Saturday, March 16, 2013

Some Thoughts on Different Seasons by Stephen King

So, I finished Different Seasons a couple of nights ago, and have now had time to kind of decompress.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

The Body made me kind of sad ... for a couple of reasons. There was the fact that the four of them were such good friends when they were kids, and they drifted apart after a while. Sure, that happens, but the four of them (in that moment in time) seemed so very important to each other, and what they went through was so huge that it felt like they should have stayed friends through the years. But I will give it to Chris that he was right about Vern and Teddy when it came to them being friends with Gordie (even if I think he was completely wrong about himself, since it seemed like he was down on himself for being part of the family that he was a part of ... which was not his fault); Vern and Teddy would have never been anything more than big fish in a small pond, and Gordie completely had the ability to move into a bigger pond than either of those two knuckleheads would have ever have been able to be comfortable in. Still, it would have been nice if they had remained friends ... or at least closer than what they seemed to be in later years.

But the thing that was more sad about the story was that Gordie was the only one that was still alive by the end. Even if Vern and Teddy were knuckleheads, I didn't want either of them to die, and the fact that they both went out kind of pointlessly was kind of tragic. Even more tragic was Chris' death and the fact that it wasn't pointless ... well, it was (and stupid), but at least there seemed to be some kind of reason behind it (in that he was trying to do the right thing, and (in a way) paid the price for trying to be the good person that he was). Their deaths almost make me want to think that there was some sort of karmic retribution for the four of them going to find the body of that kid, and that one of them had to live long enough to be able to write everything down. Or maybe reading so much of King's stuff recently has turned me kind of morbid? lol

The Breathing Method ... ok, that one was just freaking creepy. I want to know what the hell that clubhouse of theirs was all about. There was obviously some kind of bad joojoo in there, and Stevens knows exactly what is going on around there (what with the people that wonder off into hallways and are never seen from again, cuz they are supposedly still wondering around ... and also with the slithery thing). Yeah, the story that the doctor told was kind of strange, but I am far more interested in what the hell that clubhouse was doing, and what it was housing. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE SLITHERY THING WAS!! Eeep!!

And why do I get the feeling that Stevens never actually leaves the clubhouse? Sure, the narrator makes it sound like he goes off somewhere else, but it seems like there is a great deal that he doesn't actually know about what goes on in there (and that the people that go there aren't supposed to know a great deal about the place). I don't get the feeling that he is in control of anything that goes on there (the seen, or the unseen), but I still think he is the one that knows all of the secrets ... probably because he is trapped there by whatever really is in control.

Also, WTH? with the books that shouldn't exist? Maybe the place really does exist between realities, and those books are from another reality entirely?

Oh, Papa King. How you make my brain want to go boom.

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