Transcript
Speaker: Two nerds went to college and found each other in the English department basement and became instant friends. Eight years and three degrees later, they're reunited.
Speaker: You're listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast.
Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to Book Club the Movie the Podcast, where we read, watch, and discuss books and their film adaptations. I'm your host Jen. And I'm your other host Em.
Speaker: We hope you read the book. But if you didn't, here's the summary. Caution, spoilers ahead. Famous author Paul Sheldon finishes writing a new book, drinks two bottles of Dom Perignon, and wrecks his car in a snowstorm, only to be rescued by his number one fan, ex-nurse Annie Wilkes.
Speaker: Annie, upon realizing who she pulled from the wrecked car, decides to keep Paul locked away in her spare bedroom. She sets his broken legs herself and medicates him with boxes and boxes of codeine-based pills she happened to steal from her old nursing jobs.
Speaker: And soon after taking Paul hostage, Annie gets her hands on a paperback copy of Misery's Baby and learns that Paul killed her beloved Misery via eighteen hundred s childbirth. Oh, you dirty birdie, how could you, she says.
Speaker: Annie, growing more violent and unpredictable by the page, demands that Paul bring misery back to life in a new book. While he spends months holed up in Annie's home, Paul is left to wonder if anyone is coming to save him from his number one fan.
Speaker: Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947. He met his wife, Tabitha, while they both worked in the library at the University of Maine as students. Stephen King worked for two years as a high school teacher before he was able to sell the novel Carrie in 1973.
Speaker: His website lists 100 novels and novellas and nearly 200 essays and short stories. The man is a writing machine. Yeah, he is a writing machine for sure. I heard that he... ah ah A friend recently told me that he writes 2,000 words a day. 2,000, which is way more than 200. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. your Your friend knows what they're talking about. They sure do. And speaking of that friend, happy birthday, m and Stephen King.
Speaker: Thank you. I'll thank you on behalf of him. Yeah, he's also a Virgo. And a fun fact, he was born six actual days before my father was born. So they're basically the same age, except my dad stopped aging when he died.
Speaker: Jen.
Speaker: But I will forever now be like, how old Stephen King? Oh, yeah, that's how old my dad would be.
Speaker: you know, it's kind of funny that Stephen King is a Virgo because he's not really known to plot any of his short stories or novels the way that you would assume a Virgo would. He just kind of He comes with up with a, what if this happened? And then he runs with it um because he likes to discover things as it goes too, instead of just planning everything.
Speaker: Yeah, as a fellow Earth sign, I don't get it, frankly. i could never. um But maybe he's like a type B Virgo or something. Maybe.
Speaker: i don't know what type of Virgo I am, but really i think that I was just born wrong. i i don't i don't think, I don't know, do I come across as as a Virgo to you at all?
Speaker: don't really, being an unfortunate heterosexual, I don't really understand the Zodiac that well. I don't either. And astrology. You would think that I would, but I don't. I have no idea.
Speaker: yeah. but No offense, you don't strike me as a super type A person. I'm not. How did you know? I'm like, if if ah Stephen King's a type B Virgo, you probably are too.
Speaker: um But you're an earth sign in that you're very dependable. It will get done. Just don't ever ask me about it or send me reminders because it'll frustrate me.
Speaker: Right. Yeah.
Speaker: The 1990 film adaptation Misery was directed by Rob Reiner. Rest in peace, Rob. We love you. Rob Reiner, a prolific actor and director beloved by so many, also directed The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Spinal Tap, and Stand By Me, which was also based on a Stephen King novella, The Body.
Speaker: His mother, Estelle, was a singer, and his father was Carl Reiner, the creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show. His mother's singing helped him to understand music and storytelling. So the book opens in medias res, or into the middle of things, with Paul Sheldon half in and out of consciousness in Annie's spare bedroom. He's conscious enough to realize when he's in pain and when he's not, which is described through a childhood memory of a single wood piling at the beach. When his pain medication is working, the tide has come in and the piling is covered. When the tide is out, the piling is visible and he is incredible pain again. King writes chapters of all lengths, but the ones that stand out the most to me are the incredibly short ones. The first chapter of the book is only 12 words.
