Stephen King: Lisey's Stoey

[beer good]

Since I happened to have a review saved, I thought I might get a new Stephen King thread started. (Aren't you happy, Stewart?)

Lisey's Story

Dear constant writer;

Hiya, Steve! So glad to see you didn't give up after the utterly dismal Cell; Lisey's Story really is an improvement. Then again, what wouldn't be, eh?

Kidding, old buddy, kidding! Hey, we've been friends since I was 11, and if you can't take a joke from a friend, then what? Seriously, there are things about Lisey's Story that are quite good. You're back to ordinary people with actual depth dealing with both life and supernatural horrors, you've stopped pretending that you can still do the lean mean horror thing and tried to branch out. And never mind that you've done the whole "trapped woman has to unlock repressed memories to get herself to a place where she can save herself" thing already (Gerald's Game? Rose Madder?) because adding the age-old "creativity is a form of madness" and "there is power in language" themes is a good idea; there's definitely stuff to be explored here to which the horror form (all horror is metaphor) should lend itself perfectly well, and hey, if Buffy could make an entire episode (OK, half of one) about walking through someone's subconscious memories, then surely the Master of Horror should be able to spin it into a 666 (heh) page novel, right?

And yeah, there is a good novel in here someplace. The bits with the Landon family, the bits with the crazed fans, and even many of the scenes between Lisey and Scott; as smarmy as they get, it occasionally makes for some emotional stuff that adds resonance to the story even if you've done a lot better. And although I hate to remind you that (spoiler Needful Things) [hide]you killed Andy Clutterbuck 15-odd years ago[/hide], it's nice to see some of the old Castle Rock people are still around.

Problem is, you overexert yourself, mate. You try a little too hard to write like a Proper Literary Writer (or rather, like the popular conception of one - ie verbose, using fancy words for the sake of it, and namechecking Dostoevsky) and frankly, it gets a bit like hearing AC/DC trying to play Kind of Blue. Now, I love AC/DC, but subtle they ain't, jazz they ain't, and Stevie-baby? You're no Miles Davis. That phrase repetition thing you always do (STEVE! THE LONG BOOK!) works fine over shorter stretches, but here it wears thin before we're 1/3 through, and frankly, if I never hear the word "smucking" again, it'll be 10,000 years too soon. Jazz is all about variations on a theme, not repetition of it. And while you've always been fond of what fanfic (and possibly other amateur fiction) writers call "Mary Sue" - ie the character who is exactly like the author only more charming, more good-looking, smarter, sexier and with a Deep Dark Secret - Scott really gets too much at times. We get it, the guy's charming, Lisey loved him, now move the hell on.

(And also, Stevie honey sweetie? Entire fucking chapters in Comic Sans? Not OK in 1996, not OK now, not OK ever again. Do. Not.)

Now, I sound harsh. Sorry about that. Tell ya what, Stevie; for the good times, for all the years you and me went honky tonkin', for the 200-250 pages of actual pretty good Stephen King story in here, and for the fact that it's a fairly quick read (after a while you learn to skip all the "smuckings", "bools" and "bad-gunkys", conveniently cutting about 100 pages out of the story), and for the excellent phrase

ninety-eight percent of what goes on in people's heads is none of their business

, I'm going to give you a 3/5 on my King scale. It's nowhere near the heights, but it's got miles and miles on Cell and Dreamcatcher and it made a very long train journey less boring. So 3/5; don't thank me or I might have to rethink. You're on probation, Stevie-Boy; don't disappoint me again or it's the shed for you.

 

[Stewart]

Stephen King: Lisey's Story

I thought I might get a new Stephen King thread started. (Aren't you happy, Stewart?)

Since I have a review of the same book, let's make this the Lisey's Story thread. We have a generic Stephen King thread in the Authors forum.

In Lisey’s Story King continues with one of his favourite subjects: writers. In a departure from previous novels like Misery, The Dark Half, and Bag Of Bones, the author is dead two years prior to the novel opening. Scott Landon, survived by his wife Lisey, won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award during his short life. It’s no mean feat for an author of horror novels. (Wake up, Stevie, you’re dreaming!)Now, as the story begins, Lisey is preparing to pack up Scott’s scribblings and move on with her life.

