Sorry that this has taken so long–I finished this book a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, real life reared it’s ugly face into our fun little book excursion. More on that later. But now, on to Different Seasons.
King has a pretty lengthy afterword in this book where he discusses the trouble with novellas. You can’t sell them to magazines as short stories, because they’re too long. You can’t sell them to publishers as novels, because they’re too short. So what do you do with them? Of course, these days, you just sell them on an e-reader. Problem solved. However, then you don’t end up with a wonderful collection like Different Seasons.
Even though these stories are very dissimilar, there is a common thread–more so than the usual King connections, which we’ll get to. Each of the four stories represents a different season (hence the name!) and we the readers get moved on in a year. Each of the stories has it’s own… category? This corresponds to the particular season.
First up, HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”. Here we find Andy Dufrense, wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, he’s sent to Shawshank prison for a very, very long time. He’s subjected to the stereotypical prison experience–rape, beatings, solitary confinement, corrupt officials–and yet, he knows that he is innocent. And he has a plan to get out. And despite the length of time that it takes to pull everything together, he never loses hope. HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL is seriously on point for this story. I’m sure just about everyone knows the story–who hasn’t seen that movie? And there really are a lot of similarities between the two; which is probably why the movie was so good.
The send falls under the SUMMER OF CORRUPTION, “Apt Pupil”. The quick and dirty–an impressionable kid discovers a Nazi war criminal living right there in his neighborhood and blackmails him into telling stories about the war. Stories probably isn’t the right word. Todd wants details. He wants to know what it was really like, what really happened. He wants the “gushy stuff”. And that’s what he gets.
When I first read this, I felt that Dussander was the one behind the “corruption”, but this time around, I’m not sure. The old man was done. He was out. He was content to let it go and try to forget about it and live a lonely life and die a lonely death. Until Todd came along. Todd did all of the pushing. Todd brought everything back into the light. And Todd had no idea what he was in for. Oh, he thought he did. He came in there full of confidence, stating this is how it’s going to be. And he thought this was what he wanted. King shows us exactly when he realizes that he’s in way over his head, and now has no way out.
This one was also given the movie treatment. Sir Ian McKellan played Dussander, and I can’t remember who played the kid. This is a seriously depressing and disturbing story, and I’m sure it made for an equally depressing and disturbing movie, or I would probably remember it…
FALL FROM INNOCENCE… “The Body” is the best of the lot, here. Also known by the film name, “Stand By Me”, it’s a story of four friends who head off an an adventure… to find a dead kid. And at first, that’s all it is. An adventure. “Hey, we all lied to our parents, and now we’re sneaking out and hiking halfway across Maine and ISN’T THIS AWESOME!!!!” But as they go on, it because less and less a fun time, and more of a quest. These four boys grow up on that trip, and we get to go along with them. If you haven’t read this, read this one. Even if you skip the rest of the stories–read this one.
The shortest of the four is “The Breathing Method”, under A WINTER’S TALE. This is the story that really falls more into what you’d expect from Stephen King. A mysterious club where men gather to tell tales, and where secrets are hidden behind secrets. This is really a story about a man telling a story, one to chill us with horror. Overall, it’s less about the tales that are told and more about the location, which we never learn much about at all. The story-within-the-story is about a young woman, pregnant, who meets a very tragic end–as you would expect from Winter.
However, at the end, there is birth… which leads us right back into Spring.
This is a fantastic collection of stories, and unlike Night Shift, there is no junk food here. These are all serious, and enjoyable. Well, “Apt Pupil” isn’t very enjoyable. And honestly, it’s more horrifying than the actual horror story. Horror is really only fun when you know, deep deep down, that it can’t actually happen. “Apt Pupil” happens all too often.
Connections–there are a bunch. Castle Rock is featured prominently–the boys in “The Body” live there, and that’s where Shawshank is–and Cujo and Frank Bannerman get name-dropped. Jerusalem’s Lot is here. Andy Dufresne and Dussander have met before. There are a few others (which I should have written down! I finished this a while back now, and a few of them have slipped my mind!).
So, I’ll try to get us all back on track. Up next is Pet Semetary, and I’ll tell you why this has taken me so long to get back to.
ouryearwiththeking 