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Wendell's Reviews > Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher
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Let me say at the outset: I am a HUGE Stephen King fan, and I've read all the novels and short stories, as well as his rather wonderful books on writing.
Unfortunately, Dreamcatcher is a bloated, vacuous, dreadful piece of self-indulgence that mostly goes to show that King has apparently gotten so famous that no one dares edit him or tell him that he's written a bad book.
The pointless repetition in this door-stop of a novel is staggering beyond belief (and, ultimately, stultifying as well). King beats you over the head with his 7th-grade brand of peepee/caca humor (I presume it's supposed to be funny, if you think scores of pages with people reacting to fetid flatulence is funny) until you're ready to join forces with Tipper Gore. He gives his main characters an annoying set of catch-phrases (meant to be all down-homey Maine) that they say over and over and over and over and over like verbal tics until they sound like mental defectives. He needlessly involutes the plot, requiring the reader to go back and forth in time-which must have seemed like a nifty device at some point in the writing, but which is ultimately just a nightmare (and not the good kind) of padding and disorganization.
Since I also love (or have loved) the 'potboilers' of Grisham, Crichton, et al., I note an increasing trend among these writers (case in point: Tom Clancy's tumid *Sum of All Fears*): to write obese and flabby novels (high-cholesterol plot, no unneeded fiber such as character development) that all but completely ignore the reader and keep winking ingratiatingly at the screenwriter over your shoulder. Personally, I'm a little sick of it.
Thankfully, you don't have to give up good writing in order to enjoy action-oriented, heavily plotted suspense fiction-consider the truly wonderful series of carefully constructed books by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston or Dan Brown's DaVinci Code.
Meanwhile, I'm giving this book one star because that's the lowest rating you can give; in reality, it shouldn't even show up on the scale.
Unfortunately, Dreamcatcher is a bloated, vacuous, dreadful piece of self-indulgence that mostly goes to show that King has apparently gotten so famous that no one dares edit him or tell him that he's written a bad book.
The pointless repetition in this door-stop of a novel is staggering beyond belief (and, ultimately, stultifying as well). King beats you over the head with his 7th-grade brand of peepee/caca humor (I presume it's supposed to be funny, if you think scores of pages with people reacting to fetid flatulence is funny) until you're ready to join forces with Tipper Gore. He gives his main characters an annoying set of catch-phrases (meant to be all down-homey Maine) that they say over and over and over and over and over like verbal tics until they sound like mental defectives. He needlessly involutes the plot, requiring the reader to go back and forth in time-which must have seemed like a nifty device at some point in the writing, but which is ultimately just a nightmare (and not the good kind) of padding and disorganization.
Since I also love (or have loved) the 'potboilers' of Grisham, Crichton, et al., I note an increasing trend among these writers (case in point: Tom Clancy's tumid *Sum of All Fears*): to write obese and flabby novels (high-cholesterol plot, no unneeded fiber such as character development) that all but completely ignore the reader and keep winking ingratiatingly at the screenwriter over your shoulder. Personally, I'm a little sick of it.
Thankfully, you don't have to give up good writing in order to enjoy action-oriented, heavily plotted suspense fiction-consider the truly wonderful series of carefully constructed books by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston or Dan Brown's DaVinci Code.
Meanwhile, I'm giving this book one star because that's the lowest rating you can give; in reality, it shouldn't even show up on the scale.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
November 30, 2008
– Shelved as:
trash-horror-guilty-pleasures
November 30, 2008
– Shelved
Comments Showing 1-11 of 11 (11 new)
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message 1:
by
Andrew
(new)
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rated it 4 stars
Aug 24, 2011 10:58PM
i'm sorry- you cannot judge a book by the style and the audience it is intended for. you have done that. you should have just judged it by it's cover. you might have been better off. greatness is achieved, not pondered over. i too notices the repetition but realized repetition occurs so often. we would normally make sense of the repetition and give it meaning.
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Wait, someone who can't tell the difference between "its" and "it's" or has a hard time with capitalization and subject/verb agreement is criticizing my review? And I can't judge a book by its style or intended audience? That's *exactly* how books should be judged. Must have been an off morning....
Not to mention " i notices..."
GEES. Get off your high horse.
I second this review! worst Stephen King book ever!
I am reading it now and everything you said about the book is exactly what I'm thinking. Like you I have been reading his books over 20 years and this is truly a disappointed reading. Very poorly written. I am on page 145 and still waiting to get to the heart of the book instead it's a bunch of rambling nonsense just to take up space words. Ok I vented thanks for that.
currently reading.. got this book for almost a year but I'm still on page 189.. well, I just read this every time I ran out of books to read. :) but still a two star.
I'm only halfway through and I don't hate it... but FYI, King shares your sentiment and also doesn't like the book.
This review lost credibility long before its author praised 'The DaVinci Code'. What bitter, spiteful, "aren't I clever" crap.
I bought book just today and threw it in the trash based on your review. I have never read a Steven King book; I did read that Steven King hated it himself. I hate novels that go back and forth in time.
