This song is called, "It's a metaphor, fool"

Trying like mad to catch up on my week. For this post? The oft-talked about Desperation by Stephen King! Yaaaay! (No, I haven't seen the movie. The one time it was on TV it was a Thursday night. Who even does that?) Anyways, like you've heard a million times, it's my favorite Stephen King book, and it also was my first. Guess what? It's still my favorite Stephen King book, and it's still my first. (I'm pretty sure). So you know I like it and I'm going to be licking its shoes. So, let's continue...

Oh, as a general warning, this book is a little gory. Gory meaning violence--it's intense, but he doesn't go too badly over the top. It is very gross though. Smashed bugs and rather 'ripe' corpses. Language, of course. Not overly sexual, though there are a few moments where Stephen King can't help it.

A little overview, which I forgot to do for the last two books (sorry, but so I forgot. This is the Internet. You can Wikipedia this stuff. Welcome to the twenty-first century, huh?) The book starts with a man and wife driving through Nevada when they're stopped by a very odd police man. He seems kind at first, but quickly reverts from good cop to bad cop and drives them to the station in his town of Desperation. Before bringing the couple into the cell, he shoots the husband to death and then throws the wife in jail. Beside her are fellows already collected by this seemingly insane man. Very quickly it appears things are much deeper and much worse than just an insane cop. (Ugh, I fail.)

Was that good? Okay. Well, when the cop, Entragian, meets a character named John Edward Marinville (an author) he physically accosts him (phrase of the week?) and screams at him, saying something like "Your true failing is that you've never written a truly spiritual novel". After reading this for the ninetieth time, I think this book is supposed to be Stephen King's spiritual novel. And he does a good job of it, too. To this day I get a cold shiver when I read or someone says "gosh", too, which really doesn't have anything to do with what I just said, but damn Stephen King you so scaaarrry.

Ah, the very first hints we have that the cop is mad is this: "'If you do not choose to remain silent, anything that you say may be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I'm going to kill you. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you?'" Catch that? Gives me the shivers, I don't know about you. And Mary constantly hears it echoing in her mind, too...
When he meets Marinville he throws in another little bit that gives me a rather unpleasant frisson as well: "'Why, do you realize what the ratio of drivers-to-accidents on motorcycles is? Computed on a road-hours basis? I can tell you because I'm a wolf and we get a circular every month from the National Safety Council.'"

"'A bad guy,' the cop said. 'That's all you need to know for now, son. A very bad guy. Tak!'" Of course, Entragian being possessed by Tak can't resist speaking in the tongue of the unformed, but at the same time, he actually is letting David know who the 'very bad guy' is, without meaning it. Heh.

"'My children of the desert!' the cop said. 'The can toi! What music they make!'" For those of you not obsessed with horror movies that are right on the cusp of being eighty years old, it's a parody of a line from the original Dracula film: "Children of the night... What music they make." (He was referring to a pack of howling wolves, and in Desperation, Entragian is referring to howling coyotes in the distance.) When I caught it this time around I cracked up. Then I felt a little sick that it was this character that had made me laugh but hey, if you can't laugh at a Dracula parody, what can you laugh at? I don't know. I laughed at the parody...
Though this makes me wonder: Tak, the unformed, is trapped in the ini in a mineshaft. So when he parodies a movie, or quotes a movie, or becomes enraged because he believes Marinville is insulting Steinbeck... How does he know about those things!? I mean, it's not like people just toss books and movies into the freaky glowing red pit at the bottom of a mine shaft. And even if they did, good luck watching the movies. My theory is that he takes a little bit of each person he possesses with him--So someone was a Steinbeck fan, someone liked old movies, et cetera. Just like a yeerk! Woah! I kind of like how everything in my life can be boiled down to an Animorphs reference...

Page 123 (haha) you meet Cynthia. I don't remember if she was in Rose Madder (I don't remember much about Rose Madder except for the part with the foxes that I didn't understand) but her whole spheal is basically the second half of that book. Just pointing that out is all.

"'The obsessive Bible-reading was bad enough, but this... why didn't you tell me about this praying business?'" David's mother asks him this. David is basically who you'd have to consider the hero of the novel--or maybe Marinville?--but this and the scene that follows pisses me off. Okay, the lady's near hysterical--Entragian killed her daughter and beat up her husband. But this... Ugh, this scene made me not feel bad for the mom when she's taken away. Hectoring her son because he believes in God and prays? Making him feel guilty for it? There's a name for a jerk like that, but I would not write it here. Well, the one that's worse than jerk. You know.

Often Marinville talks about having sex with an actress with 'emeralds'. Sometimes "All the emeralds." I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS IS A EUPHEMISM MORE AND I NEVER WILL.

Remember when I talked about Stephen King had this thing about birds, hearing sparrows in his head and such? (See the Needful Things post: YOG SOTHOTH RULES!) In this book it's "My head is full of blackbirds". Oh, you and your birds Stephen King. In Bag of Bones he has some important subplot with owls, but damned if I can remember it. I got rid of it too, so sorry. It was great until the very end, then it was kind of like... Stephen King, are you back on your crack addiction? Seriously.

One thing that weirds me out is that David sees what happened in the days the shaft was opened and Tak escaped into a man and attacked the town. Well, that fact itself doesn't weird me out--but one guy, Ripton, was possessed by Tak and at this point, no one knows of course. And he tells the man he's planning on possessing next that one of the mine workers or overseers are down in Reno. Now, the massacre of the town basically happened in what, a week? Two weeks? I doubt it was more than one week. So the man in Reno is probably still out there when the town's destruction goes on and while the story plays out... Or, I'd like to believe he was spared... but the shock on his out when he goes back home and finds this--this war zone--will probably put too much strain on his heart and kill him anyway. (He leaves town because his great grandkid is being born.) But still, can you imagine coming back to that... man...

Again in this book Stephen King brings up Simple Simon. He has a serious issue with Simple Simon, I'm thinking.

"'Do you really know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?' David waited, saying nothing. Maybe listening, maybe not. Johnny couldn't tell. 'Sometimes he makes us live.'"


So it's good times. If you've happened to see this movie, drop me a line because I'd like to know if it's worth even watching and I'm too cheap to even spend fourteen dollars to by it at Target.


What else? Let's see, Emma, I think I already told you, but Robby D still hasn't given back Everything is Illuminated yet. I don't think he actually wrote it down on a to-do list... Come onnnn Robbyyyyyy. It's my most favorite boooooooooookkkkk everrrrrr. Actually, considering how pushy I've been about this, he'll probably cut a hole in his floor and cover it with leaves, then hang the book over it... Pfft, I'd just land in Cronkasaurus Rex's room. My legs would be broken, sure, but I could hang out with a different teacher, who... also... doesn't... give... back... books. Man. You guys.

It would be incredibly easy to kill me. "Oh, look what's in that bear trap, Angela! It's a copy of Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut!" "Really!?" *CRUNCH* This could go on and on. I should stop now so as not to give my archenemies or the Daguar any ideas.