Speaker: Quote, number one, you're number one fan. These sounds even in the haze. End quote.
Speaker: Those words are Annie's, telling Paul that she is your number one fan. Paul's out of it, both from his accident and Annie pumping him full of painkillers. He can barely remember who he is, has no clue where he is, and cannot understand her speech.
Speaker: The third person point of view is so close that we aren't even getting plain English if Paul can't understand it himself. On the other hand, the movie opens with a more linear approach. We see Paul Sheldon, played by James Caan, sitting at his typewriter having just completed a manuscript for a new book, which is untitled, and quickly transitions to Paul driving away from the cabin where he was staying and into a snowstorm where he wrecks his 1960s Ford Mustang, and Annie Wilkes portrayed by Kathy Bates, who actually won an an Academy Award for Best Actress for this role.
Speaker: But anyway, Annie Wilkes pulls him from the wreckage. He hasn't shown drinking as much champagne in the movie as he is in the book. I guess in general, the movie is portraying him as more of a family man than the book does.
Speaker: He has a daughter and he shows a little bit more humility around his agent and he curses far less than he does in the book. But then again, we aren't really in his head in the movie, especially not like in the book.
Speaker: yeah and I think that this helps us, the audience, build sympathy for him pretty quickly. Although I do wish we didn't lose so much interiority when it when it was adapted to film, i feel like out of all the stories we've covered, we haven't really seen a good example of translating an interiority-heavy book to the screen.
Speaker: No, not at all. Not so far. And I'm trying to think of one that maybe exists that I've already seen that we haven't covered, and i don't think I can name one. Yeah, nothing comes to my mind either. All right, for a book that spends so much time with one man stuck in a bedroom, Misery has a surprising and interesting structure.
Speaker: Stephen King divides the novel into four unequal parts, and the title of each part seems to direct the novel's focus and Paul's relationship to his captivity. We keep reading to see if Paul can survive Annie and also to see if he can write Misery's Return.
Speaker: Like part one, we have the title Annie and that chapter or I guess part establishes Annie's control of Paul's body and environment, a.k.a.
Speaker: the drugs. Right. And part two is titled Misery. It's all about misery from all facets and interpretations. The character Paul is resurrecting the book that he is writing, his physical condition and imprisonment, but also the thing that's keeping him alive, though not safe.
Speaker: And then part three is actually titled Paul because that part of the book establishes that control is shifting back to Paul despite his physical condition deteriorating in parallel with his typewriter and Annie's mental state.
Speaker: By the end of part three, spoiler alert, one of our main characters dies. Which one? Part four is called Goddess and it is the shortest part of the whole novel, which whenever we were writing up notes and you had it listed as a part four, I was like, there isn't a part four. It's only three parts. Wrong. It's just really little. And I skipped right over the title page for it.
Speaker: But Goddess is the shortest part of the whole novel. We see the aftermath of this terrible situation. Paul is haunted by Annie and it does echo the movie nicely. At the beginning of the book, we've learned that Paul Sheldon has finally and gleefully killed off the heroine of a successful romance series, Misery Chastain.
Speaker: Annie reads the latest book and is enraged, calling him a dirty bird. In her eyes, Misery did not die in childbirth. Paul murdered her. And after leaving him alone for two days, she returns with a new plan.
Speaker: Paul is going to bring Misery back to life in the form of a new book called Misery's Return. So question for you, would you have read Misery's Return? Because in our last episode, I talked a little bit about how romance might not be the genre for me, but if it was like super horrifying, i think I could be enticed.
Speaker: Honestly, I'd probably only read it if it was adapted into a movie and we covered it on this podcast or potentially if Julia Whelan narrated the audio book. Would you read it
Speaker: I think it depends on how many of the other books I would need to read first in order to understand what's going on. That's fair. To be honest. Yeah. And on that note, the movie does not have details about the Misery books and especially little to no information about Misery's return. So like in the movie, there's no book within the larger story.
