Late review ! : The Body

Reviews



The Body - by Stephen King

Frankly saying, I started with original text but read Korean interpreted version from the middle of the story and then finished again with original text… One interesting point is that Korean version’s sentence structure was identical to its original English version! It was quite awkward but fresh because grammatical order of Korean and English is directly opposite. Yet because Korean version was made a direct translation of the English text, it was easy to match each part of Korean version book with its original version.

From the start to the end, I thought “The Body” was well written story. In lead-in part of the story, Stephen King gives us brief account of each character’s anecdote. Although anecdotes have not been dealt thoroughly, by making introduction as short as possible, flow of the story became much faster and helped me to focus more on each of the characters. It is a truly incredible ability of writer to allude to readers that there’s no time to sentimentalize over idle stories through arrangement of words and sentences. Furthermore, each anecdotes pops out when it seems like there should be some kind of explanation in the book. Switching between short stories within the big frame of the story was so natural that they all seemed like “real” part of the story. Especially the part where Gordie introduces his college work when he sentimentalizes over his brother Dennis, it really looked like a one story although there was no transition words or some other kinds of tools to make it look like one story. For me, a student who even struggles with transition between SAT essay paragraphs, it is such a desirable ability to have.

When the story comes to an ending part, it strangely becomes descriptive. What we see in the main part of the story where Gordie and his friends start there miniature journey to find “the Body” is overall description about outside world rather than Gordie, Chris, Teddy, Vern themselves. What we remember instantly when asked about the four kids’ journey is some big “events” like train chasing down Gordie and Vern on the bridge. While the main journey part was mainly written and described based on big events, Stephen King changes his way of writing from “event-centered” to “character-centered” at the last part of the story. Perhaps this kind of style and organization of the story made the overall story neater through narrowing down the object that the author is describing in the book. Thus, every little behavior of the boys shows little breakups between them which creates melancholic ambience; but at the same time Gordie describes his town after journey like this: “We walked a block or so without talking. Castle Rock was awesomely quiet in the day’s first light, and I felt an almost holy tiredness-is-slipping-away sort of feeling... We walked another block in silence” which creates warm and yielding mood that seemed to make two boys, Gordie, Chris closer through the silence.



Although “The Body” was classified as a horror story by most of the people, I would like to say it is “tempered” horror story which makes readers to think once more about themselves and people around them. Through King’s amazing and compelling sentences, “The Body” provided me a great time of introspection.

subtle as a bruise

Subtle as a bruise, steady as a rocking horse. Ironically, this graceful quote is from a song “Game”. Ironic in a way that the most games we could imagine of are fastidious and dynamic. It’s hard to find such games that cause continuous anguish and have characteristic of steady rocking horse which is dynamic like a swaying horse but does not move at the same time. What I could only imagine of is a separation. Separation from our love usually leaves scars in our heart and reminiscences of love are like a movie but do not change.

It is funny that despite I only lived for 16 years, I have an anecdote that is about separation. When I was about 12 year old boy, I met my first love. It was the start of the first semester as a 6th grader. When I entered my new class I wasn’t really interested in girls sitting at the back. Rather, I was more interested with playing games with my friends and chatting with them. Nothing unordinary thing happened on the first day of my school. Yet, incipience of my love was started when the school was over. While I was heading towards my home, I saw one girl walking the same way. As I used to be, I tried to pass by her. However, I unconsciously glanced at her just because of her hair smell was more than good. That was the start of my love. She was fortunately in the same class with me. Few days later, I call her to the backyard of the school and gave her couple ring and asked to be my girl friend. Luckily, she accepted it at once. We used to hang around until night and played a lot.

If it was the end of my story, it would have been comedic ending. Unfortunately, I was busy preparing for my middle school and practicing the violin. In order to date with my girl friend, I had to choose between what I have got to do or dating with her. Since I was young minded, I thought she could understand me being busy studying and practicing the violin. But it wasn’t. As the march of time, we estranged each other. The result was clear: we broke.

At that time, I was sad. But I felt nothing more than sad. Now, I sometimes miss that time, sometimes regret or sometimes feel relieved that I choose to study. My feeling always swayed when I think this nostalgia. It wasn’t really a big wound but last until now like a bruise. I’m uncertain that if people feel same thing with me, but because of this special experience when I was young, I first recalled the separation when I saw the quote “Subtle as a bruise, steady as a rocking horse”.

30yrs later...

- The Assembly of Hague



30 yrs later… I will be…

As always it is, it was another confusing day. I woke up at 7’o clock in Falkenberg Strandbad hotel in city of Halland located in Sweden. After snarfing breads for breakfast, I directly went to airport with my little luggage partner composed of small laptop and some promotion files for my customers with great anticipation for me to introduce my promotion files about Asia-Europe currency integration. I reserved 10’o clock airplane heading to the Hague for international conference which starts at 14’o clock; after that, I still have three more countries to visit and need to wrap up results of conference then send it back to UN branch in China, U.S.A; and to Blue House in my own country, Korea.

I turned on my laptop while I was in airplane to see the progression of new project sponsored by CMI(Chiang Mai Initiative). I get down to this work 2 years ago and still working on it; maybe it could be weird to say that this project is “new” project, but considering the fact that most of my works takes average of eight years to ten years, this new project currently I’m working on is pretty a new born baby project.

While I was checking my works and files, airplane finally landed on the ground of the Hague. It was already 12’o clock, I rushed to the Hague International Conference Hotel next to ICJ(The International Court of Justice) through tram. I went into the grand conference room directly with guide and grabbed a microphone and without any further a due, started my presentation. It took total of 6 hours which is 2 hours over than I expected due to enthusiastic young diplomats’ questions and critics’ sharp questions. Although most of them seemed successfully persuaded, I think I need to stick to my cellular phone for phone calls from those who were not persuaded yet. Acuteness of these guys sometimes are very useful but it is true that they really make me tired.

God, as I expected, at that night from 22’o clock to 2’o clock at dawn, my phone was off the hook. Although I love to talk with other people through phone, definitely it wasn’t this way. Finally after an hour of discussion with UN secretary general, we booked another short conference next day; it was possible because I had short vacation between conference in the Hague and next conference in England.

As more and more I worked, more that I felt that 24 hours a day is too short for me. Yet, I’m still energetic and young to handle this works; but I at least need to sleep for 4 hours, a shortest sleep that I’ve ever had when I was in high school. Good night to myself (:



-Tram in Hague