My two or three faithful Cracked Spines readers may have noticed that I have not been posting much this week. Sadly, that is because my maternal grandmother died of brain cancer just a few days ago. I was sitting here trying to concentrate on work and get a book article up for you all. However, I have only one thing on my mind–grandma. So, I think I will write about my grandmother's books. Perhaps it will lead you all to think about your grandmothers and the books they may have had.
The first thing I should mention is that my grandmother and I did not have the same taste in books, for the most part. We are both huge readers, but my tastes run more to sci-fi, horror and non-fiction. She was a romance kind of lady, so our literary paths split a long time ago. However, we did share one passion and that is classical literature. Most of my favorite books come from her or her husband, my grandfather by marriage and the only grandfather I ever knew.
When I was young, I was doing my own thing book-wise. I paid little attention to the sagging bookshelves that existed in nearly every room of my grandparents' six-bedroom house. I would go there, get my obligatory stash of candy, goof off with grandpa and then go home. When I got older, I started paying more attention to those books. I realized that there were hundreds of hidden gems in that house. It was then that my grandparents, particularly my grandmother, started giving me books instead of candy. Somehow, I managed to finagle whole sets of classic literature. The works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens and Shakespeare now grace my shelves. I would go on to brag about my first editions, but I want you to keep reading.
These books represent the bond I had with my grandmother. In many ways, we were two very different people. What we had in common could not fill one book, but we had plenty to talk about. (My grandmother always had plenty to talk about.)
Two years ago, as of yesterday, my grandmother's and my whole family's lives changed forever. My grandfather died of cancer. Not long after, my grandmother was moved to an assisted living facility because their bookshelf-ridden house was too big for her. I suspect it was too sad for her as well. Her children and grandchildren were left to rummage through the house and take what was sentimental to us. For me, it was the books. I salvaged every one that I could. I wound up with Jack London, Louisa May Alcott and Joseph Conrad, to name a scant few. Sadly, hundreds, possibly even thousands of books were left behind. None of us could fit so many. To be honest, there were more romance novels and the westerns my grandpa loved than I could handle.
Today, I wish I had taken at least one romance novel. Looking at my bookshelf, I can see my grandparents on every shelf, but I do not see one of those books that were so often sitting open on her dining room table, cracked spine pointing up at the ceiling. Today, I would give anything to be able to take one of those silly damn books and read it so we would have something to talk about, anything to talk about, really.
Shelly Barclay
Most Memorable Stephen King Characters
Before I even start this, I have to mention that I know I missed some great characters. How could I not? Stephen King has written many badass books that contained more memorable characters than I could shake a stick at. So go ahead and rail against my ineptitude, but remember they're all great, so . . .
Roland Deschain
Roland Deschain is at the top of my list of memorable Stephen King characters because he is the Stephen King character. He is a gunslinger who dominates Stephen King's seven-novel Dark Tower series. The man is cooler than Clint Eastwood and slicker than Jet Li. He is also the baddest protagonist ever. His homeland is ruined. Every one he loves is dead. He spends his days hunting a damn powerful wizard through different planes of existence where some of the gnarliest creatures and people you can imagine dwell (yeah, lobstrosities). He has knowledge that not only our plane of existence but all others are in danger against an even greater evil than the wizard he hunts, yet he travels on, picking up a paraplegic, a boy, a drug addict and a doggish thing to help him along the way.
Detta Walker
Detta Walker is one of three personalities that live inside the woman who accompanies Roland. She is also the paraplegic mentioned above. What makes Detta Walker so memorable (more memorable than the two other women who share her body) is that she is straight up gangsta. She comes from the New York of the 1960's and is vehemently racist against whites. Therefore, when Roland takes her out of her time and place, she's a little hesitant to take orders from a honky. She gives Roland more than a heap of trouble in her effort to assert herself, an effort that makes her character unforgettable. She's more volatile than dynamite. I have to admit, I admire the hell out of her, even if she clings a bit to color.
Randall Flagg/Walter o'Dim/Legion/Andre Linoge/Leland Gaunt/It
Randall Flagg, and all of his other incarnations, is the oil to Roland Deschain's water. He is obviously Stephen King's favorite antagonist, appearing in the Dark Tower series, The Stand and The Eyes of the Dragon (seriously under-rated and one of my favorites). At least, these are the novels where he is directly mentioned. However, there are several instances in which he calls himself Legion and is identified with Legion. Therefore, mentions of Legion in It (small mention), Storm of the Century (screenplay), Needful Things and possibly more may actually be the same bad guy. I admit, there is no direct mention of Legion in Needful Things, but the narrative points in that direction.
