Thinner - Let's Discuss! *SPOILERS*

[Odetta]

OK, so let's try a Bachman book for January's Book of the Month.

Thinner... a quick read... very easy. Did people enjoy this book? I enjoyed the CONCEPT of the book, but was left wanting more detail as I didn't really care too much about what happened to the characters in the book.


What did YOU think?

[Jean]

to say anything on the subject I would have to reread the book... and I don't want to. I never reread it since I first read it about ten years ago, and I'm afraid it's already an opinion. I also noticed that it is one of the King's Wors Novel thread leaders...

I remember that I was mildly interested in the starting developments, bored with the gypsy part, and deathly disappointed with the denouement: it seemed to me Mr.Bachman was dragging the novel by the ears towards the shallow moral that is obtrusively voiced in the end, and it's something Mr.King never does.

[Randall Flagg]

Thinner was published in November, 1984. First printing was 50,000 copies. It was #11 on the bestseller fiction list in 1985. King's Skeleton Crew was #5.
Synopsis:
Set in 1980s New England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England), the novel focusses on an obese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obese)lawyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawyer) named William "Billy" Halleck, who has recently fought an agonizing court case in which he was charged with vehicular manslaughter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_manslaughter) after receiving a handjob (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handjob) from his wife Heidi while driving, causing him to run over an old woman who was part of a group of traveling Gypsies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people). Halleck is acquitted thanks to the judge, who just happens to be a close friend of Billy's. As Halleck leaves the courthouse in his affluent Connecticut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut) town, the old woman's ancient father strokes his cheeks and whispers one word to him: "Thinner." The word, and the old man's behavior, startle Halleck.
From this point on, Halleck slowly loses weight (about two pounds a day); the loss becomes more and more rapid as he realizes the Gypsy man has cursed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse) him. He also learns that the judge who heard his case and gave the unfair verdict was given another curse by the old man—scales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_%28zoology%29) eventually grow on his skin. A town police chief who also helped soft-pedal the charges against Halleck is similarly cursed with a horrifyingly extreme case of acne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acne).
With the help of a friend, a former client who is a Mafia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia) figure, an emaciated and desperate Halleck tracks the Gypsy band north along the seacoast of New England to Maine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine), where the stage is set for a confrontation between him and the aged Gypsy leader, resolving the issue of the curse and the blood-debt owed by Halleck.

Official biography of Richard Bachman:


Official biography of Richard Bachman

By Stephen King
Born in New York, Richard Bachman's early years are a mystery. As a young man, Bachman served a four year stint in the Coast Guard, which he then followed with ten years in the merchant marine. Bachman finally settled down in rural central New Hampshire, where he ran a medium - sized dairy farm. He did his writing at night (he suffered from chronic insomnia) after the cows came home. Bachman and his wife, Claudia Inez Bachman, had one child, a boy, who died in an unfortunate, Stephen King - ish type accident at the age of six. He apparently fell through a well and drowned. In 1982, a brain tumor was discovered near the base of Bachman's brain; tricky surgery removed it. Bachman however, didn't long long after that, dying suddenly in late 1985 of cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia.


At the time of his death, Bachman had published five novels: Rage (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/rage.htm) in 1977, The Long Walk (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/thelongwalk.htm) in 1979, Roadwork (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/roadwork.htm) in 1981, The Running Man (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/runningman.htm) in 1982 and Thinner (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/thinner.htm) in 1984. The first four novels were published as paperbacks, but as Bachman had been gaining quite a constant readership, his last novel, Thinner, was published in hardcover and was well received by the critics.


Bachman fans, who mourned the death of the author, received a bit of good news recently. In 1994, while preparing to move to a new house, the widow Bachman discovered a cardboard carton filled with manuscripts in the cellar. The carton contained a number of novels and stories, in varying degrees of completion. The most finished was a typescript of a novel entitled, The Regulators (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/theregulators). The widow took the manuscript to Bachman's former editor, Charles Verrill, who found it compared well with Bachman's earlier works. After only a few minor changes, and with the approval of the author's widow (now Claudia Eschelman), The Regulators was published posthumorously in September of 1996 by Dutton. As of this time, no other information has been forthcoming as to the possibility of the remaining unpublished carton works being published.

