If only I hadn't taken so long to finish Pet Sematary, I would be able to go into great detail the excitement I felt about the novel. I've never wanted to finish a novel as badly as I wanted to finish this Stephen King phenomena, but not for any other reason than it was sickeningly difficult to put down when I did get around to reading it.
SO, in the end I didn't finish it. I mean, I read the end, but I was too anxious that I somehow, through my minds' own free-will I guess, skipped a few pages in the final chapter and epilogue and went straight to the end. Here's why:
I was extremely sceptical about reading an older Stephen King as I had barely scratched the surface of SK's writing with a few of his short stories from Skeleton Crew. For an SK virgin, it was a daunting task of attempting to get through an entire novel, even a shorter one, so I ended up putting it off for weeks. When I finally plucked up the courage to start an actual, serious, real Stephen King thriller, I was pretty much desperate. I had even relented by re-reading the fourth Harry Potter (for the ninth time - yeow). I couldn't put myself through that again. So I read chapter one. Good, entertaining, I wanted to read more. However, by the time Louis Creed had buried his cat and it came back to life, I knew some heavy doo-doo was about to go down.
See, the book is about the Creed's, a totally normal family (with a slightly aggro daddy, Louis) who move to Maine. Louis starts a new job as the doctor in the University's infirmary. Unlucky for Louis, his first day ends with a man lying on the clinic's floor, dead. Still unlucky for Louis is the fact that he dreams about the guy (who was killed in a freak accident where he was struck by a car) who leads him to the forest behind his house, which Louis' neighbour, Jud Crandall, warned him about. It had a path leading to a clearing which contained a small cemetery for the neighbourhood pets. As you can imagine, this held some sort of premonition for the coming year or so for Louis Creed.
But the book really starts when Louis walks outside one morning while his wife and two children, Gage and Ellie, are visiting family in Chicago, to find their cat, Church, lying dead on the pavement. Kindly, his above mentioned neighbour suggests the Pet Sematary (as the kids spelt it on a little sign outside the clearing... just to clear that up) as a resting place for Church. Unbeknownst to Louis the damn cat will come back from the dead when he buries it there, and nearly wets his pants when the cat strolls in the next morning for his breakfast.
But, boy, I didn't see anything after that coming (even though I sort of did). I would like to take this time to applaud Stephen King on being an asshole (in the best way possible... or perhaps I'm a little slow to begin with) and catching me completely by surprise: (MAJOR SPOILER... er, not really) First, Louis' kid, Gage, dies ... and then he's ... alive? But he isn't, and he ... kills people? And all this happened in, like, 50 pages. All I can say is traumatisingly good writing ensues and no one lives happily ever after.
Stephen King has created a monster.
Not the kid; me.
I am now addicted and am not able to go into a bookshop without checking for new Stephen King books.
I strongly suggest it to all the horror nuts out there.
xx
Tracy
WHAT I'M READING AT THE MOMENT:
Between a Rock and A Hard Place by Aron Ralston
Autobiography
SO, in the end I didn't finish it. I mean, I read the end, but I was too anxious that I somehow, through my minds' own free-will I guess, skipped a few pages in the final chapter and epilogue and went straight to the end. Here's why:
I was extremely sceptical about reading an older Stephen King as I had barely scratched the surface of SK's writing with a few of his short stories from Skeleton Crew. For an SK virgin, it was a daunting task of attempting to get through an entire novel, even a shorter one, so I ended up putting it off for weeks. When I finally plucked up the courage to start an actual, serious, real Stephen King thriller, I was pretty much desperate. I had even relented by re-reading the fourth Harry Potter (for the ninth time - yeow). I couldn't put myself through that again. So I read chapter one. Good, entertaining, I wanted to read more. However, by the time Louis Creed had buried his cat and it came back to life, I knew some heavy doo-doo was about to go down.
See, the book is about the Creed's, a totally normal family (with a slightly aggro daddy, Louis) who move to Maine. Louis starts a new job as the doctor in the University's infirmary. Unlucky for Louis, his first day ends with a man lying on the clinic's floor, dead. Still unlucky for Louis is the fact that he dreams about the guy (who was killed in a freak accident where he was struck by a car) who leads him to the forest behind his house, which Louis' neighbour, Jud Crandall, warned him about. It had a path leading to a clearing which contained a small cemetery for the neighbourhood pets. As you can imagine, this held some sort of premonition for the coming year or so for Louis Creed.
But the book really starts when Louis walks outside one morning while his wife and two children, Gage and Ellie, are visiting family in Chicago, to find their cat, Church, lying dead on the pavement. Kindly, his above mentioned neighbour suggests the Pet Sematary (as the kids spelt it on a little sign outside the clearing... just to clear that up) as a resting place for Church. Unbeknownst to Louis the damn cat will come back from the dead when he buries it there, and nearly wets his pants when the cat strolls in the next morning for his breakfast.
But, boy, I didn't see anything after that coming (even though I sort of did). I would like to take this time to applaud Stephen King on being an asshole (in the best way possible... or perhaps I'm a little slow to begin with) and catching me completely by surprise: (MAJOR SPOILER... er, not really) First, Louis' kid, Gage, dies ... and then he's ... alive? But he isn't, and he ... kills people? And all this happened in, like, 50 pages. All I can say is traumatisingly good writing ensues and no one lives happily ever after.
Stephen King has created a monster.
Not the kid; me.
I am now addicted and am not able to go into a bookshop without checking for new Stephen King books.
I strongly suggest it to all the horror nuts out there.
xx
Tracy
WHAT I'M READING AT THE MOMENT:
Between a Rock and A Hard Place by Aron Ralston
Autobiography
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