![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
One of the unfortunate things about greater recognition of the literary merits of King's work is that mainstream authors seem to think they have to take it out of the horror category to like it, so the blurbs on the back talk in terms of magical realism and metaphors, but this is just as much a fantasy/horror book as Rose Madder.
Lisey's Story, about a dead famous writer’s wife – and she is defined that way, despite the title (the section of the book also called “Lisey’s Story” is very short, though it is the last section) – made me think about King as a feminist writer. I do think he is, fundamentally because his protagonists, the ones who survive, are the ones who trust themselves. Time and again, his protagonists, especially the young and the female ones, are offered a choice: listen to the little voice in your head, the still small voice that says that something is wrong here, or do what you’re told. Time and again, listening to the little voice is the right thing to do.
In this case, the small voice sounds like Scott Landon, Lisey’s famous husband, who died suddenly two years back. Just as Lisey decides to clear out his effects, she receives a strange and frightening threat tied to Scott’s memorabilia; also, one of her four sisters goes crazy again, and Lisey has to deal with that. As usual, the emotional realism of King’s writing is undeniable – here it covers the things that money can make easier and how wealthy people learn to rely on that, along with the strange and twisted bonds of family, including the fact that one of the sisters “escaped” entirely and only shows up in a few sentences as the one who went away to live in Florida. Indeed, very few relationships matter in this book, because Lisey was so wrapped up in Scott – as, from all evidence, Scott was wrapped up in her. Scott had no living family, while Lisey tried to avoid hers as much as possible. And, contrary to what you might expect, she doesn’t have to learn to love and cherish her sisters again to survive the two crises she faces; it’s all about dealing with Scott and Scott’s past, even -- it turns out -- saving the crazy sister.
That sounds, well, not very feminist, and I can see that. But one reason Lisey doesn’t need to learn anything about her family is that she never stopped loving and cherishing them; she just became an adult with a separate life from them. Her journey is not about maturing, but about surviving a threat from outside; she's already pretty good the way she is. She feels like a real person – almost too much so, given the repetition of little marital catchphrases hundreds of times during the book, which is totally realistic but also really annoying if you’re not part of the actual creation and tending of that marriage.
The narrative problem comes from the Scott-Lisey relationship, and it’s tied to one of King’s consistent weaknesses, which is that he isn’t very good with a writer-protagonist. The Shining succeeds because the writer is the bad guy; I myself love The Tommyknockers but the protagonist’s status as a writer is rather secondary; Misery works because it opens a vein about the writer’s relationship to fans; but after that I don’t have much good to say about King’s writer-heroes. Moving the protagonist to the writer’s wife/widow is an interesting choice – and a bold one from a man married to another writer – but then the plot turns on Scott and Lisey’s relationship to Boo’ya Moon, the place Scott visited to drink from the story-pool, which is his version of the shared well of human creativity. And so we’re back to the writer as the fundamental actor, and this is a difficult thing to pull off.
As metaphor for a wonderful and dangerous place we can go when the real world is not working for us, Boo’ya Moon is both too literal and too metaphorical; it gives Lisey abilities that end up feeling like cheating. Scott used it to survive his terrible childhood (another of King’s strengths is describing the crazy things adults do to kids), but Lisey’s use felt to me like it was driven by the demands of the plot. Unlike Scott, her relationship to Boo’ya Moon wasn’t inherently tied to storytelling – the story-pool just turns out to have other powers, like a flying pony that can also play cards. I think the idea was that Lisey’s access to those powers came from finally confronting her past with Scott and telling herself the true story of the marriage, but the “story” Lisey has here is extradiegetic – King’s novel, not any creation of Lisey Landon – and I just don’t buy that recalling your life story in your own head is equivalent to writing and sharing a story, whether from life or made up.
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve convinced myself that there’s a deeper problem: the narrative tension comes from the slow revelations of the Landons’ secrets, which were in fact all Scott’s secrets. But I never understood why Lisey kept shying away from thoughts of Boo’ya Moon, so the idea that she had to own those memories to resolve her present crises never worked for me. Boo’ya Moon needed to be the reason she couldn’t grieve, but because it was a landscape driven by Scott, there was no reason that Lisey couldn’t face it, except for the demands of the plot. Lisey, while competent and smart and generally the kind of person you want on your side, is not a storyteller and should find no threat in Boo’ya Moon. I can rationalize her reluctance because we are told and to some extent shown how wrapped up in each other Lisey and Scott were, so perhaps she would share his obsessions without understanding them, but I never felt it, which is a fatal flaw in a story trying to evoke horror. King didn’t really change the protagonist, he just made him dead, and so Lisey’s story never lives.
Lisey's Story, about a dead famous writer’s wife – and she is defined that way, despite the title (the section of the book also called “Lisey’s Story” is very short, though it is the last section) – made me think about King as a feminist writer. I do think he is, fundamentally because his protagonists, the ones who survive, are the ones who trust themselves. Time and again, his protagonists, especially the young and the female ones, are offered a choice: listen to the little voice in your head, the still small voice that says that something is wrong here, or do what you’re told. Time and again, listening to the little voice is the right thing to do.
