2. 'Cain Rose Up', 3. 'Here There Be Tygers', and 4. 'Strawberry Spring' (All 1968).
In a busy first week of lockdown, I've been setting remote learning for my students, answering millions of (usually ridiculous) questions, chasing my tiny tornado of a toddler, and ploughing through the first big group of King's short stories.
I'll admit that I hadn't realised just how many short stories King had published before Carrie came out in '74; I even had my copy out and ready when I started compiling my list of his works and organising it. It wasn't to be. King was pretty prolific even before Carrie made him a household name. If you don't include Jumper and Rush Call, by my count he'd written eighteen stories and one essay before his big break.
Rather than dedicating a blog post to every story, I thought I'd put them together into groups which felt connected, not necessarily by theme or subject matter, but by a feel of the writing. Occasionally, where a story really speaks to me, I'll give it its own post.
Cain Rose Up
From the outset, Cain Rose Up feels different to The Glass Floor, more grown up, somehow, and I don't think I'm just imagining that based on the timeline. It tells the story of a depressed college student packing up for a break, before abruptly opening fire on his fellow students from his dorm window.
This is clearly pre-Rage, and even has a character named Pig Pen to jolt the familiarity home. There are more King-esque little touches in this, like the joke statue of Rodin's 'The Thinker' sitting on the toilet, and the main character's cold murmuring of 'good God, let's eat' as he rains bullets on the students below him.
The story is brutally short, not even a full seven pages in Skeleton Crew, but still manages to feel complete. There's a great balance between the just slightly off-kilter normality in the main chunk of the story, and the ending's outright horror, which is delivered with no message or emotion.
Overall, a far more polished story which made me look forward to revisiting Rage come '76.
Here There Be Tygers
What. On Earth. Is this?
Here There Be Tygers, also in Skeleton Crew, is the story of an elementary school student named Charles, who is too terrified to visit the boys' toilets because, well, because there's a tiger (tyger?) in there. Yep.
The first thing that struck me about this bizarre little tale is that it features King's first 'nasty grown-up' character, a particularly mean example called Miss Bird. Later examples include I think we've all known a Miss Bird at some point in our lives, that teacher that despises you for no discernible reason and will do anything to humiliate you in front of the class (and I say this as a teacher myself). We'll call mine Ms G. She was spindly and pointy faced and couldn't stand the sight of me.
We've also all known someone who has a particular phrase or pronunciation of a word that makes us want to shrink up inside ourselves. We feel our skin crawl and our eyes twitch along with Charles at Miss Bird's cringey habit of saying 'urinate' instead of just 'pee' or 'go to the toilet'.
The tricky thing in this story is working out who the real villain is here. I assume we're supposed to feel frightened of the tiger (tyger), but we're also overjoyed when Miss Bird inevitably marches around the corner of the bathroom to her grisly fate, which we sadly don't get to witness.
On that, I'd like to call unsatisfactory ending alert on this one. Although I liked the story, I really wanted to see Miss Bird get chomped. Her chilly comment to Charles, 'why you dirty, filthy little boy', made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It's something about the idea of an adult, especially a teacher, saying such a thing to a small child. She was the darkest thing about the story, and her character sums up the discomfort you felt as a child when you realised that grown-ups, who are supposed to like children and be nice to them, might actually hate you.
Strawberry Spring
Oooo, I liked this one. Strawberry Spring is the dark and moody story of 'Springheel Jack', a serial killer who murders a group of college students during the springtime version of an
Indian summer, an early spring that shrinks back to a grim winter after briefly fooling you with sunshine and flowers.
In this story from Night Shift, King uses an unnamed narrator, who captures the fear and helplessness of the campus as 'Springheel Jack' confounds the police and murders under the very noses of those meant to be protectors. The description of these murders is very subtle and, like the whole story, shrouded beneath a mysterious mist which envelopes the campus and allows the murderer to do his wicked deeds unnoticed.
While I was reading this story it occurred to me that King has actually written very few serial killer stories, a fact that surprised me even as I thought it. The only examples I can think of are his later short story A Good Marriage, his crime novel Mr Mercedes, and Frank Dodd in The Dead Zone. Perhaps it wanders too close to crime to really capture him, but all the same I thoroughly enjoyed his take on it here.
This is the second of his stories so far that has a distinct campus feel, I suppose the closest to his reality at that time. As with all his work, he captures setting in a way few writers can, bringing to life the spooky college grounds in early spring New England.
The ending of this is a fun twist, one I saw coming just before it arrived but enjoyed anyway, and one I'm going to let you have rather than spoiling it.
