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| Stephen Kings Dreamcatcher |
Stephen
Kings’ ‘Dreamcatcher’ is a science fiction come horror novel published by King
in 2001 and written while the author was recovering from the injuries that he
sustained in an automobile accident in 1999. Stephen King was nearly killed in
the accident when he was struck by a pickup truck while out walking on a road
near to his home in Maine. ‘Dreamcatcher’ was the first novel that Stephen King
wrote following the accident and it was originally written in longhand because
his injuries prevented him from sitting up at a keyboard. King says the he
wrote the book while in an immense amount of pain from his injuries, sat in a chair
and propped up by pillows. The book was adapted into a film in 2003 directed by
Lawrence Kasdan and starring Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Timothy Olyphant and Jason
Lee.
‘Dreamcatcher’
is set near the fictional town of Derry, the home of Pennywise the clown from
the Stephen King novel ‘IT’ and revolves around four friends; Beav, Henry,
Pete, and Jonesy who are on their annual hunting trip in the woods. The four
friends, who had twenty five years earlier, rescued a Down syndrome boy from
bullies, now each have their own mid-life issues to deal with from Beav, with his
love problems, through to Henry, who is considering suicide. Not forgetting to
mention Jonsey, who has been having weird premonitions ever since he was hit by
car, no prizes for guessing why King got into that theme at this particular
point in his life.
As is
usually the case with a Stephen King novel, things start off relatively normal
until an old man named McCarthy turns up at the friend's cabin in the woods,
suffering from what at first appears to be the worst case of flatulence ever experienced.
The descriptions of McCarthy’s stomach problems are quite humorous to begin
with until we discover that the cause of it is not from eating berries in the
woods, as he first claimed, but the presence of a rather unpleasant eel like
alien parasite that has made a home for itself in McCarthy’s gut.
To cut a
long story short and it really is a long one, what the friends have discovered
is an alien invasion. The story is as much a psychological thriller as it is
science fiction or horror and it includes people becoming zombies, telepathic
abilities and aliens exploding from peoples bottoms! What is interesting is how
Stephen King gives the alien parasites point of view as well, as it experiences
driving a car, what it’s like to have a sugar rush and emotions, all for the
first time, from inside a human body.
The book is
a horror story, but if you have a childish sense of humour, then it is a bit
difficult to take the toilet scenes seriously. Stephen King says that he wanted
to write about something terrible that can happen in the bathroom. We do get a
lot of bad news in the bathroom like discovering a lump or finding blood in our
stools and, depending on how toilet based your sense of humour is, It kind of
works.
But the
toilet scenes aside, which are only a very small part of the book, Stephen
Kings ‘Dreamcatcher’ is another great example of the author’s ability to
portray ordinary people making a stand against the extraordinary.
“SSDD Same Shit Different Day”
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