Speaker: How do you think they could have brought in more of Misery's return when adapting to film? I have no idea how they would have actually accomplished that. i kind of think that it would have made the movie a little bit more of a slog. um i really, i kind of liked more of how we had ah other characters that are very relevant to what's happening to Paul versus introducing this whole other storyline.
Speaker: i don't think it would, I don't think it would have been as good. So I'm happy that they didn't do it. Maybe it would have been distracting in the movie. Yeah, either distracting or if they just had little snips here and there, like maybe if Annie decided to read part of it out loud, that could have worked.
Speaker: Just a little bit, but I'm happy it didn't happen. Like you mentioned, most of the book takes place in one room, despite being written in a limited third person, which almost completely confines us to Paul's perspective.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a bathtub story, which I initially found to be really boring, um especially for most of part one, because Paul can't walk and he can't leave the room. um But it makes sense that we couldn't see the outside world as much.
Speaker: And I think Stephen King uses this limited setting to build suspense, which... when Annie leaves the room, she essentially disappears. We don't know where she's going, what she's doing, or when she's coming back.
Speaker: But still, I think, ah in my opinion, part one could have been just a little bit shorter. It could have. But I really liked how Annie's character played out in all of the buildup, so I think I was okay with the length.
Speaker: I also read this for the first time whenever I was way too young, and I'm... ay I have an intimate knowledge of it. So I i don't even notice anymore, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah. How many times have you read this book? I don't know. I don't know. Because I didn't start Goodreads account until like 2020, think. um Many, many times.
Speaker: The movie takes more of a broad third person point of view. We can see how the outside world is reacting to Paul Sheldon's disappearance, especially through the role of the local sheriff Buster, played by Richard Farnsworth, and also Paul's literary agent Marcia Sindel, played by the legendary Lauren Bacall.
Speaker: That's a great point. Do you think seeing Buster investigate makes the movie more suspenseful, or does knowing someone is looking for Paul actually make it less scary?
Speaker: less scary and also the sheriff and his wife were so funny and so cute that it really broke up a whole lot of the horror that was happening um like i've also watched the movie a bajillion times um like probably watch it every other year or so and every time they come on i'm just like i could watch a whole movie just with these two they're so cute So definitely less scary. um Also a lot sillier. They break up the tension a little bit too well.
Speaker: Yeah, i I really enjoyed their dynamic and just like, you know, small town sheriff, his his wife getting like a little frisky with him in the car and he's like hey,
Speaker: Right now, you're my deputy. my deputy. so yeah, it was funny. And I mean, I feel like that comes out with like, that's Rob Reiner. You know, that's kind of his. For sure.
Speaker: You know, thinking of like the Princess Bride. um I think he's good at directing people to pay play ah a funny and realistic like married couple.
Speaker: No more rhymes and I mean it. Would anybody like a peanut? I'm not a witch. I'm your wife. Anyway, um I would agree with you that it makes it less scary, but I also think that it helps build Like it breaks the tension, but almost ah it like builds a little bit of tension too, because we're trying to, I mean, especially having read the book first and I had never seen, never read the book, never seen the movie until, you know, prepping for this episode. Um,
Speaker: they can change stuff in the movie. So I'm like, oh, is Buster going to make it there before Paul is maimed? um Spoiler alert, no. um But so like for me, knowing like what happens in the book story, i was like, huh, is this, you know, is he going to be rescued? Is he going to be saved before something truly terrible befalls him? Yeah.
Speaker: No. No. No. no And then Buster dies. And then Buster dies, which really bums me out. And also, like, I thought Annie had a lawnmower.
Speaker: Ugh. Yeah. I would actually like to talk about genre. This is the first Stephen King book you've ever read, right? It sure is. Did you ever, like, want to read a Stephen King book? You know what? Actually, I retract that because I read his craft book slash memoir.
Speaker: So, but that's the before this book, that was the only book I've ever read of Stephen King's. He does get hit by a car in that book. So that could be.
Speaker: Which is pretty awful. But pretty i mean, it's nonfiction. So that's yeah less scary. It wasn't scary. Yeah. I don't remember his book being scary. I remember being impressed that it was both memoir and a craft book.
