Misery by Stephen King
Well, somebody stop me. Aside from Pet Semetery, this may be the only novel by King I actually enjoyed. Annie Wilkes is one fabulous psycho.
I guess I should back this up with the fact I have never actually seen the movie. I do know that Kathy Bates plays psychopaths exceptionally well when she is cast, so I imagine it is good. According to my coworker, who has seen the film but not read the book, it is excellent. I also found that the movie skimps a few of Annie's very horrible actions from my coworker or, well, modifies them.
In the book, Paul Sheldon takes a tumble, quite literally, in his car, fucks his legs up, and is "rescued" by Miss Annie Wilkes. The self-proclaimed Paul Sheldon Number One Fan. Don't drink and drive kids. Leave this man's experience as a lesson, even if you do survive and leave yourself immobile and noodled-legged (or well crunched spider legged may be a better adjective?), you still may end up at the whim and hands of a psychopath. The more unable the victims, the better. But, for real, don't drink and drive. Jokes about this plot aside. Don't be a fucking moron, okay?
So, Mr. Sheldon laid in Annie's guest bedroom with legs flayed out and fucked up. Stuck sucking up to this insane woman the best he can. What happens when he is finally able to lift himself into his own wheelchair without Annie's help? She cuts his foot off. Now, she uses the fact that she knew he was roaming around the house to do so, but we all know it was because he was healing. Annie couldn't have him back to health. Anyone else think her cutting off the thumb was kind of breezed over and skimped a little? I felt like it was briefly mentioned then the next thing I knew, Paul was down a thumb and repeating about Annie giving him a thumbotomy.
Annie had a very gruesome history. I think aside from some hints of bipolar, she had other mental disabilities. I am not a doctor, so what I say is a grain of salt. But she had textbook signs of bipolar disorder with how high and low her moods went. She skated by in her murderous ways by targeting the extremely old or terminally ill patients she had as a nurse. This was intelligent because she could continue to transfer without suspicion of the deaths. Then she became the maternity ward head and starts killing babies. She gets off once. You would think that would make her stop, right? Close call? Nope. She kills three more. Goes to trial and gets off again. Not because of a technicality, but because the prosecution did not provide enough evidence beyond reasonable doubt for the jury to hand down a guilty verdict.
Can I interrupt to say King basically was writing two books in one? I agree Paul cheated on the first attempt at Misery's Return. I also felt there was some cheating Annie was not intelligent enough to catch in the version she finally liked. Back in the days before an autopsy was an actual thing or any medical procedure performed after death, they used to garnish graves with bells. This was their way to attempt to correct live burials. I felt Paul cheated me with having two women buried alive within a small time frame due to not being buried with the bell. I know, to some extent, Paul notes the unlikely hood of this with believably somewhere. Still, I noted in my Kindle the bell situation that existed before medical procedures for the dead being a thing. Just one of the things that made me not happy.
Anyways, Annie. The woman that wouldn't die when her time came. Basically, she held a writer captive, tortured him, and made him write this fantasy book of hers from a series the author ended. Crazy people do crazy shit. However, the longer you deprive someone, the more over the situation they get. We watch as Paul begins to clearly lack concern for his life or consequences he knew Annie would instill on him for misbehaving. I laughed pretty damn hard when he chucked that typewriter at her.
She was a classic psycho. Her history made her, and there is not much else to it. She kept trophies in a scrapbook, kept Paul locked up, drugged, and at her will. Most of this novel was spent in her house. Then in the end, we see just how much mental damage she caused Paul. Understandably, he still thinks he sees her in the shadows of everywhere he goes, thinking she is going to pop out and finish him, even though she is quite finished herself.
If we talk about cops, they did their job accurately. They had suspicion with no proof, more suspicion, and then a search warrant. From what I know, there are a lot of channels that have to be covered to get a judge to sign a warrant. So, the timing seemed fairly realistic on that end. I do think it was rather strange that such a high profiled person wasn't given much attention when he went missing. I thought it was weird it took that long to find him or even bother to search Annie, considering she was known as his Number One Fan, has a bad history, and the area where Paul was last located was around her. I mean, they do look out for their own but still. It seemed strange to me that she was not investigated sooner, related to Paul's disappearance.