Some of the above connections to Randall Flagg are ones that I have made independently, but there were hints and all Stephen King books connect. However, for the sake of this post, I will stick to the definitive manifestations of Flagg and describe him from there. He is memorable because he is hell bent on destruction. It doesn't matter if it is a person, a town, a dimension or all of reality. He just wants to f*ck with stuff and he does it with such finesse. He loves being evil. He has not a glimmer of remorse, love or any other soft feeling. He just wanders around looking for a reality where there is something weak to take advantage of. Man is he good at being bad.
Carrie White
Oh, Carrie White. Who can forget that angsty, abused, ridiculed and victimized girl from Stephen King's Carrie? Even if you don't read, you have surely seen the movie, if only for the shower scene at the beginning. Anyway, what makes Carrie memorable is not so much who she is (there are plenty of poor abused souls in Stephen King's works); it is what she does. After years of suffering, Carrie realizes that she can do things with her mind. She does a few things that bring our attention to this, but then she starts to become accepted. She might be on the road to being happy. Haha, no such luck. As it turns out, the popular kids were tricking her. After getting soaked with pig's blood at prom, she takes revenge by burning the school gym down with everyone in it. She then goes on a killing/burning rampage through town before stopping her own heart. Unforgettable.
Dolores Claiborne
We'll keep this one short and sweet. Dolores Claiborne was the tough cookie protagonist of the novel Dolores Claiborne. She put up with another character coming up on our list (you'll know what is memorable about that in a minute) and she killed her husband after finding out that he raped their daughter. She was a simple, hard-working, gruff, but loving mother. Who can forget that kind of average awesomeness?
Vera Donavan
Vera is the woman who convinces Dolores to kill her husband, very subtly, after strongly hinting that she had done the same. In the end, it seems that Vera and Dolores love each other, but boy is Vera a thorn in Dolores' side. It starts with petty nitpicking, but the older and more senile Vera gets, the more she antagonizes Dolores. Stephen King gives you the idea that Vera is not really senile, but enjoys tormenting others. To be honest, the thing that makes her most memorable is her petty abuse of Dolores. In her old age, Vera needs Dolores to clean her sheets and change her bedpans. She does everything in her power to make it a living hell for Dolores, controlling her bowel movements in an evil way. She also leaves Dolores a fortune when she dies. Talk about eccentric.
Annie Wilkes
Oh, Annie Wilkes, that nutty murderess. Annie Wilkes may be one of the most memorable Stephen King characters because of the film based on Misery. It doesn't matter, though. Whether on film or paper, she is unforgettable. In Misery, Annie Wilkes happens upon her favorite writer after he gets into a car accident. She brings him home to nurse him back to health. While he's healing, she reads the manuscript for his new book. In it, he kills her favorite character. When she sees this, all cockadoodie breaks loose.
Annie Wilkes keeps the author captive in her house while subjecting him to all kinds of inventive tortures, not the least of which is writing a different Misery book, which she basically outlines for him. (A writer's nightmare.) She also hobbles him when she catches him sneaking around the house. If you don't know what that is, Google it. It's horrible. Did I mention she's a serial killer?
Blaine the Mono
I'm going to say that Blaine the Mono is the most memorable Stephen King character for me. Blaine the Mono, or Blaine the Pain, is a train that has gone insane. (Don't ask how a train could lose its mind. Read the book.) Stephen King puts his main characters on this train in Dark Tower III and has them take a ride with a murderous monorail in Dark Tower IV. The monorail forces Roland and his companions to play a game of riddles. It gets rather nutty as Blaine is the very old, very advanced computer that runs the train, not really the train itself. Okay, it's hard to explain. Read the series, already.
I am almost certain that there will need to be a part two to this article. Feel free to mention any characters you think I missed in the comments section. That isn't a guarantee that they will appear in the next installation, as not all Stephen King fans are alike. However, you might knock lose a memory in this rusty brain of mine and I would appreciate the effort. Now, if you don't recognize any of the abovementioned characters, start with The Gunslinger by Stephen King and then don't stop reading until you're a Kingoholic.
Shelly Barclay
Roland Deschain
Roland Deschain is at the top of my list of memorable Stephen King characters because he is the Stephen King character. He is a gunslinger who dominates Stephen King's seven-novel Dark Tower series. The man is cooler than Clint Eastwood and slicker than Jet Li. He is also the baddest protagonist ever. His homeland is ruined. Every one he loves is dead. He spends his days hunting a damn powerful wizard through different planes of existence where some of the gnarliest creatures and people you can imagine dwell (yeah, lobstrosities). He has knowledge that not only our plane of existence but all others are in danger against an even greater evil than the wizard he hunts, yet he travels on, picking up a paraplegic, a boy, a drug addict and a doggish thing to help him along the way.