In this case, the small voice sounds like Scott Landon, Lisey’s famous husband, who died suddenly two years back. Just as Lisey decides to clear out his effects, she receives a strange and frightening threat tied to Scott’s memorabilia; also, one of her four sisters goes crazy again, and Lisey has to deal with that. As usual, the emotional realism of King’s writing is undeniable – here it covers the things that money can make easier and how wealthy people learn to rely on that, along with the strange and twisted bonds of family, including the fact that one of the sisters “escaped” entirely and only shows up in a few sentences as the one who went away to live in Florida. Indeed, very few relationships matter in this book, because Lisey was so wrapped up in Scott – as, from all evidence, Scott was wrapped up in her. Scott had no living family, while Lisey tried to avoid hers as much as possible. And, contrary to what you might expect, she doesn’t have to learn to love and cherish her sisters again to survive the two crises she faces; it’s all about dealing with Scott and Scott’s past, even -- it turns out -- saving the crazy sister.
That sounds, well, not very feminist, and I can see that. But one reason Lisey doesn’t need to learn anything about her family is that she never stopped loving and cherishing them; she just became an adult with a separate life from them. Her journey is not about maturing, but about surviving a threat from outside; she's already pretty good the way she is. She feels like a real person – almost too much so, given the repetition of little marital catchphrases hundreds of times during the book, which is totally realistic but also really annoying if you’re not part of the actual creation and tending of that marriage.
The narrative problem comes from the Scott-Lisey relationship, and it’s tied to one of King’s consistent weaknesses, which is that he isn’t very good with a writer-protagonist. The Shining succeeds because the writer is the bad guy; I myself love The Tommyknockers but the protagonist’s status as a writer is rather secondary; Misery works because it opens a vein about the writer’s relationship to fans; but after that I don’t have much good to say about King’s writer-heroes. Moving the protagonist to the writer’s wife/widow is an interesting choice – and a bold one from a man married to another writer – but then the plot turns on Scott and Lisey’s relationship to Boo’ya Moon, the place Scott visited to drink from the story-pool, which is his version of the shared well of human creativity. And so we’re back to the writer as the fundamental actor, and this is a difficult thing to pull off.
As metaphor for a wonderful and dangerous place we can go when the real world is not working for us, Boo’ya Moon is both too literal and too metaphorical; it gives Lisey abilities that end up feeling like cheating. Scott used it to survive his terrible childhood (another of King’s strengths is describing the crazy things adults do to kids), but Lisey’s use felt to me like it was driven by the demands of the plot. Unlike Scott, her relationship to Boo’ya Moon wasn’t inherently tied to storytelling – the story-pool just turns out to have other powers, like a flying pony that can also play cards. I think the idea was that Lisey’s access to those powers came from finally confronting her past with Scott and telling herself the true story of the marriage, but the “story” Lisey has here is extradiegetic – King’s novel, not any creation of Lisey Landon – and I just don’t buy that recalling your life story in your own head is equivalent to writing and sharing a story, whether from life or made up.
As I’ve been writing this, I’ve convinced myself that there’s a deeper problem: the narrative tension comes from the slow revelations of the Landons’ secrets, which were in fact all Scott’s secrets. But I never understood why Lisey kept shying away from thoughts of Boo’ya Moon, so the idea that she had to own those memories to resolve her present crises never worked for me. Boo’ya Moon needed to be the reason she couldn’t grieve, but because it was a landscape driven by Scott, there was no reason that Lisey couldn’t face it, except for the demands of the plot. Lisey, while competent and smart and generally the kind of person you want on your side, is not a storyteller and should find no threat in Boo’ya Moon. I can rationalize her reluctance because we are told and to some extent shown how wrapped up in each other Lisey and Scott were, so perhaps she would share his obsessions without understanding them, but I never felt it, which is a fatal flaw in a story trying to evoke horror. King didn’t really change the protagonist, he just made him dead, and so Lisey’s story never lives.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I like what you said about his ability to write female characters. I don't know if I disagree or agree about his take on writers, but I think his characters in general are always fascinating. People get so caught up in him as a horror/fantasy writer that they don't see just how moving his work is, how clearly he sees people. I love "It" as a fantastic horror story, but I love it even more for it's take on childhood and love and devotion. Horror aside, it's one of the most incredibly moving books I've ever read. And I just can't seem to muster that feeling for his later books.
From:
no subject
It is probably my favorite -- believe it or not, I read it in one very long sitting the night/morning/day I got it. I also appreciate Gerald's Game -- I wrote a paper in college on King's narratives about child sexual abuse versus those in self-help books, in which Gerald's Game figured rather heavily. But I agree that I haven't felt that narrative pull in a while. Cell probably came the closest of King's recent books to recreating that amazing sense of character combined with bizarre and horrific circumstances. It's when he doesn't try for epic sweep and metaphorical depth that he does his best work, because he leaves stereotypes so far behind while still managing to create archetypal Heroes.
Anyway, I read that he has another book as Richard Bachman coming out soon, and that might be a signal of the meatier writing I loved so much in the 80s.
From:
no subject
I totally believe you on It- because I did the same thing, too. I was visiting my grandparents in Florida, I bought it at a local bookstore, and couldn't put it down. I always seem to do that with books I love.
I really hope King gets recognized for the talent he is, and not just a hack horror writer. I haven't read Cell, either. I'm considering reading Lisey's Gamem but right now I'm on a Tudors kick, and I'm deeply involved in Alison Weir's work. I'm sure I'll get back to King eventually, even if I'm not so crazy about his later stuff, I usually end up reading it eventually.
From:
no subject
That, combined with the focus on the wife of a writer, someone who was treated as a second-class citizen in relation to him, made me start to think maybe it was Tabitha King who wrote it, or at least a good portion of it.
From:
no subject