The first, 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' is about two men held in the Shawshank Prison - the first - Red is the narrator of the story and he is in Shawshank for killing his wife - a crime to which he readily confesses his guilt to the reader at the start of the book.
Red is a respected individual in Shawshank for his connections and his ability to aquire any item (including contraband) requested of him provided the price is right.
The second is Andy Dufresne - a soft-spoken banker who is convicted of killing his wife and her lover in a fit of jealous rage. He is innocent but his terrible performance in court, plus a stack of evidence against him, sees that he is incarcerted in Shawshank for a significant amount of time with no chance of freedom in sight.
The two become acquainted at Andy's request for a Rock Hammer a tiny tool which he uses to make sculptures from rocks and gems he finds in the prison courtyard. He also asks for a pinup of Rita Hayworth, which he hangs in his cell.
The story was enjoyable, I found myself wondering where it was going though - Red really throws the reader off with his comment that the rock hammer would be far too small to use in any attempt to break-out. I was also surprised to find out what the pin-up was really for even though the clues were there.
I found it interesting reading about characters who were so old - the main characters in books I've read are usually in their teens, 20s or 30s but being in prison for so long means that these guys were much older.
The second story is called Apt Pupil, a story of a young boy names Todd who excels in school and is a general 'good kid', yet to find his calling, Todd stumbles onto some old WWII magazines while looking for comic books.
He is enthralled by them and begins looking for more, he researches the war and the happenings at the concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
Eventually he recognises an old man living in his neighbourhood as Kurt Dussander, commendant of a (fictional) concentration camp that he has been reading about. The old man is hiding in the USA under an assumed name.
He begins to spy on the old man before finally Revealing his intentions shortly after he blackmails the old man into telling him stories of the things that they did in the camps, the experiments they performs and so on... the old man finally relents but the influence of the stories beings to poison Todd's mind...
I found this story extremely disturbing and a little hard to read, I've read about the experiments done in Germany and Japan during WWII myself with some degree of morbid fascination, but Todd's interest goes far, far beyond that. It's hard to believe that a yound boy can become so... corrupt, twisted and evil even to the point that his first wet dream is about some bizzare sexual situation in a concentration camp.
It was a diffcult read but still well written.
The Third is called The Body and is the story of four young boys who go on an expedition into the woods to find a dead body, their lives are placed in danger several times during the trip and along the way they talk about growing up and their futures.
The book doesn't really have a huge deep plot, it is basically the story of the four boy's journey through the woods and their friendships. It made a refreshing read after the last novella.
The Final story is called "The Breathing Method" and is narrated in part by a man who visits an Men's club, a place where he can find books that don't exist anywhere else, where the bulter doesn't age and all manner of other strange things that are not discussed. One of the main attraction is telling stories and the strangest one of all is one told by an old doctor.
He tells a tale of a pregnant woman who signs on as a patient. The woman is very independant and is determined to have her baby even if it was born out of wedlock and the father has run away. The doctor gives her literature on a new method of pain control - the breathing method - and she takes it to heart, so much so that on the night of the birth, her body, decapitated in an accident, uses it to birth the baby.
I've been neglecting to post, I've read most of these already and I'll write about them as I get around to it.
Vox doesn't seem to allow tables, but this works as well as anything else (though I might not say that once I've posted it and it breaks my layout!) I've not typed out the back covers because I'm lazy and I find it too time consuming to do.
Christine starts with narration in by a young man called Dennis Guilder
who is the only friend of the main character, a teenager and somewhat of a geek, Arnie Cunningham, Dennis spends the first chapter or so describing their somewhat unlikely friendship and leads up to a scene where as they are driving Arnie spots a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury sitting on the lawn of cantankerous old war veteran Roland D. LeBay.
Entranced by the hulking wreck, Arnie makes an on the spot decision to purchase the vehicle getting ripped off by LeBay in the process.
That's where Arnie begins to change, he becomes obsessed with Christine and devotes all of his time to repairing it, estranging his parents and slowly shutting Dennis out too.
It is also around this time that Roland D. Lebay passes away.
For his efforts the repairs go smoothly even though he doesn't remember making them has no record of buying most of the parts, he also begins to look better himself and even gets a girlfriend, a young lady who almost dies inside his car later.
Dennis stops his narration for the middle half of the book when he is severely injured in a sporting accident and it is in this omniscient third-person style that the murders are told. Christine - now fully repaired - comes to life while Arnie is out of town or occupied elsewhere and runs down the people who have vandalised it, or who pose a threat, even going so far as to demolish half a house and it is here where its paranormal ability to repair any damge to itself in a short space of time becomes apparent.