Detta Walker
Detta Walker is one of three personalities that live inside the woman who accompanies Roland. She is also the paraplegic mentioned above. What makes Detta Walker so memorable (more memorable than the two other women who share her body) is that she is straight up gangsta. She comes from the New York of the 1960's and is vehemently racist against whites. Therefore, when Roland takes her out of her time and place, she's a little hesitant to take orders from a honky. She gives Roland more than a heap of trouble in her effort to assert herself, an effort that makes her character unforgettable. She's more volatile than dynamite. I have to admit, I admire the hell out of her, even if she clings a bit to color.
Randall Flagg/Walter o'Dim/Legion/Andre Linoge/Leland Gaunt/It
Randall Flagg, and all of his other incarnations, is the oil to Roland Deschain's water. He is obviously Stephen King's favorite antagonist, appearing in the Dark Tower series, The Stand and The Eyes of the Dragon (seriously under-rated and one of my favorites). At least, these are the novels where he is directly mentioned. However, there are several instances in which he calls himself Legion and is identified with Legion. Therefore, mentions of Legion in It (small mention), Storm of the Century (screenplay), Needful Things and possibly more may actually be the same bad guy. I admit, there is no direct mention of Legion in Needful Things, but the narrative points in that direction.
Some of the above connections to Randall Flagg are ones that I have made independently, but there were hints and all Stephen King books connect. However, for the sake of this post, I will stick to the definitive manifestations of Flagg and describe him from there. He is memorable because he is hell bent on destruction. It doesn't matter if it is a person, a town, a dimension or all of reality. He just wants to f*ck with stuff and he does it with such finesse. He loves being evil. He has not a glimmer of remorse, love or any other soft feeling. He just wanders around looking for a reality where there is something weak to take advantage of. Man is he good at being bad.
Carrie White
Oh, Carrie White. Who can forget that angsty, abused, ridiculed and victimized girl from Stephen King's Carrie? Even if you don't read, you have surely seen the movie, if only for the shower scene at the beginning. Anyway, what makes Carrie memorable is not so much who she is (there are plenty of poor abused souls in Stephen King's works); it is what she does. After years of suffering, Carrie realizes that she can do things with her mind. She does a few things that bring our attention to this, but then she starts to become accepted. She might be on the road to being happy. Haha, no such luck. As it turns out, the popular kids were tricking her. After getting soaked with pig's blood at prom, she takes revenge by burning the school gym down with everyone in it. She then goes on a killing/burning rampage through town before stopping her own heart. Unforgettable.
Dolores Claiborne
We'll keep this one short and sweet. Dolores Claiborne was the tough cookie protagonist of the novel Dolores Claiborne. She put up with another character coming up on our list (you'll know what is memorable about that in a minute) and she killed her husband after finding out that he raped their daughter. She was a simple, hard-working, gruff, but loving mother. Who can forget that kind of average awesomeness?
Vera Donavan
Vera is the woman who convinces Dolores to kill her husband, very subtly, after strongly hinting that she had done the same. In the end, it seems that Vera and Dolores love each other, but boy is Vera a thorn in Dolores' side. It starts with petty nitpicking, but the older and more senile Vera gets, the more she antagonizes Dolores. Stephen King gives you the idea that Vera is not really senile, but enjoys tormenting others. To be honest, the thing that makes her most memorable is her petty abuse of Dolores. In her old age, Vera needs Dolores to clean her sheets and change her bedpans. She does everything in her power to make it a living hell for Dolores, controlling her bowel movements in an evil way. She also leaves Dolores a fortune when she dies. Talk about eccentric.
Annie Wilkes
Oh, Annie Wilkes, that nutty murderess. Annie Wilkes may be one of the most memorable Stephen King characters because of the film based on Misery. It doesn't matter, though. Whether on film or paper, she is unforgettable. In Misery, Annie Wilkes happens upon her favorite writer after he gets into a car accident. She brings him home to nurse him back to health. While he's healing, she reads the manuscript for his new book. In it, he kills her favorite character. When she sees this, all cockadoodie breaks loose.
Annie Wilkes keeps the author captive in her house while subjecting him to all kinds of inventive tortures, not the least of which is writing a different Misery book, which she basically outlines for him. (A writer's nightmare.) She also hobbles him when she catches him sneaking around the house. If you don't know what that is, Google it. It's horrible. Did I mention she's a serial killer?
Blaine the Mono
I'm going to say that Blaine the Mono is the most memorable Stephen King character for me. Blaine the Mono, or Blaine the Pain, is a train that has gone insane. (Don't ask how a train could lose its mind. Read the book.) Stephen King puts his main characters on this train in Dark Tower III and has them take a ride with a murderous monorail in Dark Tower IV. The monorail forces Roland and his companions to play a game of riddles. It gets rather nutty as Blaine is the very old, very advanced computer that runs the train, not really the train itself. Okay, it's hard to explain. Read the series, already.