I guess I should back this up with the fact I have never actually seen the movie. I do know that Kathy Bates plays psychopaths exceptionally well when she is cast, so I imagine it is good. According to my coworker, who has seen the film but not read the book, it is excellent. I also found that the movie skimps a few of Annie's very horrible actions from my coworker or, well, modifies them.
In the book, Paul Sheldon takes a tumble, quite literally, in his car, fucks his legs up, and is "rescued" by Miss Annie Wilkes. The self-proclaimed Paul Sheldon Number One Fan. Don't drink and drive kids. Leave this man's experience as a lesson, even if you do survive and leave yourself immobile and noodled-legged (or well crunched spider legged may be a better adjective?), you still may end up at the whim and hands of a psychopath. The more unable the victims, the better. But, for real, don't drink and drive. Jokes about this plot aside. Don't be a fucking moron, okay?
So, Mr. Sheldon laid in Annie's guest bedroom with legs flayed out and fucked up. Stuck sucking up to this insane woman the best he can. What happens when he is finally able to lift himself into his own wheelchair without Annie's help? She cuts his foot off. Now, she uses the fact that she knew he was roaming around the house to do so, but we all know it was because he was healing. Annie couldn't have him back to health. Anyone else think her cutting off the thumb was kind of breezed over and skimped a little? I felt like it was briefly mentioned then the next thing I knew, Paul was down a thumb and repeating about Annie giving him a thumbotomy.
Annie had a very gruesome history. I think aside from some hints of bipolar, she had other mental disabilities. I am not a doctor, so what I say is a grain of salt. But she had textbook signs of bipolar disorder with how high and low her moods went. She skated by in her murderous ways by targeting the extremely old or terminally ill patients she had as a nurse. This was intelligent because she could continue to transfer without suspicion of the deaths. Then she became the maternity ward head and starts killing babies. She gets off once. You would think that would make her stop, right? Close call? Nope. She kills three more. Goes to trial and gets off again. Not because of a technicality, but because the prosecution did not provide enough evidence beyond reasonable doubt for the jury to hand down a guilty verdict.
Can I interrupt to say King basically was writing two books in one? I agree Paul cheated on the first attempt at Misery's Return. I also felt there was some cheating Annie was not intelligent enough to catch in the version she finally liked. Back in the days before an autopsy was an actual thing or any medical procedure performed after death, they used to garnish graves with bells. This was their way to attempt to correct live burials. I felt Paul cheated me with having two women buried alive within a small time frame due to not being buried with the bell. I know, to some extent, Paul notes the unlikely hood of this with believably somewhere. Still, I noted in my Kindle the bell situation that existed before medical procedures for the dead being a thing. Just one of the things that made me not happy.
Anyways, Annie. The woman that wouldn't die when her time came. Basically, she held a writer captive, tortured him, and made him write this fantasy book of hers from a series the author ended. Crazy people do crazy shit. However, the longer you deprive someone, the more over the situation they get. We watch as Paul begins to clearly lack concern for his life or consequences he knew Annie would instill on him for misbehaving. I laughed pretty damn hard when he chucked that typewriter at her.
She was a classic psycho. Her history made her, and there is not much else to it. She kept trophies in a scrapbook, kept Paul locked up, drugged, and at her will. Most of this novel was spent in her house. Then in the end, we see just how much mental damage she caused Paul. Understandably, he still thinks he sees her in the shadows of everywhere he goes, thinking she is going to pop out and finish him, even though she is quite finished herself.
If we talk about cops, they did their job accurately. They had suspicion with no proof, more suspicion, and then a search warrant. From what I know, there are a lot of channels that have to be covered to get a judge to sign a warrant. So, the timing seemed fairly realistic on that end. I do think it was rather strange that such a high profiled person wasn't given much attention when he went missing. I thought it was weird it took that long to find him or even bother to search Annie, considering she was known as his Number One Fan, has a bad history, and the area where Paul was last located was around her. I mean, they do look out for their own but still. It seemed strange to me that she was not investigated sooner, related to Paul's disappearance.
Comments
Post a Comment