Fairy Tale by Stephen king (a review)

At first glance Fairy Tale reminds me a bit of 11-22-63 by King. There is an otherwise normal protagonist who is led to a portal that takes him to another where or when. Our protagonist is Charlie, who is just a normal kid dealing with the loss of his mother. His father has turned alcoholic after the death of his wife. Charlie sees his world crumbling around him. He makes a prayer saying if God will help his dad, he will do whatever God asks. Whether it is a coincidence or not, Charlie’s father gets help the next day. So, Charlie feels he has to fulfil his end of the bargain.

Enter the mean old man who lives in the spooky house with a legendarily vicious dog (“like Cujo” Charlie’s friend tells him). Charlie rides by the old man’s house one day to discover that he has fallen and broken his leg. Charlie helps him and the man asks Charlie to take care of his dog (who is not really vicious and is quite old and arthritic at this point. Charlie sees this as his obligation (under the deal with God). He also helps take care of the old man during his recovery. This is where we start to learn the secrets that the man has been hiding.

Eventually, Charlie explores the big secret and we are off on an adventure of epic fantasy. There are some scary moments, but I would in no way call this a horror story. It’s not that kind of Stephen King story. Think of it as a little bit of Wizard of Oz mixed with Jack and the Beanstalk mixed with Sparticus (trust me, it works). King appropriately infuses the story with a sense of wonder. Also, I am a sucker for a story with a cool dog in it. It is well worth the 600 page read.

Star Liner

Comments

The Trip Home

My wife and I recently returned from a trip to New York to visit my son and his wife. What follows is an excerpt of my notes from that trip. Departure day. So we and the kids (adult kids) leave by 5:30 AM. These “kids” are night owls. They rarely wake before 10:00 if they don’t have to, so we appreciate the sacrifice. Daughter-in-Law (DIL) drove us the 30 minutes to the train station. Hugs and good-byes for her (we love DIL. DIL is an irresistible force). Son navigates us a route to the platform with fewer stairs than the way we came. We get a ticket and get on the train headed for the big city and Grand Central Station. I soon realize that this train is not an express train like the one we took coming out. Instead of taking a little over an hour like we did before, this one would take a little over an hour and a half. We stop at places with names like Cold Springs and Peekskill (on this trip we saw a lot of place names that ended in “kill” including Kaatskill, i.e. Catskill, and

That 70's Decade

Can a decade become a caricature? My teen years were in the 1970’s and none of us who lived through the 70’s thought our decade was going to be a figure of fun. When you are a part of it, you don’t realize what people are going to make fun of later. I think there are two reasons why people snicker when the 70’s are mentioned: clothing styles and Disco. Both things could be called extensions of trends that started in the 60’s. When the hippy styles of the 60’s became more formalized for the dance floor, the result was (in hindsight) rather bizarre. They did not seem bizarre at the time. People following present fashion trends never understand that they are wearing something that will be laughed at in ten years. Yes, I did have a pair of bell-bottom blue jeans (are they making a comeback?) The mere mention of the 1970’s conjures up someone in a ridiculous pose wearing a disco suit. We who lived through the 70’s just went about our normal life. There were quite a lot of things that ha

Tyranny of the Masses

I was listening to Benjamin Netanyahu on the radio. He was justifying his change in the law that removed power from the Israeli Supreme Court, saying that it was the will of the people. Majority rules. This made me think of “Tyranny of the masses,” a concept that notes: just because a majority of people are for something, that doesn’t make it right. I am sure you can think of historical examples where the people of a country supported a policy that was demonstrably wrong. When everything is completely governed by majority rule, the rights of the minority can be subverted by the majority. The framers of our American Constitution knew this, and tried to put in some checks and balances into our system of government. This was to guard against all forms of tyranny whether from a dictator, or from tyranny of the masses. One of those checks is that we have a representative government. The people themselves don’t pass laws, but instead elect representatives at the federal and local level t

A speculative mind

Search This Blog