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I devoured King's latest like a bulimic plows through his cream-filled donuts. The King is back in splendid form in the short story format.
You enter the stories without much preamble. Within a page, he already throws you headlong into his parallel universe, so distant yet so familiar. That world that seems so similar to ours but... a comma, a breath of wind, a trivial dispute is enough to shatter all the little rules that govern it.
You know those house of cards.
Typical, easy to make. Who doesn't know how to stand them up? A moment of distraction while placing a card, a finger, an elbow and...
...It's just a page, but King already makes our hair stand on end: why? Because with an innocent sentence he immediately tells us what's to come or what we might expect. The settings are all "normal" in the stories he offers us. The first, "1922", brings back those sensations that perhaps (we King fans) had lost over thirty years, that sensation of "IT-like" claustrophobia and, above all, that inevitability, the inevitability of the unfolding story. Everything is written but one moves forward. Indeed, King pours gasoline on the fire with each page, and after every page, you can't stop. No. You must know how it continues, you can imagine it... but you MUST know.
"1922" is narrated in the first person like a sort of diary, dark, solemn, mystical, dramatic.
You finish it in a breath. But beware, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking: "well, this was really good, I'll just read a couple of pages of the next one to see what's in the air".... and ZAP! You immediately feel the steel trap that good old King had hidden and that now compresses your gray matter. Holy-crap! But this is stronger than the first!!! Off you go again.
"Big Driver" is relentless, goes like a train. It absolutely doesn't allow stops, no bathroom breaks, no snacks, no debasing, nothing. You've boarded and now you must go!
In the end, strangely for a King story, but in the end, as I was saying, the story leaves us with a mischievous, also clueless, also sly smile. Yes.
The style in the last three stories, compared to the first, is instead the more modern one of the latest King. The one of the last 15-20 years. I'm taking a breath before the final rollercoaster and to mention the translation by Wu Ming 1 (go look up who it is) which for the first time replaces the legendary Dobner. Someone winced. Now the prose is more measured, less pyrotechnic, more linear, and I'd say, "mature". I really liked it.
"Fair Extension" flies away like a butterfly (dead). The important thing is that, in the meantime, you don't think of some dear debasing friend of yours... heh heh heh...
Holding your breath on the last, splendid story: "A Good Marriage".
Another pause. This collection has another merit aside from bringing us back a great King. Our writer manages to set up a remarkable (and very solid) psychological introspection of the female characters with these stories. The women here are protagonists. And King dissects (what a nice verb, huh?) their deepest thoughts, the ones we men can only imagine sometimes.
In this, King is a real Monster.
The last ride of the carousel, as I was saying, is perhaps one of the best stories ever by our King.
Great rhythm, great idea, superb execution of the same.
In short, finale with a... bang.
And now, precisely because I grew up with King and have become a Faithful Nasty Reader I reveal the last lines of the book to make you happy: "Constant Reader ... I believe that most people are fundamentally good. I know that I am. It's of you that I'm not entirely certain".
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