David reviewed Duma Key by Stephen King
Review of 'Duma Key' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I wish I could give this 100 stars.
Hardcover, 611 pages
English language
Published Jan. 28, 2008 by Scribner.
From the Flap:
NO MORE THAN A DARK PENCIL LINE ON A BLANK PAGE. A HORIZON LINE, MAYBE, BUT ALSO A SLOT FOR BLACKNESS TO POUR THROUGH . . .
A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else.
"Edgar does anything make you happy?" "I used to sketch." "Take it up again. You need hedges . . . hedges against the night."
Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, …
From the Flap:
NO MORE THAN A DARK PENCIL LINE ON A BLANK PAGE. A HORIZON LINE, MAYBE, BUT ALSO A SLOT FOR BLACKNESS TO POUR THROUGH . . .
A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else.
"Edgar does anything make you happy?" "I used to sketch." "Take it up again. You need hedges . . . hedges against the night."
Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.
The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural--Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.
I wish I could give this 100 stars.
Duma Key est un pavé dense mais inégal. On arrive sur Duma Key avec Freemantle et on assiste à la découverte de son talent de peintre. Le talent de King nous plonge rapidement dans l’intrigue, complexe, et dans l’ambiance étrange du nouvel environnement d’Edgar. L’art tient une place prépondérante dans le roman. King en profite pour proposer une réflexion sur ce que peut être l’art et le processus créatif. J’ai trouvé beaucoup de longueurs dans le récit, même si on embarque rapidement, les choses mettent du temps à se mettre en place.
Je suis assez perplexe quand à ce roman, j’ai pris plaisir à le lire, mais l’intérêt s’est dilué au fil de pages, à l’approche du dénouement, beaucoup trop caricatural et surnaturel pour coller parfaitement à l’ambiance générale du livre. Trop rapide, trop tiré par les cheveux, trop cliché !
Un King honnête et plaisant mais pas transcendant.
Wow! What can I say, other than "retirement" has seemed to revitalize the Master of Horror. This was a scary, terrifying novel reminiscent of his '70s and '80s masterpieces.
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect going in. The only thing I read about [b:Duma Key|472343|Duma Key|Stephen King|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516WEx5I49L.SL75.jpg|3041864] going in, were the brief pages put in at the end of [b:Blaze|3590|The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Oxford World's Classics)|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1164045516s/3590.jpg|1222101] and those did NOT convey any sense of how good this book was going to be. When I first cracked open [b:Duma Key|472343|Duma Key|Stephen King|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516WEx5I49L.SL75.jpg|3041864] and pretty much read the same pages as I read in [b:Blaze|3590|The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Oxford World's Classics)|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1164045516s/3590.jpg|1222101], I was expecting a dull, boring story.
Thank god I was wrong!
To S.King fans, you HAVE to pick this up and read it. And to people …
Wow! What can I say, other than "retirement" has seemed to revitalize the Master of Horror. This was a scary, terrifying novel reminiscent of his '70s and '80s masterpieces.
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect going in. The only thing I read about [b:Duma Key|472343|Duma Key|Stephen King|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516WEx5I49L.SL75.jpg|3041864] going in, were the brief pages put in at the end of [b:Blaze|3590|The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Oxford World's Classics)|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1164045516s/3590.jpg|1222101] and those did NOT convey any sense of how good this book was going to be. When I first cracked open [b:Duma Key|472343|Duma Key|Stephen King|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516WEx5I49L.SL75.jpg|3041864] and pretty much read the same pages as I read in [b:Blaze|3590|The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Oxford World's Classics)|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1164045516s/3590.jpg|1222101], I was expecting a dull, boring story.
Thank god I was wrong!
To S.King fans, you HAVE to pick this up and read it. And to people who think he's lost it...this will prove he has NOT.