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.

Why blog?

Antony Loewenstein's The Blogging Revolution

A few years back, around the beginning of 2006, I began reading blogs by friends and family as a way of keeping in touch with them. From there I realised how many people across the world are actually utilising this form of communication and expression. I began looking for blogs by people in the arts industry – namely film, television and theatre. When I started regularly reading Stargate:Atlantis executive producer Joseph Mallozzi’s blog in the first half of last year, I also found another purpose for blogging.

Joe not only writes about what’s going on for the show he executive produces and writes for, but also about the film and television industry, about writing for screen, about the crew and cast, and also about other things which interest him – books and food spring to mind. He does an almost-daily “mailbag” question and answer session, effectively cutting out the middleman (media) and giving his responses directly and eloquently. While a lot of the questions are about Stargate (I believe he’s worked on all the Stargate projects save the original movie), a lot are about his other interests and the industry he’s working in.

What struck me then (and still does) is the fact that blogging can put a personality to a name and face that people may know. It’s also a great way to give people answers to questions they may have that the mainstream media won’t ask. Science fiction is a good example of this lack of media attention because is general it is not deemed “mainstream entertainment” (and why is a whole new topic which I won’t go into here). Being able to read blogs by people directly involved in the film and television industry can provide information that the relevant media parties may miss or be unable to report on.

Before I move on, I’d like to mention Joe’s book club. Every month or so he picks, or asks readers to choose, three books people can read and then discuss. It started towards the end of last year and has been a great success. Joe’s even been able to get authors like Lou Anders (also a prolific scifi editor), Jeffrey Ford and K.J. Bishop to drop by and answer questions from him and the other readers about their relevant books. Each book is given a week’s worth of discussion before moving on to the next. In itself, I think this book club not only gives readers a chance to ask well-known authors about their work, but has also created a great community of intelligent, interested speculative fiction (scifi, fantasy, horror) readers. It seems blogging can be more interesting and useful than I first thought.

One of the main discourses on blogging that I’ve heard about recently is the apparent threat it might pose to mainstream forms of journalism. I’ve often seen it referred to as a form of “citizen journalism” or, as the ABC might say “a type of User Generated Content”. Axel Bruns, a “casual observer” of journalism, says in this article that traditional forms of journalism are being overtaken by new forms like news blogs and other websites offering “citizen journalism”. Bruns’ thoughts shed some light on the fear many media organisations have when it comes to the internet and blogging.

As I’ve said here and here, I don’t necessarily think traditional forms of media are necessarily threatened by blogging or at risk of being lost, however, blogging does need to be looked at more closely by the media.

A good place to start might be the recently published book by Australian journalist and author Antony Loewenstein, aptly titled The Blogging Revolution. Based on two years worth of travel and research, Loewenstein’s book investigates the democratising processes blogging can provide, especially for countries often viewed as politically repressed. Focusing on dissidents and bloggers in Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China, the book provides and in-depth look at how citizens, or perhaps more aptly “netizens” in these countries use blogging.

In his introduction to the book, Loewenstein expresses a frustration at the mainstream, Western media’s lack of interest in blogging as a way of providing voices for these countries. He writes that very few Western countries have had coverage of the Iraqi war without a “Western journalist’s filter”. It seems despite a journalistic obsession with balance, much of the Western media has not looked further than “official” statements, while blogs from citizens in these countries, experiencing these events first hand, lay forgotten in the online world.

His book highlights the importance of blogging for countries that don’t get a lot of Western media attention. It can be a way of showing the world what people experience, and how they feel about their countries. Western society may often make assumptions about countries seen as repressed or oppressed but, without hearing from people there, how do we really know? Loewenstein’s book provided insights and information into not only blogging, but also the way citizens in Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China feel about their countries and their leaders – what life is like living in these countries. It’s more than food for thought, The Blogging Revolution is essential reading for anyone interested in the opportunities the internet can provide and the state of the world today.

There may be no definite way to define the purpose of blogs, but it’s apparent they can be invaluable tools in providing insights, forums and context globally. Maybe that’s enough.

New World Order

Ryan J-W Smith in New World Order

I sat in the dark theatre, hearing an American soldier share his story of violence, terror and injustice. How he had given the order to blow up a building then witnessed the devastation it caused an innocent family.

The reality of war hung oppressively in the air when the lights came up on a stage bare save for a man sitting on a chair, wine bottle in hand and tears in his eyes.

