The Body by Stephen King - Book Report/Review Example

The Body by Stephen KingIn life, opportunities come but once. Surprisingly, some people are of the opinion that some opportunities come more than once. Yet, it is somewhat a paradox that the higher the number of chances one takes in life, the higher the likelihood one has to lose them. It is undeniable that there are many opportunities to be explored in life. However, it is not possible for one to explore everything. The truth is that the few one explores might bring success. Nonetheless, if it is always the case that every chance one has in life would inevitably bring success, then everyone would be successful.

One of the beautiful sides to Stephen King’s The Body is that it reveals, amongst others, that it is not always about the number of chances one is able to take but about the culmination of some other factors. It is necessary for one to acknowledge that “the most important things are the hardest things to say. These are the things you usually get ashamed of, because words diminish them” (King 1). This is one of the most fascinating angles to many of the works of Stephen King. The story of the narrator, Gordon Lachance (who has been interpreted by many interpreters to be the author himself) shows in more ways than one that rising to th++e top in whatsoever one does is never easy.

This is because nothing good comes easy. One must acknowledge the fact that even though it is a novella, The Body has more lovely content that many novels. One must recall that the novella is narrative of incidents that had happened to the narrator when he was much younger. Gordon retrospectively considers how it all started for him in life and how is able to scale through against all odds among his other three friends. At the end of it all, Vern dies in an inferno that happened after a party; Teddy not only killed himself but also killed some other people when he is involved in an accident after taking drugs and drinking.

The saddest aspect of it all is that even Chris, whom one may have thought had a chance of becoming great, gets killed when he was trying to be a peacemaker in the course of duel at a restaurant. It has to be established that “friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant” (King 67). Although whatever happens in a work of art is mainly at the discretion of its author, one would always want to ask why Gordon is the only one remaining of his retinue of friends, at the close of the novella.

The answer is because the more the chance one takes in life, the more one is likely to lose it.It is very clear that of his group of four, Gordon appears to be one of the most reserved. Gordon is acknowledged as a storyteller. In many cases, his friends are the ones that initiate the activities he also partakes in. For example, Vern is the one that initiated the visitation to the site where Ray Bower’s body was, but they all went there.Even though it is arguable, fate seems to have a hand in what our lives turn out to be.

From what is seen in The Body, one wonders why it is only Gordon that survives. Why didn’t his friends survive? It is not as though the narrator has something special going for him. He, like every other member of his group, is human. There is really no logical reason that can be adduced for what happens to the group of four. Religionists would of course attribute it to destiny or God.Since the character of Gordon can be interpreted to mean the author, Stephen King, it will not be out of place for one to assume that King may as well have been saying that there is really nothing special about him as a writer; he might want the readers to assume that fate has played a big role in determining who he is today.

However, as it is in with Gordon, all should not be attributed to fate. Even if fate has a role to play, the role the human being concerned has to play cannot be overemphasized. It is sure that Stephen King rose to prominence as a writer as a result of the fact that he took to sharpening his craft. This is similarly found in the story of Gordon. The fact that not all chances that one takes in life will ultimately lead to success does not mean that one should not try at all. Still from the point of view that the stories told in The Body have a lot of similarities with the true life story of the author, one cannot fail to mention that the stories-within-story are not just there to add to the complexity of the entire story but to also prove that for like Gordon, King had been trying his hands on stories for a long time.

The author could have chosen to include just one of his other stories in the novel but he didn’t. His intention might just be to emphasis the fact that even if success does not come on time, one should not relent because one day because the laurels will definitely come. The place of repetition both at whatever good thing one does in life and in the novel cannot also be laid aside Work CitedKing, Stephen. The Body. New York: Penguin Books. 1998