How Bachman was exposed:

How Bachman was Exposed

By Steve Brown
Steve Brown was the man who discovered that Bachman was King. Here is how, in his own words, of how he made the discovery.



When I read an advance copy of Thinner (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/thinner.htm), I was no more than two pages into it when I said, "This is either Stephen King or the world's best imitator." I began to ponder that maybe this *was* King. More or less as a kind of game, not real seriously, I took the subway over to the Library of Congress to look up the copyright documents. All but the oldest were copyrighted in Kirby McCauley's name - - a big clue, as KM was King's agent, but not conclusive. McCauley had many clients. I almost gave up at this point, as the oldest book was copyrighted before the LC changed to an easy computer system. But, just to be anal about it, I insisted the clerk go off and manually hunt up the document. She came back and handed it to me. There it was: Stephen King, Bangor, Maine. I xeroxed all documents and went home.


I admire and respect King and had no desire to do something that might hurt him. So I made copies of everything and wrote out a letter explaining my research. I told him I'd love to write some little article about this, but that if there was some sort of problem involved, to let me know and I would promise to keep quiet. I mailed the package to King c/o Kirby Mccauley. I expected at most some little note in return. Two weeks went by. Then I heard a page over the intercom at the big bookstore I worked in. "Steve Brown. Call for Steve Brown on line 5." I picked it up and a voice said, "Steve Brown? This is Steve King. All right. You know I'm Bachman. I know I'm Bachman. What are we going to do about it? Let's talk."


It hadn't occurred to me he'd call, so I hadn't bother to give him my number or even the name of the bookstore. He had spent a whole afternoon calling every bookstore in DC trying to find me!


Anyway, we chatted for a while and he gave me his unlisted home phone and told me to call him in the evening. I ran out and got a tape recorder with a telephone attachment and interviewed him for three nights straight over the phone. He was very relaxed and very funny throughout. He didn't seem at all upset that I had found him out. He as extremely gracious and said that he wouldn't talk to anyone else but me (outside of simply admitting it), that mine would be the only lengthy interview on the subject.


It took a while for me to get it in shape and find a publisher. During this time King kept in contact and told me that more and more people had read Thinner and were coming after him. Finally I published it in the Washington Post. From there, it went everywhere.


My interview (with all the dirty words the Post made me take out) has been reprinted in the Underwood/Miller collection of essays on King, "Kingdom of Fear," for those interested.


I stress that there was never any hint of blackmail, that King talked to me of his own free will and gave me a lengthy interview at his suggestion, not mine. I think he knew that the truth was going to come out anyway, and he liked the idea of this nobody book clerk in Washington getting the story instead of the New York Times or something.


I should also stress that I did all this out of simple respect for the man and because, to me, it was a wild weird and kind of cool game. I did not "cash in" at all. King mentioned me by name in the intro to the original edition of the Bachman Books, but this has vanished in the current edition.

The importance of being Bachman
By Stephen King




This is my second introduction to the so-called "Bachman Books" - a phrase which has come to mean (in my mind, at least) the first four novels published with the Bachman name, the ones which appeared as unheralded paperback originals under the Signet imprint. That first introduction wasn't very good; to me it reads like a textbook case of author obfuscation. But that is not surprising. When it was written, Bachman's alter ego (me, in other words) wasn't in what I'd call a contemplative or analytical mood. Bachman was never created as a short-term alias; he was supposed to be there for the long haul, and when my name came out in connection with his, I was surprised, upset, and pissed off. That's not a state conductive to good essay-writing. This time I may do a little better. Probably the most important thing I can say about Richard Bachman is that he became real. Not entirely, of course (he said with a nervous smile); I am not writing this in a delusive state. Except...well...maybe I am. Delusion is, after all, something writers of fiction try to encourage in their readers, at least during the time the book or story is open before the reader's eyes, and the writer is hardly immune from this state of ... what shall I call it? How does "directed delusion" sound to you? To me it sounds pretty close to the mark.


