Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The Truth is Scarier than Stephen King


I just finished Duma Key, King's latest. Now, I love Stephen King with that stubborn loyalty that all his Maine fans have. He's one of us; he's never sold out. Nonetheless, I was utterly puzzled by his latest offering. It wasn't scary. Oh, it had the usual dead creatures, supernatural forces and tragic deaths of sympathetic characters--this time centering around a man, who having lost his arm in an accident moves to Florida and starts painting seriously creepy paintings. (I did a pencil sketch of one of the descriptions for this blog.) But Duma Key didn't scare me.
What kept me reading was the sensitivity with which he described some of the key relationships. One between an elderly woman and her caretaker was particularly resonant. The gestures were spot on. I began to wonder if King wanted to scare me. Maybe he wanted to write about people instead. Maybe that was the truth lurking under the surface. Let me quote a passage where the main character describes painting--it's true for writing as well.

"Be brave. Don't be afraid to draw the secret things. No one said art was a zephyr; sometimes its a hurricane. Even then you shouldn't hesitate or change course. Because if you tell yourself the great lie of bad art--that you are in charge--your chance at truth will be lost. The truth isn't always pretty. Sometimes truth is the big boy."

Stephen King, Duma Key.

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