Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

I likely haven’t blogged about it before, but I’m a big Stephen King fan.  This can be a difficult position, at times — as an English minor, I’ve taken my fair share of literature classes over the past three years, and rarely does an entire course pass without a teacher or student elevating some particular work of fiction by comparing it favorably against “one of those John Grisham or Stephen King novels.”  My first thought is that they’re speaking out of their asses without giving King a fair shake, but even if that’s not the case, they’re clearly missing something.  Yeah, his work is light on the symbolism, and his novels won’t lead you to any cathartic realizations about the human condition.  In fact, in It (coincidentally, my favorite Stephen King) the character of Bill Denbrough channels the author’s intentions by asking his college class why stories can’t just be stories.

But even that statement sells King a little short, because his appeal doesn’t just lie in the fact that he tells a great yarn; it’s the way he tells his stories, with a mastery of English that regularly bounces between lyrical, evocative and intensely imaginative.  Many of his novels are guided by friendly, likable narrators who describe the settings and the events taking place within them with a nudge and a wink, and the pop culture/literary quotations that pervade his novels show how much King loves the craft, in all its forms.

One of my favorite of King’s works, The Talisman, stars a modern-day Tom Sawyer in a dark fantasy.  Though epic in scope, the novel remains riveted on Jack, and King’s affinity for writing children serves the character extremely well.  I don’t know how much of the writing should be credited to Peter Straub, and how much to King; it reads like a Stephen King novel, but clearly the two worked very well together.

A couple years after finishing The Talisman, I was finally ready to delve into its recent sequel, Black House. And even being familiar with King’s penchant for long-winded, fascinatingly-detailed descriptions of the small towns his novels are often set in, the beginning of Black House was far from what I expected.  Though it’s been awhile, I remember finding The Talisman instantly accessible and quick to thrust Jack into his journey.  The sequel…not so much.  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that took some 70 pages to get around to the protagonist, moseying from one minor character to the next and stopping regularly to admire the scenery.  That friendly, nude-nudge narration is as present as ever, but for the first time it’s almost too much, making me wish for a little less chummy commentary and a little more meaty character interaction.  Thankfully, it does begin to pick up and develop a sense of focus, but even past the 200 mark it’s hard to say the novel’s going places.  It has gotten interesting, but so far Black House has quite a weak introduction to overcome to be the sequel The Talisman deserves.