The book made for a very enthralling read, a synthetic inanimate object as the main 'monster' makes a change from the usual demons, manmen and ghosts. Christine is very frightening with its relentless pursuit of anyone it percieves as a threat, even to the point that it is willing to tear down an whole house to get to its victim.
The climax of the book with ultimate destruction of Christine is a masterpiece, as an enormous bright pink 'kaka sucker' with the name 'Petunia' is used to batter it into oblivion. The humour gives a break in the tension, if only for a few moments.
The idea of an evil car is hardly new to me, I've seen the 1977 movie 'The Car' several times and it is easy to make comparisons, I've also read From A Buick 8 - a later King book which features a car which despite being immobile is significantly more disturbing in its nature.
Still I enjoyed reading Christine even if I didn't particularly like what happened to Arnie Cunningham.
The book is a vampire story, plain and simple and yet as with typical Stephen King, the story is far more bone chilling than you might initially expect.
The book opens with a man and a young boy hiding out in Mexico, they both came from the village of Jerusalem's Lot where, before they left, something so terrible happened that they dare not speak of it.
The story then jumps back in time several years to a period in which the town was still occupied and details the everyday life of the residents. A typical quite rural American village which seems to defy modern progress, a village that nonetheless has its secrets - the house on the hill for example in which the last tenant murdered his wife before hanging himself.
A previous resident, Ben is returning to the village in search of inspiration for his new book, that and in hope of exorcising the horror of an encounter with the spectre of the hanged man while entering that house on a dare.
Around the time he arrives a strange man named Straker also shows up in the village hoping to set up shop with his partner who is 'on a buying expedition' and that's where things begin to go wrong.
Over the course of the book the death rate in the town begins to rise with alarming rapidity and the corpses are mysteriously taken away shortly after death. Ben, along with a local doctor, teacher and a post -grad student form a coalition to fight the threat to the town.
It has been really tough for me to get into books recently and this has proved just what I needed, I read the book from cover to cover in a matter of days and I loved every minute of it, there is a great deal fs suspense and unexpected deaths with a couple of really nasty plot twists.
Norwich Union continues to mess us around, it seems like we're doing something new every other week and they expect us to pick it up with no training.
I cannot complain too much though, it *is* keeping us going after all.
Mikey is planning to get back into bookselling and I really hope he gets the job he has applied for, I figure he'll be much happier there, while I perhaps foolishly am pursuing a permanent position in Norwich Union.
To enable us to save money, we've both taken advantage of our staff discounts to buy bikes in the Halfords Easter sale. While they are nothing super special, they're a wonderful form of transport and they are much faster than taking the bus and they're going to be keeping us fit.
We also bought new backpacks to go along with the bikes, made by a company called Camelbak they're fitted out with water tanks and drinking tubes for hands free hydration. I'm loving mine so far and we're both inspired to take a backpacking holiday with them now.
New Books:
More Stephen King again this time, I feel sad that I don't have time to read as much as I'd like and that when I do read, I feel able to only absorb about 75% of what is written. I wonder why that is - I wish it wasn't true.
One is an eleven year old boy. He never speaks but his eyes betray the indescribable horror he has witnessed.
The other is a man plagued by nightmares, a man who knows that soon he and the boy must return to 'Salem's Lot for a final confrontation with with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town where no one is human anymore...
It wasn't empty. Ronald D. Lebay was lolling behind the wheel. His eyes were open but they were glazed and dead. Each time the engine revved and Christine's rust-eaten body vibrated, he flopped like a ragdoll. His peeling skull nodded back and forth.'
Christine, blood-red, fat and finned, was twenty.
Her promise lay all in her past. Greedy and big she was Arnie's obsession, a '58 Plymouth Fury. Broken down but not finished. They was still power in her - a frightening power that leaked like sump oil, staining and corrupting. A malign power that corroded the mind and turned ownership into Possession.
In this classic collection of four novellas, the grand master takes you into thge far reaches of horror, heartache and hope.
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is the story of two men convicted of murder - one guilty, one innocent - who form the perfect partnership as they dream up a scheme to escape from prison.
In Apt Pupil a golden schoolboy entices an old man with a past to join him in a dreadful union.
The Body sees four young boys venture into the woods and find life, death... and the end of innocence.
The Breathing Method is the tale of a doctor who goes to his club and discovers a woman who is determined to give birth - no matter what.
