'Salem's Lot Shame

The best I can do for now. I wish I had more to write, more to post, more of a blog to blog, but this picture highlights the reason that I don't have time or make time for more reading or writing or more of any of the things that I actually feel make me me. This is who I'm becoming, the very thing that I've never wanted to be: a person, a man, with my job (career?) as my main descriptor. This was not my intention. It will do for now. It will have to. But this was not the plan.

'Salem's Lot Procrastination

I'm realizing that, not only with this blog and my inability to keep up with the reading schedule which I've given myself, I have major problems with procrastination. Not even so much procrastination as just generally wasting time. Even when I have the tv playing or music going, I'm not even really paying attention to any of the external stimuli. I'm just lost in my thoughts.

Now, if I can only force myself to pay closer attention to the things in life that really matter, I may actually be able to accomplish something. And to write something that really makes sense and matters.

Nothing Major, Nothing Morose

Clearly, I'm in danger of falling behind in this, my latest endeavor, so I'm going to continue being forthright and consistent in my daily posts, regardless of progress toward completion of the readings and my ability to touch on the subject of the book I'm currently reading.

I don't want this space to become stagnant, but the truth is: I am always so sleepy and ready for some shut-eye when I get to my laptop to create a post. I don't feel such a zest for composition. Now, if I could make time for myself during the day, when the moods really move me to postulate and pontificate...

Back to 'Salem's Lot (though I haven't made much progress, not nearly as swift as I was with Carrie - I wish that weren't so).

The Marsten House

Time for good little boys to be in bed, I'm sure, but I have quite a bit of 'Salem's Lot that I'd like to make my way through before I close my eyes on the end of the year One.

I didn't seem to make it very far into the tome last night, and if I don't get busy and get some words under my belt before sleep overtakes me, I'll have yet another night where I haven't gotten nearly as far as I'd hoped.

Tomorrow is a big day, the day to celebrate the anniversary of 02.05.2012, a day when a lot of things really changed for me. For the better.

Barely Started

I finished Carrie in only a few days, but I need to get moving on 'Salem's Lot if I'm going to have anything decent to write. I know one thing - I need to get busy signing in to write a lot earlier than I have been if I'm going to manage anything interesting and not laced with the coming relaxation of sleep.

You Are Now Entering the Town of Jerusalem's Lot

'Salem's Lot is one of the works by Stephen King that I most recently read, but I was wrapped up in the warm, buttery fog of post-surgical painkillers when completing the book. Therefore, I'm quite anxious to see what all I missed and what impact the novel will have on me this go-round. Of the titles I'm pushing to read as 2013 carries itself forward, this is the first of those listed as having some degree of tie-in to the Dark Tower series which prompted this endeavor in the first place.

My memory of this book is not of it having a strongly horrific impact, although I do recall certain bits as leaving me feeling a sense of disquiet and unease, but of the creative genius that King displayed in this work so early in his publishing career. Stephen King has a terrific understanding of people, real people, people who do the things that everyone can relate to, people who have assets and liabilities. Carrie had some degree of this, but the moments it offered were wrapped up in a sort of pseudo-documentary style, as if one were reading a story of true crime a la Truman Capote (albeit with the telekinetic twist). I remember 'Salem's Lot as something of a Gothic soap opera, a little Peyton Place gone bad (or gone supernatural, at least). If memory serves me well, the characters are people you run into at the market and in line at the credit union. They are everyday people finding themselves drawn into a sort of living nightmare. I distinctly remember enjoying it and not hurrying to complete it, enjoying it for these moments it offered.

I'm looking forward to staying with these folks in the Lot for the next week or so.

The White Commission - Carrie Completed

I don't remember my age when I first read Carrie, but I do remember that I had already seen the movie. I was a child of the eighties, a VCR and cable kid who was raised on regular, weekend trips to rent stacks of horror movies from Video One and spoon fed the constant re-airings of hits, classics, and mediocre fare on Cinemax and HBO. Carrie was a staple in the oeuvre of titles that you weren't considered cool until you'd seen, and it played prominently in a little gem of a horror amalgamation called Terror in the Aisles. For me, it was a terror film essential. I don't remember ever finding the movie especially scary, but I do remember finding it interesting. Even at a very early age (probably too young to have seen it by the moral standards of today), the prom scene in its entirety stood out as a lovely marriage of sight and sound that I recall rewinding to re-watch multiple times (particularly form the moment that Sue first becomes aware of the rope to the moment that the bucket empties over Carrie's Cinderella-like appearance).

I'm pretty sure that the book originally took me quite a bit of time to complete the first time, and I may have even skipped around to "the good parts," those sections related to the aspects with which I was most familiar, particularly the tormented scene in the girls' shower and, of course, the meat of the story: Prom Night. This time, I sped through it, completing bulk (from about one hundred pages in through the epilogue) of the novel yesterday while tending to my mom during her brief, day-long hospitalization. The only difficult part of reading the story, now so familiar with the tale from its cinematic form, was viewing the characters as Stephen King originally wrote them. It's nearly impossible to picture the pimply, unattractive girl blowing green snot bubbles during her fit of despair before Tommy begins to see her as possibly pretty as anything other than Sissy Spacek's interpretation. It was also difficult to have an audible, mental note of Margaret White's lines as having any voice other than that of Piper Laurie. That being admitted, I do have to write that I have a totally different perception of Tommy Ross, Susan Snell, Ms. Desjardin ("Ms. Collins" in the film), Chris Hargensen, and Billy Nolan than the way they were interpreted later. In the novel, Tommy is the All-American, "perfect" guy, endowed with both brains and brawn, and one can really feel Tommy's attraction toward Carrie develop during their date. Chris is a bit more sympathetic, though much more spoiled. Ms. Desjardin is a bit less sympathetic (and less of a major character). Billy Nolan is much closer to a vindictive villain than the bumbling marionette to Chris's puppet strings. And Sue is as much of a secondary protagonist as Carrie White herself.

King's decision to use epistolary exposition, in the form of book excerpts, court depositions, snippets from the AP wire, and portions of a fabled document from "The White Commission" are key in making his first work more topical now than ever. In modern days, we've become much more aware of the possibly horrendous effects of bullying and we're inundated with the positive ideas from celebrities being seen as normal people promising that "it gets better." Stephen King had a great understanding of what it might feel like to be on several sides of this spectrum: the victim (Carrie), the bullies(Chris, Helen, Billy, etc.), and those who try to undo an injustice and do something to give back (Sue and Tommy). In the end, the experts analyzing the case of what happened regarding Carrie White wonder how something like this could ever be prevented (the novel operates with the assumption that telekinesis is a verifiable scientific phenomenon, a recessive trait similar to red hair).

Since completing the book, I've watched the Special Features on the DVD, read what I can online, and seen a few videos on YouTube on the history of the book's publication. Everything seems to suggest that Stephen King believes, like many other writers, that he has grown by leaps and bounds as an artist since the publication of this, his first work. I agree that this is not the greatest novel ever published, and definitely not the best thing I remember having read by the author; however, I think find it to be a great read.

Were I just exposed to King for the first time at the age I am now, I would definitely want to keep reading to see what next this man has in store.

Next stop, 'Salem's Lot.