Desperation - What a Dark Book

[michal]

Though not being one of my all time King favorites, Desperation is, I believe one of the darkest books Mr. King has ever written. This is not a situation of happy situation going wrong, it's wrong taking a turn for the worst and the things the characters need to endure, the things they find and that city and what caused it (it seems in the heart of destruction laid human nature more than the external evilness), its all so...

well, so depressing!

Whenever I reread the book I get into a gray mood (yes, I know it's being blue for English speakers, but really gray seems to be way more appropriate) and have to go watch E channel or something to calm down.

Does anyone share the sentiment?

[Charms7]

I couldn't finish reading Desperation because at the time I was reading it, a friend of mine was stabbed to death and then a week later I witnessed a man getting hit by a car as the man was crossing a busy street in Houston, Texas. The splinters from his cane as it was breaking pelted me and the impact from the car hitting him was like a jackhammer drilling my chest. Gray mood? You bet. Yes, I share your sentiment.

[wally wonder]

the story has such a nice clean hard narrative that i think it is one of his best, a tear-jerker, truth be known. i like the magical realism. excused early. oh sh!t the mummy's following us let's all walk a little faster! i like the use of the animals, the stone figurines, the stories within the story. i like how that unlikely group of people is drawn together and they win. depressing? life is full of hard choices. the characters made hard choices and they endured. good over evil. never depressing.

[robotman]

It is a pretty depressing book, but IMO its worse when everything is going fine at the begginning and gets quickly torn to pieces, like in Cujo, The Tommyknockers, or The Regulators.

Thinner, i thought was extremely dark as well. It bummed me out to no end anyway.

[The Outsider]

the story has such a nice clean hard narrative that i think it is one of his best, a tear-jerker, truth be known. i like the magical realism. excused early. oh sh!t the mummy's following us let's all walk a little faster! i like the use of the animals, the stone figurines, the stories within the story. i like how that unlikely group of people is drawn together and they win. depressing? life is full of hard choices. the characters made hard choices and they endured. good over evil. never depressing.

I definitely agree Bluey. It was a great "good vs. evil" novel, and it had some great (albeit unlikely) characters, some tough choices, some depressing moments, but in the end, hope. And isn't that life, in the end?

[chris.wildridge.monaghan]

I first read Desperation in the waiting room while my grandson was being born!
I love it and am terrified by it every time I read it. However it does hold good memories for me aswell. My grandson is now 13 years old. He'll be reading it himself soon1

[michal]

I definitely agree Bluey. It was a great "good vs. evil" novel, and it had some great (albeit unlikely) characters, some tough choices, some depressing moments, but in the end, hope. And isn't that life, in the end?

I think you're right. Maybe that's why that book was so hard for me -emotionally that is. It all seems so pointless - all that death and unhappiness, and unfairness, but of course -that is often how life are. And the book does end with an optimist note.

I guess to me it was a bit like reading Ernest Hemingway - he tells the truth, but I want to go throw myself off a bridge when he's done...

[AnnekoMartian]

To me it was the exact opposite-- no matter how dark and terrible things got, when it came to the end and good and light triumphed, I felt so... so *un*depressed, so exultant and beautiful and in touch with the great wonder of the universe. As though all the sacrifice and pain in life couldn't extinguish what is good.

Constantly Reading,
Anneko Martian

[Manxkitti]

I liked this book.

[JRM]

I JUST started reading it last night. I'm about 30 pgs in and loving it! (So far not depressing . . . but VERY eerie). If I were to pickout the most depressing SK book I've read . . . I'd have to go with Pet Sematary. -- But I absolutely loved that book. Maybe I just love dark books or something.