Different Seasons by Stephen King

 

Different Seasons

by Stephen King

This is my second time reading Different Seasons; the first time was more than twenty years ago. A sufficient amount of time to have forgotten completely two of the stories. I only remembered the other two because they are two of the best movies ever made, in my opinion, one my all-time favorite.

This short story (novella) collection opens with "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," the story of Andy Dufresne who has been sentenced to life at Shawshank Prison for the murder of his wife and her golf pro lover. The story is told by another inmate, Red, also in for murder. Andy didn't do the crime he was accused of, but Red did. Red and Andy become friendly throughout the course of the story. Red is a man who can get things, and he gets Andy several things, including a rock hammer and a poster of Rita Hayworth. Andy, an ex-banker, works his magic on the guards and wardens of Shawshank by offering his knowledge of taxes and the banking system, which puts them all in good financial positions, and also leads to hiding money from illicit activities from prison labor. Secretly, and over a period of many, many years, Andy tunnels his way out of the prison to freedom. The story is far more involved than this, but the main plot is well-known. An interesting nugget is that Shawshank is set in Castle Rock, King's fictional town in Maine that is host to a lot of his stories.

Next is "Apt Pupil," a story about a teenaged boy, Todd, obsessed with the Holocaust who finds out that a man in his town is an infamous Nazi Commandant. The boy attempts to extort the man, Arthur Decker (aka Kurt Dussander) because he wants to hear about first hand accounts of the evil things Dussander did in the camp he was in charge of. Todd wants details. In the course of their meetings Dussander gains the upper hand and Todd worries about his own future under threats that he has been meeting with a known war criminal and has not told anyone. As the story progresses, both of them begin killing homeless men; Dussander, in his home, and Todd out in the seedy parts of town. Both use their own looks to do this: Dussander as the doddering old man in search of companionship and Todd as the open-faced all-American youth looking for someone to buy him alcohol with the promise of sharing it with the man who gets it for him. I didn't remember this story, and I am glad a re-read it. It is dark. An interesting nugget is the reference to Andy Dufresne from "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," the banker who helps Dussander with his money.

Following that is "The Body." Four young boys go off in search of a boy their age they have learned was killed by a train a few towns away. Knowing the location of the body, they make the journey across a few days before the start of a new school year to go see the body of Ray Brower. Gordie Lachance, the narrator, tells the story as an adult looking back on that time and muses over the relationships between the four boys, his home life with parents mourning the loss of his older brother who died in an Army JEEP accident, and all of the things that words are inadequate to express about the good parts of life. Interesting nuggets are: It takes place in Castle Rock and mentions several other things from King's other work, including a reference to Joe Camber's dog Cujo, Constable Bannerman who was in both The Dead Zone and Cujo, as well as Evvie Chalmers who was in The Dead Zone and Cujo, a reference to Shawshank, and a reference to the town of Chamberlain where Carrie takes place. It is interesting also to note that King talks about the adult Gordon as a writer; how his stories are about his own childhood fears that made him rich, how the first story he ever wrote used places he knew, the things he felt, and had troubled him for years, referencing writing about people who could see the future and read minds, and about his books being turned into movies.

The collection closes with "The Breathing Method," an atmospheric, almost Gothic, story about a man who is asked to attend an exclusive club and, while there, hears the story of an unwed woman in the 1930s who becomes pregnant and is attended by a doctor (a member of the club who is telling this story), and who ultimately dies in a tragic accident while being driven to the hospital to deliver. It is the closest to a gory horror story in this collection.

Overall, Different Seasons is a very strong collection. It is far more literary than anything before it, with stronger prose and a more "elevated" writing style--more mainstream, I guess you could say. "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is about freedom and confinement, friendship, secrets, suffering, hope, injustice, transformation, cunning and cleverness. "Apt Pupil" explores the human capacity for evil. "The Body" is about friendship, nostalgia, and loss as well as how words are inadequate to describe the very best things in life--once words are used, the good thing is ruined. And "Breathing Method" is about dedication and how love can make miracles happen.

Different Seasons gets 4.5 stars, mainly because the final story just didn't do as much for me as the other three stories. It is a good story, but lacked the punch I needed.