Different Seasons (Signet)
by Stephen King
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stephen KingEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1983-08-29
ISBN: 0451167538
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Signet
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780451167538
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Different Seasons (Signet)
Book Review: It Is The Tale, Not He Who Tells It: What Might Be The Stephen King's Best Collection
Summary: 5 Stars
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption
I've got to say, I deeply enjoyed this short, wonderful story.
I normally don't like stories told from the first-person perspective, but this one got on top of me and quickly. It's in the voicing of the narrative, almost wholly, in how it works on you; sure, there are a lot of other great things going on in this story, like the character development and a lot of contextual stuff, but it's the voice that carries this great work of art. You really fall in love with these guys; they're just so likable, and their situation is so dire; they've been crushed down, so low, and this character is telling you how they got out of it all.
I'm also a sucker for fiction in which the villain or villains is the system itself, or members of the authority body. This novella definitely hits that on the nose, squarely.
I plan on watching the The Shawshank Redemption (Blu-ray Book) sometime in the next couple weeks, and will write a review based on the movie experience, too; when I do that, I'll include a comparison to the book in that review and update this review, also.
I just want to say it again... This is an amazing story, and I would recommend it to everyone; even people that aren't particularly into reading...
Apt Pupil
This novella was really disgusting at points. It's an assaultive work, and it hits all the senses with a sledge hammer.
On its face, it's a story about how easy it is to lose your morality; one thing after another, and sooner or later, you're an empty human being with nothing left but the desire to do awful things just to make the blood move again. It's about what it's like to lose everything good inside yourself, and know that you'll never get it back. You almost feel bad for the sinister characters in the piece, even though through the course of the narrative they've done unspeakable things.
One thing that came to mind immediately after finishing the novella was the raw, obvious similarities and correlations between 'Apt Pupil' and Stephen King's other child-gone-wrong book 'Rage'; in fact, it almost seems like 'Apt Pupil' is the story King was trying to tell with 'Rage' to begin with. 'Apt Pupil' is more developed than 'Rage,' certainly. It's got a lot more character work in the narrative and its voice is a tad more pronounced. It's far dirtier, too, because while in 'Rage' you knew very little, all in all, about the demented child killing everyone, in 'Apt Pupil' you spend the entire course of the narrative getting to know the child, and the places where his dark desires originate.
I'm very surprised that King ever removed 'Rage' from publication, if he has not removed this work as well. Even beyond their gross similarities, the essential nerve that's struck is the same. I read 'Rage' many, many years ago and it really worked on me; in exactly the same way this did, only in a less refined way. 'Rage' was blunt, without reason. The same conclusion is reached, though. Why would King remove 'Rage' but leave 'Apt Pupil' in print? I've watched interviews with him after Columbine and he seemed so passionate about it. He must know that there are millions of copies of 'Rage' out there, and that removing it from publications does nothing. But more than that, as the writer of the works, he also must know that the two books are like two brothers, one farther along and more developed than the other; the fact remaining that they come from the same family, and were raised identically. I don't understand why, if 'Rage' is so horrible that he felt he had to strike it from publication, why he wouldn't automatically decide to do the same for 'Apt Pupil'. The obvious answer is that Hollywood never came calling about 'Rage', but due to the other books in Different Seasons gaining success at the box office, Hollywood did come calling about 'Apt Pupil' and the movie was made before Columbine. So perhaps removing the book after to movie deal would be bad business. I'm not going to judge Stephen King for this kind of inconsistency; I just thought I'd point it out.
All in all, I think 'Apt Pupil' works for the right reasons, and I think it raises questions about whether sociopaths are born or bred to be what they are. I think it also shows a mirror to the American heart, and many people won't like what they see there.
I have not seen the movie, but plan to. I doubt it will even be in the same ballpark of serious as this novella was, for me anyway.
WARNING: This story contains horrific animal cruelty and violence against homeless and poor people. If you're sensitive to these kinds of things, don't read this story. The animal cruelty within the story really bothered me, but in my view it was needed to frame exactly how depraved the characters in the narrative truly were.
I gave it four out of 5 stars because of the pace of story, realism in the narrative, and the propulsive, assaultive style and how it worked on my brain. Many things can be said about Stephen King, but open thing is for sure: he keeps people reading like gangbusters.
The Body
One odd realization that slowly crept over me while reading the Body is that I may be one of the last people to be able to identify with it. A good portion of the story takes place on railroad tracks, with live trains on them, and these days those seem to be an endangered species certain to be gone altogether in the next twenty years. What trains remain after that will almost certainly be that of the Amtrak variety, and not the lumbering box car type in this story. With all the 'Rails to Trails' programs in ever small town I've been to recently, the trains won't be missed, either, i suspect. But without them, this story will fall to nearly blind, misunderstanding eyes, I fear. Sure, there will be historical TV programs and wikipedia pages on the old rail systems, but no one beyond my generation will have really experienced trains firsthand. I find that to be a sad thing, really, for many reasons; but certainly, it will impact the enjoyment of this story.
