Chainsaw discipline

Press, 17 December 1988, Page 24

Chainsaw discipline

Misery. By Stephen King. Hodder and Stoughton, 1988. 370 pp. $13.99 (paperback). This book might be described as “Smifi” — supernatural, macabre, insane fiction. The name of the author is synonymous with terrifying encounter of the human or Satanic kind, and in this novel he is at his best. The story is of a similar author who crashes his car, is taken in by a sinister ex-nurse who is an obsessed fan of his romances — particularly those about the character, Misery, every one of whose romantic adventures she has read many times. However, a cabin high up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado becomes the author’s prison where he is forced to write yet another Misery episode, while imprisoned and hooked on his jailor’s drugs. Punishments for misconduct with bloody axes and chainsaws, constant pain and fear seep through the pages making it a very quick book in which to pursue the increasingly mutilated hero’s hopes and despairs. Not a traditional scene shift —- from hungry rats to “schizophrenic” episodes — is left out, but it is all constructed with such masterly expertise that the usual creaking wires of the stage run with a minimum hiss. There is no cognitive message in this medium of Gothic nightmare, but it should not be read alone unless a reliable burglar alarm has been fitted. — Ralf Unger.