At any rate, Richard Bachman began his career not as a delusion but as a sheltered place where I could publish a few early books which I felt readers might like. Then he began to grow and come alive, as the creatures of a writer's imagination so frequently do. I began to imagine his life as a dairy farmer... his wife, the beautiful Claudia Inez Bachman... his solitary New Hampshire mornings, spent milking the cows, getting in the wood, and thinking about his stories... his evenings spent writing these stories, always with a glass of whiskey beside his Olivetti typewriter.


He took on his own reality, that's all, and when his cover was blown, he died. I made light of this in the few interviews I felt required to give on the subject, saying that Richard Bachman had died of cancer of the pseudonym, but it was actually shock that killed him: the realization that sometimes people just won't let you alone. Put another way, Bachman was the vampirish side of my existence, killed by the sunlight of disclosure. My feelings about all this were confused enough (and fertile enough) to bring on a book (a Stephen King book, that is), The Dark Half (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/thedarkhalf.htm). It was about a writer whose pseudonym, George Stark, actually comes to life. It's a book my wife has always hated, perhaps because, for Thad Beaumont, the dream of being a writer overwhelms the reality of being a man; for Thad, delusive thinking overtakes rationality completely, with horrific consequences. I didn't have that problem, though. Really.


I put Bachman aside, and although I was sorry that his cover had been blown and he had to die, I would be lying if I didn't say I felt some relief as well.


One of his books, Rage (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/rage.htm), has been especially troublesome for Stephen King. It has been a factor in a number of nasty (and sometimes mortal) incidents in the real world, incidents in which disturbed teenage boys have held classmates and teachers hostage, have in some cases committed murder. How much responsibility does the author of a book bear when the book seems to form some part of the triggering mechanism for a psychotic or criminal interlude? I don't know. I've spent sleepless nights with the question, a lot of them, and I still don't know. Neither, apparently, does the FBI, who has queried me concerning the book. One psychologist associated with such a case stated that "this novel never walked into a classroom and shot anybody," and that is comforting, but one wonders - one has to wonder - if it is the whole truth. What gives me more comfort is the sure knowledge that the book was written with no bad intent, although it was written by a troubled eighteen year old boy-man who seems a stranger to me now; that boy-man was really neither King nor Bachman but a weird (an perhaps dangerous) hybrid of both.


Like most people, I suspect, I have trouble remembering my teenage years - it's like trying to recall conversations you might have had while running a high fever - but one thing I do remember is that the fury and terror and jagged humor (not wit, the funny stuff in Rage is the furthest thing on earth from wit) found in that story had only one real purpose, and that was the purpose of all my early fiction: to save my life and sanity. What made me feel so crazy so much of the time back then? I don't know, Constant Reader, and that's the truth. My head felt like it was always on the verge of exploding, but I have forgotten why. All I can say in conclusion to this part of my tale is that if there is anyone out there reading this who feels an urge to pick up a gun and emulate Charlie Decke, don't be an asshole. Pick up a pen, instead. Or a pick and shovel. Or any damned thing. Violence is like poison ivy - the more you scratch it, the more it spreads.


The other books in this omnibus were written in much the same spirit as Rage, not as Bachman books per se (Bachman hadn't been invented yet, after all), but in a Bachman state of mind: low rage and simmering despair. Ben Richards, the scrawny, pre-tubercular protagonist of The Running Man (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/runningman.htm) (he is about as far from the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in the movie as you can get), crashes his hijacked plane into the Games Authority skyscraper, killing himself but taking hundreds (maybe thousands) of FreeVee executives with him; this is the Richard Bachman version of a happy ending. The conclusions of the other Bachman novels are even more grim. Stephen King has always understood that the good guys don't always win (see Cujo (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/cujo.htm), Pet Sematary (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/petsematary.htm), and - perhaps - Christine (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/christine.htm)), but he has also understood that mostly they do. Every day, in real life, the good guys win. Mostly these victories go unheralded (MAN ARRIVES HOME SAFE FROM WORK YET AGAIN wouldn't sell many papers); but they are nonetheless real for all that and fiction should reflect reality.


