The King Canon Reading Challenge Continues...

Ah, Carrie...

Scarred and Scared
Stephen King's first published novel -- 1974. I was six when it came out. Yes, it scared the shit out of me; not because I read it when I was six, but because I watched the movie when I was sixteen.

[insert shudders]

I might as well have been six. That movie blew my mind with horror. I'd convinced myself that I could never read Stephen King books or see any more of his movies.

My Favourite Style of Novel
Little did I know that Carrie was an epistolary novel, one of my favourite styles.

A King 'Konvert'
Consider the time I've lost. It would take me how many years to read another Stephen King? Let's see...about 20 years before I read Dolores Claiborne, not realizing who the author was until I got into a few crunchy bits. I loved it!! I especially loved the way King made Dolores the only speaker in the entire book--brilliant! Nevertheless, I now had the license to continue reading King, though I still hadn't searched his back-list until this spring (Mar.26, 2016: Stephen King Did Too Good A Job)--such a scaredy cat. Instead, I'd read more recent novels like these:

• Under The Dome
• 11/22/63
• Mile 81 

Still no movies, though. Too visceral!

The King Canon Reading Challenge
So, in two and a half months, I've read:

• The Shining, King's 3rd novel, -- incredibly-done, couldn't read it in the nighttime when I was home alone--typical for me.
• Carrie, his 1st, --so simply horrific, takes bullying to unheard of heights, long before the 2000s and 
• Now I'm in the middle of Different Seasons, a collection of 4 novellas, 
• Namely the first: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, (sub-title: Hope Springs Eternal) more commonly known as the movie title: The Shawshank Redemption.

 

Stephen King Did Too Good A Job

I have a confession to make: I have only read less than a handful of Stephen King novels, up til now.

I know! He's one of my favourite authors; and I'm an author. Shame on me. But here's the real story:

The movie Carrie, based on his first book, traumatized me. I'm not sure I've been the same since. Don't get me wrong; I saw the genius---wait, saw it? I felt it every time the lights went out--thank god I wasn't an only child or I'd have been crawling into my parents' bed.

Accidentally, I happened to watch The Shining -- once again, the trauma of Carrie came back. I'm not sure if I don't like the horror genre for movies or if King scared me so much, I now cannot watch them. 

I was a big reader growing up. When I moved to the Goulds in Newfoundland & Labrador, from St. John's, I was put in a special class for reading with one other girl who got the top marks in everything and graduated as our valedictorian, but I could not read King's book. I already had Carrie-induced PTSD.

Only years later did I let down the gate and allow myself to cross the moat and enter his written lands. I realized that maybe now I can handle it. He still scares the shit out of me, but if I only read those parts in broad daylight, things are fine. So, I have now decided to take the journey back through the Stephen King universe--don't think I'm brave enough for the movies--and am going to read his full list of books, starting with: The Shining. 

I know Carrie was his first, and I plan to read it, but I need to work up to it.

Fun tidbit: 

Stephen King Novels in 140-characters:

https://litreactor.com/columns/every-stephen-king-novel-summarized-in-140-characters-or-less