story that has to get out, and quick.  In fact, he doesn't even have  time to end it! So it's not processed through deeply -- it's just gutted out.  But sometimes what we find when a writer just goes with a story is delightful.  I kind of like those  paperback editions of The Mist that appeared in bookstores to promote the movie.  Something about seeing it all by itself -- kinda naked -- was great.  It didn't need all those other stories crowding around, it was ready to stand on its own two feet!

My favorite novella's:

• A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (But no more movies, please)
• Nightfall, Isaac Asmov 
• The Time Machine, HG Wells
• The Moon Is Down, John Steinbeck
• Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
• Animal Farm, George Orwell
• The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury exists in some strange world of novel/short novel/book of short stories.  What is it?  All the stories make a novel.  But not a long novel.  The narrative flow is uneven, but beautiful.  What is this thing? -- it's just Bradbury being wonderful.

Really, story length should not matter.  Often I don't know what a book is!  Is Joyland a novel  or a novella?  I dunno.  I guess you could do a word count, but in the end, does it really matter?  Nope.

Four Past Midnight Journal #1

Midnight Journal, part 1

I love the three stories from Four Past Midnight that I've read.  The one I have not finished is The Library Policeman, and I started that the other night.  I loved the Langoliers! -- until I saw the miniseries.  What was tight, intense and one great story became absolutely terrible on screen.  It was more  than bad special effects, it was long and drawn out.

As a teen, when I read the first three stories, the title "Four Past Midnight" intrigued me.  What was four past midnight?  Was that four int he morning?  I read the stories, expecting some late night tale of terror.  At some point I realized, with grim disillusion that "Four Past Midnight" was nothing more than a title.  It might as well have been named "Blades of Grass."

For me, the Langoliers was harmed by the television adaption.  It was so bad, it makes me not want to return to the novel -- which I loved.  The opposite is true of Secret Window, Secret Garden.  The movie made the book better, improving on King's ideas and plot and making me more willing to return to the source material.  Though. . . this story also confused me.  I bought it on audio tape and was "sick" the next day.  I stayed home, ate crackers and listened all day to this story, wondering when they would discover a secret garden.

The Sun Dog left  me absolutely breathless.  I loved it.  I later read revers from people who did not like the novel, complaining it was overly edited.  I'm glad I only read all that later, because I was oblivious!  It thought it was creepy and belonged with the Twilight Zone.

In fact, so far all of these stories would have made great Twilight Zone episodes.  That's what the Langoliers should have been --and hour long TZ!  That season when they tried the hour format for Twilight Zone totally bombed!  They stories just didn't work.  And, Langoliers was just too long.  If only. . . Mr. Serling had written the script for an hour long episode of Twilight Zone based on King's story.

The Library Policeman

I started reading The Library Policeman the other night.  I went out running and decided it was time to jump into this short novel --as I enjoyed all the others from Four Past Midnight.  I'm not sure where King is going with this, so he's got my attention.

I've started this one several times, but quit.  I can never remember why I quit, until I start reading again.  This time I'm listening thanks to audible.  And, a good story makes running hurt less.  That's totally not true, but I tell myself that so I won't dread it so much.

It takes a while to get this story off the ground.  What seems like pretty straight forward stuff takes forever to just get moving.

I feels like I know what the early turns in this book are going to be.  Sam writes a speech.  The speech is bad.

He needs a book from the library.  He borrows a book.  He meets a strange Librarian.  He has a sense after seeing the Library Policeman display that he's been here before, as a child.  

And that's where I finally got home from my run.  So I'm pretty sure he'll fail to return the book, and some form of hell will be reigned upon him in retribution for his moral failure.  If it were another author, I'd quit because the story moves so slow.  But I do want to know WHO the Library Policeman is.  What will happen to Sam?  The strength of the other stories in this book make me keep coming back to this one.  Also Stephen King doesn't let down very often, so it's worth sticking with a novel  even when the magic isn't there at first.  I just can't let this be another Talisman!

It is especially cool that this is dedicated to the staff and patrons of the Pasadena Library.  I lived in Pasadena as a teenager and have spent a lot of time at that library.  Does anyone know why the dedication?