Just After Sunset by Stephen King

In 2008 I read a lot of short story collections – both anthologies and author collections. What draws me to author collections in particular is the way that you can tell so much about a writer from their short stories. Much more, I think, than you can from reading novels.

Some might argue that if there are a lot of novels to an author’s name, they can tell a lot about that author, but even so I think short story collections are unique in their potential insights. Where authors take us in a short story, how they compose it and how they write it with such a small number of words (compared to novels) gives us insights into how their minds work, how their stories work and how engaging they can be when it’s 20 pages instead of 400 or more.

King’s newest short story collection, Just After Sunset, is one of my favourites because it encompasses all of the skills I have come to value and respect in his work. In “The Gingerbread Girl”, for example, he explores how loss and grief can affect someone so profoundly that they are compelled to change their life in drastic and extreme ways.

Tied in with that underlying theme are twists and turns and raw human terror that I consider “classic King”. The sheer endurance of Emily, heroine in this story, brought to my mind many characters from King stories and many more stories from real life. What we will do when the stakes are high (life, for example) is, in itself, almost unbelievable.

In the past there have been looks of shock and even cringes in the past when I’ve told people I read Stephen King. True, most of those people are readers who avoid the speculative branches of fiction, and so thought that King was a legend of horror. I see him as more an explorer of the human condition in circumstances often unusual and unlikely but very, very believable. Sometimes his work isn’t that far from life as we know it, either.

One such example is “Rest Stop”, the story of an author who adopts his pseudonym’s personality to deal with a violent situation at a highway rest stop. Far from being about horror (there’s gore, yes, but that to me is secondary to the characters), it’s about knowing one’s limits. In this case, one half of the protagonist felt he couldn’t handle the situation and let the other half take over for a while. I’ve seen people do the same thing, and it’s fascinating to read about it from another perspective.

The second King novel I read, Firestarter, overwhelmed me with the strength and surety in the imagery. I found the same thing again in “Stationary Bike”. King’s imagination and attention to detail evoke a sense of reality in the reader’s mind. Imagination is a powerful thing, and the irony in this story is that it could very well be one of the most powerful – and dangerous – tools we possess.

The stand out story in this collection, for me, was “A Very Tight Place”. The story revolves around Curtis Johnson and Tim Grunwald – two rich middle-aged men vying for the same land and using as much money as possible to get it. Somehow King manages to stoke sympathy for both characters (who are not very nice men), creating a situation so horrible and so real that someone nearby asked if I was feeling OK when they saw my expression when I was reading this story.

I’d be hard-pressed to think of other stories I’ve read that so effectively explores human endurance and the will to survive. The tension in this story is woven throughout and, even though I hated Johnson, I wanted him to survive. King’s magic was at work in this one, and it’s a story that will stay with me even if I never read it again (which I no doubt will).

Just After Sunset is a collection of stories I would recommend to people not only familiar with King’s work, but also to those people who have cringed at his name in the past. It shows him to be more than a horror writer and much, much more than a speculative fiction writer. The scope of this collection shows all of his colours (and then some) and, while by no means my favourite King work (that is yet to be determined), demonstrates his skill as a storyteller. Writers and readers alike will find something interesting in Just After Sunset – an invaluable title for anyone’s book collection.

Dreamcatcher

There’s a dusty, cluttered lot of bookshelves in my Mum’s house filled with Stephen King books. My older sister left them there for safeguarding and I always seem to gravitate towards them when I visit. Sometimes to read the stories that have stuck with me, old friends like Bag of Bones or The Stand. This time I picked up Dreamcatcher, and I won’t deny there was a bit of scepticism wandering around as I turned to page one.

The premise surrounds four men, friends since boyhood, meeting for their annual holiday in a cabin in the woods. When a lost hunter stumbles across their cabin, all muddled up and ill, things take a turn for the worst. What ensues is a fight between humans and aliens, between the past and the present and between minds.

I’d caught a glimpse (about half an hour) of the Kasdan adaptation when my sister watched it years ago, and left after a while because I wasn’t engaged. And I prefer to read originals before going to the movies with a text (a lesson very much reinforced by Fight Club). So when I picked up King’s Dreamcatcher I set out to prove my scepticism wrong.

For some reason I often feel that plots involving aliens coming to a modern-day Earth in books is unengaging. I read a lot of science fiction set in the future, or in different worlds, where aliens are part of the stories, but something about the use of aliens in our own world has always deterred me. Perhaps it initially had to do with my ability to suspend disbelief, which can be a bit harder when you’re reading something set in a similar time to “now”.

