Scribner's Review: Fairy Tale, by Stephen King

By Michael Bourret

 


Fairy Tale by Stephen King isn't a bad book, but it's certainly the weakest book by Stephen King I have read thus far.

The literary novel plot at the beginning with Charlie taking care of a dog and an old man is interesting, but it feels so out of place in a book like this. The cover promises a "dark fantasy" kind of fantasy where a child goes into a magical fantasy land, but it just takes too long to get to the interesting part, the gist of the novel promised by the cover. It is a shame because having a darker version of a classic fantasy book like L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, but with a German Shepherd in the Toto role, is one of the most interesting ideas. The fact that the German Shepherd kind of disappears after a while, when Charlie gets captured by the Night Soldiers, is a symptom of wasted narrative potential.

The actual fantasy part itself isn't that bad--after all, it is traditional weird, marvelous Stephen King manifest as what should have been a truly strange world--but it gets VERY slow at a couple points. The whole subplot with Charlie trying to survive in captivity, being forced to fight in a Hunger Games-type of survival competition, drags out longer than it should, in part due to the fact that this book is over 700 pages long! The biggest problem with this book is that it suffers from otherwise absent stakes. The Night Soldiers are established as a threat, but they end up being easily wasted when it is anticlimactically revealed that they can be killed by water. Their boss, Kellin, seems like an interesting villain, (view spoiler) In that scene when he dies, it is supposed to be an ambush of sorts, (view spoiler)

The book feels very jarring because Stephen King clearly had no idea what he wanted from that book. The literary novel beginning is good, but the seriousness of reality is totally lost when the fantasy part begins. The subplot with Charlie's recovering alcoholic father is interesting, but he becomes an afterthought when his son reaches the magical fantasy land of Espis. If Charlie's father got to come into the fantasy world too, the book would feel more connected and coherent. ,There are also jokes that would feel more at home in Stephen King's typical books, such as Charlie's fantasy cell mate saying he was too sick to commit prison rape, and a line from Charlie mentioning about Adam's (the Bible Adam) hypothetical reaction to his first erection (WTF?). In typical Stephen King nature. The book also has King's typical ludicrous instances of violence, even when some of them would also be out of place (view spoiler).

I think Fairy Tale would be a better book if Stephen King made it shorter, as others have said, and focus on a plot that more concisely captures the feel of the cover.  But I do think the illustrations are beautiful. They really help capture the tone of the book, and while other editions have better artwork than the one I have on my bookshelf, they all help set the tone of the book.


Review Score: 6.5 out of 10.
Noteworthiness Pointers: Lovely illustrations, interesting ideas

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