And yet...


In the first draft of The Dark Half (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/thedarkhalf.htm), I had Thad Beaumont quote Donald E. Westlake, a very funny writer who has penned a series of very grim crime novels under the name Richard Stark. Once asked to explain the dichotomy between Westlake and Stark, Westlake said "I write Westlake stories on sunny days. When it rains. I'm Stark." I don't think that made it into the final version of The Dark Half, but I have always loved it (and related to it, as it has become fashionable to say). Bachman - a fictional creation who became more real to me with each published book which bore his byline - was a rainy - day sort of guy if ever there was one. The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the family dog hardly ever contracts rabies; these are things I knew at twenty - five, and things I still know now, at the age (almost) of 25 x 2. But I know something else as well: there's a place in most of us where rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of our ordinary lives. For me, Bachman is that voice. In Thinner, he spoke for the first time on his own - it was the only one of the early Bachman novels that had his name on the first draft instead of mine - and it struck me as really unfair that he should have been mistaken for me. And a mistake was just what it felt like, because by then Bachman had become a kind of id for me; he said the things I couldn't, and the thought of him out there on his New Hampshire dairy farm - not a best-selling writer who gets his name in some stupid Forbes list of entertainers too rich for their own good, of his face on the Today show or doing cameos in movies - quietly writing his books, gave him leave to think in ways I could not think and speak in ways I could not speak. And then these news stories came out saying "Bachman is really King," and there was no one - not even me - to defend the dead man, or to point out the obvious: that King was also really Bachman, at least some of the time. Unfair, I thought, but sometimes life bites you a little, that's all. I determined to put Bachman out of my thoughts and my life, and so I did, for a number of years. Then, while I was writing a novel (a Stephen King novel) called Desperation (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/desperation.htm), Richard Bachman suddenly appeared in my life again.


I was working on a Wang dedicated word processor at that time; it looked like the visiphone in an old Flash Gordon serial. This was paired with a marginally more state-of-the-art laser printer, and from time to time, when an idea occurred to me, I would write down a phrase or a putative title on a scrap of paper and Scotch-tape it to the side of the printer. As I neared the three-quarter mark on Desperation, I had a scrap with a singer word printed on it: REGULATORS. I had had a great idea for a novel, something that had to do with toys, guns, and suburbia. I didn't know if I would ever write it - lots of those "printer notes" never come to anything - but it was certainly cool to think about.


Then, one rainy day (a Richard Stark sort of day) as I was pulling into my driveway, I had an idea. I don't know where it came from; it was totally unconnected to any of the trivia tumbling through my head at the time. The idea was to take characters from Desperation and put them into The Regulators (http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb21186/theregulators.htm). In some cases, I thought, they could play the same people; in others, they would change; in neither would they do the same things or react in the same ways, because the different stories would dictate different courses of action. It would be, I thought, like the members of a repertory company acting in two different plays.


Then an even more exciting idea struck me. If I could use the rep company concept with the characters, I could use it with the plot itself - I could stack a good many of the Desperation elements in a brand-new configuration, and create a kind of mirror world. I knew even before setting out on this course that plenty of critics would call this twinning a stunt... and they would not be wrong, exactly. But, I thought, it could be a good stunt. Maybe even an illuminating stunt, one which showcased the muscularity and versatility of story, its all but limitless ability to adapt a few basic elements into endlessly pleasing variations, its prankish charm.


