Different Seasons [Paperback]

 

 

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"Different Seasons" is an electrifying collection of Stephen King 'novellas', stories that fall into that literary twilight zone of being too hefty to be short stores, but also too short to be full novels. It was originally published in 1982, and all four of the stories within were knocked off by King after completion of larger works early in his career. All are stunning reads, consisting of some of the best stuff he's ever done. A linking theme loosely connects things, where each work represents a season of the year both in setting and in tone. Here is each one in a nutshell:

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: RITA HAYWORTH AND SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
This one has the least horror, but even so it doesn't shy away from detailing the torture of life behind bars. It is told in the first person by Red, a lifer in Shawshank prison who is the "guy who can get it for you". As supplier to the various needs of his fellow prisoners he has developed a cynical view of his surroundings. That is, until Andy Dufresne becomes a guest in the stone hotel. In Dufresne, Red sees a man refusing to succumb to despair, even though he has been railroaded by extreme bad luck and a corrupt justice system. The story develops a feeling of legend around Dufresne, and through his ordeals and triumphs he wears a cloak of dignity that inspires Red to refuse to surrender to his situation as the years wear on. The microcosm of prison life allows for microscopic examinations of the players involved, and the characterizations here are the strongest in the four tales. Like the predictability of changing seasons we have an idea where things are going, and as we move to the seemingly inevitable conclusion the story develops an almost fairytale quality, set in a stone prison instead of a stone castle. What transpires in the final third would seem impossible, if not for King's greatest strength as a writer: the ability to make the impossible seem completely probable.

SUMMER OF CORRUPTION: APT PUPIL
My favourite of the four, because it strikes a balance between a good story and shocking horror. It is largely contained to two characters: young, all-American Todd Bowden and the elderly Arthur Denker who closely guards a devastating secret. The chemistry between the two becomes this story's greatest asset as they enter into a hellish psychological dance. Forming a symbiotic relationship, they feed off each other in horrible ways as Denker aka Dussander starts as teacher to Todd's "apt pupil"...but perhaps Todd is teaching his instructor a few things as well? They provide two separate characterizations of evil that are played masterfully off each other by King: in Dussander we have an obvious atrocity of the past, and in Todd, American rot and deviousness gilded by a brilliant white smile. Again King telegraphs the ending for us, but as the story slides towards the inexorable conclusion, it's the journey of these characters through the Hell they've created for themselves, as opposed to their ultimate destination, that keeps us riveted.

FALL FROM INNOCENCE: THE BODY
This story may not be usual bucket of guts one might be expecting from King, but it's not without its own form of fear and horror...fear of leaving the paradise of childhood behind, the horror of growing old, the terror of losing cherished friendships forever. Four young friends set out on an adventure to find a dead body in the woods, but what they really discover is the fact that their own lives are about to change with the inevitable coming of adulthood. The tale is told by one of the four as an adult, now a horror writer who has found brilliant success in both books and movies...sound familiar, anyone? It is easy to believe that King has taken real people from his own past as inspiration, as the characterizations here are as clear and vibrant as a frozen snapshot in time. Adding to the biographic nature are two stories-within-the-story that are proffered as works by the main character; they're really two works by King that were published in magazines very early in his career. When I read 'The Body', I always imagine the places of my own youth, the tree house, the back alleys, the train tracks, as the places in the story.

A WINTER'S TALE: THE BREATHING METHOD
Where we return again to mysterious 249B East Thirty-fifth street, NYNY. First glimpsed in King's short-story collection 'Night Shift', it's a gentlemen's club where every Christmas season the members gather for a tale told of the uncanny, recited to the flickerings of strange colours in the hearth. We get two stories here along with two narrators; one is provided by barrister David Adley, and is currently the lengthiest portrait of the club and its shadowy existence we've had from King, along with the Christmas story presented by doctor Emlyn McCarron. 'The Breathing Method' is the most horrific work of the bunch as it comes to a crescendo of intensity and hovering madness at the end of McCarron's tale, but it is also a strangely touching story of grim resolve to bring new life forth in spite of a prejudiced, uncaring world.

