Black House anyone?

[The Imp]

Black House is one of my favoirte SK books, along with the Talisman. Anyone else have any thoughts on this "masterpiece"?

 

[AE35Unit]

Hmmm not heard of that one. When was it written? I'm so out of the loop with SK,the last book of his I read was Needful Things i think which took me an age to read. Have tried IT twice,far too big and wordy!

 

[HoopyFrood]

*Smacks AE* Shush! Why are you saying such terrible things.

If you ever want to get back into King (when you want to get back...) I can suggest some very good reads from him. IT is quite the beast; I've never really thought of King as wordy, although he does have a tendency to lengthen things somewhat and go on a bit of a word ramble, but his style has always felt rather conversational (and now very familiar) to me.

I have Black House, but I'm yet to read it. I hear it and The Talisman has links to The Dark Tower, so I should get on and read it. This was actually quite a lucky acquisition - I found it on the luggage trolley, brand new, when at an airport in Spain. Some unfortunate person must have forgotten to pick it up...

 

[AE35Unit]

*Smacks AE* Shush! Why are you saying such terrible things.

If you ever want to get back into King (when you want to get back...) I can suggest some very good reads from him. IT is quite the beast; I've never really thought of King as wordy, although he does have a tendency to lengthen things somewhat and go on a bit of a word ramble...

Word ramble is right. IT could be a great story if only it were trimmed and given focus. The film is great and digestable. Every time i try to read IT I'm like Come on,get on with the story!
A book doesn't have to be a gargantuan slab to be good,look at Misery,for me his finest book,or Thinner.

 

[HoopyFrood]

The thing with King, though, is that it's not always about the plot. He does do those kinds of stories; Cell, for example, rolls along nicely, driven by the storyline. But in other books, like IT or Lisey's Story he expends a lot of writing building up the area, the history (personal history, I mean, backstory and all the little details) and of course, where I think his real power lies, creating some incredibly rounded characters. For a quick fright, a rolling read through some terrible situation would suffice. But for the deeper, sustained and lingering horror that King deals with sometimes, there has to be the feeling of verisimilitude, of characters that you know in and out and thus care about all the more, and -- something which is particularly explored in IT -- the sense of time and history, how this certain situation has been going on for a long time, and therefore might still go on long after the final pages...

But I do also agree that his 'shorter' novels are effective; they certainly do have more of a punch. I adore Misery.

 

[AE35Unit]

I also love the stories in 4 past midnight and the Bachman Books. Some truly stirring and often harrowing stuff in there!

 

[The Imp]

Without using spoilers, I'll say this. If you're a Dark Tower fan Black House is a must read. If you're going to read Black House, which is the sequel to The Talisman, you may as well read TT first. Both are terrific books, both were co-authored with Peter Straub. TT was 1984, BH 2001. If you're an audiobook fan, there is an audio version of both read by the late, great Frank Muller. IMO, you can't go wrong reading these

 

[Daisy-Boo]

Black House is one of my favoirte SK books, along with the Talisman. Anyone else have any thoughts on this "masterpiece"?

I'm sorry Imp - I hated Black House. I enjoyed The Talisman very much, so I bought Black House in a positive frame of mind - and was deeply disappointed. IMO, it rambled incoherently and was bland and boring.

 

[biodroid]

Got the book just need to read it.

 

[Abyssimal]

I'm sorry Imp - I hated Black House. I enjoyed The Talisman very much, so I bought Black House in a positive frame of mind - and was deeply disappointed. IMO, it rambled incoherently and was bland and boring.

Whew! I thought I was the only one who thought this way. The Talisman is one of my favorite books, but it seemed Black House was lacking in "colour" by comparison.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Daisy Boo - I'm with you 100%.

The Talisman is one of my all time favourite reads. It's absolutely breathtaking in it's scope, it keeps you gripped from start to finish and really makes you feel for the characters.

When I discovered Black House was about to be realeased and was a folllow up to The Talisman I couldn't wait to read it, but have to say I was soooo disappointed. I found it uninteresting and boring and so far from the original.

 

[digs]

I agree with what most people have said. I absolutely love The Talisman - I don't doubt some of the scenes in that book will stay with me for my whole life - and while I don't remember Black House being particularly horrible...well, I don't really remember much about Black House at all. I guess that says everything.

 

[Rand]

Black House is one of my favoirte SK books, along with the Talisman. Anyone else have any thoughts on this "masterpiece"?

It's been a while since I read it, but I did enjoy it quite a bit. Not as much as Talisman, but it was worth reading.

I seem to remember that it was often pretty easy to figure out with writer wrote which parts, in that Straub wrote about the characters in this story, while King kept importing characters and events from other books in his so-called universe.

That's probably what made me like it a bit less than Talisman.