But the two books couldn't sound exactly the same, and they couldn't mean the same, any more than an Albee play and one by William Inge can sound and mean the same, even if they are performed on successive nights by the same company of actors. How could I possibly create a different voice? At first I thought I couldn't, and that it would be best to cosign the idea to the Rube Goldberg bin I keep in the bottom of my mind - the one marked INTERESTING BUT UNWORKABLE CONTRAPTIONS. Then it occurred to me that I had the answer, and had had it all along: Richard Bachman could write The Regulators. His voice sounded superficially the same as mine, simultaneously funnier and more cold - hearted (Bart Davis in Roadwork, my favorite of the early Bachman books, is an excellent example). Of course Bachman was dead, I had announced that myself, but death is actually a minor problem for a novelist - just ask Paul Sheldon, who brought Misery Chastain back for Annie Wilkes, or Arthur Conan Doyle, who brought Sherlock Holmes back from Reichenbach Falls. I didn't actually bring Richard Bachman back from the dead, anyway; I just visualized a box of neglected manuscripts in the basement, with The Regulators on top. Then I transcribed the book Bachman had already written. That was a little tougher... but it was also immensely exhilarating. It was wonderful to hear Bachman's voice again, and what I had hoped might happen did happen: a book rolled out that was kind of fraternal twin to the one I had written under my own name (and the two books were quite literally written back to back, the King book finished on one day and the Bachman book commenced on the very next). They were no more alike than King and Bachman themselves. Desperation is about God; The Regulators is about TV. I guess that makes them both about higher powers, but very different ones just the same.


The importance of being Bachman was always the importance of finding a good voice and a valid point of view that were a little different from my own. Not really different; I am not schizo enough to believe that. But I do believe that there are tricks all of us use to change our perspectives and our perceptions - to see ourselves new by dressing up in different clothes and doing our hair in different styles - and that such tricks can be very useful, a way of revitalizing and refreshing old strategies for living life, observing life, and creating art. None of these comments are intended to suggest that I have done anything great in the Bachman books, and they are surely not made as arguments for artistic merit. But I love what I do too much to want to go stale if I can help it. Bachman has been one way in which I have tried to refresh my craft, and to keep from being too comfy and well-padded. These early books show some progression of the Bachman persona, I hope, and I hope they also show the essence of that persona. Dark - toned, despairing even when he is laughing (despairing most when he's laughing, in fact), Richard Bachman isn't a fellow I'd want to be all the time, even if he were still alive...but it's good to have that option, good to have that way out, good to have that window on the world, polarized though it may be. Still, as the reader works his or her way through these stories, he/she may discover that Dick Bachman has one thing in common with Thad Beaumont's alter ego, George Stark: he's not a very nice guy. Still, I have to wonder if there are any other good manuscripts, at or near completion, in that box found by the former Mrs. Bachman in the cellar of their New Hampshire farmhouse.


Sometimes I wonder about that a lot...

[Darkthoughts]

That was awesome! Where do you find this stuff Jerome?

[Odetta]

great information!

[Bethany]

i'm with jean on this one, not one of my favorite SK reads. however, i now look for old gypsy women to bump, but not kill, with my car in parking lots as an alternative to getting off my duff and exercising. and i bet some of you think i'm joking...

[William50]

I read this book a couple of months ago. It was ok. I also rented the movie from blockbuster the other day.

[Randall Flagg]

That was awesome! Where do you find this stuff Jerome?
The Internet. Wikipedia and other searches.

[Randall Flagg]

i'm with jean on this one, not one of my favorite SK reads. however, i now look for old gypsy women to bump, but not kill, with my car in parking lots as an alternative to getting off my duff and exercising. and i bet some of you think i'm joking...
You forgot the important part about being the recipient of special "favors" just before impact. :evil:

[sarah]

I read Thinner when I was 15 or 16 years old. I remember liking it at the time. I don't own the book anymore so I probably won't reread it.

[jayson]

i didn't love "Thinner", but I thought it was an ok read. As far as the Bachman stuff goes, I prefer "The Long Walk," "Rage," and "Running Man" to "Thinner," but I think it holds up as a decent story. It was the first place I encountered the idea that calling gypsies "gypsies" was insulting.

[Bethany]

i'm with jean on this one, not one of my favorite SK reads. however, i now look for old gypsy women to bump, but not kill, with my car in parking lots as an alternative to getting off my duff and exercising. and i bet some of you think i'm joking...
You forgot the important part about being the recipient of special "favors" just before impact. :evil:

oh no. "special favors" figure in to my every waking thought these days.

