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Misery--June Discussion--Section 1-2
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Jason
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Jun 06, 2009 08:39AM
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Don't mind if I do... :)Ok, just started it yesterday (it's a re-read for me)and have only read a couple of pages so don't have a lot to say yet, except that I love the beginning, and it's a great description of the way your mind wanders into metaphor when you're in the grip of rhythmic pain. I've had gallstones and a couple of kids (maybe I'm phrasing that unfortunately?) and I remember clinging onto crazy imagery as the pain comes and goes.
That, and isn't having Annie breathe her horrible breath into him just a great way to meet her? The food smells are kind of monstrous and domestic at the same time.
Yeah, it does make Annie's presence a bit off.
That scene totally set up the rest of the book, I was afraid of her from the start!
She just has so much power over him, and she's so unpredictable. Those early scenes set that up so well, with her withholding pain meds etc. It's agonising watching him trying to second-guess and placate her, only to have her react in completely unexpected ways - sometimes she seems so naive, sometimes it's as if she can see through everything he's doing to try and keep on her good side.
Annie Wilkes might just be my favorite King villian. She's so evil and crazy but at the same time, she's totally plausible.
Just working my way through a Stephen King bibliography - is Annie Wilkes one of King's first non-supernatural villains in a novel, after Cujo? She's a bit of a departure for him, at that point, maybe. I think Misery is also one of the first stories where he starts playing with the idea of writers as characters, and fiction as a potentially lethal occupation.
Section 2 is also where the chunks of 'Misery Returns' start to appear. Personally, as a sometime romance reader, I love these. Someone noted in the GR reviews of Misery that it had no or little humour, and I think King's parody of the good old bodice-ripper is packed with evident glee on his part. The terrible dialect, the wimpy, sensitive men, the godawful melodrama of it all... he's having a great time!
Part of me thinks Misery's Return is King's way of showing he can write something other than horror, kinda like Paul Sheldon wrote (Help! memory failing me...name of non-Misery book, please) to prove he could write beyond Misery.
