My choices of reading matter must seem weird from the outside. I read both Nobel, Pulitzer and Bookerprize winners and what many people consider Pulp Fiction. For example Amercian writer John D. MacDonald of whom I'd read more if there were more than his roughly 50 novels.
When I look for new books the only method that works is: start reading. After a short time I get a feel for the sound of a book. If I like the sound, I keep reading, if I don't - most of the time I stop. Off course I can be wrong and might miss a great book. But every time I think: "Let's keep reading, this could still become good!" - I stop anyway after 50 more pages. It's not about quality. It's about taste. My own, weird taste.
Because of my method I try not to read blurbs. I don't want to know what's coming. I prefer to know if I like the sound and then explore a book like a completely unchartered country. A few weeks ago I hit gold. A book with great sound (in two senses, as you will see) and with a content that kept surprising me until it was almost over. You've read it in the headline: Stephen King's "Fairy Tale" is such a book.
Before I come to that, allow me to say a few words about Mr. King. He's without a doubt a master. One of the mostread writers of all time, likely to surpass J.K.Rowling and with a productivity that astonishes all writers who try to match him. Like many Teenagers I read some of his books already when I was 13, though I wasn't so much into "It", "Pet Cemetery" or "The Shining" like most of my peers.
"Christine" left deep impressions on me. I could very much relate to the main character Arnie, a somewhat classical nerdy looser, who, if you care to look beyond the horrorparts, is finely drawn and very alive. "The Long Walk" is another masterpiece, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachmann. The simple formular to reduce 100 boys to one through endless walking is done in a perfection that hasn't lost its appeal to me after four readings. The few strokes with which Mr. King draws a picture of the United States as dictatorship are also state of the art writers economy - and, believe it or not - poetic as well. Another book, an early one, that I've liked immensely is "Salem's Lot", a vampire story that keeps shocking and surprising its readers to the point where ... I won't spoil here: Better read it, if you haven't already.
So: "Fairy Tale". I didn't read it, I listened to it. Having a cold and headaches I needed something to keep me entertained while resting my eyes and my tired body. So I browsed audiobooks in my local online library and found "Fairy Tale" read by Seth Numrich. What luck for me. I liked the sound of Mr. Kings writing (which isn't the case with all of his works): the book feels like the late work of someone who knows his craft to the core and doesn't have a thing left to prove to the world. His pacing is cool and immaculate: Calmly detailed and yet moving forward with tension in every sentence. I also liked Mr. Numrichs voice, his sound and his rhythm - a beat that might feel strange to some people because it halts and swings at the same time. It went right into my head and my heart.
For me it parallels with Stephem Fry's reading of the Harry Potter books, which I enjoyed like none other so far. Mr. Fry had a way of capturing both the heart and emotional warmth and the humor of Harry Potter.
There isn't much humor in "Fairy Tale", but Mr. Numrich is so convincing as Charlie Reade and all the people that pass through the story (not to mention the animals, lead by a German shepherd named Radar, whose soul has been caught in words like hardly a dog's before him), that I wanted to follow along from word one. I didn't know anything about the story but its title and the bookcover. It is, indeed, a fairy tale and no horror story even though the master can't help himself. Lucky me for not knowing a thing. The story keeps changing. When I thought: "Ok, I know what's going on here!" I discovered, that I still had three quarters to go and a dead main charakter left plenty of space for new surprises to come. And come they did.
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