Insomnia is also one of my favourite SK books.
Great characters and part of the DT universe.....what's not to like!
Insomnia is also one of my favourite SK books.
Great characters and part of the DT universe.....what's not to like!
The Losers Club podcast on the novel:
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/con...t/e/77280019#/
Ralph Roberts is one of King's more likeable characters. I always envisioned him being played by Jack Lemmon. The book itself is middling. It's unfortunate that it contains so much in the way of politics. Likely why it has never been made into a movie. The plot also seems a bit derivative of Thinner (weight vs sleep loss).
I don't know why it's a problem for stories to reflect politics but I doubt it's the reason why it never had an adaptation. It's a very long and often slow novel that centers around old people being unable to sleep and then we have just weird stuff like said old people having psychic battles with little bald men and the Crimson King appearing as an old lady/catfish in a rocking chair. That's on top of the heavy Dark Tower connections that, if Hearts in Atlantis was any indication, would have to be scrapped entirely.
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It's one of my favorite King novels. I do hope we eventually see a faithful big-budget adaptation. A streaming limited series would be amazing. I want it to be freaky and weird and surreal. When I read it back in the 1990s, I didn't know anything about the Dark Power, so it just added to the weirdness. And of course the dreamlike atmosphere of the auras and the little bald doctors. So good!
I kind of like how the abortion issue is handled in Insomnia: King gets irritating when politics overlays the story and characters like ugly paint on wood (lime green paint doesn't help the bookcase stand up - do I need to know that a given character has her panties in a predictable bunch over a former President that never actually ended the world? No, I don't), but in Insomnia, abortion is a specific and discrete element of the story, essentially being what it already is - something that will get people riled up and at each other's throats. (Yes, all the pro-abortion characters are sympathetic and all the anti-abortion characters are literally insane, so I can see someone having a less charitable view than mine).
I think they are separated by much more than they have in common - much more.
It was just before dawn
- one miserable morning in black 'forty four...
Pretty much all of this.
Insomnia is one of those ones where, if they did adapt it, I 100% expect they'll feel the need to make it something totally different: replace its gradual, pensive side (which is crucial - even in the midst of action, there is much reflection on and examination of the bigger picture) in favor of pedestrian storytelling ("here's what people want!") and basically tighten it up in all the ways that will make it unrecognizable - and what would be the point? Insomnia deserves better.
It was just before dawn
- one miserable morning in black 'forty four...
I'd take faithful on any budget.
Novel adaptations pretty much demand the series route (now that we've seen what they can do) to allow true storytelling (the dirty little secret of movie adaptations of novels is that they can't do the job because they can't do true length or depth (hey now!)).
The potential for something good and distinctive is certainly there.
It was just before dawn
- one miserable morning in black 'forty four...
A mainstream movie in which the abortion debate is a backdrop to the plot would be box office cancer. Hollywood will never touch that. I do agree that King's approach to politics was a bit more nuanced at the time this book was written (which isn't saying much since he has gone off the deep end like his elderly characters in the book). I never bought the premise - even trying to suspend disbelief - that a Maine town would break down into violence over the visit of an abortion advocate. That was over the top. Oddly, if you set the novel in modern times and change the discussion to more recent divisive topics (e.g. pandemic), it would sadly be more believable.
He hasn’t gone off the deep end at all. You just disagree with his politics.
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You once called King a coward and a rat fink for signing a petition to support trans people. You said he went off the deep end when he told Trump to concede after losing the election. It is 100% because you don’t like what he thinks.
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King's "politics" used to consist of policy positions; now he finds it hard to avoid repeated mentions of a guy that hurt his feelings - that's a change, and not a good one.
It was just before dawn
- one miserable morning in black 'forty four...
He hasn’t even mentioned Trump in a month, and that was an indirect reference. Unless you’re bothered that King doesn’t like Putin?
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Actually now it looks like two months at least. Maybe four tweets in all since the year started per the search.
So what’s the problem here besides him not sharing your political views?
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Whether he or anyone else shares (or fails to share) my political views was never a problem; what is happening is that some of us have made an observation, one which anyone willing to be honest with themselves - liberal or conservative - could have made: of King's increasing, and increasingly specific, political content in his writing, featuring obsession with one individual.
Your question suggests that I would enjoy reading an author who repeatedly peppered his writing with bits about whatever I might think liberals have wrong - but the truth is, I would tire of it and hope he/she would snap out of it.
It was just before dawn
- one miserable morning in black 'forty four...
Oh I understood it. It was just disingenuous. If you were completely neutral about this you wouldn’t have championed JK Rowling when she went off about trans people as she is far more obsessed about the topic than King was about Trump. But because you agree with her, there was nothing wrong with it.
The notion that King is “obsessed” with Trump is just there to discredit his views. I.e. King threw in a few barbs at Trump in Billy Summers so therefore he has “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. King makes four tweets about Trump since the start of the year. He’s “obsessed”.
A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.
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