Speaker: because he split it up into multiple sections, which great. I love that. So, but I would say that, that I mean, not, I would say this is the first like Stephen King horror type book that I've read.
Speaker: Right. just First of his fiction. First of his fiction. Girl, you got to read like some of his short stuff. His short stuff is on it. No, seriously. I'll make you a list. I will make you a list of things that's not horror of his short stuff. It is better than his novels. I swear.
Speaker: It is so good. Anyway, this is not horror in the sense that there's no ghosts, there's no supernatural monsters, but oh man, it's horrifying.
Speaker: Is that what you were expecting from him? Do you think this counts as horror? um I tried not to like read much about the book before starting it um I was like, cool. I have the unique position of this being out for like 40 years, but I've never touched I haven't seen the movie. Don't know what it's about.
Speaker: Um, so I wanted to kind of keep the naivete, guess, or the virginity, um, ah around that.
Speaker: It's like his, his memoir and craft book was like hand stuff over the clothes.
Speaker: Well, and it's been so long since I've read his memoir slash craft book that I don't like I don't remember what much of what he said about this, like about any of his specific books. Um,
Speaker: in that book. So it's not like I was drawing conclusions from that. I think this is probably more like in the thriller category. I felt like it was psychologically thrilling, but then again, it's absolutely horrific in parts. So like, you know, ah I'm not the genre police.
Speaker: Well, it could be horror. um And um it definitely wasn't Wasn't what I was expecting. I think I i was expecting more grossness, more just like.
Speaker: It was pretty gross. Yeah. Yeah. But it didn't, you were able to sleep at night, right? Exactly. didn't keep me up at night. And I think I was expecting to have nightmares or something. Yeah. Cause like and I, I love horror.
Speaker: I have watched or read some horror stuff where like, I didn't want to go into the parking garage at night type thing. Um, and I love it, but. but And I think more supernatural, supernatural content would have that effect on me where I went out you know every creek I would freak out I'd freak at every creek um but this didn't you know like my writing's hardly out there nobody's gonna find me like hopefully somebody would save me from a car wreck but um ah they're not gonna keep me hostage for my writing you know
Speaker: This isn't, I'm at no real risk of this ever happening to me. So it's less scary. you You use that excuse. And I've tried to use that excuse for like other horror stuff where like, okay, so for example, Pet Sematary, I wanted to read Pet Sematary instead, but you were like, no. And I'm like, listen, all you have to do is not bury a dead thing at a haunted Pet Sematary and nothing will happen to you. It's fine.
Speaker: And also look both ways before you cross the road and you won't get hit by a big truck. That's also in Pet Sematary. lot of car accidents. Psychological thriller or psychological horror would fit.
Speaker: Paul is constantly monitoring Annie's mood, waiting for the tornado because she's so unpredictable. The most innocuous things can set her off and he has to learn how to manipulate her just to survive. But it's also interesting how King doesn't make her frightening all the time. She's also funny, childish, and sometimes even maternal. I kind of think that might be a little bit of the nursing though.
Speaker: And sometimes it feels like she's trying to collaborate with Paul on the book. The normal Annie makes violent Annie even scarier. Right. Yeah, we see a lot of suspense. We see Paul picking the lock and leaving his room to get more pills, trying to use the phone, and on a later excursion to discovering her memory lane scrapbook and even hearing Annie in the driveway while he's still outside his room.
Speaker: which like even though I know what's gonna happen, it's still like makes me like, Like my heart beats faster and I'm like, o oh my God, I wonder what's going to happen. I've only read this 50 bajillion times.
Speaker: It's dread. King brings a lot of tension and a sense of dread because he lets us know that something terrible is coming. We know and Paul knows that Annie will eventually discover he's been leaving his room and we're left to wonder what she'll do when she does. Speaking of what she'll do, um Body horror.
Speaker: ah Honestly, i was glad there wasn't a ton of graphic violence throughout the novel. i think I might have stopped reading if Paul had been maimed any more than he was. But um the scenes that King did write left me like cringing. I'm pretty sure my face was like locked into a grimace for the whole week while I was reading this.
