62. Stephen King - The Dead Zone

All I can say about Stephen King's book The Dead Zone, is that it is very similar to his earlier novels; especially, The Stand, which preceded this week's novel. I have the feeling that King actually had some ideas that he couldn't use in The Stand so he used them in this book. 

Mostly because of the visions. In The Stand the visions occurred during the night when the character were sleeping. In The Dead Zone the visions are restricted to one character; Johnny Smith. Due to two head traumas, he can see glimpses of the future when he touches someone. This gives him the ability in some cases to change the course of the future. 

This is were another similarity occurs; in The Stand the characters are trying to stop a very powerful, influential - yet crazy - man, called The Walkin' Dude. In The Dead Zone there is another crazy man, who is introduced to us as an influential door-to-door salesman, who strangles a dog because of an anger rage. "Never catch me, I'm the Invisible Man." (King 359) Greg Stillson, his name, then enters into politics by manipulating the crowds and fooling them into liking him. He gives Johnny and his clairvoyant gift a very bad feeling. 

As you can see very similar stories, although the scope in The Dead Zone is considerably smaller than The Stand. The thing with King's books though, is that every one of his books are a joy to read. So the fact that I read a very similar story a few months ago did not bother me one bit. 

61. Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I have never read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I have watched about a hundred film adaptations, maybe even some TV series. The story is nothing surprising really and I don't think I should tell you exactly what it's about.

I feel that there is one important difference between the films and the book, however. Namely, in the book Grandfather Joe and Charlie do not break the rules by flying around in the bubble chamber. The director clearly felt that Charlie and the Grandfather could not be portrayed as too perfect, because this might dumben the story down a bit. In the case of the book that isn't much of a problem, because it's clearly aimed for young children. The films, however, try to reach a wider audience.

I have to say though, of all the Roald Dahl fillers I've read, this one was the best. It had a more adult feel to it. Nice book if you have an hour to spare and you don't want to read a full length novel.

60. Susan Hill - The Woman in Black

Susan Hill's The Woman in Black is a Victorian Gothic novel as any written at that time. The landscape the story is set in is so convincingly Gothic that I keep having to check if the novel was really written in 1983. 

The story is set somewhere in the middle of England called Crythin Gifford. A young London solicitor has to go up there to attend the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow. He also has to evaluate her property and her papers. Her house is set in a very eerie landscape in the middle of Marshlands. A pony and trap can make the crossing twice a day and for the rest of the time the house is unreachable. It goes without saying that this house is haunted. 

It's passage like this that remind me of my English classes back at university when we spoke about Gothic novels:

"Could I not be free of it at least for that blessed time, was there no way of keeping the memory, and the effects it had upon me, at least temporarily? And then, standing among the trunks of the fruit trees, silver-grey in the moonlight, I recalled that the way to banish an old ghost that continues its hauntings is to exorcise it." (Hill 19)

And he does this by writing a book about it, which is not something that we see any more in modern horror fiction, but it's something so necessary in a good horror novel, I think. This is because it lets the people experiencing the story tell us, which is a much stronger story than told from a third-person perspective.

The horror sequences actually work when read, which I didn't think could be done any more after films made sure we need to see everything worse and scarier for us to feel anything. In this novel, a short walk through the hallway can be quite unsettling. Especially when there is a strange noise coming from the door ahead.....

"They asked for my story. I have told it. Enough." (Hill 128)

59. Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay

For the first time I made the connection. What The Hunger Games is really about. Obviously I read the third part of the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins this week, Mockingjay. What I found out, is that it is really a copy of the Roman Empire. And I found that out through this passage: 

"Panem et Circenses translates into Bread and Circuses. The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power." (Collins 261)

I hadn't made that link before. Strangely enough, since I had Latin for about six years in high school. The Hunger Games resemble the Colosseum games so much, that I'm almost embarrassed I didn't recognise this before.

Again, I won't say much about this story but it's worth reading if you like reading; otherwise, do yourself a favour and wait for the films. It's not much more than the Twilight story, apart from the fact that it's more bloody maybe. A nice story to read in the summer months, but nothing more