Twenty years ago, while briefly taking up space at a major university, a professor spoke about The Tempest and the ranking that work of Shakespeare holds among the literary elite. As I recall the play was likened to a white elephant, though not in those words. Would it surprise you to know that I am a late bloomer when it comes to reading Stephen King? I’m also a slow learner. But King’s yarns have awakened my curiosity and if The Tempest is a kind of white elephant, then Lisey’s Story is another. Or how about a nine hundred-pound gorilla, over there in the corner of the living room, playing Hearts with Ariel?

King’s work is chalk full of metaphor, enough to keep most poets curious and at times they’re downright spooky. In Insomnia, King makes a cameo as a wino, poking around in the trash barrel, looking for returnables. Toward the end of that story, the Green-Line Bus hits the wino, killing him. The scene written some three or four years before the van struck King boggles my mind, though I doubt the telling of it creates a stir among those who watch the test tubes, even though a few of them have suggested that by experimenting they influence the results. In The Running Man, we have King anticipating the political correctness that is so much a part of our life. Ben Mears “held racial responses outlawed by the Racial Act of 2004…made several violent responses during the word-association test.” In both yarns, the business with the planes apparently wasn’t provocative enough that the media hounded King until he pulled those from the press, like he did with Rage.

Considering Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the low-ranking among the literary types that that work holds, is it any surprise that Empty Devils has such a prominent place in Lisey’s Story? I’ll hazard to suggest that there’s more to Lisey’s Story than this slow learner has discovered. Like what does “nibbled to death by ducks” allude to? Holden Caulfield worried about the ducks, and where they go to winter when the pond is frozen? How about Woodbury, that poor ole Woodenhead Kawliga, that never got a kiss? Or the Laughers, who hoot with laughter when Lisey tells Scott that Boo’ya Moon isn’t the library. I think there could be multiple readings to who or what the Laughers are. Or how about the booksnake and the long boy, or the pictures early in the story, one in the hardcover biannual and the other in the Push-Pelt?

Reading King and you find the returnables, curious images, the various tubes in Insomnia, the pneumatic-tube that delivers the color-coded diet plan, the abortion vacuum tube, the handle of a jump-rope, a rolled-up newspaper, and a breathing apparatus with oxygen tank. Or how about Petunia, the kaka sucker, in Christine, an image that more then one student in Norm Holland’s seminars could have puzzled over? The kiss, John Coffey in The Green Mile, or King himself, in the preface to Skeleton Crew, “if I should kiss you in the dark, it’s no big deal; it’s only because I love you.” Let’s all walk a little faster.

Has King failed with Lisey’s Story? No. I don’t think so. It’s a story worth revisiting again and again. The politics of exclusion, alluded to with the inclusion of Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man in Lisey’s Story, doesn’t make it a failed effort. But what do I know? It wasn’t until the second reading and the first page that I figured out how to pronounce Lisey’s name, “rhymes with CeeCee”. I guess in my defense I could say that the first time through I got snagged on the business with the word count of the article about Lisey’s interview for the column, “Yes, I’m Married to Him!” I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Laura Miller knows all about word counts.

I’m reminded of another scene from my past, talking with a southern writer in a second floor office, the writer telling me about a graduate student who had contacted the office about a masters thesis, something about a character’s 22” arms. The grad student, as well as the student’s faculty advisor, was operating under the misconception that the character’s arms were 22” long, instead of 22” in circumference, as the writer intended. As Darth Vader may have said, “What we have here, Luke, is failure to communicate.”

Painfuly obvious she suffers from ADD. She must be very hot or related to somebody at Salon. As a non-artist, she's in a wonderful position to release her angst - very few get such an opportunity. You could almost consider her attempts at reviews as a creative outlet. Seems like collecting shoes or purses may be more her speed.

I guess the dust-jacket has enough info to give an informative review.

You go, girl!

I apologize, I misread the beggining paragraphs, so disregard my letter below.

As a reader of both what we call "literary" fiction and genre fiction. It is highly irritating to read articles written by people who clearly have read a variety of literary fiction, but not much of what we categorize as genre fiction. To say that the whole of science fiction is deficient in metaphors, or more so than the rest of the fiction category simply means that you've either:

1 ) Read a couple of science fiction novels and have therefore felt comfortable enough to speak for the whole genre, or

2) You have indeed never read any and have made an assumption based on the collective memory and definition of what science fiction is.

As someone that has read a great number of novels in both categories, I find it disappointing that someone on salon.com could make such a highbrow statement without supporting evidence. I argue that science fiction is just as sufficient in metaphors as literary fiction. Of course if you choose to read poorly written works, or works written as part of franchise, your not going to get good fiction, but that’s true for both genre and non-genre fiction.

Before you make such a definitive statement; that such and such a genre is devoid of this or that, you have to display to me that you have the expertise and the knowledge of what you’re talking about. You know write what you know and know what you write.

I just get so sick of “literary” people mocking things because they’re too close-minded to have experimented and done a little research with the genre. Go read any work by M. John Harrison or Samuel R. Delany, and then come back and tell me that science fiction is deficient in metaphor.