In conclusion, a 'read-it-by-the-fire' shudder-fest, which has placed the term 'strawberry spring' firmly into my vocabulary.
Onward!
I'll admit that I hadn't realised just how many short stories King had published before Carrie came out in '74; I even had my copy out and ready when I started compiling my list of his works and organising it. It wasn't to be. King was pretty prolific even before Carrie made him a household name. If you don't include Jumper and Rush Call, by my count he'd written eighteen stories and one essay before his big break.Rather than dedicating a blog post to every story, I thought I'd put them together into groups which felt connected, not necessarily by theme or subject matter, but by a feel of the writing. Occasionally, where a story really speaks to me, I'll give it its own post.
Cain Rose Up
From the outset, Cain Rose Up feels different to The Glass Floor, more grown up, somehow, and I don't think I'm just imagining that based on the timeline. It tells the story of a depressed college student packing up for a break, before abruptly opening fire on his fellow students from his dorm window.
This is clearly pre-Rage, and even has a character named Pig Pen to jolt the familiarity home. There are more King-esque little touches in this, like the joke statue of Rodin's 'The Thinker' sitting on the toilet, and the main character's cold murmuring of 'good God, let's eat' as he rains bullets on the students below him.
The story is brutally short, not even a full seven pages in Skeleton Crew, but still manages to feel complete. There's a great balance between the just slightly off-kilter normality in the main chunk of the story, and the ending's outright horror, which is delivered with no message or emotion.
Overall, a far more polished story which made me look forward to revisiting Rage come '76.
Here There Be Tygers
What. On Earth. Is this?
Here There Be Tygers, also in Skeleton Crew, is the story of an elementary school student named Charles, who is too terrified to visit the boys' toilets because, well, because there's a tiger (tyger?) in there. Yep.
The first thing that struck me about this bizarre little tale is that it features King's first 'nasty grown-up' character, a particularly mean example called Miss Bird. Later examples include I think we've all known a Miss Bird at some point in our lives, that teacher that despises you for no discernible reason and will do anything to humiliate you in front of the class (and I say this as a teacher myself). We'll call mine Ms G. She was spindly and pointy faced and couldn't stand the sight of me.
We've also all known someone who has a particular phrase or pronunciation of a word that makes us want to shrink up inside ourselves. We feel our skin crawl and our eyes twitch along with Charles at Miss Bird's cringey habit of saying 'urinate' instead of just 'pee' or 'go to the toilet'.
The tricky thing in this story is working out who the real villain is here. I assume we're supposed to feel frightened of the tiger (tyger), but we're also overjoyed when Miss Bird inevitably marches around the corner of the bathroom to her grisly fate, which we sadly don't get to witness.
On that, I'd like to call unsatisfactory ending alert on this one. Although I liked the story, I really wanted to see Miss Bird get chomped. Her chilly comment to Charles, 'why you dirty, filthy little boy', made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It's something about the idea of an adult, especially a teacher, saying such a thing to a small child. She was the darkest thing about the story, and her character sums up the discomfort you felt as a child when you realised that grown-ups, who are supposed to like children and be nice to them, might actually hate you.
Strawberry Spring
Oooo, I liked this one. Strawberry Spring is the dark and moody story of 'Springheel Jack', a serial killer who murders a group of college students during the springtime version of an
Indian summer, an early spring that shrinks back to a grim winter after briefly fooling you with sunshine and flowers.
In this story from Night Shift, King uses an unnamed narrator, who captures the fear and helplessness of the campus as 'Springheel Jack' confounds the police and murders under the very noses of those meant to be protectors. The description of these murders is very subtle and, like the whole story, shrouded beneath a mysterious mist which envelopes the campus and allows the murderer to do his wicked deeds unnoticed.
While I was reading this story it occurred to me that King has actually written very few serial killer stories, a fact that surprised me even as I thought it. The only examples I can think of are his later short story A Good Marriage, his crime novel Mr Mercedes, and Frank Dodd in The Dead Zone. Perhaps it wanders too close to crime to really capture him, but all the same I thoroughly enjoyed his take on it here.
This is the second of his stories so far that has a distinct campus feel, I suppose the closest to his reality at that time. As with all his work, he captures setting in a way few writers can, bringing to life the spooky college grounds in early spring New England.
The ending of this is a fun twist, one I saw coming just before it arrived but enjoyed anyway, and one I'm going to let you have rather than spoiling it.
In conclusion, a 'read-it-by-the-fire' shudder-fest, which has placed the term 'strawberry spring' firmly into my vocabulary.
Onward!
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