I surprised you there didn't I? Now as the adrenalin of that thrill is decreasing I shall start the blog.
I walked past a charity shop today (which are very useful for cheap books and everyone should use them) so went in and bought one of the Dark Tower books by Stephen King on a whim. I've never properly read any of his books. I read the first chapter of the Shining then thought,
"Blow this, I'm going to put some of those sweet Ann Radcliffe words in my head instead."
It was only a pound for the first book in the series so I bought it anyway. I flicked to the first page and the first sentence that caught my attention was this,
"The gunslinger had been struck by a momentary dizziness, a kind of yawning sensation that made the entire world seem ephemeral, almost a thing that could be looked through."
I instantly thought what this gunslinger bloke would have thought if Stephen King had written down what he had thought he said... this is my version of what the gunslinger thought,
"Ooh err, I'm well dizzy right now for some reason. Waz goin' on? Why the hell is the world seeming ephemeral at the minute...it like I can look through it."... The gunslinger then runs into a tree because of this ephemeral world of his and so thinks the tree will disappear or something. Instead he gets knocked out and the story ends on the first page.
I'm joking of course. Anyway after I have read a few of the short stories that I have piled up in my 'to read' pile I shall get right on with the whole Dark Tower book thing. I've not read an adventure type book for years and I've never read anything about cowboys at all so this is a new reading experience...and experiencing different things at least once in your life makes your existence feel more fulfilling and well rounded I find, expanding your mind and so forth.
As I was thinking about my future mind experience with the Dark Tower book I began to think about what I like in books for me to like them.
- Colourful, expressive, slightly dreamlike language.
- It's good if there are questions raised in my head or ideas presented to me in the stories.
- Characters that are neither good or bad but grey... that's interesting.
- An underlying sense that there is something strange that cannot fully be explained.
- Good character development.
- When it is hard to determine who is the hero and who is the villain. (e.g Frankenstein's monster is not necessarily an evil character.)
- I naturally tend to go to a certain aesthetic so I look for that as well in a book.
...plus other factors that make me read what I like reading.
I also like to read stories because I want to learn more about the author(ess) and the more passionate that I feel about them and their life story, the greater the joy I experience when I read their work. I find that reading a story is also getting to know the author, so the more that I can feel for the author the more I want to read their stuff. I like when stories connect you to the author, especially if they lived hundreds of years ago because then it is as if you are saying,
"You are still influencing the world man, your presence is still strong. Here's to you."
If I find that Stephen King and I are 'mind dopplegangers' then I find it will be likely that I will read more on him. Time will tell.
I shall now pass you on to tomorrow which will appear on top of this blog post some time in the near future.
Over and Out.
ED.
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