Question:
If anyone has read Insomnia, I would greatly appreciate
hearing about what you thought of it.
Answer:
It's not a straightforward horror story! You can read Clive Barker
and Lovecraft for that kind of spook. insomnia is great because
he doesn't tell you what's going on and your suspicions are
supposed to escalate such as Ralph's did. You're supposed to have
felt sympathy for this character, Ralph, and his rejection from
the fourty-somethings and thirty-somethings because they think he's
going senile (same as the children in It were rejected).
Action is easy to write, I think. Just write a bunch of gorey
and bloody scenes similar to the women cutting each other up in
Needful Things (although I thought that was a great scene and one
of the few that was disgusting and I chuckled at). What is more
difficult to write is subtlety. I mean, it was slow, yes, I
agree with you on that.... but it made you want to turn the page,
the constant anticipation that the next will reveal the answers.
Like I've said before, I can definitely see how someone wouldn't like
Insomnia. But I think that if one is a reader like I am, who gets
very very emotionally and mentally involved in a plot and the
characters, it's a book that is hard to not enjoy (and lose sleep
over!).
I couldn't agree more! It bugs the hell out of me to see people
constantly refer to King as a "horror writer"; he can do more than gross
people out (and when you think about it, just about ANYONE can gross someone
out), and I, for one, wish he'd do more "Insomnia" and "Dark Tower" type
books. King has talent, and I hope that some day people will see this and
stop dwelling on the past. Writers mature and move on, and in King's case,
it's proved to be a wise move. Why rehash old ideas? As far as I'm
concerned, the horror field has little to offer that hasn't been done
already. If King wants to dive into more esoteric fields, I say more power
to him!
I have a very VERY broad definition of horror, most of the
time I would say that a book has one foot in science fiction
or fantasy and one foor (or a toe) in horror.
For example, Insomnia is horror but, many people will
disagree with that. It is because it uses alot of elements of
the unknown, fear elements, higher anxiety. The Body I
consider horror, because it has those elements again. I know
that this can cover topics such as mystery and some really
suspenseful novels, but I think that horror is a really broad
range.
I've read basically everything that King has written that I could
get my hands on (I didn't finish reading The Talisman, Tommyknockers
and Delores Claiborne, though). I have YET to read something
of his and comment to myself, "That's not horror."
