Dan Simmons 644 pages
Gargoyle Books, 2006 (first edition 1994) € 17.50
Gargoyle Books, 2006 (first edition 1994) € 17.50
1960, is party time in Elm Haven, a small town in Illinois. You just arrived in the summer, and it is finally out of school. Five boys from twelve years and then get ready to live carelessly smiling three months of hot sun and games that await them. But in reality, waiting for them there is something else. Monstrous entity that is waking up gradually, a threat that has to do with the Old Central, the huge school just closed, with a terrible event that happened sixty years before, and with a legend that is more real than you might think.
The more surprising Gargoyle Books reprint, with new graphics and a new translation, and more careful wording, the novel pluriosannato Dan Simons - one of the rare foray into horror territory by the master of Peoria - previously published by Mondadori in the 90s (whose copies, now unavailable, roam the lofty prices at auctions).
The first impression is to be located in the territories of the King, Stephen King, and his most acclaimed IT. In fact, the elements are basically the same as the masterpiece king: a group of teens growing up, the evil that rises in cycles, and the fight against the unknown as children transition from childhood to adulthood.
But Simmons is not King, and beyond a different narrative structure, you can tell immediately from a more stilted writing style, devoted to the description of the slightest particular, and especially the lack of a sort of disenchanted irony that pervaded the novel of King
Simmons indeed can be confusing, mostly in the beginning of the novel, is much too bombastic and property. Anyway, you can see until the end of his willingness to explain, speak, tell, expose, stain to feature that, continuing the comparison, was much higher than even the last King of mileage tests.
On the other hand, in this way, Simmons is able to give images of extraordinary intensity and magic of fiction, which peaked in the very long section dedicated to the fight in the mud between the group of players and their friends, rivals, and in a successful final abundance of sewage, slimy and shapeless monstrosity tentacular protuberances.
About the supernatural, then, must be accountable to Simmons to leave enchanted with its ability to sip the information dedicated to the mysterious Old Central and hell that surrounds it, transporting the reader into a vortex of insatiable curiosity. Curiosity satisfied wisely at the gates of a final detector which, thankfully, lacks the painstaking explanation by the evil of the moment - to demonstrate its superiority in front of five little children too arrogant for their age. And is to be the intelligent way in which the author around this annoying detail that haunts most of the universe cinematic and literary (and for some time now also fun, why not).
Spend more words on the pen by Simmons and the way in which it gives rise to a handful of heroes credible and realistic - as well as the evil counterpart - is also unnecessary, because the skill with which he paints Dale and his friends, the brave defenders of ' innocent age, and detailed research and disgusting horror evil in the entity that haunts Elm Haven.
Summer of fear, however, is not flawless, mind you. Excessive length is the first report to do, and thus the already accredited truly unstoppable stream of words of American writer. It is also right to criticize the character of the pestiferous Cordy, really uncomfortable and too rotten to be fully appreciated, despite the sometimes irresistible charisma that distinguishes the girl. And finally, to be complete, a Bildungsroman in which the title is concerned, perhaps lacks a reference to the much more marked in a love story (or as you call it, when you have twelve years or so) , necessary and inevitable step in any self-respecting kid, because even the constant reference to Michelle Stafney (and actual Cupid's arrow that arrives at the end of the novel) is probably still too little for the male universe designed by Simmons.
Anyway, these are but trifles, annoying and inevitable that we must carefully find details in a work of such depth, that absolutely do not affect the final result, but rather that leave hope for perfection in this kind Simmons has reached with the the sequel, A Winter Hunting , which always Gargoyle Books will publish for the first time in Italy in 2007.
The more surprising Gargoyle Books reprint, with new graphics and a new translation, and more careful wording, the novel pluriosannato Dan Simons - one of the rare foray into horror territory by the master of Peoria - previously published by Mondadori in the 90s (whose copies, now unavailable, roam the lofty prices at auctions).
The first impression is to be located in the territories of the King, Stephen King, and his most acclaimed IT. In fact, the elements are basically the same as the masterpiece king: a group of teens growing up, the evil that rises in cycles, and the fight against the unknown as children transition from childhood to adulthood.
But Simmons is not King, and beyond a different narrative structure, you can tell immediately from a more stilted writing style, devoted to the description of the slightest particular, and especially the lack of a sort of disenchanted irony that pervaded the novel of King
Simmons indeed can be confusing, mostly in the beginning of the novel, is much too bombastic and property. Anyway, you can see until the end of his willingness to explain, speak, tell, expose, stain to feature that, continuing the comparison, was much higher than even the last King of mileage tests.
On the other hand, in this way, Simmons is able to give images of extraordinary intensity and magic of fiction, which peaked in the very long section dedicated to the fight in the mud between the group of players and their friends, rivals, and in a successful final abundance of sewage, slimy and shapeless monstrosity tentacular protuberances.
About the supernatural, then, must be accountable to Simmons to leave enchanted with its ability to sip the information dedicated to the mysterious Old Central and hell that surrounds it, transporting the reader into a vortex of insatiable curiosity. Curiosity satisfied wisely at the gates of a final detector which, thankfully, lacks the painstaking explanation by the evil of the moment - to demonstrate its superiority in front of five little children too arrogant for their age. And is to be the intelligent way in which the author around this annoying detail that haunts most of the universe cinematic and literary (and for some time now also fun, why not).
Spend more words on the pen by Simmons and the way in which it gives rise to a handful of heroes credible and realistic - as well as the evil counterpart - is also unnecessary, because the skill with which he paints Dale and his friends, the brave defenders of ' innocent age, and detailed research and disgusting horror evil in the entity that haunts Elm Haven.
Summer of fear, however, is not flawless, mind you. Excessive length is the first report to do, and thus the already accredited truly unstoppable stream of words of American writer. It is also right to criticize the character of the pestiferous Cordy, really uncomfortable and too rotten to be fully appreciated, despite the sometimes irresistible charisma that distinguishes the girl. And finally, to be complete, a Bildungsroman in which the title is concerned, perhaps lacks a reference to the much more marked in a love story (or as you call it, when you have twelve years or so) , necessary and inevitable step in any self-respecting kid, because even the constant reference to Michelle Stafney (and actual Cupid's arrow that arrives at the end of the novel) is probably still too little for the male universe designed by Simmons.
Anyway, these are but trifles, annoying and inevitable that we must carefully find details in a work of such depth, that absolutely do not affect the final result, but rather that leave hope for perfection in this kind Simmons has reached with the the sequel, A Winter Hunting , which always Gargoyle Books will publish for the first time in Italy in 2007.
Review originally published on Scheletri.com
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