I'm Taking A Stand!

Not really. Actually, I'm taking up The Stand, the 1138-page 1141-page* (at least in the version I'm reading) Stephen King chunkster classic that Trish and a bunch of other people are reading for this summer's group readalong, which Trish has dubbed the Standalong. I don't know if I'll hit the half-way point in a timely manner, but we have until July 27th to finish the book, and I think I can handle that. Hubby's gone for a week, so I've got plenty of time to read...read a big scary book all by myself in a house that only makes weird noises when no one else is around to help you fend off the creepy.

Anywaaay...Trish wants to know a little bit about all the folks crazy enough to sign up for this, so she has asked us a few questions. Here are my answers:

1. What makes you want to read The Stand? I've always heard this lauded as one of Stephen King's best works, so it's been on my radar for a while, but it's always been such an intimidating read! Knowing that others are slogging through it along with me (although, honestly, if it gets too sloggy, I'll probably stop slogging) is encouraging.

2. Describe your preconceived notions of The Stand. Long! Also, probably scary, but not in the blood-and-guts horror movie kind of way, more along the lines of making you realize how scary the potential for disaster is in the real world with a little bit of paranormal/supernatural/good v. evil creepiness thrown in. Also lots of walking across dry, barren landscapes. And cornfields.

3. What was the last scary(ish) book you read or movie you saw? I think the last scary book I read was The Fall, book two of The Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. The strain refers to the virus that turns people into vampires and, so far, I think the series has been done incredibly well. It also fits in quite nicely with a discussion of The Stand (hmm..The Stand, The Fall, killer flu virus, killer (sort of) vampire virus...I'm seeing a connection here!) This is no sparkly, romantic vampire tale. This is a tale of a virus that lands in major metropolitan areas and spreads quickly and violently. Scary stuff.

4. Which version of the book will you be reading from? I'm reading the complete & uncut edition because that's what was on my bookcase, yo! Actually, this is probably the one I would have gone with anyway. If I'm going to read the 641 pages originally published in 1978, I might as well read the additonal 500 pages that were published in 1990. I don't want to miss out on anything! Besides, after reading Part 1 of King's Two-Part Preface (Part 1: To Be Read Before Purchase) I'm convinced that this is the way to go. This is the story he wanted to tell in the first place, not a new story added on purely as a sales gimmick.

5. What are your previous experiences with Stephen King? Ahh, Stephen King...where to start? I consider myself a Stephen King fan even though I can only name one of his books as among my favorites (The Eyes of the Dragon). Most of the rest of his stuff that I've read is...all right. I've read a lot of short stories and started several novels that I never finished. So why the love? I think it stems from my childhood. I was a big fan of scary movies, and things like The Shining, Cujo, Silver Bullet, and Creepshow made their mark--these were slumber party favorites for years! (BTW, I still love Silver Bullet-Cory Haim was such a cute kid, and Gary Busey as his crazy Uncle Red is spot-on.) My mom would probably still tell you that Pet Sematary and It are the scariest things she's ever read; I've heard a lot of people say that his non-fiction book, On Writing, is fabulous; some of my husband's favorite books are The Dark Tower series; and some of my all-time favorite movies are also based on King's writing: The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Green Mile...so I don't quite know where I stand with King as an actual novelist. I'm hoping that after I read The Stand I will finally be able to add another King book to my list of all-time favorites.

6. Anything else you'd like to add (bonus points for being extra random). My copy of The Stand is full of mildew and it makes my throat hurt and makes me cough. Or else it's covered in plague. Check in with me in a couple days to make sure I'm still here!

*7/27/12-Corrected page number counts and the (several) misspellings of the author's name. Sheesh!

Dueling Monsters Challenge 2010

Happy Halloween, everybody!  I hope you are all having some spooky fun today!  I have been catching up on my spooky reading, thanks to Heather J. and Jill/softdrink.  Once again they have teamed up to host the Dueling Monsters read-a-long.  This year's monsters came to us in the stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I had never read either book before so this was a good chance for me to catch up on some classic reading.  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was delightfully short-I had no idea-a mere 84 pages!  It was an easy read, and I enjoyed it.  Dorian Gray was not quite as short-about 243 pages-but I think I would have enjoyed it more had it been only 84 pages since the last 84 pages (exactly 84 pages-I just checked!  Spooky coincidence??) is where all the good stuff takes place. (Seriously, I spent quite a lot of the first half of the book wishing that Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry would just get in on already because, really, isn't that what they all wanted.)

