Customer Reviews

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If any Steven Kings fans have been a bit disappointed as of late, get ready for a trip back to the masters hand...This is the kind of read we used to wait breathlessy for... One of his best!

This book will captivate you from the first chapter to the very end. John Coffey is a lovable character and the narrator of the story makes you understand every aspect of the plot. The story has suspense and compasion for everyday miracles. The story will make you cry if you're human. The movie adaption is one of the best that I've ever seen. No one should miss out on this story, which I like is fast becoming a classic in many age groups.

I was fortunate enough to have read the book before the movie, not to say Hollywood didn't do a great job. It's a truly spectacular story, and, of course, very well written. The events that take place definitely make the end of this story very worth while. The main characters, Paul, the head executioner on deathrow and Mr. Coffey, a prisoner on The Green Mile, have an extraordinary relationship that leads to a very complex chain of feelings and events for Paul, and the other executioners on The Green Mile. With all of the things Mr. Coffey is capable of, the ending of this story was unexpected, yet almost anticipated. Very good reading!

Stephen King has OUTDONE himself again. Just when you think Mr. King has written his best novel ever he raises the bar once again. The characters are so alive and the story so engrossing that it was impossible to put the book down. This book is has everything Stephen King always seems to delivers: suspense, horror, drama, comedy, and, of course, science fiction. Paul Edgecombe, the boss on the "Green Mile" (also known as death row) in the 1930 learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished. This is such a simplified one-liner for a very complex and thoroughly intriguing novel. If you are a Stephen King fan you should add this to your library. If you just enjoy reading an engrossing book that will no doubt leave you with your jaw hanging open throughout THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU. HAPPY READING!

I will have to say that THE GREEN MILE is the best book I have ever read. This book is a gem of a story telling of a man with a secret power that can heal human flesh. This man is John Coffey, a giant of a man with the mind of a small child. Coffey is brought to the book's main character (Paul Edgecombe) as a prisoner on death row at the Cold Mountain Penitentury. Coffey is sentenced to death by electricution. When Paul discovers John's amazing power he starts to question himself about whether or not Coffey is guilty. The truth is an all out shocking one, and you will have to read it to find out.

"He had raped a young girl and killed her, and had then dropped her body behind the apartment house where she lived, doused it with coal-oil, and then set it on fire, hoping in some muddled way to dispose of the evidence of his crime. The fire had spread to the building itself, had engulfed it, and six more people had died, two of them children. It was the only crime he had in him, and now he was just a mild-mannered man with a worried face, a bald pate, and long hair straggling over the back of his shirt-collar. He would sit down with Old Sparky in a little while, and Old Sparky would make an end to him... but whatever it was that had done that awful thing was already gone... In a way, that was the worst; Old Sparky never burned what was inside them, and the drugs they inject them with today don't put it to sleep. It vacates, jumps to someone else, and leaves us to kill husks that aren't really alive anyway." p.16

I think this paragraph captures the essence of King's novel. It talks to the frustration and futility of being a head prison guard. To act as an instrument of the state and to be solely responsible for the deaths of dozens of men. In his novel Stephen King put himself in the shoes of head bull goose screw. He imagines the convicted criminals he would have escorted along the last mile. Those men were no more than empty shells of their former selves and the crimes once they committed. From that line of logic King must have conceived of John Coffey. A man, ironically who possessed the power to give life and to offer goodness, but who would also die a husk in the seat of Old Sparky. Who would Coffey's power jump to? How would it live on? King stresses the humanitarian side of convicted felons and shows the insensitivity of capital punishment.

I started reading this book on a trip to a relative's house. It was an 22 hour trip and I had absoulutly nothing to do. I started reading and I was amazed at how absorbed I became and how quickly the time passed.

The interesting thing is that the Green Mile isn't very scary, nor is it's plot as complex as some of King's other works. However, I still found myself flipping through the pages at an incredible rate and very touched by the time I finished it.

Why? The characters. All the characters are very meorable and dominate the book. It's an excellent novel and one that no one should miss.

The setting of this book is both a 1930's prison and a 1990's nursing home. It is the story of Paul Edgecombe and and a particular summer where he was a guard on death row, or the Green Mile as that particular prison called it. It is told from the point of view of an old man in a nursing home looking back on that particular time period while he writes his memoirs.

King has said that he wrote this as a serial in the same way that we read it. He did not know how it would end and where it would go. I'm afraid this was evident in the direction(s) of the plot. This led to points being introduced and written about in detail that eventually had little to do with the story or characters themselves. Instead of creating complex characters with complex problems, we are treated to simple sketches of personality-types which appear to be crafted for the sole purpose of advancing whichever particularl plot-point is being written about. This created protagonists who were "too good" and antagonists who were "too bad".

Worse still was the plot lines that never went anywhere such as the "special mouse that acted to human" which appeared to be significant in the beginning (considering how many times the statement was made that he was intelligent beyond a mouse and even looked "surprised" at one particular point.

I like King, I really do. I just wish he had actually written this book in the same way he has written his other books and not like an episode of Twin Peaks with no forethought and direction.

This is a fair King effort. The characters are likeable and interesting and the premise is great. It is pretty slow in places however. There wasn't enough horror in the book for my tastes, and it was a bit overwritten but its overall a good read.

I AM A LITTLE STRANGE ABOUT BOOKS.

I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE MAKE OF A BOOK THAT I READ BECAUSE I AM AFRAID THAT MY VISION OF THE BOOK WILL BE CRUSHED.

THE GREEN MILE IS ONE OF THOSE BOOKS. AS ALWAYS, KING ENVELOPS YOU AND PULLS YOU INSIDE THE ACTION, LETTING YOU EXPERIENCE WHAT THE CHARACTERS FEEL, THINK. YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF PLANINING, PLOTING, LAUGHING, CRYING WITH THEM, LOOSING SENSE OF TIME AND REALITY.

`GREAT, EXCELLENT READING.'

ENJOY, AND I MEAN IT.