What are we reading?

[mirth]

I think the TV movie was late 70s, but I get your point. Scared the crap out of me too.

[Gusington]

I never watched it because of that damned poster/book cover.

[BanzaiCat]

Same. Made mistake of watching Salem's Lot in the 70s. Scarred me but good.

[Gusington]

The Shining did that to me at around age 7. But it will always be one of my favorite movies. Salem's Lot I could not handle.

[BanzaiCat]

We saw The Shining at a drive-in movie theater (remember those?). My mom made me lay down in the backseat and told me to go to sleep so I'd not see it, but they were so enthralled with it they didn't notice me watching. That was another head-scortcher.

[Gusington]

Dude I still can't watch the old lady in the tub scene. I blame my parents. At least yours tried to help you. Mine didn't even know I scarred myself!

[BanzaiCat]

Another movie they made me not watch was It's Alive. But it was so bad they caught me sneaking peeks.

I finally watched it about 15 years ago. They weren't wrong...that was a terrible movie.

[Gusington]

Progress.

[BanzaiCat]

Unlike just having trailers full of dancing girls.

[Gusington]

That's a lot to ask.

[Toonces]

We're going to see Les Miserables at the Providence Performing Arts Center tonight.  So for the last 2 weeks I've been on a tear trying to finish up the book.

Finally, last night at 12:30 I finished it.  Very good book.  I can't lie, I had to skim some of the asides Hugo goes on in order to finish it up, but I did it.  I skipped the portion about the history of the sewer system and some of the characters' long speeches.  I also didn't give the part about the nature of revolutions enough attention. 

I didn't care too much for the end, but I guess maybe that was to be expected.  Regardless, I feel a real sense of accomplishment getting through the book, and doing it in time to see the show and not have spoilers.  I'd like to go back and re-read it from where I started skimming, but I don't know if I have the stamina at this point.  Perhaps, when I retire to Florida, I'll sit on my porch in my rocker with nothing but time on my hands, bring out a cold beer, and give the book another close read.  The story itself is pretty quick, it's the long expositions Hugo goes on that make the book so classic in my opinion.

[Toonces]

I'm strongly considering hitting War and Peace next...another book I've always wanted to read and has been sitting on my bookshelf (and Kindle) for years now.

[JasonPratt]

I think I've said upthread somewhere that I consider Salem's Lot to be King's best work. It's focused, keeps enough plot details for color, homages his source material nicely, effective on the monster and its rules of operation, effective on the atmosphere(s) (especially around Halloween / deep fall), but also a novel's length of content. The heroes are smart but also make understandable and tragic mistakes; the villains are kept sharp enough to be a constant threat. I wish a faithful adaptation with good production values would be made as a Netflix 8-part series or something that would make sense to be available to watch in the proper season.

Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry loosely remade by King himself with Needful Things, which on balance I'd also call a better adaptation to screen overall. But I don't like the book version of NT as much, due to a lack of proper terror, ditto for the atmosphere, and of course the villain is too broad in operational power to feel like a real opponent. (To be fair, I don't think the story was going for the first two per se.)

Here I'll caveat as usual that I haven't read anything from King since he released Dolores Clairborne (or however it's spelled), so my evaluation has some hard limits.

[Toonces]

The Stand is King's best work.  Pretty much irrefutable. 

[trailrunner]

The Shining did that to me at around age 7.

I read The Shining when I was about 20. But I was spending a week alone in a cabin in the mountains. Probably not the best choice to read at that time.

My parents were pretty liberal about letting me watch movies, but the one movie they wouldn't let me watch was The Exorcist. I was maybe 11 when it came out. I think they made a good choice, because I watched it when I was older and it still freaked me out.