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Lisey Landon is the widow of Scott Landon, a famous writer who died two years
before the beginning of the story. She finally finds the
courage to clear his study, in order to move on with her life. But sorting her
husband's stuff is like opening a Pandora box which forces her to go "behind the
purple" and remember all the dark in her husband's past, and therefore in her
past too, things that she thought she had buried deep inside...
Two things happen almost simultaneously in Lisey's life: her sister Amanda
becomes catatonic, and an obsessed fan of her husband's works, a "Deep Space
Cowboy" as she calls them, threatens her on the phone. Scott's Bool Hunt (a kind
of treasure hunt), left for her to remember Scott's demons she'd rather forget
will help her deal with her own present demons...
There is in Lisey's Story all the ingredients to a great Stephen King's
story: a writer, a fellowship (a sisterhood this time, more precisely), a
villain, the possibility to access other worlds, etc. However, I was a bit
disappointed by Lisey's Story. Trying to rationalize the reasons of my
disappointment, I came up with one of two things that I would have liked to find
and that were missing: since Scott is a writer, I would have expected his dark
secrets to be not revealed, but hinted at, through his writing (with stories
within the story, spread throughout the main narration, and not just the one at
the end). Or else, since this has already been done before and King probably
didn't want to write another version of Garp, and since, after all, this is
Lisey's story, and not Scott's, I would have liked her to be more defined, more
of a "real" person. In the first part of the book, Lisey's personality is a bit
effaced. Having pursued no superior education, she seems to have had no other
ambition than to be the shadow of her husband. Since she doesn't have kids
either (the reason is explained later in the novel), we wonder how she could
have spent her days. As the story progresses, we discover she has spunk and
courage and many other qualities that make her fit to be the heroine of a story.
I could understand that King wanted to make Lisey different from his own wife,
who is herself a writer, a mother, and everything else Lisey is not. What
remains for Lisey is just to be a writer's wife, which is not much, as far as
being the main character of a story is concerned. Unfortunately, her apparent
dullness at the beginning make for a less engaging story (this is why King could
have compensated with stories within the story instead). As it is, the action
progresses slowly and the reader feels there could have been more to this story.
Toward the end of the novel, however, the rhythm picks up and the ending is what
can be expected of a very good King's novel.
Also, I must say that, as a non native speaker, the use of many invented words (Bool,
Boo'ya Moon, etc.) impaired my ability to read "fluently" (apparently, some
native speakers had the same problem), and I think King should really rein his
linguistic enthusiasm sometimes. However, I love some of his expressions (the
deep space cowboys) and his metaphors (like the "language-pool, where we all go
down to drink")...
My problem with Lisey's Story is maybe that I couldn't help compare this
novel with another about a writer haunted by a terrible thing in his past (of a
very different nature), and that achieved more, because it is so well written
and truly horrific: I am talking about The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, by Ruth
Rendell. I wonder if King has read it...
[SPOILERS]
Come to think of it, something else bothered me. We suspect from the
beginning that Scott is different from other men, because he heals quickly, he has
visions of a terrifying "Long Boy" who haunts his dreams, etc. After the first half of the
book, we find out that most of his differences comes from the fact that he
has access to another world. Why should King delay this information for so long?
Constant readers know that characters in King's fiction are bound to do this
kind of thing! When it turns out that it's what he does, I thought, "oh!
that...", for the Constant Reader it has the same surprising potential as
learning that a character brushes his teeth every morning...
Lisey's Story wasn't bad at all, but it could have been so much better...
Rating:  
© Discussing Books, 11/28/2006 |
Critiques