[Darkthoughts]

It was the first place I encountered the idea that calling gypsies "gypsies" was insulting.
I've not read Thinner, but I know - from having a large community of them living just outside our village - that they refer to themselves as "travellers".

[Brice]

It was the first place I encountered the idea that calling gypsies "gypsies" was insulting.
I've not read Thinner, but I know - from having a large community of them living just outside our village - that they refer to themselves as "travellers".


Who? The gypsies?

[Darkthoughts]

Yup :D

[Brice]

Why don't gypsies like to be called gypsies. I mean they're gypsies after all.

[jayson]

Why don't gypsies like to be called gypsies. I mean they're gypsies after all.

My understading of at least part of the issue is that word "gypsies" stemmed from the incorrect assumption of British soldiers that the Romani people originated in Egypt [last I checked their place of origin is somewhere in the Indus peninsula]. So, for at least that reason they don't like being called by a name that really has nothing to do with them. I would imagine more of the issue has to do with the pejorative nature in which the word has been used.

[Darkthoughts]

Fair play RofG - that's exactly it!

Because there are a large number of traveller children at the local school, there is a traveller liason officer who comes in if any issues arise. He gave a really informative assembly for the kids and parents alike at the start of last term and this was one of the things he mentioned (origin of the name gypsy).

It has become a derogatory term in the UK, along with pikey, tinker, didycoy etc.

[Erin]

Is "ginger" an offensive term? Once at work I had an angry British customer call me a "ginger". I didn't know if I should be insulted or not. :unsure: :lol:

[Darkthoughts]

Yep, I'm afraid so :lol: Especially if they pronounced it "ging (as in fling) - er". I mean, in the UK we usually say someone has ginger hair instead of red hair - but to refer to a ginger haired person as "ginger", when you're intending an insult, is rude in the way that it implies a sort of defect. Curse those rude Brits...I loves me some red headed Erin :huglove:

[Erin]

Damn you British customer! ::shakesfist:: :lol:

Aww Lisa. :couple:

[jayson]

It has become a derogatory term in the UK, along with pikey, tinker, didycoy etc.

Maybe you know this then Lisa... I hadn't heard the term "pikey" until seeing the film Snatch. Any idea on the origin?

[Darkthoughts]

Well, I was under the impression it stemmed from pikestaff bearers. I think they formed the first line of attack in a charge, so they were fairly dispensable/common people...I'll go wiki it...

Edit: wiki didn't give any origins of the word - only how it's applied in modern language.

[Jean]

I hope it won't come as a big and nasty surprise... but we're supposed to talk Thinner here... http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/bear_wink-1.gif

[Darkthoughts]

Weeell, it is related to the topic, in that we're discussing why a certain term was said to be offensive in the book.

So, having said that, can I sneakily add - other sources on the net claim that the term pikey derives from the word turnpike and also the archaic British word pike which means, to depart or travel.

/possible off topic tangent :D

[Odetta]

Did anyone like the movie? I was not a fan.

[Heather19]

I saw it when it first came out, but I can't really remember too much about it now. I do remember kinda enjoying it, but I've also never read the book so I don't know how it compares.

[jayson]

Did anyone like the movie? I was not a fan.

not particularly. king-based movies are either hit or miss for me. this was the latter.

[Lily-sai]

I just had to comment about this (I just finished Thinner) - being trilingual (Finnish sign language, Finnish and Swedish) I found the gypsies' language deeply hilarious. Yes, King used totally gibberish Swedish, not Romanian. But in one case he did manage to spook me a little. 'Child of the night-flowers' was 'purpurfargade ansiktet', which means purple-coloured face in Swedish. Eekk. You can only imagine what horrible imagery crossed my mind when I read those words.. =P

[divemaster]

I enjoyed Thinner a lot. I've read it a couple of times, but not in the last 10 years or so. It's one I would certainly pull off the shelf again at some point and read again.