Speaker: Speaking of horrifying um and body horror, let's talk about the end of Act Two. You actually sent me a text message, um which I'm going to quote.
Speaker: Quote, I'm finishing Misery today, but honestly, what the fuck regarding end of Part Two? End quote. At the end of Act 2, Annie decides that the best way to keep Paul trapped in his room is to hobble him, i.e.
Speaker: hack off one of his feet with an axe and then cauterize it with a propane torch. What was your immediate reaction to that? Other than the text message. Well, the text message was like a few hours after I'd been thinking about it. Because like, I think that part of the book, I, because i was that part of the book, I was listening to it. I did a mix of listening and reading. um And that part was like while I was in the shower. ah yeah Like, you know, before work, after the gym.
Speaker: Right. And I'm pretty sure i just like, my jaw just dropped. But also I feel like my stomach, you know, that feeling when you go upside down on a swing set. Yeah. It just feels like your stomach's falling out of your ass. Yeah. that's That's, that's felt like. Cause I was like, where is this going? What is she doing? What is she talking about? Cause I wasn't familiar with like the hobbling practices in Africa. Um, and then I was like, who you know, like, Ooh, it was rough.
Speaker: um But I thought it was interesting how the movie did not have Annie amputate his foot with an axe, but instead she breaks both of his ankles with a sledgehammer, which was absolutely brutal, visually speaking. And then Kathy Bates played that scene with just like so much calmness. And that brought like this eeriness to the whole thing. Like it gave me shivers.
Speaker: um I'm curious which version bothered you more, especially having... read and seen the story so much so many times um i don't think that either one bothers me because i'm really good at like putting up a wall and being like it's not real we're having like fun here it's horrible it's fiction it's fiction it's it's it's a good time real but it's all true If I had to pick which one happened to me, obviously i would pick the sledgehammer and the 2x4 method and not the one that involves a propane torch. I think that's how I'm going to choose to answer this.
Speaker: Many people don't like the way Stephen King meanders and describes every single detail of a character or setting, and I don't totally understand this complaint or agree with it.
Speaker: All the description is what makes me love the way that he writes. His characters feel very real to me. What do you think about Stephen King's writing style? i mean, Stephen King's obviously a really great writer, and i there were multiple points in the book where I was just like wow, so much detail.
Speaker: um But like, also, I believe in balance. And sometimes I was like, hmm, I wonder if we could have a little bit less detail or like, know when to zoom in and zoom out kind of. um However, that being said, as I thought more about this, I think in the instance of this book, it generally works because it helps make Paul an actual person. And like he's bedridden, mostly bedridden and injured, and there isn't a lot of physical action available to him. So King makes his interior life enormous.
Speaker: And he also, King also often interrupts whatever's happening to bring up a childhood memory or a weird metaphor for pain, or even just a random side tangent, which feels like,
Speaker: like genuine to how a person would think because we are so because the narrative is so limited to Paul's perspective but I'm curious what you think about all the side tangents like did they make the book more immersive for you or did they draw you out of the story i was like drowning in the side tangents and that's exactly where I wanted to be what do you mean by drowning?
Speaker: There's a ton of them. You're like buried in them. Like, I mean, getting lost in them almost like, ooh, I wonder what this is about. And it has literally nothing to do with Annie's house.
Speaker: Yeah, that's yeah fair. um And I will also say that all like King's writing style in the in the application of this book, it serves to like slow time down, which works to help him build that suspense. Like, goddamn Paul, it should not take you 20 pages to leave your room, get some drugs and try the phone and then get back.
Speaker: You know, i didn't go back and count, but if it wasn't 20 pages, it was 50. Like, ah oh, fair point. And I just like, get back in your room. She's coming.
Speaker: What are you doing? Stop. Stop graying out or whatever. Like, stay on task. It wasn't a full blackout. otherwise Otherwise, he wouldn't have had the tangent because his brain wouldn't be online anymore. If he had fully blacked out, Annie would have come home earlier and probably amputated both legs.
