I will admit, I do not enjoy reading King's writing, (but I do like the film and tv adaptations) so right away I had a distaste for The Cycle of the Werewolf. I tried to look at it with an open mind, then the presentation just broke that resistance I had and strengthened my dislike.
I would like to, first, talk about what I thought did not work with the story, without focusing on King's writing voice, and I mean voice as in the characteristics that carry from story to story. For me, and this is all just personal bias on any novel or novella of the sort, the culmination of short stories to create a larger one is bad at keeping interest. I want a character I can care about from the beginning, not half way through the novella. This is one of those scenarios where I think the story would have been better as a short story starting with Marty. The story is already short, and I feel the first few months/chapters are wasted text.
The presentation of the werewolf is dull, but I let this slide as I was reading because I know the book is older and there have been a lot of adaptations of werewolves since then. Because there was no mystery to it, I did not see the relevance of having the short stories of each victim other than it being an experimental way of telling the story of a year through months. Even then, the inconsistency of length between chapters bothered me. It was a sigh of relief when July started, only because there was finally something to hold onto. However, because of the brevity of previous characters, I was taken out of the story thinking I was wasting time reading into a kid that is just going to get strewn through the wheels of his chair and hug somewhere iconic for everyone to see.
After July, I felt the story picked up and became something. It felt better woven together with a purpose or message to convey. I liked how October panned out and the jump between Marty and Reverend Lowe through the end of the story. The validation of the Reverend's killings made him a far more interesting monster character than he was portrayed as in the beginning. So I suppose the beginning spoiled the rest of the story for me.
Then the ending came, and I was disappointed once again. It felt too predictable and easy.
I think, all in all, my dislike of what I see as an ADD style of writing (the insertion of random thoughts or actions to build character that don't otherwise serve purpose to the story), took the reins over my ability to appreciate it. I know King is a popular author, and I think many of his stories are very well thought out. I just prefer to watch them on the big screen.I know there is a film adaptation called “The Silver Bullet” which I have not seen, so I am curious if heavy edits were made since King also wrote the screenplay for the film.
I completely agree that I didn't like that we only got Marty part of the way through the story. It doesn't ever do much for me to have characters named only to be killed in the same scene they are introduced in. I had that problem with Rawhead Rex too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like that you mentioned that King works in other media forms. I think Carrie as a play works well, and the Shining works well as a movie. But this as a text doesn't do it for me. It would be a much better movie than it is a book.
I really enjoy the whole idea of shorts making one big story. I love anthologies though, so that may be why I am so bias about it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how you point out that they style is sort of ADD. I have to say, I agree. But as I was telling Rebecca, sometimes random characters have to be killed off to keep the plot and suspense going. There is a weird balance in making sure tension is kept while also throwing readers into chaos so they feel fear rather than witness it. So the idea that seemingly random characters become dinner shows how unbiased a monster is about its dinner. Anyone is up for serving, even you.
I also am not a huge King fan, again horrible to say as a horror author. I also think many of his films botch the decency in his books. I mean the new Pet Semetery twists and kills the girl instead of her little brother. He should've been getting squashed by that tractor trailer, but they took the plot and reworked it. Sad thing is, King over saw that and was OKAY with the botching of his own plot. If you want to do something new, create your own idea or take an idea and spin it. Don't borrow an entire plot and swap the characters around.
For Maddy, I just saw a preview for Doctor Sleep when I went to see the second part of IT earlier this month. I would be interested on your opinion on the second adaptation for the sequel of The Shinning.
Vincent,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you on most of your critique. Not getting Mary until July didn't make sense. Like you, I thought that was where the story actually started. As Sean pointed out, I guess the intention of what he was writing changed part way through, as the text was originally just supposed to be shorts to put on a calendar. But at some point it changed. And with that, should have come... revision! Once it was determined to be its own book, everything from Jan to June should have been revamped to be more meaningful to the story, or dropped.
The ADD scenes you speak of that have no purpose to the story bothered me too. I mentioned in my post about the bartender Elise who sang in the choir because she had a crush on Lowe. She didn't die or anything, yet we never heard from her again. So, why was she in the book at all? Those things bug the heck out of me.
I also felt the ending was too predictable. I was waiting for the surprise and while I was waiting, the book ended.
WEREWOLVES NOT SWEARWOLVES
ReplyDelete*Ahem*
ReplyDeleteSorry.
I wonder if the purpose of having all those other perspectives at the beginning was a way of trying to obscure who the werewolf would turn out to be. If we just had chapters from Marty and the Reverend's POVs, it would be potentially more interesting, but it would also be a dead giveaway who the antagonist was. Since Marty's clearly the protagonist, the Reverend would have seemed like a random choice for an alternating POV unless he was going to be the antagonist, and I think the story would have lost something if it was only told from one POV. I really liked the sections where we got to get inside the Reverend's head, so I thought it was important that when he was introduced, I thought, "Oh boy, here's another character who's about to get chomped," and not, "This guy must be important!"
Though of course, that doesn't mean they couldn't have been better executed. I'd rather get suckered into thinking every character is important, whether or not they get chomped, than assume no one seems important until they turn out to surprise me.
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