I don't think I watched the movie. If I did, I've forgotten it. Most King movies are not very good. At least the ones based on his horror stories.

[Letti]

Does anyone believe in curses anyway?

[ManOfWesternesse]

Does anyone believe in curses anyway?
My head says 'No', but in truth if I were cursed by an old Gypsy/Traveller would I be worried? - yes I would a bit. There are strange things in the world.

On the main subject, I think I've read Thinner twice, both of those certainly a good 15 years & more ago. An OK read at the time but not exceptional. No particular desire to read it again but you never know.

[Lily-sai]

Yeah, you couldn't believe how much the mind affects the body. If someone creepy said he/she has cursed me, I presume I would feel quite unwell pretty soon.. And vice versa - for example, the plasebo medicine.

Anyway, Thinner isn't one of King's best novels, but readable enough. It was that gibberish-Swedish that kept me amused. :)

[Jean]

I definitely do believe in curses. I didn't like Thinner when I read it the first (and only) time, but I think I got to reread it, those things change sometimes (as it happened with me and Tommyknockers, which I now consider one of the best King novels).

[Letti]

Does anyone believe in curses anyway?
My head says 'No', but in truth if I were cursed by an old Gypsy/Traveller would I be worried? - yes I would a bit. There are strange things in the world.

It's so hard to imagine you to be afraid of a curse. But still... it's understandable.


Yeah, you couldn't believe how much the mind affects the body. If someone creepy said he/she has cursed me, I presume I would feel quite unwell pretty soon.. And vice versa - for example, the plasebo medicine.

And here is the truth. Or a very important of of the truth.

[ManOfWesternesse]

....
It's so hard to imagine you to be afraid of a curse. But still... it's understandable...

No Letti, I'm Celtic, and brought up catholic! I'm absolutely bound to be superstitious! :lol:

[Brice]

Yes, Irish Catholics believe EVERY superstition.

I am not superstitious at all, but belief is a powerful and sometimes dangerous thing.

[Jean]

I am not Irish, but a Catholic, and, in fact, try not to be superstitious - superstition is against Christian religion, not part of it, although many people confuse "superstition" with any belief in anything supernatural - and yes, many Catholics are traditionally superstitious, it comes with the whole colorfulness and multifacetedness - multidimensionality, in fact - of the world we live in. I don't see why believing in curses should be under this category. Even not going into some deeper points, it is only logical that if there is a power to bless, there must be a power to curse.

[alinda]

There is power....the power of all. I quite like this story. I may have to take it of the shelf today as a matter of fact, I now feel compelled to .....:wtf:

[ManOfWesternesse]

:lol: - you've been cursed with the need to re-read it linda!

[alinda]

Precisely, and it is such a short story, I can finish it today....that's of course IF I can get off line long enough to read anything at all.:wtf:

[Brainslinger]

I've never read Thinner.

I have seen the film, and I didn't mind it. It made me feel a bit uncomfortable though. It's rather nasty, and not in just the horrific sense that most King books have an edge of nastiness.

I was interested to see a rather attractive actress appear as young gypsie wench though. I knew her mainly from Sliders (the second female character, the army girl). She also appeared in the film aboout giant Spiders. (Eight legged freaks?) I think Thinner must have been part of her early work, and I remember she hammed it up quite a bit (not in a bad way mind.)

[Brice]

I am not Irish, but a Catholic, and, in fact, try not to be superstitious - superstition is against Christian religion, not part of it, although many people confuse "superstition" with any belief in anything supernatural - and yes, many Catholics are traditionally superstitious, it comes with the whole colorfulness and multifacetedness - multidimensionality, in fact - of the world we live in. I don't see why believing in curses should be under this category. Even not going into some deeper points, it is only logical that if there is a power to bless, there must be a power to curse.


My post directly above yours was me just being silly. I hope you know that. I actually agree that superstition and the kind of belief as applies to religion are seperate things entirely.

[Jean]

I hope you know that.
of course I do! http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gifhttp://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/0134-bear.gif

[Brice]

:thumbsup:

[DanishCollector]

I didn't know King himself wrote that Bachman biography. Is that confirmed?

