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Title: Apt Pupil : A Novella in Different Seasons by Stephen King ISBN: 0-451-19712-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1998 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.34 (47 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The mind of a serial killer revealed!
Comment: This book was very dark and frightening. This haunting novella, about a young boy's strange and perverse "relationship" with a fugitive Nazi, is quite thought provoking. King gets into the psyche of a serial killer, whether he is a Nazi or the salutorian of his high school class.
The former SS man and butcher of 800,000 now lives as a "kindly old man", hiding his identity from the world and charming the pants off of his "pupil's" naive parents. The "pupil", Todd Bowden (or the "boy", as Kurt never refers to him by name), is a bright and seemingly normal young teenager. Kurt brings out a dormant evil in Todd that he feeds with his nightmare stories of the concentration camps.
Kurt and Todd share a common bond and even though they have nothing outwardly in common. These commonalities are more telling than the exteriors they represent. They are both masters of deception and lies. They share a sick need to torture and hurt people and animals. Most of all, they lack a conscience and have no love or empathy for their fellow human being. Todd thinks of killing his loving parents and torturing young girls. He gets his kicks on murdering homeless drunks, as does the old man he emmulates. He hates this old man because he sees too much of himself in that rotting diseased old package, but he has a need, an addiction almost, to visit him and experience the tales of the massive slaughter. Separated by 65 years and countries halfway across the globe, the similarities between these two individuals exist nonetheless. The old man recognizes it and enjoys the company of one so much like himself.
King points out that in the deep dark places of the mind, there is sometimes an inward need to experience the macabre and horrific. Edgar Allen Poe couldn't have done a better job at translating this need! King is brilliant! It is interesting to note that Todd's character has a striking resemblence to that of Cathy in John Steinbeck's masterpiece, "East of Eden". Both were handsome young people who's looks and art of deception both disguise a genetic flaw; an utter lack of conscience. They both charm and delight those naive around them, while thinking up how to destroy those that love them or get in their way. If you enjoyed "Apt Pupil", I highly recommend "East of Eden".
Rating: 5
Summary: Things Not Meant To Be Known
Comment: Stephen King introduces us to a boy named Tod Boden. After learning of the Holocaust in school he becomes obsessed with it. Finding a Nazi war criminal hiding in the US. Todd black mails him for the truth of what really happened the stuff not printed in the books. As the story unveils we see how Boden's mind begins to warp from the stroies of terror. As Boden's nights grow more restless people become suspicious of Todd and his old friend.
This book also includes the Shawshank Redemption an excellent novella.
Rating: 3
Summary: Deeply disturbing
Comment: Tom Bowden, when we first meet him, is a bright-eyed, charming, intelligent young man who is, in all respects, an "apt pupil," according to his teachers. His parents, whom he calls by their first names, are his pals more than parental figures, and have largely given him free rein in his young adolescent life. Since this is a King novel, though, naturally something about Tom isn't quite right - he has a dark secret. Tom is quietly obsessed with World War II, particularly the concentration camps and the methods used there to kill millions of people.
Through dilligent research and sheer coincidence, Tom has found one of the SS's best butchers living in his hometown under a new name and identity. Through blackmail, Tom persuades the old man to tell him many horrible tales of the camp he ran, in terrible detail. They enter into a truly dark and complex relationship, based on trust, distrust, love, hate and mutual compulsions. As the story progresses, the reader feels both empathy and disgust for each of the main characters, and is torn between many emotions as the plot unfolds. The result is a very disturbing study of a side of the human psyche seldom seen, and King does a very good job taking us into that hidden place.
Squeamish readers should perhaps stay away from this story, as there are moderately-detailed descriptions of human and animal abuse and murder, and anyone looking for a "happy, feel-good" story should definitely look elsewhere! I have to say it again, this is a really disturbing tale, not for the faint-of-heart; it left me entirely unsettled, which speaks very well for King's ability to get in there and push all of the buttons he was carefully poking around to find.
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Title: The Breathing Method by Stephen King, Frank Muller ISBN: 0140869441 Publisher: Viking Penguin Audio Pub. Date: March, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Desperation by Stephen King ISBN: 0451188462 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Regulators by Stephen King, Richard Bachman, Charles O. Verrill ISBN: 0451191013 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Insomnia by Stephen King ISBN: 0451184963 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Firestarter by Stephen King ISBN: 0451167805 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 02 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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