Customer Reviews

Night Journey (The Green Mile, Part 5)

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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I've encountered this work in three different media: book, movie and audio tape. All three are excellent, but my favorite is the audio version, due to Frank Muller's excellence as narrator and story teller. He and George Guidall are the best in the business. Unfortunately Muller was involved in an automobile accident some time ago and is now incapacitated to the point he can no longer work.

The audiobook is an abridgement, true, and I normally don't go in for such, yet the editors did a good job here in winnowing down the text and leaving all the important elements of the book. I notice that there is now an unabridged version, recorded by the same narrator.

The Green Mile is one of King's better efforts and deeper textually than his Shawshank Redemption (his other well-known prison tale). He really excells here in terms of characterization, which can be on the thin side (no Thinner pun intended) in some of his novels.

What really makes this audio experience special, though, is Muller. It's doubtful that he will be able to return to recording, which is a real shame. The Green Mile is one of the finest testaments to this great reader. Another recommendation I would urge upon listeners is his rendition of Cormac McCarthy's classic, All the Pretty Horses.

As you read this series, you become involved yourself. You love the people Paul loves, as well as hate the ones he hates. You are right there as he and his friends risk their jobs to save a dear friends life by taking an inmate with incredible healing powers out of the Green Mile in the middle of the night. You wonder how John Coffey knew he was going on a ride that night, and how he can heal like he can. You are hoping that when they reach their destination, that he can heal Melinda and that they can pull this off. I could not wait from the very beginning of this series for the next book, and when I complete #6, I will be very sorry to see it end. As only Stephen King can, he guides your imagination into places you did not know existed.

Once again Stephen King took me into his world and, as always, I loved it. I, personally, prefer to have the entire book at once rather than in installments. I don't have a problem reading the end of the story only when I get to the end of the book. Waiting a month for each installment was very difficult for me, so I waited until I had all the books before I read them. Mr. King makes it so easy to see each of his characters and, also, to form the opinion of them that he wants you to form. Do yourself a favor and walk the Green Mile

In "Night Journey," Paul Edgecombe and a couple of his guard buddies take John Coffey from his prison cell for a short time, bringing him to a woman with an inoperable brain tumor, who they hope Coffey can heal. At the beginning of this book, Paul and his buddies also discuss the rape-murder Coffey had been convicted of, but it's not sorted out until the next and final book in this series: "Coffey on the Mile."

As the men of green mile take John Coffee Back prison after healing the dying woman, the narrator has a dream. Is it foreshadowing of the conclusion of the sesries, as the other books have foreshadowed this event? I think so. King's characters, while entertaining and diverse, act a little predictably. It hasn't however taken away from my enjoyment of the story

In Part One, Stephen King introduced us to his latest horror saga. We learned of a brutish hulk of a man who happened to end up in the right place at the wrong time. We also learned of a shell of a man who was in the right place at the wrong time. In Part Two, we met an unlikely hero. A little mouse who seemed like less than he actually was. Enemies were made and friends were lost. In Part Three, the man known as John Coffey shows his true colors and his true power, but, is it that of good, or that of evil? In Part Four, a little Frenchman with an etraordinary little friend takes his turn down the Green Mile, but meets with the most unlikely end which shows how bitter sweet revenge can be. Now, in Part Five of Stephen King's first multipart novel, which may very well be the best one of his career thus far, the guards of Cold Mountain Penitentiary take the biggest chance they can by taking John Coffey out of his shackles and with them on a NIGHT JOURNEY to the bedside of a woman who's life is being shattered by pain. It is now the moment that Stephen King's fans have been waiting for. The truth about John Coffey. Man or Monster? Good or Evil? The only way to learn the truth is to read the most captivating 90 pages you will ever read in THE GREEN MILE PART 5 OF 6: NIGHT JOURNEY.

In Part One, Stephen King introduced us to his latest horror saga. We learned of a brutish hulk of a man who happened to end up in the right place at the wrong time. We also learned of a shell of a man who was in the right place at the wrong time. In Part Two, we met an unlikely hero. A little mouse who seemed like less than he actually was. Enemies were made and friends were lost. In Part Three, the man known as John Coffey shows his true colors and his true power, but, is it that of good, or that of evil? In Part Four, a little Frenchman with an etraordinary little friend takes his turn down the Green Mile, but meets with the most unlikely end which shows how bitter sweet revenge can be. Now, in Part Five of Stephen King's first multipart novel, which may very well be the best one of his career thus far, the guards of Cold Mountain Penitentiary take the biggest chance they can by taking John Coffey out of his shackles and with them on a NIGHT JOURNEY to the bedside of a woman who's life is being shattered by pain. It is now the moment that Stephen King's fans have been waiting for. The truth about John Coffey. Man or Monster? Good or Evil? The only way to learn the truth is to read the most captivating 90 pages you will ever read in THE GREEN MILE PART 5 OF 6: NIGHT JOURNEY.

I own all, 6 volumes on tape there all, good the movie is, good too read the green mile, it's good enjoy.

The book is every bit as good as I thought it would be (King does much more now than mere "horror", but I found it terribly depressing and I'm not altogether sure I'm glad I read it. Oh, the bad guys come to most satisfying ends, but I took little comfort from that; the author's message appears to be that some people live much too long but no one, good or evil, gets out of this cruel world alive....

Although I really prefer when Stephen King writes horror and scares me to death, The Green Mile is well written and a good story, BUT for the first time, Mr. King has "borrowed" an idea from another book! The Weatherman by Steve Thayer ends with a gruesome electric chair scene, where the criminal being executed dies in a terrible fashion because of the type of sponge used. I was amazed to see the similarities in the execution scene in The Green Mile part 5, although I am kind of relieved to know that Stephen King is, after all, human. Good reading, anyway, as usual!