But, as she enters his study she is taken on trips down memory lane by the objects therein to such events as the couple’s first date and an assassination attempt, John Lennon style, on Scott. The novel, however, isn’t just a nostalgic journey; Lisey’s Story is, at its core, about madness, and there’s a fair peppering of characters a slate short of a roof: Scott’s father, Lisey’s sister, and a loony fanboy who just happens to be in the area. Nice. And it’s this lunatic, threatening Lisey to offer Scott’s papers to the local university, that forms much of the drama within the novel’s here and now.

As a read, the first 150 pages were a disorganised mess. It is apparent that King has attempted something different to his usual work, grappled with stylistic decisions, and not managed to pull it off. What we have here is a collection of memories, one after the other, that serve to portray Scott Landon as the man Lisey loved. They are lifeless recollections, told in the present tense for immediacy, but they fail to connect with any empathy the reader may have for their predicament. And so it continues, stories told without lustre, which is disappointing given that, while told in the third person, the scenes often delve into Lisey’s mind. Aren’t her memories exciting? The reason, to take the assassination attempt as an example, is that King is trying to cram every detail into the scene (and one which happens all too fast) rather than giving only the pertinent details.

It picks up, however, with the introduction of the aforementioned fanboy as the drama begins to mount in the present, bringing Lisey out of her dull reveries. And, just as soon as the book becomes interesting, it commits literary seppuku and delves back into the past. The more we learn of Scott, the more Lisey remembers of him. So it comes to pass that, like King himself, Scott had a personal demon in the booze. Scott, also, to give the book a supernatural twist, has a place called Boo’Ya Moon in which he retreats. It’s a place that he finds both a relief and terrifying in equal measure.

The biggest problem with Lisey’s Story is that it is wordy. Not just verbose to the point where an editor’s red pen may have saved it, but wordy in the sense that it’s full of meaningless words. In an attempt to catalogue the interior language of the Landons’ marriage, King puts some of the stupidest twee phrases ever put in print into the mouths of his own characters. Thus Lisey, around fifty years old, goes around calling her elder sister ‘Big Sissa Manda Bunny’ and excessively using the word ‘smucking’. Scott, in the past, talks of nonsense such as bools, which seem to be some confused mess of clues and/or gifts. Attempts to explain it fall by the wayside and this reader was left just as confused as Lisey first was when Scott came up to her, his wrists bleeding on their first date and offered her his blood-bool. The biggest problem with this twee verbage isn’t that it’s utter nonsense, it’s that King actually declares it as ‘the interior language of their marriage.’ I guess he’s never read the show don’t tell part of his own On Writing.

I honestly think that the biggest problem that I had with Lisey’s Story is that King’s prose is just one big ramblesnooze. That, and the fact that it’s full of annoying phrases. Not signature phrases attributed to characters, as there’s nothing wrong with that, but the continual poor attempt at introducing them: ‘like so-and-so used to say’, ‘as they say’, ‘so-and-so used to call them’ ‘what so-and-so referred to as’, and so on ad infinitum. The other annoying aspect to the prose was the way that, rather than just tell the reader what the character was thinking, he would interrupt a paragraph with a bracketed sentence before continuing the narrative.

As for the characters, they just lacked spirit. Lisey, despite being the eponymous title of the novel, doesn’t have much of a story to tell. She wanders about, remembers a few things, and not much else until the denouement. Scott, as a character, came across much better but that’s because he had a more interesting past, a broken home, the death of an older sibling, and a father certifiably mad. The other major player, the lunatic, works, although his appearances are few, his spectre still lingers throughout. Lesser used characters come and go, some more believable than others, but King really needed everyone to be plausible for his work to be more credible.

While I didn’t like Lisey’s Story, I can find no fault with the idea, the notion of a spouse cleaning up the unfinished works of an author while grubby hands wait to get their eyes on them. And to catalogue a love that endures, even after death. It’s just a pity that King thought of it. But I think that the novel would have been much better if King could tighten his prose, ditch silly get-out devices like Boo-Ya Moon, cut the glut of phrases and just write, and finish the story when it has met its natural conclusion rather than just saunter about for sixty pages cleaning up the loose ends. Next time Lisey has a story to tell, I won’t be listening.

 

[saliotthomas]

well i though this book sucks,and it's a pile of crap

someone as to keep one the good work

 

[hockeycop]

I din't like Lisey's Story either. I had to go back to it 3 times before I finished it. I thought Cell was good. Cell was full of holes, but it was a fun read.