What do you need to live a good, meaningful life? Could you live a good life in non-ideal circumstances? That this novella can bring up these questions while being so damn engrossing just shows you how good King is. Philosophically, both the movie and novella delve into the importance of hope and friendship in difficult times, things that are not merely nice to have, but essential for human life or living the good life (I know this sounds old-fashioned and naïve these days. I personally found the novella a bit more emotionally engaging (I teared up as I finished it), but maybe the movie wins because I read the whole thing in Morgan Freeman's voice. The novella is about Andy and Red forming a friendship at Shawshank State Prison in Maine (of course) over the years and Andy's 25-year plan to escape. The movie follows the novella closely with a few minor exceptions. I recently watched the movie again in one of its incessant runnings on basic cable, which is what made me pick up the novella. I enjoyed each novella for different reasons although the theme of friendship runs through them all (more on that in a bit). Let me discuss the novellas individually.Īs you can guess, this is the basis for the film The Shawshank Redemption. He was also trying to show that he's not just a horror author (although any die hard King fan could tell you that now, this wasn't as obvious in 1982 when this was first published).
But novellas are tricky beasts: too long to be short stories but not long enough to be full length novels. As King explains in the afterword, he wrote most of these novellas after completing full length novels (he says he finished each of those novels with enough gas left in the tank for a novella). This collection of four novellas is essential for any Stephen King fan or anyone who likes the movies The Shawkshank Redemption or Stand By Me. Due to these coincidences (or was it ka?), I thought I'd check out some of King's novellas. And here are a few coincidences: I found a stand-alone copy of The Mist at the used book store a couple months ago, I saw The Shawshank Redemption on TV a month ago, and I saw a copy of Different Seasons at the public library a week later. I've read at least 16 of his books (according to my count on Goodreads), and I've added most of the rest to my to read list. I even taught Pet Sematary in a class on philosophy and horror. I'm five books into The Dark Tower series.
I've been on a bit of a Stephen King kick lately.
0 kommentar(er)
