OF A GOLDEN AGE

on the momentum of the stand, i figured i would dive straight into another thousand-page stephen king epic. it was very good but not even close to the quality of the stand or the shining, let alone the bachman books, which i hold as the epitome of stephen king’s greatness in my eyes.

this book is overlong. that’s my primary criticism. in a number of places, i found myself dreading entire chapters that were just not very interesting — i realize that details are helpful in storytelling but at a certain point they become superfluous. stephen king gets a little bit dickensian sometimes in his verbosity. sadly, he does not have “i was paid by the word” as an excuse.

anyway, okay: the story is awesome, incredibly scary, and ultra creative. seven friends come together in the summer of their eleventh year to figure out and attempt to fight an incredible evil that lives under their city. they have a showdown and believe the evil to be dead, but swear to come back if the evil resurfaces. it does, and they do return, and the process begins again.

this book is heck of gory to the point where it was sometimes distracting. i made a lot of abrupt noises and pinched-up faces while reading, without meaning to, because the words on the page were that suspenseful or frightening. this is one of the scarier books i’ve ever read.

maybe its greatest quality, though, is the powerful grasp of the childhood psyche that stephen king expresses. it’s like a much longer and more in-depth telling of the boys in the body (stand by me). the themes of childhood beliefs and the separation of child and adult worlds is important to this book and also makes it utterly relatable. at one point, a young character’s insanity is demonstrated by his willingness to openly challenge grown-ups, and as a reader, i never doubted for a second what kind of blatant move this is. i was a child, i understand.

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