I am almost certain that there will need to be a part two to this article. Feel free to mention any characters you think I missed in the comments section. That isn't a guarantee that they will appear in the next installation, as not all Stephen King fans are alike. However, you might knock lose a memory in this rusty brain of mine and I would appreciate the effort. Now, if you don't recognize any of the abovementioned characters, start with The Gunslinger by Stephen King and then don't stop reading until you're a Kingoholic.
Shelly Barclay
Book Review: We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
 |
| Click image to see price on Amazon |
Spoilers We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver is a disturbing fiction novel that is written through the medium of a series of letters from a wife to her husband. The letters detail their married life together, but mostly discuss their son, Kevin. We Need to Talk About Kevin explores the world of school shootings and the teenagers who commit them through the heartbreaking guilt, sorrow and love of a mother who has lost everything due to the actions of a son she is not sure she ever loved.
After reading We Need to Talk about Kevin, I am of the opinion that Lionel Shriver is a genius. This novel is well-crafted, insightful, disgusting, horrifying, heartbreaking, heartwarming and everything in-between. Lionel drags the reader into loving and hating every character, save one, who you can only love. She makes you feel sorry for a sociopath while hating him. She presents a series of moral and social conundrums that perfectly reflect the reality of violence.
I cannot bring myself to write a long review of this novel, though I have a great deal to say. My reason for this is that I do not want to give away a single aspect of We Need to Talk about Kevin. I urge everyone who reads this to pick up this novel. Of course, you should all also be warned that We Need to Talk about Kevin is not pleasant. On the contrary, it is so intelligently written that the subject matter can be nothing short of distressing in the adept hands of Lionel Shriver.
Update: This novel has since been made into an immensely enjoyable film starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller. If you don't enjoy reading (which would be odd considering you are here), go right ahead and jump into the film. If you love a good book, I'd go with the book first, of course.
Shelly Barclay
Book Review: Blindness by Jose Saramago
 |
| Click image to see price on Amazon |
Blindness by Structurally, Blindness by Jose Saramago is a mess. Those who find themselves picking apart grammar and structure while reading will find it difficult to sift through the pages of Blindness. Quotes have no place in Blindness, leaving the reader to sort out who is speaking and when. Commas are plentiful, as are run-on sentences. There is also the issue of paragraphs. Some pages are literally walls of text with little to separate dialogue from thoughts and occurrences. Nonetheless, much like Hubert Selby Jr.'s novels, Blindness transcends that which we would call proper writing. Readers who judge the book by its lack of order will miss a novel that can only be described as disturbing, insightful and thought provoking. *Note: For English readers, like myself, Blindness was translated for us. Nonetheless, the structure is surely Saramago's.
The characters in Blindness remain nameless throughout the novel. They are known only by their actions or by their introductions to us in the novel. For example, the first man to go blind is known as the first blind man throughout the novel. Another character is known by the dark sunglasses she was wearing the day she went blind. It seems as though Jose Saramago knew that human characteristics would play a much larger role in his novel than names, so he did away with them. This technique of his helps us to visualize the people more than if he had used names. It seems like a strange method, but it works. It does take some getting used to, though.
Jose Saramago is not the first person to write a novel that displays the best and worst of human nature by taking away law, order, dignity and security. He is not the first person to do a fantastic job of it, either. That is not to say that Blindness is one book among many just like it. On the contrary, it is a book that stands out even among books of a similar vein and caliber. His use of blindness and the helplessness it heaps upon people who are striving to cling to the last vestiges of humanity in a ravaged city is nothing short of heart wrenching. In addition, his never-ending stream of insights into human love, resilience, cruelty, strength and madness is unequalled in any other book in this reader's experience. Novels like The Stand by Stephen King leave a similar impression. However, like The Stand, there is just something more/different to Blindness than there is to books like it. I suppose you will just have to read it to see what I mean.
Shelly Barclay
Book Review: The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
 |
| Click image to see price on Amazon |
The Fall by The Fall is one of those novels that go back and forth in time in order to tell the full story of main characters. The story also jumps around a lot in order to create suspense and to keep up with the array of protagonists and antagonists The Fall has to offer. One thing that can be said about The Fall is that Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan have come up with some interesting characters. Some of them have intriguing back-stories and some of them are just very strange, in a decidedly good way.
One thing that tends to be a little distracting about The Fall is the uncommon names that nearly all of the characters have. Even worse, is the fact that each of these characters with an uncommon name also has a shortened version of their name. They may also be called by their last name, rather than their first name and then later called by their first name or their nickname. It takes awhile to become acclimated to the names and really figure out who the hell del Toro and Hogan are talking about.
There is a good deal of action and a somewhat new twist on vampires in The Fall, making it a lot less mundane than your average modern vampire novel. I will give it a readable, but not particularly memorable rating. One more thing I should mention is that it does not satisfy as a stand-alone novel. I will let you know later if it satisfies as a series.
Shelly Barclay
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)