Trying Stephen King's writing

(Read from March 7-17, 2013)

My first foray into Mr. King’s work. And I enjoyed it—I see what people mean when they rave about his writing ability. It’s formidable. After reading the first third of The Stand, I took city transit to an event. All of a sudden, it seemed like everyone around me was coughing, sniffling or otherwise trying to shift mucous. And just as suddenly, I began to pray for my stop to arrive soon to allow me to escape from the train car before I was infected with whatever they had. Paranoid? Yup! This is one book where you don’t want to have ANY symptoms of ANYTHING when you begin reading it.

His characters are memorable—especially the bad guys. I loved how The Kid got a requiem as the Wolfman late in the book as the good guys walk to Vegas. Also, how Trashcan Man actually puts an end to the Walking Dude’s empire by doing the very thing he’d been recruited for. Mostly, I was impressed by the thought that most of the bad guys could just have easily been good guys, if a few details of their lives had turned out differently. Evil and Good are both relative and there but for the grace of the Goddess…..

The book was a bit of a brick—I was intimidated by its sheer size and teeny print. I did kind of wish that I could have found the earlier edited edition, but it was readable and enjoyable and I will definitely look forward to reading more of King’s work.