Elevation by Stephen KingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
First, this is not horror. Let me say that again, this is NOT horror.
Now that we've got that out of the way let's talk about Stephen King's latest short story. King has done some really great things with Elevation. We get a lovely older lesbian couple, an average middle aged man and an elderly doctor all set against the backdrop of a small town in Maine (what a shocking location for King to take us to, lol). And throughout this story we follow our fairly average man who just so happens to be losing weight, without actually losing weight. Now obviously one cannot, in reality, loose weight without it being obvious and noticeable that said weight has been coming off. And yet that is exactly our scenario is Elevation.
For me it was clear from the get-go that this was a story about aging and death. Would you change how you live your life is you were 90% sure you were going to die (or cease to exist in some unknown way) within a certain time period? Many of us think we would say yes. But like King's character I actually think (with the exception of maybe not working) that I might try to keep things somewhat normal. After all if we truly love our lives as they are today then spending the last of our days as we are should be satisfying. King does an excellent job of highlighting this and making the reader think about their mortality as our characters come to terms with their own.
The side story in Elevation is also wonderful. We have a lesbian couple running a restaurant in small town Maine. I'm guessing I don't need to tell you that not everyone in town is happy about their presence. We feel their highs and lows, and experience the mental anguish that some town members pile onto them. All I can say is that I felt very, very protective of these two women and was (many times) more concerned about their welfare than that of our leading man. Call me bias but I wanted the ladies to kick-butt and tell the town folks off. Thankfully not all of the town is ridiculous and I'm happy that in the end I didn't have to write hate letters to King.
I think the older you are the more likely you are to really 'get' something from Elevation. Or if you're like myself and my husband (who also read this one) with a morbid fascination with death. We had a great conversation at my home about this short story. At 108 pages this is an easy afternoon of reading to help bolster your reading challenge if nothing else.
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1 comment:
I have to admit that I have a bit of a shaky relationship with King. I tried reading The Green Mile when I was...maybe 14? and couldn't really get into it, and a few years back I started the Dark Tower, and that was awesome (at least the first two that I have read so far), and that's about it. I probably should try and read some of his 'classics' eventually, just to say I have read them! This one sounds interesting, and pretty different from everything of his I have heard about.
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