Few performances I’ve seen have been as gripping, touching and perceptive as New World Order. The one-man play from award-winning international playwright, actor, director and producer Ryan J-W Smith, deals with empire-building from the perspectives of three characters – The King, The Joker and The Veteran.

Political subterfuge and terror are a plague in today’s global society, and influence socio-political relationships both locally and globally. It’s daring to try and encapsulate the situation in a one-hour performance, but Smith pulls it off beautifully. The play combines details of contemporary conflicts with more general attitudes and theories to deconstruct an issue that has been relevant to civilisation throughout history.

Smith’s use of iambic, rhyming verse has previously earned him the title “The Bard Mark Two” (BBC), but while Shakespeare’s influence was clear, the theatrical conventions and the story went beyond that realm and into a brave new world. His masterful manipulation of language adds a timeless quality to the play that marks this work as a sophisticated, intelligent and emotive performance different to anything else being created today.

It’s rare to find a one-man show that’s engaging, entertaining and insightful, but by playing all three characters Smith highlights the common element between them – they’re only human. The simple staging contrasts with the complex characters and creates the perfect balance for us to think about what is being said. Having one person show us three different perspectives is a refreshing reminder of our basic human nature and the expectations that comes from our place in the status quo.

Transitions between the three characters are so smooth it’s easy to forget there is only one person on stage. Adept use of physicality and vocal nuances mark each character and compliment the depth of the text. Suspending disbelief is an almost unconscious act from start to finish.

Smith’s conviction is overwhelming and enlightening, generating critical thought on the state of things today. The use of diverse sources transform current war and terrorism discourses into something rich and strange. New World Order is an outstanding piece of theatre that opens the mind and calls for more discussion on an issue that is ages old but still starkly relevant today. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the state of our world and our humanity.

Ryan J-W Smith’s New World Order was performed at the Judith Wright Centre as part of the 2008 Brisbane Writers Festival.

The Child in Time

The Child in Time is yet another Ian McEwan novel that has stunned me with it’s exploration of the human condition. The protagonist, Stephen Lewis, is a successful childrens author and a loving husband and father. When his three-year-old daughter disappears on an excursion to the supermarket he has to grapple with not only telling his wife but also dealing with the loss. After his marriage falls apart, his writing stops and his closest friends move out of London into the countryside, Stephen stays in the city and tries to live with his grief and loss.

Grief is a strange thing. It doesn’t follow the rules, particularly when it comes to time. Much like the subject matter  time is not linear in this narrative. The story moves between Stephen thinking about his daughter in the past, speculating about the future, contemplating the dullness of the present or exploring the strangeness of his dreams. In between his own thoughts and actions are the stories of those around him – his friend Thelma talking of physics and her husband’s fragile mental state, his mother recounting the story of his conception and the often amusing politics of the child literacy committee he partakes in once a week.

In many ways it seems Stephen himself is outside of time, a liminal entity stuck between the past, stories and dreams. While Stephen was grieving he was outside of time, but once he began to address it head on, things started to fall into place again. I think it was this manipulation of time that made the book so moving.

Another interesting element was the nature of children. While Stephen’s daughter is already missing in the main timeframe of the book, there are many other characters who express childish behaviour. Most prominent is Stephen’s close friend and former publisher, Charles Darke, who goes from a promising political career to an isolated life outside the city with his wife. When Stephen last sees him, Charles has reverted to a youthful boy in manner – climbing trees, collecting marbles, making lemonade and refusing to talk of the life he once led.

I got the impression that Charles’ regression into a child-like state had to do with having a lot of responsibility from a young age. His wife, Thelma, talks about this towards the end of the book, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Charles’ condition is a warning about growing up too fast. He was trying to capture the magic of an age that he missed, and in doing so worrying the people around him. While Stephen lost his child, Charles lost his childhood, and the different coping mechanisms of each character beautifully illustrated how each had lost something dear to them.

Loss again came in the form of the homeless people. Stephen seemed to have a fascination with them, often observing them on his travels to and from meetings or when he’s visiting Charles and Thelma. Interestingly Stephen is made uncomfortable by these street figures, although they are victims of loss too.

Once again I’ve found McEwan’s narrative style to be sharp, explorative but also very self-contained. Everything that happens in the book has some thematic relevance and significance to Stephen’s own journey, out of time. The extracts from a fictional handbook on children, introducing each chapter often foreshadowed events and directed reflection, as well as adding humour and lightness at times. The resolution was happy, but also inconclusive enough that it left me thinking about grief and the imprint it leaves no matter how much time passes.

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.