A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

Before picking up this book, I’ve stopped reading Stephen King. Not because I hated his stories or that as many of his critics would say, that his style is very pedestrian. No, I’ve stopped reading King because I couldn’t keep up with his output. In his prime he came out with probably 2 novels a month it seemed. I didn’t have the money nor the time to invest in playing catch up with the profilic horror writer.

And then came Everything’s Eventual. It came out some time ago (January 2003) and we managed to snag a hardbound copy on a discount. I still couldn’t pick up another King novel until I’m very much sure he’s retired (as he always threatened to) for fear of wanting the next dose of horror. Everything’s Eventual would be just perfect to tide me over until they send off King to some Writer’s Hall of Fame and take away his pen (not likely to happen soon - the man writes full time as though he works at an accounting firm).

I’ve always believed that King’s short stories show his talents in the best light. I do agree with critics that he can be overly verbose, meandering through anecdotes and taking detours through backstories before coming to his point (Very much like this post). His past collections like Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Skeleton Crew , Night Shift, Four Past Midnight and Different Seasons which featured the excellent Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, all feature King in his lean best.

Everything’s Eventual feature 14 stories in which King shares some tidbits about the story. As always he approached topics of being CSI-ed alive (”Autopsy Room Four”) and being attacked by a maniac while you’re having lunch (”Lunch at the Gotham Caf?”) in his own brand of black humor. He can do pastiche (Hawthorne-”The Man in the Black Suit” , Lovecraft - “1408″ ) but still manage to weave his own voice into the stories. His stories can be sweet (”Luckey Quarter”), epic (”The Little Sisters of Eluria”), sentimental (”L.T.’s Theory of Pets”, “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away”), strange (”Everything’s Eventual”, “Riding the Bullet”) even corny (”In the Deathroom”) but there’s always, always a touch of horror (”That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French”).

While for me these may not be his best work (I’m biased towards Different Seasons for that title), it reminded me why it’s a joy reading a King story-sometimes the things that scare us aren’t those that unknown to us but are the most familiar and most precious to us.

So my next project is to try to catch up as much as my time would allow. I hear he finally finished The Dark Tower series. I began reading the first two books until King said he didn’t know when it’ll end. I have to start over. And that’s seven novels to go through right there.

Meanwhile, King stills sits in his study somewhere in Maine, whipping up more stories for us to read.