Misery

When you call yourself a “fan” of an author, and that same author is prolific, it’s inevitable they’re going to write a novel that isn’t to your taste. It’s less likely they’ll write a novel you’ll outright hate, but while I call myself a Stephen King fan and have read most of his books and seen most of the screen adaptations of his works? I despise Misery. I hated it when I read it for the first time circa 1993, and I hated it even more (if such a thing was possible) reading it again for this course. Finishing it the first time was laborious, but this latest instance was – frankly – torturous.

Having said all that, Misery isn’t a bad book, quite the contrary. It’s got a compelling, well woven story and memorable characters, two of the hallmarks that define King’s writing style. Say what you will about King, he’s a master storyteller. No, my personal revulsion aside, Misery has a distinct and well deserved place in the canon of horror literature.

We talked a lot in recent weeks about how Red Dragon and then Silence of the Lambs (or the inverse, in my opinion) were revolutionary works in that they introduced the horror genre to a wide variety of readers, particularly readers who had previously disdained horror books, stories and films. This is no less true of Misery. When the big screen adaptation of this novel was released, once again Oscar came calling and Kathy Bates – a phenomenal actress in all respects – lent the character of Annie Wilkes a persona that was both terrifying and intriguing. The general public fell in love, just as they would fall in love with Dr. Lecter not long thereafter, with this unpredictable female psychopath, and it could be opined this particular character – Annie Wilkes – was the mother of what I’ll call the crazy bitch genre.

And the crazy bitch genre, a subset of the psychos genre we’re studying this term, contributed greatly to improving the overall public sentiment toward and respect for horror fiction in the 1980s and 90s, much as haunted places and people did in the 60s and 70s and as zombies, werewolves and vampires are doing for it now.

But let’s get back to what I hated so much about this book. Like any other work of literature, or film, or visual media, the audience (or, in my case, the reader) brings a lot of baggage with them – roughly akin to how much I pack for SHU res – when they read/watch/observe a work. Their personal experiences play a role, whether or not they’re conscious of the same. This was the case with me and Misery.

Simply put, I’m not a big fan of captivity stories; there’s a reason this blog is named “Any bird out of a cage” and the idea of being trapped like Paul Sheldon leaves me feeling downright queasy. Then, there’s the matter of the drug dependence Paul develops after Annie essentially force feeds him opiates. I know a little about opiate addiction, having myself developed and kicked a dependence on Vicodin after a particularly nasty tumble down a flight of stairs that landed me in the hospital and left me unable to walk for two months. So, I’ve been Paul Sheldon, and it ain’t fun, and reading this just took me back to a couple of places I’d rather not go.

Finally, throw in all the torture and sensory deprivation in this novel, and I just had a very unpleasant, visceral reaction that left me with little love for this book.