Bag Of Bones Chilly

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notebookgirl

Well-Known Member
Oct 8, 2013
858
4,940
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Thought I would start something here because this book affected me when I read it. I just have a question too. I find it really odd that writer in Bag of Bones couldn't write because something tragic happened to him. The writer was so conflicted about how he felt about writing again.
However, I find it eerie in a way since (correct me if I am wrong) the accident or should I say the "the stupid guy who hit King" happened after "Bag of Bones" was published and interviews after the accident King stated he was afraid he wouldn't write again.
I also think in that book and some of his others, he knows how to describe loss. Someone losing something.
OK, that is my little ramble about the book. Do with it what you will....
 

Mr Nobody

Well-Known Member
Jul 9, 2008
3,306
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Walsall, England
I may be miles wide of the mark here, but in the book, for me, it was clear that Mike was working through a kind of existential crisis - unsurprising, given the circumstances and other little revelations. In his grief (which was so brilliantly expressed that it almost became a real, tangible thing - empathy on full) and his general mindset of 'what's the point, when this can happen?', he lost his will to write (because, again, what's the point?).
Note that. His will not his ability (as was seen later on...and it's a first-person narrative so he must have got his mojo back ;)).
IIRC it was a different kettle of fish for SK after his little adventure with the van. The extent of his injuries - the description of which, in On Writing, still makes me wince and wriggle whenever I read it - was so severe that it wasn't so much a case of fearing that he wouldn't write again, as that he feared that he physically couldn't. When even sitting still causes horrendous pain, you know you've got problems. Luckily enough for us (and for him!) he found a way through it, though he no doubt had to overcome a psychological hurdle as well, having stared long and hard into the abyss. (Even the strongest mind, with the most positive mindset, would naturally ask the question What if...? And if What if...? is your stock in trade, well...)
And of course he's suffered his losses down the years, as we all do. It's just that, somehow, he can capture the essence of these things - his descriptions of childhood, and especially what it's like to be a boy at a certain age, are absolutely spot on (not so much here, but elsewhere; I've already mentioned how the grief in BoB seems so real it's hard to believe Mike's just a 'Bag of Bones' himself. As I also said over on the other board, though, this was the book that really got me hooked on SK. Up to then, I'd read one or two but remained unconvinced).
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
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34,805
Curious, isn't it, how many of Stephen King's stories that include a writer as either the hero of the story or one of the main characters, that writer's ability to create & to imagine is affected by outside forces? In this one, seems like it is more than the loss that is the problem...it's a mind that has been trained to misbehave...to imagine & to create. And the writer begins to imagine forces at work, a variety of forces, and in this story like in the others they take on a multitude of masks...the green lady. Nice, that one, not only for the color involved...and those connections, those cables, invisible cables...another force in this story...but also because it is one of those thin threads that connect this story to other stories. A force for good? For bad? For otherwise?

My wife gave me a copy of this one for Christmas, 2006, (along with two or three others, Hearts, Buick 8) and I've read it more than once. Had to pull if off the shelf just now, look through it, refresh memory. And although King has written a number of stories about fictional writers...it is curious that the forces that operate on each writer are a bit different while also sharing some of the same...characteristics...and the outcome is the same--these forces want the writer to write something...that the writer did not intend...they want him to go places....down nineteen...to places. An obsessed fan in Misery...a twinner in Dark Half...Gordie's friends in The Body...and in Lisey's Story...? The long boy?
 

notebookgirl

Well-Known Member
Oct 8, 2013
858
4,940
Somewhere over the Rainbow
I may be miles wide of the mark here, but in the book, for me, it was clear that Mike was working through a kind of existential crisis - unsurprising, given the circumstances and other little revelations. In his grief (which was so brilliantly expressed that it almost became a real, tangible thing - empathy on full) and his general mindset of 'what's the point, when this can happen?', he lost his will to write (because, again, what's the point?).
Note that. His will not his ability (as was seen later on...and it's a first-person narrative so he must have got his mojo back ;)).
IIRC it was a different kettle of fish for SK after his little adventure with the van. The extent of his injuries - the description of which, in On Writing, still makes me wince and wriggle whenever I read it - was so severe that it wasn't so much a case of fearing that he wouldn't write again, as that he feared that he physically couldn't. When even sitting still causes horrendous pain, you know you've got problems. Luckily enough for us (and for him!) he found a way through it, though he no doubt had to overcome a psychological hurdle as well, having stared long and hard into the abyss. (Even the strongest mind, with the most positive mindset, would naturally ask the question What if...? And if What if...? is your stock in trade, well...)
And of course he's suffered his losses down the years, as we all do. It's just that, somehow, he can capture the essence of these things - his descriptions of childhood, and especially what it's like to be a boy at a certain age, are absolutely spot on (not so much here, but elsewhere; I've already mentioned how the grief in BoB seems so real it's hard to believe Mike's just a 'Bag of Bones' himself. As I also said over on the other board, though, this was the book that really got me hooked on SK. Up to then, I'd read one or two but remained unconvinced).

You are right. There is a distinction. Thankfully he was able to continue. King, I don't think suffered from Writer's block like Mike, the writer too. About the book, I loved his discovery about Jo and his internal feelings shown about his wife. His childhood stuff, that's what hit me about IT. He captured both boy and man. It's like he's a historian in his own little world. I am amazed how he can tell 8 or 10 different stories in one book like Bag of Bones. From the ghost's family history, to Mike's history, to the Kyra's family. I am re-reading Needful things. That is like several in one too. There is no singular with most of his books.