This is the second reading journal of Stephen King’s “Different Seasons.” I have read the first 30 pages of “The Body”, and I have to tell you in truth that I was indeed confused. King’s writing style for “The Body” was quite, I have to say, unique. As the story progresses from the perspective of the narrator who is a teenager, the way he writes sounds like so. Therefore, there are some slangs included that are quite hard to comprehend unless you have grown up in the United States.
The plot is as interesting as “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”. However, “The Body” is quite different from King’s style of writing. Instead of a horror story, it is about four boys who venture into the woods where they find life, death, and clues of human mortality. I am quite sure “The Body” is one of the few stories King wrote that is not based on horror. Even though the first 30 pages do not reveal much, I can tell that the story is not going to continue onto that King’s typical theme; instead, I believe “The Body” will focus more on themes that are related to intimations of human mortality.
I can say that “The Body” is as impactful as his other horror stories; in fact, it is even scarier. As the main theme is death which all of us are afraid and unknown of, readers might find it more closely related to. The fact that King chose boys as the protagonists also adds up to form a better developed storyline as teenagers are more ignorant about such ideas. They are too young to understand and accept such concepts as death seems, to them, very distant. These boys are also quite illiterate, which shows that they do not understand the concept of human mortality. They are also playful about finding the dead body of the boy from another town, which shows that they consider death lightly. I think this also introduces another theme King wants to talk about: human ignorance.
When I was reading the part about two teenagers having a sexual intercourse, I basically freaked out. The description was too detailed, and it was indeed shocking when I realized that Mr. Garrioch wanted us to read this. The way King penned it down was so realistic, so horrifying, and so weird.
I cannot really say that I have enjoyed “The Body” so far, maybe because the story has not progressed much. However, it approached me in a new sense that I have never read before, and I am glad to continue reading it.
Regarding your second last paragraph,l just want to say that I don't necessarily want you to read that. Apologies if you found it to be unsettling. King does, from time to time, write descriptively about things we usually don't talk about, and that's one of the reasons he's the world's highest selling author. People tend to like that honesty about his work, but it can shocking at first. I assume you have a television, and have seen weird things before. When you get to university, things will get weirder - I assure you. If you don't like the weird parts, you can skip them.:)
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