Four incredible stories, by a writer fully flexing his literary muscles. Out of the four, it's usually 'The Breathing Method' that gets the shortest shrift from reviewers. But any King fan will be thrilled by the lingering view it affords curious 249B. Both the club and the story McCarron relates have a beautiful, darkly ominous quality. One really can imagine the hallways behind those heavy wooden doors twisting off forever. But perhaps attendant Stevens was really talking about the great, seemingly endless reads that Stephen King has locked away behind his twisting psyche: "A man could get lost..."

I have no patience anymore for people who say, "Stephen King is not much of a writer." How can they say that? Because he is succesful? Because his books sell? Because he has chosen horror (primarily) as his genre? Please read this collection of short works (4 novellas? 4 longish short stories?) and tell me that he is not the master. Yes, he has written some loopy stories at times; yes, he has written books that seem self-undulgent or just plain weird. But if you read these classic scribblings (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, The Breathing Method, Apt Pupil, The Body), you will begin to see why Stehpen King is the most successful writer who has ever lived: (success = every book he has ever written is still in print, still on the shelves, and this goes way back to Carrie in 1973-74; he has earned over a billion dollars in sales, not counting film royalties). Read these stories and you will begin to see the first of the two particular talents he has in abundance: humanity. He writes HUMAN characters. He knows PEOPLE. He can put a mirror up to the human condition like the best literary writers. His second talent is that he can and does tell a story. This is how he gets under the literary writers' collective skins and surpasses them and everybody else in the marketplace. In short, he is successful because he has the talent of the literary writers and he has the plot ambition of the popular writers. He's the writer who has it all. All hail, the master! I am proud to be numbered among his fans.

For all those who doubt the fact that Stephen King is one of the all-time great masters at the craft of writing, there is Different Seasons. If nothing else, the doubters should at least acknowledge King's important contribution to reviving the lost art of the novella. King has always said he would write, whether he ever sold a single book - and I think that is completely true. He didn't write these four novellas with publication in mind; each one was written immediately after the completion of a best-selling novel - and each one just sort of sat there after it was finished. What, after all, can a modern author really do with manuscripts too long to be short stories and too short to be novels? Eventually, the idea came to King to just publish them together, with a title that speaks to the fact that these are not the author's usual blood-dripping, creepy-crawling horror stories. In doing so, he not only gave us four of his most captivating works of fiction, he showed a whole new generation of readers the vast, inherent power of the novella.

Three of these four novellas are even better-known than many of King's best-selling novels - due in no small part to the movie adaptations that followed in their wake. It all started with the film Stand By Me - which was not marketed as an adaptation of a Stephen King work of fiction. This was a smart move, considering some of the weak adaptations of earlier King novels. I can only guess how many impressed moviegoers were shocked to learn that Stand By Me was adapted from King's novella The Body. It's a story of four boys who set off to see a dead body, that of another kid hit by a train; their adventure makes for an extraordinary coming-of-age story. It is, in fact, a story about childhood, founded upon a mysterious event in King's own early days (he supposedly saw a friend hit by a train when he was four years old - but there has always been some question as to whether or not this is true); The Body feels autobiographical, and it truly does recapture the essence of childhood and the maturing process into adolescence. I like to think of The Body as a fantastic warm-up to King's later novel It, which captures the essence of childhood almost perfectly.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption gave birth to Shawshank Redemption, the most critically acclaimed and popular of all King movie adaptations. I think the movie is even better than the novella (largely due to Morgan Freeman), but everything that shines in the movie is here in the novella. An innocent man, convicted of killing his wife and her lover, gives new meaning to the term patient resolve - and has a profound effect on some of his fellow prisoners. I think it's the ultimate prison story, as it shows us the good and the bad of prison life and imbues its characters with a humanity rarely seen in prison-based stories. It's just a stellar piece of writing.

