More literature

 I'm currently re-reading "Rose Madder", one of the many Stephen King books on my shelves. I do love his writings. This one, though, I always feel slightly unsatisfied with, just because I see it as a perfect example of a story that would be better without all the supernatural stuff.

Without throwing out too many spoilers for people who'd take the above paragraph as a recommendation to go out and read it, the book tells the story of Rose who a fair way into the story buys a painting which seems to have magical properties. A couple of little moments of the painting seeming to be a bit magical come and go, and then (well past the half-way point of the novel) Rose goes into the painting and has an adventure. And all I'm thinking at this point is "when is she going to come out of the painting and get back to the real story?"

In a foreword to one of his short stories somewhere, Stephen King has a little grumble that there wasn't a movie adaptation of Rose Madder, and I personally think they could make a good movie of it - if they cut out the whole thing with the painting. Drop it completely and make the rest of the book into a thriller!

It might be just me, though. One book I can never get enough of is "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon, and I really just read that one for Sam Clay. I can almost skip the more outlandish adventures of Joe Kavalier; I'm gripped by Sam's unexceptional everyday life. I'm obviously the kind of reader who wants his books to be as boring as possible. Writers should try to cater for this kind of audience!