That perception has been blown out of the water with Dreamcatcher.

King’s masterful use of tension and informative but friendly style of narration effectively presented the aliens in Dreamcatcher as both believable and disturbing (and at times even sympathetic). The plot, however, was secondary to the strong characters. Even the more minor of these were very, very real, and I think that assisted in suspension of disbelief.

Especially interesting was the way the narrative would change depending on which character’s perspective it was written from. Although written in third-person, it had a personal quality to it which I would normally associate with first-person narrative. The use of rhymes, for example, when Henry’s perspective is explored, allowed me to relate to the character as I would someone I talked to in everyday life. Similarly, the religious phrases and dark, cynical humour (or was it honesty?) of Kurtz meant I was able to identify narrative focusing on him instantly.

I found this book a compelling, engaging and essential read, primarily because of the well-drawn characters and secondarily because of the way the plot unfolded. King challenged my preconceptions and left me pleasantly surprised and more open to the throes of speculative fiction.

Since reading Dreamcatcher I decided to revisit Kasdan’s film adaptation. The one thing that had struck me during that first brief excerpt was that the acting was amazing. I’ve since become more familiar with Damian Lewis (in the BBCs series of Shakespeare Retold to name just one remarkable instance), and have always respected Morgan Freeman’s work as well.

Second time proved the charm in this case. I was both engaged and intrigued by the comparison with the book. Kasdan brilliantly conveys the friendship between the four friends – Jonesy, Pete, Beaver and Henry – and that would have been enough for me. But it goes further. Lewis as Jonesy and the creepy Mr Gray is amazing – both creepy and sympathetic, at one stage bringing to my mind part of the book where Jonesy and Gray talk.

The one change which interested me the most was that Duddits was another alien, destined to fight Mr Gray. I appreciate the wonderful twist and the way this change fits in with the original work, and I liked it in the film. But what I liked about the resolution in the novel is that the struggle was more internal – it was about perception, support and belief in oneself. It didn’t discredit the idea that human beings could be truly gifted without having an alien past.

However, I think both texts have their own merits and purposes. I’d recommend reading the book before watching the movie, but I would also recommend both because they are complimentary and comparisons often provide insights that nothing else can.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

I approached this particular work with a cautious respect – having only read one other McEwan book I had some idea of what to expect, but the fact that this book is set entirely within the confines of one man’s Saturday suggested this was something different. I can’t recall reading a book set during one day before, so I knew it would be an interesting journey with McEwan as navigator.

I was pleasantly surprised by the pace of the narrative, the facts of Henry Perowne’s Saturday slipped into his thoughts and combined to create something which was both entertaining and philosophical to read. More than what happens to Perowne throughout the day, I found myself interested in his outlook on the world and, later, life itself. His thoughts provoked my own on how much the world has changed in recent times.

It’s easy to accept the social environment we live in today, where terrorism is a word striking fear into the heart of the Western world, racism is a subtle but still terrible cause of suspicion. Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the Bali bombings of 2002, the invasion of Iraq and the strife in the area of the world known as the Middle East, how could we remember not being cautious of those around us? But McEwan shows how far these events have permeated life, and how the speed of technological advancements has affected the way we communicate and how we see ourselves.

There seemed to be an emptiness to Perowne, although his day (and life) were filled with things, he himself was not. Perhaps it was because he was analysing everything, the reason he got up so early on Saturday, why it was his car that had a run-in with Baxter, how to beat Strauss at squash and even his family. As his daughter, Daisy, says, he “won’t stand by” what he believes, and the ensuing argument suggests that is because Perowne doesn’t know what to believe – he’s too concerned with assessing the facts to make a commitment.

Has it come to the stage in (Western) society where it’s easier to be analytical of world events than choose a side? Have we become so affected by the permeation of the media into all aspects of our lives that we now try to remain objective until there is an obvious outcome? Perowne’s argument with his daughter made me wonder, because if someone as educated as Perowne can be a fence-sitter, then all bets are off.

World events aside, Perowne’s approach to the rest of his life seemed just as analytical (and not simply because it was his thoughts we read about). His emotions seemed to take second place to his thoughts. Perhaps it was a way of removing himself from the situations, because he seemed more emotional during his squash game than he was during the touching visit to his Alzheimer’s affected mother. In addition to this emotional stupor, Perowne’s awareness seemed to stop with his own thoughts. His empathy was very little when dealing with Baxter, and it was only when he was called into surgery later that I felt he redeemed himself somewhat.

