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4.0étoiles sur 5
Peaceable Kingdom, Jui 5 2004
If I'm to give the highest praise to those books that illicit the strongest reaction I've ever had while reading them, then--due to a technicality--I have to rate Peaceable Kingdom as high as any. Because I almost got sick reading one of the stories inside. I was on a subway train, feeling perfectly fine--but then I started reading Ketchum's tale called 'Amid The Walking Wounded', featuring the ultimate, unstoppable nosebleed, and I fainted. Passed out, for a moment. Just before, and just after, passing out, I felt like I was going to throw up, I felt weak and nauseous, I got the sweats, and I flashed back to a horrible nosebleed I had as a kid. I just don't like blood that doesn't do the right thing and stop flowing, even from little cuts, or normally well-behaved nostrils. I realize it's not the blood itself; it's the fact that it might not stop...especially in a Ketchum horror story.Yuck. But effective story-telling, effective use of the gross-out. And not all the stories in Peaceable Kingdom push the same Panic buttons; Ketchum leads off his collection with an Intro where he tries to con you into believing he's a nuisance because he aims for variety. False modesty, but I'll take that over glaring hubris--and thank the stars for Ketchum's variety. I didn't want to spend the whole book fainting (though that would probably earn a horror collection a five-star review, now that I realize how rare that would be!), and thankfully, 'Amid the Walking Wounded' is completely different than, say the last entry, 'Firedance', which is unnerving but beautiful too. The order of the stories sabotages Ketchum's penchant for variety, with a bit of theme-building. Early on, the emphasis seems to be on families--kids, in particular: the good the bad, and the ugly to the soul. The opener, called 'The Rifle', is cruelly arresting, and not far after that, we have one of the best tales in the bunch, the award-winner, 'The Box', enigmatic tragi-horror of the best kind you might ever find. By the end of the collection, animals attack, or at least behave strangely. In between, Ketchum gives up at least two stories--one of them the longest, called 'Closing Time'--in which several scattered characters are unknowingly interconnected by a dangerous fate that is unfolding, pulling them together, for a terrible conclusion caused by the evil, or maybe just the apathy, of one troubled participant. 'Closing Time' is good, but an earlier, similar entry--'The Exit at Toledo Blade Boulevard'--is perhaps better. Better, because the author doesn't end it. He allows you, the reader to end it for him, and how can you not end it badly? Marvellous horror, which comments on each and every reader, just by being what it is. Additionally, lots of different women throughout the tales. The good, the bad, the...well, you get it. And you can decide if Ketchum has issues. It's no skin off my nose. (Yuck. I must forget, I must forget...).
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de Jack Ketchum
de Jack Ketchum
de Jack Ketchum
de Jack Ketchum
de Stephen King
