I'm going to do a four parter on the Stephen King book entitled "Different Seasons". The book itself is made of 4 novellas, each dealing with certain aspects of humanity and human nature.
The first offering in the book is "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption".
This story is truly a gripping tale of an innocent man's, Andy Dufresne, incarceration in Shawshank Prison. The longer Andy stays in prison the more hope becomes harder to hold on to, especially after proof of his innocence emerges and later disappears by those who run the prison because Andy has become a valuable commodity to his incarcerators.
This is clearly my favourite story in the book, as the story is powerful and is written in a first person narrative from another prisoner's, Red, point of view. Stephen's character development in this story is wonderful. King has you wrapped up and caring about these prisoners - murderers some of them - so quickly that it is truly hard to put the book down. 
This story was also turned into a movie simply called "The Shawshank Redemption" and aside for a few plot changes to make the story better suited for the 'big screen', the movie sticks exceptionally well to it's origins.
The movie itself is also one of my most favourite movies of all time. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are each awesome in their roles as Andy and Red. They somehow managed to get the characters from the book and put them on screen virtually unchanged.
Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption is clearly one of the best reads you'll have in a long time, and not only that but the movie is probably also one of the best movies you'll ever get a chance of seeing.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Different Seasons - Part 1: Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption
"Hope Springs Eternal"
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2 comments:
I am a pretty voracious reader, having usually three or four books alive at a time normally. I've never read a King story. I have, of course seen King films - The Shawshank Redemption many times and a favorite. I never even knew the real title to the story or that it was part of a larger compendium. What King story, other than Rita and the S R would you recommend as the one I should read first?
This is a nice blog you've started here Bob. Keep it up.
Wow. That is a hard one. What do you like? Stuff like Shawshank Redemption? Then I would recomend The Green Mile.
Something a little more scary would be Pet Cemetary, or Christine (it is different from the movie).
His first 3 large novels were good too; Carrie, The Shining, and Salem's Lot. Read one right after the other though to get a good feel of his early stuff (all are somewhat different than the movies, with Salem's lot sticking the closest to the original story).
The uncut version of The Stand is awesome. I couldn't put that book down, not even when I was supposed to be studying for finals in University.
If you get Different Seasons there is a story in there called The Body which was turned into the movie Stand By Me. The Body is an awesome piece of literature BTW.
I hope that helps you.
Take Care, and come back often.
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