Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Still the Novella King: If It Bleeds by Stephen King

 


Good job, Uncle Stevie!

I've loved King's previous novella collections, especially Different Seasons, although Full Dark, No Stars is really good, too (Four Past Midnight, which I somehow missed, is next on my list). If It Bleeds is the only one of these to have a title story, but you have to admit it's a pretty good title for a Stephen King book.

"Mr. Harrigan's Phone" is a nice creepy story involving texting... from... beyond.... (to be read in a cheesy old school horror host voice). The characters are some vintage King stuff, along with some nice moments about relationships and grief.

I really enjoyed "The Life of Chuck," but it was maybe the most work to read of the four, although I don't mean this as a criticism. It consists of three parts in reverse chronological order (King says later in his author's note that he wrote them at different times, which makes it all the more interesting to me from a creative point of view). 

The world is coming undone and there are mysterious billboards thanking someone named Chuck for "39 great years." The next two stories unravel some of the mystery, but not all of it. There's a character in the second part who's an associate professor of philosophy (which I am), so now I know what it's like for novelists and people who wear blue chambray shirts to read Stephen King! The idea that we all live in our own worlds or that there's a whole world in our minds is mainly metaphorical... or is it?

We get another mention of philosophy in the next novella, the title story "If It Bleeds." There's a scene where a character remembers the problem of evil from a college philosophy class. 

But I've buried the lead: this is a Holly Gibney story! I've read A LOT of Stephen King, enough to call myself a Constant Reader, but even I've only read about 60% of his bibliography. I can't keep up with the guy. My first exposure to Holly Gibney was in the HBO adaptation of The Outsider (I'll read the book soon), and I haven't read the Bill Hodges trilogy. I'm sure purists will tell me I have no business reading this story without having read those, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I probably missed a lot of the references to Holly's previous experiences, but I felt like I followed it just fine. 

The whole idea of an outsider is a fascinating way to talk about evil, suffering, and the bad things that happen to good people--in other words, the topics that made King's career. King ties it to a distinction between inside and outside evil, which to my understanding is not a standard way of discussing the problem of evil in philosophy, but this is fiction, so I'll allow it. 

We may not have inter dimensional interlopers in real life (or at least I hope not), but given the mind-boggling nature of the universe and the lack of sense to be made in the face of grievous tragedy, which generates what Albert Camus calls absurdity, maybe there's a deeper lesson here. The universe seldom makes moral sense, but luckily there are Holly Gibneys out there to help us to try to fight off the evils from outside our moral universe to help us think another day.

The last novella, "Rat," is something like The Shining or Misery, but without a pesky family or rabid fan to ruin the fun. A writer (Another one, King? Okay, sure.) ventures to a remote cabin to write a novel, and there's a storm on the way. Is there a rat? What happens? For this quirky little story, I think it's best if I let you find out for yourself. I can say that I enjoyed it, and there's an arrangement that reminded me of "Fair Extension" from Full Dark, No Stars and raises similar ethical issues.

I always love King's author's notes, and it comes at the end of this one. I always feel like he's talking directly to me. And as a Constant Reader, I suppose he is. Thanks, Uncle Stevie!

See my Goodreads review.

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