StartGroepenDiscussieMeerTijdgeest
Doorzoek de site
Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.

Resultaten uit Google Boeken

Klik op een omslag om naar Google Boeken te gaan.

Bezig met laden...

Thinner (1985)

door Stephen King

Andere auteurs: Zie de sectie andere auteurs.

LedenBesprekingenPopulariteitGemiddelde beoordelingAanhalingen
7,462881,207 (3.44)109
Fiction. Horror. HTML:

Curse of the Old Gypsy Man...

Billy Halleck, good husband, loving father, is both beneficiary and victim of the American Good Life: he has an expensive home, a nice family, and a rewarding career as a lawyer. But he is also fifty pounds overweight and, as his doctor keeps reminding him, heading into heart attack country.

Then, in a moment of carelessness, Billy sideswipes an old gypsy woman as she is crossing the street??and her ancient father passes a bizarre and terrible judgment on him.

"Thinner," the old gypsy man whispers, and caresses his cheeks like a lover. Just one word...but six weeks later and ninety-three pounds lighter, Billy Halleck is more than worried. He's terrified. And desperate enough for one last gamble...that will lead him to a nightmare showdown with the forces of evil melting his flesh away.
… (meer)

Bezig met laden...

Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden.

Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.

» Zie ook 109 vermeldingen

Engels (81)  Italiaans (2)  Frans (2)  Spaans (1)  Deens (1)  Alle talen (87)
1-5 van 87 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
Warning, this review is full of spoilers, and I didn't feel like trying to figure out where they all were and hiding them individually. So don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

I was disappointed when I read this book for the first time, not long after its publication. I was still a very sheltered teenager and expected my books to have likeable (or at least empathizable) protagonists and relatively hopeful endings. This is not that kind of book. It’s unrelentingly grim. Absolutely humorless. I did not enjoy reading it, then or now. But this time, reading it as an adult with decades more experience in life, it surprised me with its social commentary - its sort of, well what do you expect is going to happen when people have finally Had Enough?

“’All his life he’s been on the move, busted out of a place as soon as the ‘good folks’ have got all the maryjane or hashish they want, as soon as they’ve lost all the dimes they want on the wheel of chance. All his life he’s heard a bad deal called a dirty gyp. The ‘good folks’ got roots; you got none. This guy, Halleck, he’s seen canvas tents burned for a joke back in the thirties and forties, and maybe there were babies and old people that burned up in some of those tents. He’s seen his daughters or his friends’ daughters attacked, maybe raped, because all those ‘good folks’ know that gypsies fuck like rabbits and a little more won’t matter, and even if it does, who gives a fuck. To coin a phrase. He’s maybe seen his sons, or his friends’ sons, beaten with in an inch of their lives… and why? Because the fathers of the kids who did the beating lost some money on the games of chance. Always the same: you come into town, the ‘good folks’ take what they want, and then you get busted out of town. Sometimes they give you a week on the local pea farm or a month on the local road crew for good measure. And then, Halleck, on top of everything, the final crack of the whip comes. This hotshot lawyer with three chins and bulldog jowls runs your wife down in the street. She’s seventy, seventy-five, half-blind, maybe she only steps out too quick because she wants to get back to her place before she wets herself, and old bones break easy, old bones are like glass, and you hang around thinking maybe just this once, just this once, there’s going to be a little justice… an instant of justice to make up for a lifetime of crap – ‘”

This rant is by the chief of police, who knows these things and yet still actively participates in the injustice, because that’s the way things are and too bad if you’re on the losing end. Halleck, the “protagonist”, knows these things and feels bad about them, he winces inside when his boss tells n****r jokes but laughs along, he’s disgusted by the pillar of the community treating patients while coked up but doesn’t intervene, he cries at this assessment of the situation but is still unmoved in his resolution to regain the status quo.

And in the end, nobody wins. There is no redemption, not for anyone. I still don’t like this book, I haven't even really touched on all its flaws, but it was interesting, and I dislike it less.

One last note: I wonder if later editions (maybe after the movie adaptation?) changed the ending, because the reviews I’ve read indicate a different, slightly more redemptive ending for Halleck, where he doesn’t give his wife the pie, but instead just falls asleep and wakes to find she and their daughter have found it and eaten it. My version, copyright 1984 and with a 1991 bookplate inside the cover, has Halleck giving her the pie as a “peace offering” and falling peacefully into sleep while listening to her eating the pie down in the kitchen.