[Disincarnate]

I just finished this book and I really liked it, but could someone please give me their interpretation on the ending? I assume it's more straightforward than my mind is making it, but I just feel so weird about it. I hate not knowing what finally happened to him and his family!

This book made me realize how I feel about King's endings. Their really honest, but they always leave me temporarily dissatisfied. It's like if you're really, really craving a taco in the middle of the night, so you drive all the way to a mexican fast food joint and find out they're closed. This has happened to me once and I think I'd equate it with the heart sinking feeling I just had after finishing Thinner.

I admire King for writing books where their isn't a fairy tale ending and things don't always get resolved the way you would expect them too... but at the same time, I feel like I have to prepare myself for a kick in the metaphorical balls every time I start reaching the end of a book.

I'm not saying the endings to the books I've read havn't been good - because ususally what happens is the more I think about the way these books end, the more I end up loving the endings. This was just an observation, I suppose.

:panic:

[ManOfWesternesse]

....... could someone please give me their interpretation on the ending? I assume it's more straightforward than my mind is making it, but I just feel so weird about it. I hate not knowing what finally happened to him and his family!.......

Bear in mind that I am looking back over 15-20 years in trying to answer this - and a LOT of the old grey matter has passed into the clearing in the intervening years! :lol:

To the best of my recollection it was a straightforward enough ending.
He got the pie from the old Gypsy, and only had to get someone to eat it to pass the curse on to them.
-His intent was to feed it to his wife.
-In the event both his wife & child (a daughter?) ate a slice before he was aware of it.
- so he ate a slice himself to join them in the curse (and in inevitable death).

Someone who's read it more recently might have a better perspective on it.

[Brice]

As I recall that pretty much sums it up nicely. It's been awhile for me too though. Yes, it was a daughter.

[Disincarnate]

That's what I figured. I guess I was confused becuase he never explained what happened after they ate the pie so I wasn't sure if they all ended up getting cursed or not.

[Letti]

Interesting, in the movie he himself didn't eat from it. Did he in the book? I haven't read the book but I saw the movie.

[ManOfWesternesse]

^^ I've never seen the movie. But yes Letti, in the book the very last line is that he sat down to eat a slice of the pie himself once he'd seen that both his wife & daughter had eaten some.

[Letti]

^^ I've never seen the movie. But yes Letti, in the book the very last line is that he sat down to eat a slice of the pie himself once he'd seen that both his wife & daughter had eaten some.

Thanks. Much more logical!
In the movie his family ate from it but he didn't BUT he offered some to his wife's lover who was passing by. I didn't feel it right... I felt he truly loved his child so I didn't understand his behaviour or reaction.
I guess I should read this book. :)

[Odetta]

The book is definitely better (like most, if not all of his stories), but the book is very lean in details, in my opinion. I think a lot more could have been done with this story idea.

[ManOfWesternesse]

.... BUT he offered some to his wife's lover who was passing by. I didn't feel it right... I felt he truly loved his child so I didn't understand his behaviour or reaction.
I guess I should read this book. :)
WTF? - his wife's pasing lover????
You should read it, just because it's KING - but don't expect too much from it, it's lean as Odetta says. Actually more COULD have been done with the basic idea Odetta - I hadn't thought of it that way before.

[WeDealInLead]

I just finished it and I'm on the fence about it. I thought the ending was fitting. He wanted to get revenge on his wife. He wanted to make her take responsibility for his curse and the incident and he ended up cursing his daughter, the only person who loved him throughout the whole ordeal. He became the old man who cursed him who wasn't really out for justice but revenge. That revenge almost cost him his daughter but he lifted the curse. Bill's desire cursed his daughter...

[mae]

The Losers Club podcast on Thinner is out:

https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/05/episode-66-richard-bachmans-thinner/

[Eternal Unity]

Indeed easy to read.

The Gypsy Pie is yummy :)

Liked the ending.

[BountyHunter]

One of the ones I've yet to read. Ordered it a week or so ago, so that's about to change.