Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The Shawshank Redemption, one of the novellas in Different Seasons, is one of the rare cases in which I think the film adaptation of a book is vastly superior to the source material. It's remarkable how the two works use almost all of the same raw materials, but the effects produced could hardly be more different: the book is a disposable, vaguely trashy potboiler, while the film is justly acclaimed as one of the most powerful and moving dramas ever to come out of Hollywood.
King's prose was always wasted on me. The Stand, for all its admittedly gripping story and plotting, was unnecessarily vulgar in parts. Not even the story, just the metaphors. That probably sounds prissy of me but I remember thinking damn dude, did you have to use that image there? Exceptions for me are his early story collections, and maybe Salem's Lot. He's a great yarn-spinner though, and certainly prolific.
I feel the same way. One of the many ways the film adaptation of Shawshank improved on its source material was omitting the novella's repeated descriptions of inmates smuggling things in or out of prison by inserting them into their rectums. Some things are better left to the imagination. Early on in IT (which I never finished and don't intend to), the narrator recites an anecdote about a man whose car was washed away in a flood, and when they recovered his corpse his penis had been bitten off by fish. Even as a child I was just like, why did you have to specify that? Just being gross for the sake of being gross.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link