The Final Post?

For the past two and a half weeks I’ve been continually updating my blog under the pressure of being constantly overwatched and evaluated in the process. That resulted in the beginning of a time of fear, the fear of making even the slightest error, such as: forgetting to provide the source of the pictures added to the posts, or doing something so silly, yet significant, as a misspell. Perhaps I’m just paranoid, but everytime I wrote a new entry, it made me sweat like a pig. . . joke.

However. . .                                                                                                                                   I have to admit that this (God, please, let me spell the next word right!) parallel assignment was a very good writing exercise. I’m pretty sure I can pull something out of my blog entries and use it in my analysis, which I will start writing very soon. Also, thanks to this blog, I’ve been forced to read the novel very carefully and that is a positive thing, indeed. Since it made me more observant! And to be completely honest, I was occasionally checking other blog pages with an intention of letting myself be inspired, in order to come up with something to write about and I believe it worked out very well! And still, I was never alone, because throughout my blogging I have received some great feedback from my classmates on how I may improve my posts. I find this type of assignment both demanding and rewarding, in terms of frequency and experience, respectively.

The Cynical German – signing out.

Stephen Edwin King

Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947. He is currently 64 years old, married and has three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen King. Stephen King is one of the most revered and renowned authors of contemporary horror, suspense, fantasy fiction and science fiction. He had graduated from Lisbon Fall High School and after that, he had attended the University of Maine, where he studied English and eventually undergraduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Throughout his whole writing career, King had published  a fair amount of novels and also a few short stories. Novels such as: “The Shining”, “Salem’s Lot” and his most outstanding work, the “Dark Tower” series. And short stories as well, for instance: “The Glass Floor”, and “Just After Sunset”

There is one novel that I would highly recommend to anyone who likes stories with an   old-school vampire setting. The book is called “Salem’s Lot“.

Ben Mears decided to pay a visit to his hometown and completely unintentionally met a wonderful woman, Susan Norton, with whom he instantaneously fell in love. And from that day on, their love for each other blossomed more and more, until a tragedy occured in that very town. People started to disappear without a trace. They could be gone for an hour, perhaps a day or two, but they would eventually return. However, those who returned… were no longer humans.

But beware, the vampires in this book are not like the ones you’ve seen in the “Twilight Saga” series. In other words, they are scary, evil, and what’s more important, they don’t sparkle! Don’t you even think of seeing someone like Robert Pattinson. And don’t you dare to come back to my blog and whine about how scary, foul-smelling and rampant they are.  Yes, I’m talking to you, insecure teenage girls!

Sources:

Stephen King’s Wikipedia

Salem’s Lot Wikipedia + My personal reading experience. (Shortened in order to prevent spoilers, in case someone might actually want to read the book.)

Picture of Stephen King 

Picture of Salem’s Lot (Illustrated Edition)

 

The setting of the novel

I guess that I’ve gone too far in the last post regarding the book (C:), so now I just want to take you back to the beginning and present the setting of the novel!

It starts with a man that is applying for the hotel caretaker job in the Overlook Hotel, an isolated resort, high up in the mountains in Colorado. During the job interview, the hotel manager tells Jack, who is applying for the job, about an incident that happened a few years ago, during the winter of 1970-1971. Obviously, the story takes place a few years after 1971. Another thing that actually lets us narrow the range is presented in the next chapter, where Jack is trying to call his friend from a phone booth. First, he had connected to the “operator”, who then had established a connection between Jack and his friend. I believe this kind of system had been used before the 21st century. By knowing that, we may presume that the story takes place at the end of the 20th century.

More about the mood of the story: The beginning is very mystic, however the plot starts to reveals itself pretty fast. We get to meet the three main characters; Jack, Wendy and their son, Danny. Jack is a hopeless alcoholic who always looks like he is about to lose his temper. He always seems to be in a dire need of a drink, or actually dozens of them. His wife, Wendy, is a fairly passive person. She is fed by Jack’s problem, however she struggles to decide whether to get a divorce or not, it also seems like her son is playing a big part in her indecision. Speaking of which, Danny is the real mystery here! He has a strange ability that allows him to sense supernatural forces, that enables him to see the future. But it’s more than just a vision, he is actually talking to someone. . . someone who exists in between two different dimensions; the dimension of the real world and a dimension of something indescribable and enigmatic.

Sources:

The Old Phonebooth Picture

Picture of Danny

Book analysis – simple as that

The moment Olav told us that we wouldn’t be able to get higher than a 5 on a book report was the moment I decided to write a book analysis. Of course, there are a few more reasons for that. First of all, The principle of an achievement; how can you achieve greatness, if someone always keeps lowering the bar for you? Second of all, I don’t want to limit myself to an easier task, on the contrary, I like to aim high and try to strengthen my grasp of the English language. Besides, even if I didn’t get a 6, I’d still land around a 5 (unless I completely screw it up), rather than targeting a 5 from the beginning by writing a book report and getting a 4 in the worst-case scenario. Whatever the case, I’m not going to try to predict my grade. The thing I’m in fact going to do is give it all I’ve got in order to achieve the top grade and let the final result speak for itself.

P.S: Greatness . . . was a little bit too exaggerated, I guess. But it’s just a figure of speech, so I’ll let it go.

C:

As the winter draws near and blizzards cut them off – Jack, who recently became the caretaker of the hotel, his wife – Wendy, and their son – Danny, find themselves stuck in the Overlook Hotel. There is nowhere to go and the hotel gradually starts to develop a life of its own. But hold on, who are the mysterious, masked guests, constantly using the elevator, going up and down? And why do the hedges around the hotel, shaped like animals, seem so alive? These kinds of questions are continually appearing in my head as I keep reading this book. They frighten me, but at the same, they make me curious, excited and more importantly, they won’t let me stop reading!

The Shining by Richard Bachman, a.k.a. Stephen King

“Obviously a masterpiece, probably the best supernatural novel in a hundred years”           — Peter Straub

“A writer of excellence . . . King is one of the most fertile storytellers of the modern novel    . . . brilliantly done” — The Sunday Times

“An incredibly gifted writer” — Guardian (newspaper)

The book I’ve chosen, The Shining, is a psychological horror novel written by a famous American writer, Stephen King. To be honest with you guys, I struggled very hard choosing between “The Shining” and another book called “The Long Walk”, also written by Stephen King (Richard Bachman), but eventually picked the former. It caught my attention more than the other one, mainly because I prefer scary stuff and I detest the S&M elements that are present in the other book. However, don’t get me wrong, according to some reviews I’ve read, “The Long Walk” is a brilliant book, too. But don’t take my word for it, have a look for yourselves: ‘The Long Walk’ Amazon reviews

Just by looking at the back cover of the book, which is filled with praise, as I’ve shown at the top of this post, is enough to get people excited and make them want to read this book, I believe. Those comments are quite similar to the TV commercials we usually see, where someone is constantly trying to capture our interest. I’d rather not reveal anything about the story’s plot, not until I’ve read at least two chapters of the book. I expect nothing less than an incredibly well written literary work that will take my breath away, as I gradually immerse in the story. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to begin reading.

Oh yeah, the novel has actually been made into a film. In case anyone of you might want to have a look, here is the trailer. Check it out:

But beware, it may set your heartbeat off the scale!

Spectacular book analysis

Hello world! I came across some different blogs throughout my existence and today I have actually been forced to start a blog of my own. As of now, I have absolutely no idea what to write about and I have yet to find a novel to read.

Since this blog will be kind of serious, I shall therefore limit the smilies input to a maximum of 1/post.

=)

Yours faithfully,

The Cynical German

Also unknown as: Poljakov G.