Book Review: The Green Mile

Each path we tread seems ever so long
And lined with ghosts that beguile
And from the darkness, strength to be strong
To walk our own green mile

Book: The Green Mile, by Stephen King

**** (out of five stars)

I used to be afraid of reading Stephen King books because, well, fine, I'll admit it, I scare easily. So when I found out that this book wasn't actually a horror book (I'd never even seen the movie) I thought I might as well read it.

And I'm glad I did. While I'm not really sure what the author was going for in terms of the book's place as one of (a) an allegorical discourse on religion or (b) a damn good story, I thought I'd take it more as the latter, with a small sprinkling of the former.

The story revolves around Paul, who is the "bull-goose screw" on death row (the Green Mile) at Cold Mountain. He's your typical worker, detached (I guess you'd have to be), productive, until he meets John Coffey, a giant of a man, on death row for raping and killing twin sisters.

But what follows is nothing short of miraculous, referring both to the unravelling of events as much as the events of the story itself. Turns out Coffey's got some interesting powers and he is not at all what he seems to be. In fact, he is such an influential force in Paul's life, that Coffey is the reason why Paul makes many of the strange decisions that he does.

It's an interesting book because it was totally out of the blue: not quite suspenseful, but nothing that happened was predictable. The writing was charming but to the point, and the language really transported me back to the 1930's. Add to that the fact that this book could maybe, maybe, pass as religious commentary, and it just goes to show that this book was truly remarkable. Literarily and story-wise, this book was right on target.

And here are my comments on the "sprinkling of the former." I'll try not to give away too much of the book, but I have to give away a little in order to discuss this. There were points in the novel when King seems to be trying to paint Coffey as being a sort of Jesus-figure, but then he'd turn around and clearly delineate that Coffey was more of "gift from God." But the amazing influence that Coffey had on Paul's life, as well as the lives of the other prison guards was notable; he was the reason that they did the miraculous things that they did, the force behind what would happen to them as their lives continued long after Coffey met with his fate. But it sort of makes one wonder whether King was speaking to the gifts and talents (strange or ordinary as they may be) that we are all bestowed with, and the fact that the world seems to try its damnest to kill those talents off. Drones are okay; freaks are not. And freaks are even the more worse if the result of their freakiness helps others. So whether this is a social or religious commentary, whether Coffey was a representative of each of us, or a modern day Jesus-incarnate, remains up for question.

It would be really interesting though, to see what the author was getting at when he wrote the book. What was he really saying...? Or maybe that's the point.