Let's start with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  As I said, I enjoyed this book.  I really didn't know what to expect other than the man and the monster.  It's been noted that there aren't any female characters of note in this story, but the first note that I wrote relates to the servant who witnesses Hyde's murder and then faints dead away.  What I wrote was, "Why with all the fainting?"  Victorian women seem to be famous for fainting (they even made couches specifically for this purpose).  Why?  Did they actually faint all the time?  I'm guessing they did, otherwise why make the couches?  OK, so then why were they always fainting?  Was it the restriction of the corsets not allowing them to get enough air to their brains?  Was it a combination of the heat and all that Victorian clothing?  Was it simply a convenient excuse to leave an uncomfortable situation?  Perhaps it was the cost of the couches themselves.  Eee!  That would make me swoon too!

Anyway...I think that Edward Hyde won this round of Dueling Monsters.  Although both books deal with the physical manifestation of evil, Hyde was a scarier creature because he eventually started to take over Jekyll against his will, the assumption being that someday the takeover would be complete.  The way Jekyll described the progression of the changes reminded me of a heroin addict.  Eventually the drugged state becomes normal and without it you become ill.  Eventually you need that which made you sick to make you feel better, but each time you need more and more of it.  Eventually it consumes you, and either you kill it or it will kill you.  Jekyll, himself, was a little wordy and boring for my taste, but overall, good job on a quick creepy story, Mr. Stevenson!

It could be argued that Dorian Gray (D.G.) is a scarier monster because his debauchery seems to be more willful.  He has the ability to decide at every turn whether to do good or not, and, apparently, generally chooses not to; but I have to wonder if he behaves any worse than a common criminal.  What makes him dangerous is simply that his evil doesn't show on his face.  Hyde's evil was out there for people to see-people were immediately repulsed by his appearance and thus knew to stay away.  On the other hand, people are taken in by Dorian Gray's beauty and his charm, "that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished, and indeed exercised often without being conscious of it."...much like a vampire...who never ages...and he does seem to suck people's souls dry.  Hmmmmm....interesting...anyway, the point is, people still choose to engage with him on some level.  If he's dealing with criminals, we assume they are complicit in their deals, if he is having some wild and crazy sex, we assume his partners are willing, although I suppose it's possible that that's not the case.  If he's doing drugs, well, somebody is likely selling them to him.  Certainly the murder he commits is a grizzly, terrible thing for which he shows little to no remorse, but that seems to me to make him a psychopath, not some otherworldly creature.  Not that psychopaths aren't scary, but in this day and age, they are no new news, I'm afraid.    

Both books had some things in common that I found interesting.  For one thing, they both seem to be a bit (or perhaps quite a bit) autobiographical in nature (which, admittedly, makes the vampire psychopath thing a little more scary).  Both the Afterword of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Jerome Charyn and the Introduction of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Peter Ackroyd point to this.  For me, both books were frustratingly vague when it came to just what kinds of terrible acts Mr. Hyde and Mr. Gray were guilty of.  Aside from a couple of murders and some drug use, we don't know very much.  From what I could gather, their greatest sins seem to be that they were out having a lot of bawdy, raunchy, indecent sex.  This may have been shocking to their Victorian readers, but, again, it's just not very scary today.    

botox can smooth out those lines around your mouth.  Been eating too much?  Liposuction can get rid of all that excess in no time.  Been having irresponsible sex?  Penicillin can clear that right up.  Been doing too much meth?  Well, honestly, there's not much to be done about that-let this be a lesson to you kids!  Don't do meth!  Been (sin of all sins!) aging??  Face lift, my friend.  And we do this all in the name of beauty, which was, of course, Dorian's great love.  *gasp*  Oh my!  Maybe this was a scarier book than I thought! 

I still have to give the win to Mr. Hyde because his inherent evil repulsed people on sight, and I've been around those people, the ones who give you the willies even though there's nothing specific that you can point to as the reason why.  Also, a much less painful read.

So, now I'm genuinely curious.  If you could see the physical manifestations of all your evil deeds on your likeness without those signs ever showing up on your physical person, would you be more or less likely to behave badly?  Remember, there's no way to alter your likeness.  The effects are cumulative.  Once the evil is done, it's done, and it's recorded forever.  On your face!  Mwahahahaha!   

What I'm Reading Now-The Handmaid's Tale

Before I delve into this, I just want to thank everyone who stopped by to offer condolences on Buster's passing. I sincerely appreciate everyone's kind words of support. I know it's not always easy to find the right words, so I'm truly touched that so many people that I (mostly) don't even know took the time to find them. Of course, I appreciate those of you that I do know stopping by too! It's been a rough couple of weeks, but life does go on, so: On to the business of living.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood-This is a look at a dystopian society in which the caucasian population has plummeted and a new societal order has been implemented whereby women are all essentially relegated to those who can bear children and those who cannot.  The latter are sent to toxic cleanup sites or, if they are privileged enough, they are assigned a Handmaid, a woman of proven fertility who's job it is to bear children for these acceptable women of society who cannot.