Apt Pupil is my favorite, though, and it finally, after years of fits and starts and rumors, was made into a film in 1998. The movie did make some changes to the original storyline, but it was a vastly underrated film that truly embodied the spirit of King's original novella. The most horrible things can oftentimes be the most fascinating. I know I've always been fascinated by everything that took place in the Third Reich. The teenager in the story, though, is obsessed with those atrocities, and that obsession turns into something increasingly disquieting and dangerous when he discovers a former Nazi living under another name in his neighborhood and blackmails him into telling him all the "gooshy" details of his part in the Holocaust. Apt Pupil is one of the most impressive psychological studies of evil I've ever read.

The Breathing Method sort of gets lost in the shuffle. It's shorter than the other novellas and has never been adapted for film. I really like this story, though. It has a classic fireside story feel to it, hearkening back to the likes of Poe, with its mysterious gentlemen's "club" and emphasis on story-telling. The particular story we are privileged to hear about is in some ways rather ridiculous and certainly quite melodramatic - yet it works extremely well. The novella was dedicated to Peter and Susan Straub, and I think it shows the obvious influence of horror maestro Straub from top to bottom (which, to my mind, is a good thing).

The Breathing Method supplies the theme that serves as a sort of mantra for the entire collection: It is the tale, not he who tells it. The story is everything, and the author is sort of a literary midwife who helps the birthing process along. I heartily believe that many a King critic would fawn over Different Seasons if they read it without knowing who wrote it. This book is a perfect introduction for those yet to experience King for themselves - these are, for the most part, mainstream works of fiction that reveal a master storyteller at work.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Different Seasons
This book is excellent. It was written years ago, and my origional copy was lost. I bought another at Amazon, and re-read it, and enjoyed it just as much as the first time I... Read more

Published 14 months ago by aprilrose0048

5.0 out of 5 stars The proof that Stephen King is a great writer...
Different Seasons is perhaps the best Stephen King book with which to initiate the neophyte who says, "He can't be a good writer - he writes HORROR. Read more

Published on Jun 13 2004 by JR Pinto

4.0 out of 5 stars Four great non-horror King novellas
"Different Seasons" is not your typical King horror novel. It is a compilation of 4 novellas (short stories). Three of the stories were eventually made into movies. Read more

Published on May 3 2004 by Michael Weiser

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book
The book, A Diffrent Season, is a really exciting book with a good balance of love and baseball. It is about a girl who wants to play baseball, and how the baseball star and a... Read more

Published on Oct 24 2003 by a student

4.0 out of 5 stars This Book is A Beautiful Work of Art
This book was a wild, and intense ride, and helped me look at things a a very different way. I understood (from the afterword) King's need to write something other than horrer. Read more

Published on Oct 3 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Four terrific tales from a master storyteller.
If you've never read Stephen King before, this book is an excellent place to start, as it will show you that King is much more than just a "horror" writer. Read more

Published on Sep 11 2003 by Beth Cholette

5.0 out of 5 stars The Body is Amazing
In the book, Different Seasons, I read the 3rd story, "The Body". Even, though I put my age as 12, i am 13. Read more

Published on Sep 8 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best....
This collection of stories has to rank as my favorite. Most people have seen the adapted movies: Stand by me; The Shawshank Redemption; and Apt Pupil, but the stories offer much... Read more

Published on April 29 2003 by Charles J Horne

4.0 out of 5 stars A Different Spin from King
Be forewarned that this is not your typical horrors from King. In this compilation of 4 novellas, King proved that he is not just the King of Horrors. Read more

Published on April 21 2003 by azmi21

5.0 out of 5 stars He's my favorite living writer and this is his very best
When I was a boy I, too, had a treehouse and some of my best memories are of long summer afternoons in my treehouse with a box full of comic books, and my favorites were always... Read more

Published on Mar 29 2003 by Joseph Townsend

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