For all my seeming to attack Perowne, I can sympathise with his approach to situations and thoughts. There are times when I have found myself taking no “side” in a passionate argument, and analysing a confrontation instead of trying to put myself in the other person’s shoes. If we are to believe that we are a product of our society, how people become so removed while remaining involved in life?

I think passion has something to do with it. Perowne was, in a way, passionate about his work as a neurosurgeon, but also saddened (jealous?) of Theo’s music, his creativity. Although he was involved in the arts through his children, it almost seemed as if he didn’t understand art’s significance. Indeed, at one stage he thinks:

“This notion of Daisy’s, that people can’t ‘live’ without stories, is simply not true.”

He then turns on the television to wait for “his story” about a crashed plane. Perowne may not think of a news bulletin as a story, but in today’s society news is a part of almost everything, and the bulletins (commonly called “stories”) are a form of entertainment. Why would commercial stations be so concerned with what stories to run otherwise? Why would having the right presenter (engaging, authoritative, reassuring) be as important as it is? It may not be a view commonly expressed, but the fact that the weekly TV ratings in Australia have at least two news and one current affairs program in the top 20 suggests to me that news is entertainment.

In some way, it seems, Perowne finds this factual, “real” story of his more legitimate than the stories Daisy may have meant. True, there is urgency to news because it is current, immediate, but the literature that Daisy talks of is relevant to the human condition. Like history, without stories we can’t move forward. They are a way of looking at ourselves and others, and how different social conditions will affect individuals. Stories are engaging and, more often than not, entertaining. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of Perwone’s thoughts on them.

Despite my criticism of Perowne, he is a character I could sympathise with. The choices he makes change not only his actions and approach to things, but also those of the people around him. While I think it would be hard to come up with a definitive summary of Saturday (I’ve heard countless, all true in their own way), to me it is a book about one man’s day, and how the world current social configuration has shaped it. McEwan’s writing is smooth, startling and ironic, and he pulls off the continuous narrative style with a skill hard to surpass.

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

There is something so compelling about exploring the human condition and looking at how certain people in certain social environments will react to any given stimuli. In the case of The Cement Garden, I found it fascinating to look at the workings of a close-knit, somewhat socially skewed family. The story follows the thoughts of Jack, a teenager struggling within his adolescence.

After his father’s death, Jack, his two sisters and younger brother live with their mother in an isolated development area. Jack is in the midst of struggling with a crush on his eldest sister when their mother is taken ill. And when she dies, the children panic, knowing the eldest, Julia, is too young to look after them, and fearing they would be separated. To avoid this destruction of their family, Jack and his two sisters decide to keep their mother’s death a secret, burying her in cement in their basement.

Before reading this I was familiar with some of the themes presented when my sister brought it up – she did a presentation on it and discussed how McEwan used the idea of “taboos”. Taboo is a significant element and some of the content is more shocking and confronting because of the way McEwan subverts social taboos. In particular the relationship between Jack and his eldest sister, Julie, is quite a disturbing constant throughout the book. Jack is fascinated by Julie, almost to the point of obsession, and for a lot of the book I was unsure of where Julie stood with the situation. The ending wasn’t entirely surprising, but it wasn’t something I expected or was familiar with either. But their relationship was as compelling to read about as it was confronting.

There is something engaging about the disturbing content of The Cement Garden which I haven’t often found in books. The thoughts and events are sometimes not conventional or even socially acceptable, but the combination of breaking down taboos and McEwan’s sharp writing engaged me in a way I didn’t expect. At times I would find myself cringing when I read of Jack admiring Julie during the long summer when most of the narrative takes place, but then, because the characters are so well drawn, I would question why I was cringing. Why are these things considered socially unacceptable, taboo, strange or disturbing? Who has imposed those values on society? And why do we often take them for granted, not even thinking about what would happen if a taboo was broken?

The Cement Garden was a confronting, thought-provoking read which left me with some speculative questions about socially constructed norms. The characters were real enough, and likeable enough that I empathised with their situations, and that in turn made the breaking of taboos more challenging to deal with. In the end, people may say we are a product of our society, and possibly most of us are, but there is a multitude of things which will affect the way we act, the way we think and the rules we break.