book review (or nerd alert!)
haunting.
i tried reading something else right after it, just because i felt like i was in the reading groove, but Stephen King's The Green Mile just... well.. haunts you even after you read it. not in the ghost-white lady-kapre-balete drive-Magandang Gabi Bayan on November 1 - sort of haunting. it gnaws on you, it makes you think, and it makes you remember its most poignant moments.
it's my first Stephen King novel. i'm more of a John Grisham type (nerd). John Grisham has always made me think about Life (wise asses, i don't mean "life" in general), - i mean human life - the right to exist vis a vis the committing of a crime, the so-called "justice" of a death sentence, the "humane" ways of execution, and even everyday gore and glory in the little choices we make. Yet, Stephen King discusses some themes in ways both more graphic and haunting. While Grisham chooses verisimilitude so that the very grit of life leaps through the text and makes it believable, King weaves in a fantastic element. And what's scary about it is that it's a fantasy you can believe.
i've hesitated to buy my first King novel, because of his reputation as a horror-thriller writer. I get too imaginative sometimes and scare myself with images from the last book i read or movie i saw (i remember the Feng Shui scare). but i was told that his scariness is more on the psychological level. then i caught a part of The Green Mile on HBO or Star World - just a piece really, just the part where Coffey restores Mrs. Moores, until the end of that chapter (no spoilers here). i didn't get to start or end it. i was captivated and thus decided that this would be my first King novel.
his fantastic elements are still grounded on reality. it's all so convincing you can even hear your disbelief being suspended into submission. the way his characters speak, and even the way he writes - you'd expect to see,call or write the characters and ask them how they are (those still living in the end, at least).
and because he expresses his themes and questions so graphically, you'd be replaying the scenes in your head again and again. Paul Edgecombe told me (feeling close) that the scenes from Cold Mountain penitentiary would replay in his head, and that the had to write to be able to process it. well, i see where he's coming from.
Based on the Green Mile alone, Stephen King is indeed a horror master. not because he gives me goosebumps or uses cheap tricks like monsters and spirits in the dark. but because he makes us look into ourselves and ask the scariest of questions, and find something truly haunting: that often, we don't have the answer.
i tried reading something else right after it, just because i felt like i was in the reading groove, but Stephen King's The Green Mile just... well.. haunts you even after you read it. not in the ghost-white lady-kapre-balete drive-Magandang Gabi Bayan on November 1 - sort of haunting. it gnaws on you, it makes you think, and it makes you remember its most poignant moments.
it's my first Stephen King novel. i'm more of a John Grisham type (nerd). John Grisham has always made me think about Life (wise asses, i don't mean "life" in general), - i mean human life - the right to exist vis a vis the committing of a crime, the so-called "justice" of a death sentence, the "humane" ways of execution, and even everyday gore and glory in the little choices we make. Yet, Stephen King discusses some themes in ways both more graphic and haunting. While Grisham chooses verisimilitude so that the very grit of life leaps through the text and makes it believable, King weaves in a fantastic element. And what's scary about it is that it's a fantasy you can believe.
i've hesitated to buy my first King novel, because of his reputation as a horror-thriller writer. I get too imaginative sometimes and scare myself with images from the last book i read or movie i saw (i remember the Feng Shui scare). but i was told that his scariness is more on the psychological level. then i caught a part of The Green Mile on HBO or Star World - just a piece really, just the part where Coffey restores Mrs. Moores, until the end of that chapter (no spoilers here). i didn't get to start or end it. i was captivated and thus decided that this would be my first King novel.
his fantastic elements are still grounded on reality. it's all so convincing you can even hear your disbelief being suspended into submission. the way his characters speak, and even the way he writes - you'd expect to see,call or write the characters and ask them how they are (those still living in the end, at least).
and because he expresses his themes and questions so graphically, you'd be replaying the scenes in your head again and again. Paul Edgecombe told me (feeling close) that the scenes from Cold Mountain penitentiary would replay in his head, and that the had to write to be able to process it. well, i see where he's coming from.
Based on the Green Mile alone, Stephen King is indeed a horror master. not because he gives me goosebumps or uses cheap tricks like monsters and spirits in the dark. but because he makes us look into ourselves and ask the scariest of questions, and find something truly haunting: that often, we don't have the answer.