The sparrows are flying again... (The Dark Half - Stephen King)

Member Name: zpyder

Product:	The Dark Half - Stephen King
Date:	24/01/01 (1200 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very gory, good mix of horror and plot

Disadvantages: too gory for some.

The Dark Half is one of the goriest books I’ve read by Steven King.

The story is about a writer, Thad Beaumont, who was relatively unsuccessful. He tries writing a different story under the pseudonym of George Stark. These novels are hugely successful, and after a while he ‘kills off’ George and comes clean about who he really is.
The problem that arises is that when Thad was still and embryo, he had a twin brother. Whilst still in the womb, he ‘absorbed’ his brother, and so only Thad was born. In my eyes this is who George Stark is, Thad’s brother.
When Thad kills George off, George comes back, he wants to take his brothers place in the world, and send Thad to the grave.

The ‘Sparrows’ that seem to be forever flying are pyschopomps, according to Steven King. These birds are here to guide the undead back to the underworld.

I find this book very interesting, and have a small theory behind it. I did a very small amount of research, and found that this book was written around or just after the time when Stephen came public about writting under the Pseudonym of Richard Bachman. I like reading this book as It always makes me think of a scenario of Stephen coming public and something like this happening to him, I might eb completely wrong, but if you read the book and notice this, I'm glad I'm not alone!

I like the way the stories written as you slowly start to think that George Stark is one of the main characters in his violent and bloody books. At various places in the book there are snippets from the books that George wrote, showing how much George stark is alike to Machine, the main character in the books.

Another thing is that a snippet from one of the books, where it talks about a hitman in a wedding cake about to kill off the reception, is extended and made into a full short story in ‘Nightmares and Dreamscapes’.

This book is good if y
ou like true horror, with extra gore, and an ounce of supernaturalism thrown in.

Summary: