IT's my favorite King novel, with The Stand coming in a close second.

I'm re-reading it for the 5th time right now.

For those of you complaining about the length of his descriptions of things, I wonder how old you are. My guess is that you're in the millennial range, with the attention span of a gnat. You're the TLDR generation and I pity you.

King's use of description to set up the visceral sense of the scene it what MAKES his stories scary. Anyone can say "a clown in a gutter grabbed a kids arm and tore it off". The way King takes the time to set up Georgie's death, flashing back to Bill helping him make the boat, Georgie's description as the typical annoying little brother who's cute and lovable ties you emotionally to his fate. Then the slow approach to the gutter, with a vivid picture of the swollen Kenduskeag and Penobscott rivers being fed by the deluge over Derry. The boat goes down the drain, and then something as seemingly innocent and friendly as a clown appears.

Sorry if his style "bores you", but the time he takes to build his world, with backstories for minor characters and detailed descriptions of places and things that happened in the past makes it all the more real, and all the more terrifying.

If it's too boring might I suggest the Twilight series?

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Posted by Geauxtac260

Member since Aug 2016

207 posts

Posted on 4/21/17 at 2:52 pm to Scanlon Shorthalt

quote:
IT's my favorite King novel, with The Stand coming in a close second. I'm re-reading it for the 5th time right now. For those of you complaining about the length of his descriptions of things, I wonder how old you are. My guess is that you're in the millennial range, with the attention span of a gnat. You're the TLDR generation and I pity you. King's use of description to set up the visceral sense of the scene it what MAKES his stories scary. Anyone can say "a clown in a gutter grabbed a kids arm and tore it off". The way King takes the time to set up Georgie's death, flashing back to Bill helping him make the boat, Georgie's description as the typical annoying little brother who's cute and lovable ties you emotionally to his fate. Then the slow approach to the gutter, with a vivid picture of the swollen Kenduskeag and Penobscott rivers being fed by the deluge over Derry. The boat goes down the drain, and then something as seemingly innocent and friendly as a clown appears. Sorry if his style "bores you", but the time he takes to build his world, with backstories for minor characters and detailed descriptions of places and things that happened in the past makes it all the more real, and all the more terrifying. If it's too boring might I suggest the Twilight series?

Man I hate this condensedning, highfalutin, pretentious attitude. You can pound sand as far as I'm concerned.

I've read lots of Kings books, to include the Stand, as well as Song of Ice and Fire series, so it's not like I should have to limit myself to curious George books. Just saying that the level of detail it takes to describe the things that have nothing to do with the story make certain parts of the book hard to press through.

I appreciate the detail it took to kill Georgie. I appreciate the back stories and character development of the main characters. I'm not trying to say it's a bad book, heck I've read it three times! But to say it doesn't get bogged down at times is disingenuous.

Oh yeah...gen x here.

This post was edited on 4/21/17 at 3:14 pm

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Posted by Breesus