Coming Of Age Story
Stephen King’s The Body was written in Different Seasons along with three other novels, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, and The Breathing Method. The Body is a coming of age story where the characters’ lives transition from innocence to adulthood. It is definitely no mistake that The Body appears in the section, “Fall from Innocence”; the plot itself takes place right between summer and fall.
Told in the first person by Gordie Lachance, the narrator remembers the last adventure that he and his three friends, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio, has. As the summer comes to a close, the boys hear about the dead body of Ray Bowers, a young boy from a neighboring town. Curious and excited, Gordie and his friends
set off to where the body lies.
Disappointment: the one word I would use to summarize The Body. Stephen King hooks the readers in by writing about an adventure to find a dead body but fails to keep readers interested to the very end. Even though there were sentimental and relatable moments between the four boys, there were more moments of them just wandering around the woods. It never seemed to end! And finally, when the Stephen King makes his grand finale, the readers are already half asleep and are too bored to care about what he has to say.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe this book is perfectly fine. Maybe I completely missed the point. Maybe another reader, who loves a story about four friends walking around, will find joy and sadness and richness and beauty in this novel, even though I practically read the book to fall asleep. But, personally, I truly would never recommend Stephen King’s The Body to anyone, not even to the criminals at Shawshank Prison.
Told in the first person by Gordie Lachance, the narrator remembers the last adventure that he and his three friends, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio, has. As the summer comes to a close, the boys hear about the dead body of Ray Bowers, a young boy from a neighboring town. Curious and excited, Gordie and his friends
set off to where the body lies.
Disappointment: the one word I would use to summarize The Body. Stephen King hooks the readers in by writing about an adventure to find a dead body but fails to keep readers interested to the very end. Even though there were sentimental and relatable moments between the four boys, there were more moments of them just wandering around the woods. It never seemed to end! And finally, when the Stephen King makes his grand finale, the readers are already half asleep and are too bored to care about what he has to say.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe this book is perfectly fine. Maybe I completely missed the point. Maybe another reader, who loves a story about four friends walking around, will find joy and sadness and richness and beauty in this novel, even though I practically read the book to fall asleep. But, personally, I truly would never recommend Stephen King’s The Body to anyone, not even to the criminals at Shawshank Prison.