Darkest Evening of the Year, an NC perspective

Hi gang. Funny how you wake up early when you fell asleep at 9:00 pm
watching TV, isn't it? With the time on my hands these past couple of
hours, I've finally started TDEOTY. And, very unusually for me, I feel
compelled to comment on a book while I'm reading it.

I'm having the most curious experience with Darkest Evening, in that I'm
finding myself both inside and outside the story as I'm reading. Dean's
prose is simply gorgeous, moreso than in anything else I've had read by
him. His only work that comes anywhere near to this is Midnight, which
really isn't one of my favorites. That aside, I find myself going back
and rereading passages often, and I intend to pull a few of them out for
my quote file.

I've noticed in previous books that Dean, who has an unflagging sense of
story and a wonderful way with characters, often tends to overreach on
description. That tendency often reminds me of a phrase I tried out in
a short story in one of my college creative writing classes, "The old
man had bales of cotton-white hair." My classmates had quite a laugh
over that neophyte blunder. That's the kind of authorial clumsiness
that can grab a reader by the scruff of the neck, yank him right out of
the story, and promise to beat him bloody if he has the temerity to
crack the book open again. Dean's "transgressions" in description are
seldom that egregious, but they do at times present minor obstacles down
the paths of his tales.

In the first 75 pages of Darkest Evening, I have yet to find a single
description that yanks me out of the flow of the story. Yes, I said
that I have stopped often to reread a particularly lovely passage; not
once has that broken the spell of the story.

I hope there's more of the little girl Theresa and her "twilight eyes".
Perhaps it's no accident that TE is the latest MMPB reprint of an
earlier Koontz.

For now, it's back to Darkest Evening, with no notion of where the story
is taking me, but a willingness to go along for the journey, the
expectation that I may have already covered the finest part of this
book, and the determination that I won't forget the feeling that has
come from what I've already read.
--
Eddie

"Eddie White" <punslinger1960.TakeThisOut@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:13ok19511ffue39@corp.supernews.com...
> Hi gang. Funny how you wake up early when you fell asleep at 9:00 pm
> watching TV, isn't it? With the time on my hands these past couple of
> hours, I've finally started TDEOTY. And, very unusually for me, I feel
> compelled to comment on a book while I'm reading it.
>
> I'm having the most curious experience with Darkest Evening, in that I'm
> finding myself both inside and outside the story as I'm reading. Dean's
> prose is simply gorgeous, moreso than in anything else I've had read by
> him. His only work that comes anywhere near to this is Midnight, which
> really isn't one of my favorites. That aside, I find myself going back
> and rereading passages often, and I intend to pull a few of them out for
> my quote file.
>
> I've noticed in previous books that Dean, who has an unflagging sense of
> story and a wonderful way with characters, often tends to overreach on
> description. That tendency often reminds me of a phrase I tried out in a
> short story in one of my college creative writing classes, "The old man
> had bales of cotton-white hair." My classmates had quite a laugh over
> that neophyte blunder. That's the kind of authorial clumsiness that can
> grab a reader by the scruff of the neck, yank him right out of the story,
> and promise to beat him bloody if he has the temerity to crack the book
> open again. Dean's "transgressions" in description are seldom that
> egregious, but they do at times present minor obstacles down the paths of
> his tales.
>
> In the first 75 pages of Darkest Evening, I have yet to find a single
> description that yanks me out of the flow of the story. Yes, I said that
> I have stopped often to reread a particularly lovely passage; not once has
> that broken the spell of the story.
>
> I hope there's more of the little girl Theresa and her "twilight eyes".
> Perhaps it's no accident that TE is the latest MMPB reprint of an earlier
> Koontz.
>
> For now, it's back to Darkest Evening, with no notion of where the story
> is taking me, but a willingness to go along for the journey, the
> expectation that I may have already covered the finest part of this book,
> and the determination that I won't forget the feeling that has come from
> what I've already read.
> --
> Eddie

I replied on your blog!

Tamara