Fairy Tale

 

Fairy Tale – Stephen King

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of a “fairy tale” is a sweet, somewhat innocent story that parents read to their 4-year-old child at bedtime.  So a Stephen King “fairy tale” seems a bit of an oxymoron.  Of course, Stephen King has proven that he can write well in multiple genres, so maybe he’s writing a sweet, kiddie friendly six-hundred-page story?  Well, no. Such isn’t the case, which probably isn’t surprising to anybody.  In fact, we learn from Stephen King when reading this book that many of the childhood Disney stories that kids were raised on, were actually much darker in their original format.

So, yes, this is in fact a “fairy tale”, but one with heavy Stephen King leanings.  This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve mentioned in many of my reviews of Mr. King’s work that “horror” is actually a bit of an unfair monicker to be placed on his style. Yes, he’s written (successfully) within the horror genre, but his body of work goes much further.  Creepy, weird, and mostly unrealistic seem to be better descriptions of his work.  In many cases his books remind me of old The Twilight Zone episodes. His books tend to be disturbing and strange, but not necessary filled with horror.

Fairy Tale meets such descriptions.  Reading this story made me think a lot about his Dark Tower Series, his co-authored work The Talisman, and it even kind of had a hint of Pet Semetary.  We begin the story in a “normal” world, and King pushes us within a mysterious parallel universe where the bulk of our adventure takes place.

The story is told in first person by 17-year-old Charlie Reade.  Now, before Reade plunges his listener into his fairy tale, he has to tell us another story before we can truly appreciate his journey.  This story takes places in the real world and is much more believable. If we really want to split hairs, Reade (King) even manages to tell yet another story leading to the story that leads to the main story. So a lot of setup here before we actually get going.  This, though, isn’t a bad thing.  King has proven that whatever the tale, he’s good and keeping things interesting.  So when we read about Charlie Reade’s life story for the first 1/3 of the book or so, we never feel impatient, or that our time is being wasted.  In fact, in many ways I enjoyed the “pre tale” rooted somewhat in reality more than the “fairy tale” once we finally arrive there.

I try very hard to reveal as little of the plot of a book when writing a review, but I must say that I found Charlie’s motivation to go to such an unknown dangerous place to be a bit silly and unbelievable.  If you’ve read the above-mentioned books Pet Semetary and The Talisman, you can easily see why the main character in those stories set out to do what they wanted to accomplish.  When loved ones are at stake, we would all do the unthinkable to save them, but the premise in this book was just too hard for me to believe.

Charlie Reade’s adventures are well thought out and executed very well.  I didn’t feel as though the actual action was forced or unnecessary.  This is one of those books that would make an outstanding movie if the right director were put in charge.  I can also see a movie based on this to be an unwatchable mess, though, if the creators of said film don’t give the story the attention it deserves.  This book features a lot of bizarre beings and creatures that are sometimes best when they’re shown to us instead of us reading about them and trying to formulate how such beings actually look and sound.  Think of it this way: If you never saw any of the Star Wars movies, do you think you brain could feasibly come up with what a “Chewbacca” or a “Jabba the Hut” is really supposed to look and act like?

This novel is a good addition to Stephen King’s already massive catalog, and despite what you might think when you see the title of this book, this thing is definitely right up Stephen King’s alley.