While we've had a fun weekend, I'm not feeling tired and stressed, I think it's because I spent the better part of today immersed in a video game rather than being sensible and limiting my play time, I feel reminded of the times before I moved out of my grandparents where I would sleep the daylight of an entire week away and only have artificial light for company while all the time longing for bright sunlight.
My stomach is giving me hell today too and don't even get me started on the boiler breakdown thing. I think that I need to do is turn the heating off let in some fresh air and get a good nights sleep so I'll be ready for the morning. I have a busy week ahead of me and I would really love to make full use of it.
Finding the Pepcid 2 would be a bonus.
I'm annoyed because I was unable to take a warm shower this morning, yet again the boiler is not heating the hot water properly - most likely because the engineer 'repaired' the valve rather than replaced it. This means that I'm likely to lose time from work while they come and fix it again and in the meantime have to stand in shower-water so cold that I can't bring myself to let it touch my upper body.
Fantastic!
I called up to report it and I've been expecting the estate agency to call me back about it, which was half an hour ago, the woman did the usual "We think it's your fault because X" and then when that didn't work, she took more info and said she will get back to me.
I know it's probably too much to expect anyone to come and fix it today but I personally regard not being about to shower or wash dishes as an emergency.
Ironically it broke down yesterday and one of the pieces of junk mail I got was a letter from the people who make it trying to sell me cover for it.
I've had a very busy week and a half because, shortly after my last post regarding the 15 temp vacancies both Mikey and I scored a job with the company. I found that out last Tuesday afternoon and I walked out of my old job a few hours later - bossbitch didn't even know I was gone. (Though I did the proper resignation things via the HR dept on my way out)
This means that for the last week we've been working together setting up commercial claims for car insurance. It's challenging, but I think we're now getting the hang of things and I'm looking forward to investigating prospects for a permanent position with the company.
It has been tough, our training person isn't very attentive and tries to motivate us by piling pressure on - it doesn't work and it is especially hard when he expects us to figure out new things without him training us first. I complained about it today and he's let up a little.
I think he's also a little embarrassed, when he was learning our names he assumed that Mikey and I were brothers because we have the same name and have a slight (we don't see it) resemblance to each other - we were put on the stop and didn't get to correct him or anyone else until today.
As we're now both working,we've finally achieved the double income we need to keep ourselves out of trouble, we're working on paying off various bills, putting away a rainy-day fund and buying a few things that we need.
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I've been playing Wario-Ware a lot recently and having a whole lot of fun - hopefully that game along with Wii-sports is going to help me get a little fitter.
I've also gotten back into Final Fantasy VIII and we just bought the real version of Zelda - Twilight Princess (the gamecube one) along with Sonic Gems (Which I got for £8!) - with FFXII just out and Mario, Sonic and Metroid coming out for the Wii soon, we have plenty of games to keep us busy (and poor!)
As Mikey loses what I've termed as his 'American' weight through healthy eating and not having a car, I've developed an unfortunate habit for binge eating (no purging or anything weird though). I stuff myself with chocolate throughout the day at work because I'm bored and I feel depressed and then I eat tonnes of food when I get home.
It's having a terrible effect on my weight which might actually hit 13 stones soon and can't be good for me. It is also expensive at a time when money is really tight.
I wonder how easily I'll break this habit? A new job would be a fantastic start - an hour's lunchbreak would mean that I would be able to meet up with Mikey and eat a healthy lunch like I used to have last year... *prays for new job*
While I was hoping for the good vibes from the weekend to continue it seems that it was too much to ask for. Having lost the power adaptor for my laptop last week (the wire melted), the last thing I wanted to happen this week was having my desktop monitor go haywire. Sadly I cannot repair it and I'm not reduced to using the laptop and praying that the power adaptor doesn't fall apart.
I've also had another lousy day at work, I spent the morning bored stiff and the afternoon much the same and to cap it all of I was given a warning for playing around with the computer looking at things I shouldn't have been (like notepad, calculator, and the insidious streetmap.co.uk!) apparently it constitutes a security threat.
My final appraisal is in 2 days and I doubt it will be good...
I hate my boss, Mikey and I were talking about Clue and I can pretty much say Yes,
"I hate her SOOO much... it..it...the..fi..it..fla..flames...FLAMES on the side of my face...breathing, breathle...heaving breaths..."
However! I called up job agency today and they have vacancies for 15 temps starting later this week (provided it doesn't fall through) Score!!! Though it still might not happen, I'm praying that it does, it's the break I've been waiting for!!
