Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Мізері

Even more poignant today than it was in 1987! It's frankly eerie how well this book (which, mind you, is thirty-five years old) still holds up in its criticisms of fan culture, especially when it comes to obsessive fans and unhealthy parasocial relationships. Other parts of the book don't hold up as well, unfortunately. The "Misery interludes" as I call them start off strong but pretty quickly become...racist, to be honest. Also, Annie drops an n-bomb at one point, which is not reflected on at all and is just brushed past like it's another one of her cockadoodie quirks.

Now, in another novel (written by a different authour—no shade to King, but I feel like he's shown that racism isn't a topic he covers well, I'll get to why in a moment) this could be used to examine the often racist aspects of toxic fandom. This is not that novel. Annie's racism seems to be a trait added to her slapdash in order to make her More Evil. It's not necessary. By the point she says the n-word, she's already (MAJOR SPOILERS)

cut off Paul's foot with an axe.

Depictions of racism in King's books is often only as an additional layer of evilness on an already vile character, which I feel disregards the more insidious form racism takes—covert, not overt. I think it paints an unrealistic portrait of what racism looks like—as a mustache twirling villain who announces his intentions loud and clear. Not your nice, friendly neighbour, not your boyfriend, and certainly not you. When King writes more subtle racism, "nice" racism, to use a term I think was coined by Robin DiAngelo, it's often seems to be an incidental product of his own biases. (I say I think because I can't find a use of it prior to her 2001 book. If I am incorrect there, please do tell me so I can adjust accordingly.) I feel this has lessened somewhat in his more recent work, which is good, but I'm reviewing Misery right now.

I'm gonna be honest, that's the main reason I rated this 4 stars. Without the aforementioned things, it would be an easy 5. Maybe that sounds overzealous, I don't know. It just really bothered me while I was reading, and also this is my review so. Yeah.

As for the good stuff, there's a lot of it.

Like I said before, Misery is more poignant now than it was before, largely because of the advent of social media further thinning the veil between our lives and the lives of celebrities. I would hate to touch the masterpiece that is Kathy Bates' Annie, but part of me wants to see a reimagining of Misery set in the modern day. Imagine an Annie with access to Paul's Instagram DMs...brrrrr.

Paul himself is a great protagonist. The whole novel, I was raging at his captor and pleading for his rescue to come sooner. He begs to be rooted for. I don't know a better way to phrase it—he's perhaps not the most layered character, but that's okay. Annie more than makes up for it, enough that I can't get to it all here, and he's likable enough to make up for his relative lack of depth. Besides, his journey from being completely dependent on Novril and hardly able to move to (MAJOR SPOILERS)

fighting off and <i>killing</i> his much stronger captor is a character journey in and of itself.

Finally, the novel contains many intriguing thoughts on writing. I can't share them all, although I wish I could, so I'll leave you with my favourite:

[...] the increasing dismissal of his work in the critical press as that of a 'popular writer' (which was, as he understood it, one step — a small one — above that of a 'hack') had hurt him quite badly. It didn't jibe with his self-image as a Serious Writer who was only churning out these shitty romances in order to subsidize his (flourish of trumpets, please!) REAL WORK! Had he hated Misery? Had he really? If so, why had it been so easy to slip back into her world? No, more than easy; blissful, like slipping into a warm bath with a good book by one hand and a cold beer by the other. Perhaps all he had hated was the fact that her face on the dust jackets had overshadowed his in his author photographs, not allowing the critics to see that they were dealing with a young Mailer or Cheever here — that they were dealing with a heavyweight here. As a result, hadn't his 'serious fiction' become steadily more self conscious, a sort of scream? Look at me! Look how good this is! Hey, guys! This stuff has got a sliding perspective! This stuff has got stream-of-consciousness interludes! This is my REAL WORK, you assholes! Don't you DARE turn away from me!

Seems to parallel real world reaction to King's work—that his horror is just meaningless genre fiction (just ignore the heavy emotional themes in books like Pet Sematary and Doctor Sleep) and his non-horror work is True Art. All your writing is "Real Writing," no matter if it's a fluffy romance or the next 1984.

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clmccart's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

somehow the most unbelievable thing in this book was Paul Sheldon character development.

also, incredibly unclear if stephen king is in on the joke or if this book was just self-indulgent. i’m going to choose to think it’s the former. in which case: very clever.

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