Kevin's Watch

Luci, don't misunderstand me, none of the character's are like Larry, they're just as fully realized as Larry. IMO, of course.

Hope you enjoy the book!

No way. Larry Underwood was a great character, but he pales in comparison to how well the characters in this book were realized.

whoa.

right. leavin work early to go to book store.

finished Duma Key last night.

i had a different experience reading this book than i've had reading any other stephen king novel.
this time, i was acutely aware of the structure and arc of the story.
all the regular cast and characters were there. all the regular king
tropes. it wasn't fresh or new, it was familiar, almost comfortingly so.
and still i was entertained.

halfway through i had a little "ding dong avon calling" moment where i realized what stephen king really writes about. i know, i know, i
sometimes have to be hit over the head with the obvious.

king writes about relationships.

pick your favorites: red and andy; larry & everybody including himself, stu & franny, franny & her dad, nick & tom; ted brautigan and bobby; roland & jake, eddie and roland, or eddie and his brother; carrie and her mother; paul edgecomb and john coffey (he's done george and lenny several times ); dolores claiborne and vera, dolores and her daughter; edgar and wireman...well i could go on and on.

he finds the best things about relationships
and makes them shine.

and that's what keeps me reading stephen king. and that's what makes him a great writer. and that's why, dispite familiarity with tropes, situations, plots, arcs, or characters, i always enjoy it.

Well duh....

You may well disagree with this, but using your (presumably) favorite example....

Larry Underwood was a secondary character in The Stand. However Larry's development is pretty impressive, and it's impressive for a writer to invest so much texture into a secondary character.

Truthfully, I think that what King excels at is writing characters. Once the character is established, it's much easier to write meaningful relationships.

Lucimay wrote:finished Duma Key last night.

i had a different experience reading this book than i've had reading any other stephen king novel.
this time, i was acutely aware of the structure and arc of the story.
all the regular cast and characters were there. all the regular king
tropes. it wasn't fresh or new, it was familiar, almost comfortingly so.
and still i was entertained.

halfway through i had a little "ding dong avon calling" moment where i realized what stephen king really writes about. i know, i know, i
sometimes have to be hit over the head with the obvious.

king writes about relationships.

pick your favorites: red and andy; larry & everybody including himself, stu & franny, franny & her dad, nick & tom; ted brautigan and bobby; roland & jake, eddie and roland, or eddie and his brother; carrie and her mother; paul edgecomb and john coffey (he's done george and lenny several times ); dolores claiborne and vera, dolores and her daughter; edgar and wireman...well i could go on and on.

he finds the best things about relationships
and makes them shine.

and that's what keeps me reading stephen king. and that's what makes him a great writer. and that's why, dispite familiarity with tropes, situations, plots, arcs, or characters, i always enjoy it.

Good analysis. What I think of when I read SK is a quote (paraphrased cause my memory is not perfect) from John Christopher's tripod trilogy, the second book I believe.

Friendship blooms in the sunshine but it is adversity that knits men's hearts together.

I find I like Duma more the more time passes and the more I think back on it.

yeah it's settling on me too. i totally forgot to mention how i really liked the "how to draw a picture" parts. those were very cool.

I loved this book.

I am half way through this and I have to say I am loving it. It is a really back to basics approach. Such a change from his multi character multi perspective approaches that he is famous for. I love the narrative style. And so subtle. After reading The Dome I was about to shelve King for good. I had had it with his convoluted superficial approach to story writing. I am so thrilled to read this.

Great book!

What amazed me about this book, is I was about 60% through it, I realized nothing spooky or supernatural has really happened yet, it has all been relationship and setup and yet I was totally on the edge of my seat engrossed. Not many authors can get me to do that without significant action occurring.

It's like coming across a storyteller at a campsight and just wanting to listen to every word they are saying. No matter what they are talking about.

Ok, I finished it...finally. I have to say I really enjoyed this book. I have a new perspective on King. After reading The Cell and Under the Dome I had just about given up on him as a writer. I felt that he was inundating these books, especially Dome, with a gazillion characters as a bit of a distraction form a poor plot line going nowhere. The along came Duma, which was completely different.

This story is ABOUT the characters, not just adding one person after another. I think this book was his way of dealing with his injuries from the car accident and his efforts to start over. He WAS Edgar. You could feel what Edgar was going through, trying to make sense of his life. In Kings "On Writing" he talks about his struggles to put his life back together after that bad accident.

And the prose were just wonderful. He took the time to bring the reader to Duma, both in the new millennium and in the 20's. A lot of his words seemed to move in swells like a poem, like the ocean. For the most part the book is written in narrative from Edgar. I think this is a harder way to approach writing and keep the reader hooked. It requires patience from the reader. There are no huge monsters in this book, more of a slow swelling of scary characters, but never the terrifying clowns in the sewer system. I think the closer a horror book comes to real life the more terrifying the story.

I think this is one of my favorite King books.

So I finally read this, and I enjoyed it overall.

Seems more like a return to what I would call "classic" King. I didn't feel it was spectacular, but it was good.

Cell was better I thought.

Perhaps a few previously used techniques re-appearing. Usual foreshadowing, but not too badly done, with maybe one exception.

--A