While seemingly far-fetched, there are a lot of elements in this book that hit a little too close to home for my comfort.  I don't think we are more than a few short steps away from a world like this and it seems like we're getting closer all the time.

This is one of those books that I've heard a lot about and knew I had to read...someday.  So, I was excited when Heather J. said she was considering doing a read-a-long and asked if anyone would be interested.  Read-a-long buddies!  What good motivation!  Anna and I jumped on board, and came up with some questions for each other to answer.  Below are the questions I came up with and the answers that Heather and Anna provided.  You can visit Heather's and Anna's posts to see the questions they asked and the answers they received.  Heather had the good idea of separating these into "Spoiler" and "Non-spoiler" questions, so I have done the same.  I hope you enjoy this departure from my normal review format!

Q: What did you find most frightening or disturbing about the story?

Heather: This is an easy one. For me the creepiest part of the book is that I can understand how the society got to be the way it is, and in a twisted way it completely makes sense. *shudder*

Anna: Atwood makes the story sound plausible to a certain extent. We’ve seen evidence of how cruel humans can be to one another in the pursuit of "perfection" and how fear can be used to control (the Holocaust and the Third Reich come to mind). What is frightening is that society never learns. And as a mother, trying to put myself in Offred’s shoes, realizing her daughter is being raised by another family and likely will not remember her, was heartbreaking.

Q: The end Historical Notes give a sense that society is looking back on the Gilead era as a dark spot in history, much like we look back on the Salem witch trials or slavery. Did you find this hopeful-we will eventually work our way through all our dark times-or depressing-no matter how much we learn, we will always go through more dark times.  Or did you see it completely differently?

Anna: Honestly, I don’t think we’ve fully learned lessons from dark days past. As long as there are people hungry for power, the world will continue to move in and out of dark times. While on the surface, the historical note gives a sense of hope in that the days of Gilead are over, we are given so little information about what is going on at that moment, it’s hard to tell whether things really have changed for the better.

Heather: It was very hopeful for me. It reminded me that no matter how bad things are now, they can always get better down the road.  That is my outlook on life in general, and the epilogue really appealed to be because of that.

Dreamybee: I had to jump in on this one!  Although my outlook on life in general is similar to Heather's, I felt much the same as Anna on this point.  Offred puts it well:  "When power is scarce a little of it is tempting."  (p. 308)  It seems like no matter how good things get, they always come back to somebody feeling the need to oppress someone else.  How do we always end up here?

Q: Aunt Lydia tells the girls that there is more than one kind of freedom, "freedom to and freedom from.  In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to.  Now you are being given freedom from.  Don't underrate it." (p.24) Do you agree?  Do you need the two to be in balance or is one more important than the other? Is one more dangerous or more freeing than the other?

Anna: Balance is key. Pre-Gilead, society may have seemed immoral to some, but there was still choice. After the new government took over, it was conform or die. Technically, people still had a choice – you could live or die – but where is the freedom in that? Life as you knew it was over either way.


Heather: This passage struck me as well, because I think that it is very true. “Freedom from” is just as important as “freedom to”, and we shouldn’t underrate it. But the opposite is true as well. For me, there needs to be a balance between the two.


*Spoiler question*


Q: We find out that the handmaid who was the previous Offred, the one who wrote the mysterious Nolite te bastardes carborundorum (Don't let the bastards grind you down) in her closet, killed herself.  At various timess Offred has thought of this phrase as a prayer or on order.  Once she finds out what happened to the scribe, her reaction is, "Fat lot of good it did her."  (p.225).  Do you agree?  Did the previous Offred drive her point home or make it absurd by taking her own life?

Heather: I felt like this phrase was the previous Offred’s motto but that in the end it failed her.  However that is because I see suicide as a cop-out rather than as a legitimate choice.  When faced with the repercussions of her actions (not that she had any choice in the matter) she DID let them grind her down, in spirit at least; she gave up the will to live.

Anna: It’s hard to say whether someone is braver for enduring the hardship or letting her captives know that her life and its end is in her own hands. I guess whether or not she drove the point home depends on the reason for her suicide. Was she afraid of being punished, or was it an act of rebellion? Personally, I think there might have been more effective ways of standing up to the “bastards,” and death seems like an easy way out.


*End Spoiler Question*

Heather listened to this as an audio book, and this was a re-read for Anna, so I can't wait to visit their blogs and see what they thought!  If you would like to add anything or if you have any thoughts on the questions above, please leave a comment.


Here are some other reviews for you to check out:
Ann at Books on the Nightstand revisited this old favorite of hers. Review starts around 13:15 of the podcast.
Jeanne at Necromancy Never Pays talks about it here...in an interview with Anna!
Thomas at My Porch read this on a recent vacation.


I know there are other reviews out there...I just can't ever find them.  So, if you've reviewed this book, leave me a comment, and I'll add a link to your review.