Gerald’s game, Stephen King; a review.

It’s one of the good ones, I don’t want to talk about the plot or synopsis, I just want to talk about what this books makes me feel or what my thoughts are about it.

My first feeling is disgust, it’s one of the dominant feelings in this book.I am disgusted by the nature of relationship between the girl and her father. I am disgusted by the dog aka the former prince. I can say the book only gets good, if that’s the right word to use, at the very end.

The antics and misadventures of Joubert are interesting to me; in a creepy sort of way. They give the book depth, without him the book is rather shallow or superficial. I think the only reason Jessie, survives her encounter with this sick necrophiliac probably because

A)    She was a woman

B)    She wasn’t dead.

Because this guy is in to dead people and mostly males. Now I am not sure if this character is based on some real killer, like in Peter Straub’s lost boy lost girl,the killer is actually based on H.H Holmes who was in fact a serial killer. But King is at his very best in making up this character with most intricate details, Joubert jumps at you from the paper and you can’t stop reading about him.

Joubert has a medical condition in which his pituitary gland keeps shooting juice, so his hands, arms, feet, forehead keep growing while rest of his body has stopped growing, so he is disproportionate, like a bad sketch made by a kid. He has been in and out of mental institutions, he has been having fun with animals or sometimes young Boys, he is deranged, twisted, sick pervert anything you name it, this guy’s it, he has been there, he has done that.

He has a “collection”, at home, what he refers to as “my things”, they are mostly, eye balls, penises (he is obsessed with those) legs, noses, and other body parts.

He has eaten up his mommy and daddy as well. He specially delights in snacking on tongue sandwiches. It would unfair not to mention that Joubert was sexually abused as a kid, mostly by his own parents. Evil breeds evil.

Now to make the long review short. If there was a moral to this story. It would be this: face your fears.

Jessie did, because in the end she is a traumatized woman. She is afraid that Joubert is still there. That any minute he would jump from behind a curtain or from under the bed.

So at Joubert’s hearing, she goes there to face him. He recognizes her and mocks her, for a few seconds she is afraid, then she gathers up her courage in spits in his face.