The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel

It's a fantastic read all the way through, but I think the last two chapters may have convinced me that this is one of the best books Stephen King has ever written. The past paragraph actually gave me chills.

Every person in this book fights so hard to stay alive and by the end of it all you're just left wondering why.

Rating: 3.6 leaves out of 5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 3/5
Story: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Genre: Thriller/Fiction/Paranormal/Supernatural
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Yes

I will say this honestly, I don't care for Stephen King as a person. He is utterly a crap human being. That said the story was good. I didn't cry like I thought I would, but that didn't make it any less sad. With stories like this I just feel pissed and angry. Like I want to go back in time and find guys like this just to punch them in the throat. Coffey is an angel. I love him so dearly.

As for the writing, as usual, King goes on and on about a subject that didn't need to be. We didn't need a long introduction about about a man's UTI. I knew more about that than I did on more of the important bits.

“Estoy cansado del dolor que siento y oigo, jefe. Estoy cansado de vagar por las calles, solo como un tordo bajo la lluvia, sin nadie que me acompañe o me diga adónde vamos y por qué. Estoy cansado de ver que las personas son malas unas con otras. Es como si tuviera trozos de vidrio en la cabeza. Estoy cansado de las veces que intenté ayudar y no lo conseguí. Estoy cansado de la oscuridad y, sobre todo, del dolor. Es demasiado. Si pudiera, acabaría con él, pero no puedo.”

Former prison guard and nursing home resident Paul Edgecombe tells the story of John Coffey, a prisoner that he looked after back when he was the head guard on Death Row (the “Green Mile”) in a Depression-Era penitentiary. Coffey is a giant of a man, but simple-minded, and has been convicted of raping and killing two young girls. There are lots of story lines, ranging from a severe urinary tract infection to a magical mouse, but the main show involves Coffey's supposed guilt, and a special power that he seems to possess. I won't spoil any more of the plot.

All of King's novels have a type of character who is a straight shooter, and a moral person, and brave, and ready to mix it up if honor so dictates. This character type is presented too abundantly in this work for my taste, and I just felt like a lot of the devices were over-the-top in asking for our involvement. For a setting and group of characters that presents so many opportunities for moral shading, I just felt like there was too much black and white.

That said, this novel has a lot going for it. There are several interlocking stories and subplots, and they all gel together very nicely. I also found the ending, which takes place in the frame story at the nursing home, to be unusually satisfying. And the narrator, Paul Edgecomb, really is a very likable fellow, and seeing him at two different stages of his life really makes the reader think about aging, and the elderly.

So many of King's novels deal with a battle between spiritual forces of good and evil, but this book almost seems to be more about magic, and the change is refreshing. There are fewer explanations for the phenomena that we see, but that preserves an air of mystery and wonder about them happening. Sometimes explanations are nice, but I think that in this case, King makes a wise decision by leaving some things open for interpretation.

Credo proprio di essere un fan Kingiano del tutto atipico.
Non si spiegherebbe altrimenti il fatto di come mi sia innamorato de “L'ombra dello scorpione” e abbia trovato pesantissimo “It”, di come mi abbiano entusiasmato tutti i libri firmati “Bachman”, o l'odiato dai molti “Cell” e abbia trovato lentissimo questo Miglio Verde, tralascio la saga di Roland che è umanamente apprezzata da tutti.
Altro che miglio, qui mi è sembrato di fare la maratona di New York.
Le prime parti del libro sono davvero di una lentezza esasperante e solo il finale mi fa aggiungere una stelletta alla mia recensione che altrimenti sarebbe stata una stroncatura piena. Avevo già fatto fatica con il film, ma di solito i libri sono meglio... di solito appunto. C'è sempre un'eccezzione che conferma la regola.
King è bravissimo anche a scrivere racconti, ecco questo l'avrei visto benissimo come un racconto, magari un racconto lungo, tagliando a piedi uniti molte parti, soprattutto quelle di lui invecchiato all'ospizio o quelle di contorno “d'ambito famigliare”, davvero troppo indigeste, troppo inutili al contesto.
Mi sembra del tutto superfluo scrivere un riassunto della trama, chi non ha ancora letto il libro avrà sicuramente visto il film, decisamente più passabile, per lo meno quello in un'ora e mezza lo fai fuori.
Non so veramente cosa scrivere di più, non mi è piaciuto, neanche lontanamente e non ci posso fare nulla. Quello che mi ha più infastidito è stato tutto quel continuo richiamo ai miracoli, a Dio, alle preghiere, certo posso capire il contesto culturale del 1930, ma io proprio non lo sopportavo.
Anche i personaggi li ho trovati tediosi all'inverosimile, dal gigante Coffey al Capo Edgecombe, passando per tutte le altre piattole e soprattutto il topo. Per non parlare delle mogli.
E' brutto a scriversi ma i personaggi più negativi erano i più accettabili ai miei occhi, forse perchè almeno loro facevano qualcosa, segno che se un assassino diventa più accattivante agli occhi di un lettore di tutta la ciurma buona, siamo poco al di sopra della cosidetta “frutta”.
Accetto il fatto che detesto i libri di King più amati dai suoi fan e letteralmente impazzisco per quelli più odiati.
E va bhe, pace e amen.

Challenge: Read a book with a color in the title

I've become completly biased when it comes to Stephen King but I can say without a doubt that this is one of the best books I've ever read. King keeps surprising me with his ability to take on different topics and being able to write beautiful stories. I still can't believe that he's only known as a horror writer when he's able to produce much more than simple jump scares. I don't think I can say much about it other than it was beautiful and tragic.

I think this is one of the worst reviews I've written but I simply have no words to describe this book. Just read it.