A second realization hit me after finishing the book and having time to think. Kids don't smoke anymore; yes, kids who are 15-19 still start smoking, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that 12 year old kids don't try cigarettes anymore, and certainly don't smoke them regularly. The point can be argued, but what I'm saying is true, and I think everyone knows it. Kids not only don't smoke when they're that young anymore, they couldn't afford to even if they wanted to. The habit couldn't develop so young, now. Why am I bringing this up? Because it's another element in the story that people won't be able to identify with anymore, certainly not 10 years from now. With all the municipalities outlawing smoking in public places, even those of us that did smoke when we were that young are quitting, and will soon have the foggy memories of the act that old people have about, well, everything.
A third realization is that in 20 years, as manufacturing goes though it's final death throws in this country, all the talk of the mills will become another point wherein the reader won't be able to readily identify with the narrative.
Factories, rail roads, smoking: all pieces of America, and almost completely no more. Wild...
It's interesting to view the book in such dated terms, less than thirty years from its original publication in 1982. Even then, it was calling back to a time two decades before, to the 1960s, a by-gone era and time when things were altogether different. But the story would have worked in 1982 perfectly for anyone that read it at the time, because those trains were still moving and kids and parents alike were smoking up a storm and even those who didn't smoke saw it happen more than once in a daily by people young and old. By the late 1990s things had changed quite a bit, and by now, in 2011, it's like a totally different universe.
Am I saying the story suffers too much from age on the shelf? No, I'm not. I just find it interesting, looking at it now, at my age, and being able to look forward at the changes that are happening in our society. Even taking a look at stories written in the 1800s, there are things that people could identify with up until 25 years ago, with even more than a hundred year gap in the way; now, just a little under thirty years have passed and this story has been greatly displaced, as far as its ability to be in tune with the reader, and have a shared identity with them.
Anyway... what did I think of 'The Body'? I thought it was amazing. I love this story every bit as much as i loved 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption' and for the same reasons; the characters were just so likeable, and familiar to me; the story brought back memories of my childhood that i had long forgotten. In the familiarity, it was a better story than 'Shawshank' because although i've never been to prison, I have lived the kind of life the children in the story did, and I have lost people in much the same way. It's a gorgeous picture of the 19th century American childhood, and I fell in love with it immediately.
Stephen King, for all the bad things people say about him, puts story first. It shines here.
At its heart, the story is about a writer looking back on a single event in his childhood, and kind of reviewing how that event tuned him, and how it focused his fixation on mortality. I sense an autobiographical nature in the narrative, as though Stephen King is giving a little more of himself away in this one than he normally does. There is a lot of internal conflict in the narrative, and a lot of self-examination that feels right; it feels honest.
The inner conflicts center around how mortality affects people, how unfair life can be and how some people never make it, how death doesn't ask. If the book has a central theme, I would say that it would be to enjoy every moment you have, especially with friends.
The book, 'The Body' is definitely superior to the movie 'Stand By Me'; but only because it is more inclusive of the heart and mind of the storyteller. The movie is compressed, and doesn't have enough time to breathe. Movies cannot truly represent a novel or even a novella in its entirety, because of time constraints. I try not to judge them too harshly because of this. The movie is worth checking out; I'll probably end up watching it again.
The Breathing Method
Stephen King, even in his youth, was very, very good at having a narrative voice from the perspective of old men. Several of his short stories and novellas over the years have been about an old man looking back at an event in their life; usually that event is horrifying. His voicing of older characters has always been good; in Night Shift, the 'One For The Road' story, or in Everything's Eventual : 14 Dark Tales the story called 'The Man In The Black Suit' are great examples of this. 'The Breathing Method' is no different. It's a very good story, and a fitting end for such a fine collection.
I would say, however, that it isn't my favorite novella in this collection. I think the reason for that falls to the fact that I'm more interested in the surroundings of where the title piece story are told, than the story itself. The Club that isn't a club, as Stephen King puts it in the afterward. Part of what made me love the story so much is the mystery around the place, but I also have to say that it left me wanting to know more about that place; a lot more. The entire underlying concept was brilliant, and I can only hope he will either drop and older story from the vault that explores the place, or possibly write about it in the future.
It's not as good as `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' or `The Body', but I did find that I enjoyed it more than `Apt Pupil'; by a long shot.
The Collection
I can't really decide between `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' or `The Body' for a favorite in the book, but I'll say that it's `Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' because I also loved the movie a lot, too, and the characters are so memorable; it's really unfair to compare them, due to the way the movie has become such a cult hit over the years, and how that influences the discussion.
I won't be getting rid of this book, ever. It's going to hang around, and I'll probably read it a dozen more times. Two of the books in this thing are just absolute classics. Love it.
Summary of Different Seasons (Signet)
Four mesmerizing novellas, including the inspirations for the movies The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and Stand By Me.
Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, nonhorrific tale about an innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of passage from youth to maturity.
These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" into Frank Darabont's 1994 The Shawshank Redemption (available as a screenplay, a DVD film, and an audiocassette), "Apt Pupil" into Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil (also released in 1998 on audiocassette), and "The Body" into Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986).
The final novella, "Breathing Lessons," is a horror yarn told by a doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished tale in the collection. --Fiona Webster
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