Bracket #7: Insomnia (1994)

[mae]

Insomnia, 1994
http://www.thedarktower.org/gallery/data/510/medium/Insomnia_trade_face.jpg

Please vote for Insomnia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia_(novel)) using the following scale:

5: I loved it
4: It was good
3: Average
2: Only so-so
1: I didn't like it

If you haven't read this book yet, please vote Never Read. Feel free to discuss your votes in this thread.

[Tito_Villa]

A great book with a little bit of Dark Tower in there :)

[Kronz]

When I read this as it first was published, I read it hoping it was more involved with It than anything else, and was slightly disappointed at its obtuse DT connections. As a slow, atmospheric character piece, I was very impressed though. I look forward to reading it again, I've not read it since before W&G came out.

[BROWNINGS CHILDE]

I havent read this since the first few weeks following its release. I remember enjoying it, but I don't remember much of the details. That makes it a 4 for me. This is one I should reread pretty soon.

[mae]

One of King's best ever. Read it without even knowing what the Dark Tower was and was blown away anyway.

[DoctorDodge]

It was a bit of a slow paced one, but I absolutely loved it anyway. Especially how slow King would reveal his story to us bit by bit: we thought we had it figuered out one way, and then he reveals a bit more, and he proves us to be totally wrong!

Another thing I like is that once again, King does what he does best: blending the supernatural with the real life issues. I think my favourite thing about the book though is the ending. I loved how he gave us a truly happy ending, where the guy gets the girl, and both our main characters have found happiness again, and then BAM! He reminds us that happy endings only really depend on what point of the story you choose to stop at.

A 4/5. Not the best, but still one I really enjoyed reading.

[Sam]

This is one of my favorites of King's. I read it twice in the first month I had it.
More because I didn't quite get the whole Crimson King bit than anything else but that's beside the point.
The pacing is excellent and the characters are some of the most real I have met in any single book of King's, and that's saying a lot. There is so much I want to say about this book, and I really can't say it without having to spoiler tag this whole post. King had plenty of room to fill out those characters, but at no time did I feel he was padding the story or telling us more than we should know. And, as DT enthusiasts know, one or two of the things mentioned here are still being debated now, and still being wondered about. This one gets a full 5.

[Jean]

4 from bears (was a full 5 till the last part, about one eighth of the book - where the fuss started.)

[Daghain]

Well, how timely. I'm about 80 pages from finishing a reread of this book.

It was a 3 the first time, and it stays a 3. Not overly impressed. And I also agree with Bears about the last 1/8 of the book.

[Canada]

5. A wonderful character-piece. The characters were well-developed and you really got attached to them. I will have to disagree about not liking the ending (the very ending) because It was so cool (and bittersweet) that he got to see Clotho and Lachesis again as he was dying. When it talked about him smiling and talking to thin air, I just about lost it.

[pathoftheturtle]

I like Ralph Roberts, his story was interesting. There was just too much other junk in this book. Seems that SK wanted to tease new direction for TDT from himself through half-baked plot devices and tedious self-imitation. I give this one a 3.

[divemaster]

Ok, go ahead and break out the pitchforks, but this only gets a "1" from me. Yeah, I'll read it again someday (I even read The Tommyknockers twice), but I can't imagine it magically getting better. I thought it started off really good. Maybe the first couple hundred pages. But after that? Tedious. Characters? Didn't care about them at all. Little men cutting off people's aura balloons or whatever? Give me a break. Weak weak weak.

[Jean]

<...> Maybe the first couple hundred pages. But after that? Tedious. Characters? Didn't care about them at all. Little men cutting off people's aura balloons or whatever? Give me a break. Weak weak weak. The first couple hundred pages was the result it earned a 4 from bears. Bears found these pages so real great that no balloons could ruin it completely.

[divemaster]

Yeah, I'd take that point if the book were 450 pages, but it's what? Over 1100? Slogging through that wasn't worth the foreplay.

[mae]

1100? Wasn't it around 700?

[Brice]

787 for the Viking hardcover.

[divemaster]

Oh, well it seemed like 1100! :)

[Brice]

Well, I don't expect the book will magically get better, but maybe your relationship with the book will. :)

[mikeC]

Much better the second time around.
The first time I wanted the story to get to the point faster, "More story less blah blah blah, where's the dark tower stuff??? Cmon Steve! move it along!"
I enjoyed Ralph's journey alot more when I wasn't looking for something else.

[mae]

Again, when I read this, I had no idea about the Dark Tower, and so the Crimson King and stuff flew over my head of course. However, I fell in love with the story and the characters and the setting from the first pages. And then when the auras started appearing and the rest of it, I was floored. I read this huge book in a week, a breakneck pace for me. It's in my Top 5 all-time for sure.

[mae]

Holy cow, two ones... :cry:

[Kronz]

Even being fully aware of DT 1-3, the Crimson King stuff was completely baffling because he's not even a character in the series until the 2000s and I thought the painting of Roland was totally dorky and out of place. I was just like "what the hell?". Reading it again with full knowledge of the DT books should be interesting.

[Tito_Villa]

Holy cow, two ones... :cry:

Yeah i can't believe it too!

[mae]

There was talk a few years back of this being turned into a movie. That would be interesting but I doubt they could translate the atmosphere.

[Kronz]

They'd probably just make it a movie about not getting enough sleep. Makes about as much sense as taking the Low Men out of Hearts in Atlantis, eh?

[Woofer]

What Jean and Dags said. I liked the balloon aura imagery and found it reminiscent of cerulean photography. I do not believe that I was seeing them, however, during the two weeks where I only slept 4.5 hours.

So, yeah, a 4.

[mae]

The poll has closed. Insomnia has earned a FAS (final average score) of 4.041666667 or 80.83%, placing 1st (winner) in this bracket. It will be moving on to Round 2. In 2009, Insomnia placed 2nd (runner-up) with a FAS of 4.065217391, so it lost 0.023550724 (-0.58%) this time.

[Ageless Stranger]

Even being fully aware of DT 1-3, the Crimson King stuff was completely baffling because he's not even a character in the series until the 2000s and I thought the painting of Roland was totally dorky and out of place. I was just like "what the hell?". Reading it again with full knowledge of the DT books should be interesting.

I enjoyed the book, despite it's slow start. I read it a while back,(before I had ever heard of the Dark Tower series), so I need to re-read it. I don't remember a painting of Roland in Insomnia.

[Kronz]

It's been 15 years or more since I read it so I may have mis-remembered. I seem to remember Patrick painting the Tower or Roland though, at the very least he was painting something related to DT lore.

[Ageless Stranger]

In the DT series, Roland sees some paintings at blue heaven that were done by Patrick, right? I really must read Insomnia again soon.

[Kronz]

Yeah there's some amazing paintings in the warden's office signed by Patrick.

[Ageless Stranger]

I thought so. But I've read so much lately that it kinda starts running together. Ya know?

[Kronz]

Yeah I know what you mean. I've read about 7000 pages over the winter and lots of it runs together. And apparently I was close but not exact about the paintings in DT7, they were in a dogan in Sayre's office, not at the prison. I had to look it up since it just sounded a little off to me after I thought about it.

[pathoftheturtle]

In Insomnia, I think Roland was just drawn in crayon.