The Dark Half - Stephen King (Part I)

About two weeks ago I started reading Stephen King's The Dark Half and so far the book has been rather lackluster, to be quite honest. Maybe that's why my progress reading it has stalled out so badly in the past week. I've read a few, actually more than a few reviews here and there that say this book is their favorite King work... and I can only guess that maybe those folks have only read this book and Insomnia. OK... maybe that was harsh, but Insomnia was the first King book I read and as much of a heavy, boring bastard as it was, I got through it, I had no idea what the references to the Crimson King meant (and I'm still trying to grasp it, honestly) and the book was damn near not-at-all scary. Anyway, I'll talk more about Insomnia later, but now back to The Dark Half.

I'm not here to give a play-by-play or synopsis of the book, so I'll skip it. This main character, Thad Beaumont seems like a dick. And I get that his alter ego is really the badass mofo that he really wants to be, but this guy really kinda sucks. At the point I'm at in the book (pg. 285) I'm really wishing for George Stark to shoot lightning through the phone and kill his ass. I dunno... though a lot of King's protagonists are mostly writers, I cannot get on the same side with this guy. He just seems like.... an 'officious little prick'.

I dunno... it's been a few days since I've even touched the book (except 2 minutes ago to check which page I was on). I'd like to make it a point to commit myself to finishing it the next time I pick it up. I do have a fresh copy of the cinematic adaptation of the film (directed by George Romero!) that I hope to plow through once I'm done with this book. I'll share my thoughts on that once I'm ready for that kind of committment. It might be a while with the holiday coming up, I have a lot of committments throughout the next week, so we'll see.... stay tuned.