by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
“Sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.”
The used bookstore copy of The Green Mile I’m reading has Tom Hanks staring at me from the cover and a Winnie The Pooh Sticker inside the front cover.
King slides right into introducing the setting and all the pieces for the horror and magic of The Green Mile. The characters are near perfect for this story and this may be the absolute closest Stephen King has ever gotten to writing the perfect story or novel. Every sequence, exchange, triumph, and loss is exact. There is no piece in this story that would benefit from being changed or cut.
Because it was written in a six part serial, the beginning of each section of the book spends time repeating what happened at the end of the last section. Originally, we were waiting a while between each installment, so King had to get us back up to speed where we left off. I imagine someone reading the book as a whole for the first time might be put off by these repeated paragraphs, but I was fine with it.
The haunting story of how John Coffey was found is so perfectly rendered and revisited. The flash forward to after the events of the story are over and before the guards themselves move on is handled well, too. King manages to tell you exactly what would happen without really telling you.
“Peeing outside is one of the great pleasures of country living the poets never get around to extolling.” Great line.
As King lists off talk shows, you get a glimpse of very specific years in the 90s when short-lived shows were still on the air.
“A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God’s creatures.”
King has used the name Dolan before.
There is a dream of John Coffey on the cross which plays into a number of fan theories about the character’s initials, his powers, his symbolism, and his mysterious origin.
The Shine (not exactly the right word for Coffey’s powers) or whatever John’s powers are greatly resemble powers shown in the book Insomnia.
There is a lot of debate on how long the “touched” characters might live and indirectly how long Coffey himself might have been alive. The narrator discusses termites in a tree. They had been banished for a while, but have returned. Paul and his friend have always been on borrowed time and that time is passing.
This novel easily has to be number one or two on any objective list of King’s best works.
My next post in this series will be Before Desperation which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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