I read this book for the Booklikes Halloween Bingo 2019, for the square Cryptozoologist: Any book with a cover that has a lot black or has the word black on the cover, in the title, author or as a character name, or involves rock and roll in some way. My edition has a solid black cover with large red handprint and the title and author in thin (ha ha) white block print.
( )
  Doodlebug34 | Jan 1, 2024 |
Signed. First edition
  RCornell | Oct 26, 2023 |
No wonder bachman was discovered after this novel. It is pure Stephen King through and through. Only he can tell such a crazy story in a believable way and make a strawberry pie terrifying ( )
  Crystal199 | Sep 29, 2023 |
Took a while to get going but the third act was a lot of fun. I thought I had read this before but apparently had only seen the movie. As is almost always the case, the book is so much better. The characterization was good though not up to the high level as in the novels he writes as King; it seems the Bachman books lack some of the depth that make characters so memorable. Not entirely a bad thing but just something I feel differentiates the works under the names. Quick and fun read though I don't see myself revisiting this one anytime soon. ( )
  mindrot | Aug 22, 2023 |
This was my first King book. I read it when I was a teenager. I was hooked ever since. Loved this story. Still think about it. ( )
  leahorr | Jul 12, 2023 |
1-5 van 87 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe

» Andere auteurs toevoegen (14 mogelijk)

AuteursnaamRolType auteurWerk?Status
King, Stephenprimaire auteuralle editiesbevestigd
Edwards, LesArtiest omslagafbeeldingSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Edwards, LesIllustratorSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Lasquin, FrançoisVertalerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Miller, EdwardIllustratorSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Miller, EdwardArtiest omslagafbeeldingSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd

Onderscheidingen

Je moet ingelogd zijn om Algemene Kennis te mogen bewerken.
Voor meer hulp zie de helppagina Algemene Kennis .
Gangbare titel
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Oorspronkelijke titel
Alternatieve titels
Oorspronkelijk jaar van uitgave
Mensen/Personages
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Belangrijke plaatsen
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Belangrijke gebeurtenissen
Verwante films
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Motto
Opdracht
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
To my wife, Claudia Inez Bachman
Eerste woorden
'Thinner,' the old Gypsy man with the rotting nose whispers to William Halleck as Halleck and his wife, Heidi, come out of the courthouse.
Citaten
Laatste woorden
(Klik om weer te geven. Waarschuwing: kan de inhoud verklappen.)
Ontwarringsbericht
Uitgevers redacteuren
Auteur van flaptekst/aanprijzing
Oorspronkelijke taal
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Gangbare DDC/MDS
Canonieke LCC

Verwijzingen naar dit werk in externe bronnen.

Wikipedia in het Engels (2)

Fiction. Horror. HTML:

Curse of the Old Gypsy Man...

Billy Halleck, good husband, loving father, is both beneficiary and victim of the American Good Life: he has an expensive home, a nice family, and a rewarding career as a lawyer. But he is also fifty pounds overweight and, as his doctor keeps reminding him, heading into heart attack country.

Then, in a moment of carelessness, Billy sideswipes an old gypsy woman as she is crossing the street??and her ancient father passes a bizarre and terrible judgment on him.

"Thinner," the old gypsy man whispers, and caresses his cheeks like a lover. Just one word...but six weeks later and ninety-three pounds lighter, Billy Halleck is more than worried. He's terrified. And desperate enough for one last gamble...that will lead him to a nightmare showdown with the forces of evil melting his flesh away.

Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden.

Boekbeschrijving
Haiku samenvatting

Actuele discussies

Geen

Populaire omslagen

Snelkoppelingen

Waardering

Gemiddelde: (3.44)
0.5 7
1 44
1.5 15
2 224
2.5 30
3 659
3.5 99
4 579
4.5 18
5 290

Ben jij dit?

Word een LibraryThing Auteur.

 

Over | Contact | LibraryThing.com | Privacy/Voorwaarden | Help/Veelgestelde vragen | Blog | Winkel | APIs | TinyCat | Nagelaten Bibliotheken | Vroege Recensenten | Algemene kennis | 202,644,900 boeken! | Bovenbalk: Altijd zichtbaar