Book Review: 1922 by Stephen King

 “...and I still feel that hate today, when so many other feelings have been burned out of my heart.”

― Stephen King, 1922

The spine-tingling novella, 1922, about a man who succumbs to the savagery inside, is included in Stephen King's best-selling collection Full Dark, No Stars. 1922 is a remarkable investigation into the dark side of human nature from the famous American author Stephen King and is a potent tale of treachery, murder, madness, and rats. It was turned into a Netflix movie.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

I believe there is a man inside every man, a stranger

So writes Wilfred James in his confession. It’s 1922. Wilfred owns eighty acres of farmland in Nebraska that have been in the family for generations. His wife, Arlette, owns an adjoining one hundred acres.

But if Arlette carries out her threat to sell her land to a pig butcher, Wilfred will be forced to sell too. Worse, he’ll have to move to the city. But he has a daring plan. It may work if he can persuade his son.

My reaction to this novel...

This book was a bonus short story that was included in A Good Marriage, which I read before. I initially believed it to be a continuation of that book, but after a while I started to become confused due to the several different characters in the narrative. The peculiarity with which Stephen King writes his novels truly astounded me. He has an amazing imagination that allows him to compose a horror narrative that contains many other bizarre stories. Because of how vivid my imagination is, reading this book made me shiver. As a result, I had horrible images in my head of what transpired in the story, particularly the face of Arlette as she was described in the story after her gruesome death. I'm still freaking out right now just thinking about it. I thought I can't go further.

Aside from that, I wanted to mention how much I detest and dread rats, so when the author incorporated them in the novel, I was completely terrified. That heightened my already extreme aversion of rats. Rats are rats, and I am still terrified of them, even though my understanding of it was that Wilfred was just seeing things. This is especially true now that I have read this. I became uneasy because of that. For me, the tale was very horrifying. I liked this despite how disgusting, nasty, and unsettling it was.

I think 1922 is exceptionally well written and organized, as one could anticipate from a veteran author like Stephen King. The descriptions of the scenarios are incredible. It gives you a very horrible feeling. It centered around the idea of how one extremely regrettable action affects the lives of several other people. And then there's the guilt. He does a masterful job of illustrating the guilt such an individual has in the wake of his crime, as well as any potential delusions that may follow.

It's a thrilling journey with a richly detailed tale wrapped into a novella's respectable level, and it's well worth the read. I strongly recommend it, with the exception of those who, like myself, are terrified of rats. It will give you nightmares and give you the creeps since, up until this point, my paranoia struck me in an absurd manner. I was still filled with the dreadful visions of rats. If you are likewise terrified of those, I promise it will give you the same experience.

My Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨(4.5/5)

“They say that loving eyes can never see, but that’s a fool’s axiom. Sometimes they see too much.”

I believe in this, despite the fact that others may argue that love is blind. That we cannot perceive another person's behavior if we love them. Actually, in my opinion, no matter how wonderful or horrible a person's behaviors are, if we love them, we will be able to tell. We occasionally lie to ourselves about it. We chose to accept or overlook their transgressions because we love them. Because we love them, we see a lot of them. Love isn't actually blind; it sees, but it doesn't mind.