Speaker: Ugh. Ugh. That would have made act two way worse. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: It's not just the amount of detail that makes King's characters feel unique and memorable. He gives them like incredibly distinct voices too, especially our girl, Annie Wilkes. She has her own vocabulary at the beginning of the book while she's performing CPR on Paul, she says, breathe, God damn you. But that isn't cursing if you read it more like a prayer.
Speaker: One of the reasons why she makes Paul burn his only copy of his Fast Cars manuscript is what she calls vulgarity. She doesn't seem to know how to cuss, and uses words like cockadoody, dirty birdie, and oogie.
Speaker: When she does try to cuss, she says, quote, give me a bag of that effing pig feed, which is a good cuss, and a bag of that bitchly cow corn, which is not a good cuss.
Speaker: Annie's character is totally different from Paul. His inner monologue would give Annie a stroke. I think it's interesting how Paul's spoken dialogue isn't as notable, but since we're in such close third point of view, the narration feels like Paul's voice. He's profane, sure, but he's also sarcastic, sometimes mean, and he's even pretty funny. And I think one of my favorite things about Annie is that despite all the cockadoodies and dirty birdies making her sound childish and ridiculous, she's actually a pretty perceptive reader.
Speaker: Right. Annie is not as dumb as we think she is. She makes a really great argument in that Paul cannot break the rules and she rejects his first try at reviving Misery.
Speaker: Misery cannot be dead and buried in one book and then be shown as revived in the next. This is basic stuff, Paul. She angrily recalls watching a weekly picture show as a child. In one short, the hero is shown falling to his presumed death while trapped in a car and then being shown alive and not in the car the next week.
Speaker: Yeah, she recalls screaming, he didn't get out of the cock-a-doodie car in the movie theater as a kid when all the other kids just accepted it. And I mean, her argument is pretty sound, even if she's mentally not.
Speaker: Because basically, you can surprise your audience, sure, but you can't lie to them. which forces Paul to find another more interesting way to revive Misery. Because initially it was like, surprise, Misery's not dead.
Speaker: They got the doctor in time. Ooh, she lived. And then the version he actually lands on is, actually, Misery was buried alive. She only appeared to be dead. o That's freaky.
Speaker: Anyway, I'm curious. Is this the moment when you realized Annie was actually a pretty smart reader? Kind of, sort of.
Speaker: Because she's, I mean, it's a pretty basic rule that he was breaking, but in his mind, he was only writing it that way because he assumed that Annie just wanted her back, period, point blank, it didn't matter how, and just wanted another book and wanted to keep reading.
Speaker: And so that was him learning that actually, no, Annie wants another book that's also good. and makes sense and is truthful, not a lie, not cheap.
Speaker: Right. She's not just like mindlessly consuming the Misery series. She's totally invested, and she actually cares about the characters and the story.
Speaker: Obviously, we don't endorse her editorial methods, but I kind of liked how she forces him to take the work seriously, which he'd previously dismissed as like beneath him, despite it making him super famous and like lots of money. um But it made me wonder what exactly Annie is supposed to represent in a book that is so explicitly about the relationship between a writer and their work.
Speaker: Well, King has talked about Annie as a metaphor for addiction, which is especially interesting alongside Paul developing a dependency on the novel that she controls.
Speaker: But I also think she functions as like this horrifying version of the ideal reader that King talks about in the craft memoir. Her obsession with him and his books does lead Paul to writing one of the best books of his whole career. So I wonder if she could also represent a writer being obsessed with their craft.
Speaker: At times, it felt like Annie and Paul were kind of collaborating on the manuscript. So I like the idea that Annie is somehow representing the reader and the writer. but man, it's been a long time since I've been obsessed over my own writing. And I don't know that I've ever been that into anything I've written.
Speaker: No, I mean, Annie for sure is collaborating. She's the one that came up with the idea that misery was not actually dead and it was a bee sting all along. And she filled in all of the ends from the crappy typewriter.
Speaker: wish that I could be that obsessed over my writing. I finally got a deadline for something that I wanted to submit to. So that means that yesterday i edited um and rewrote probably like 3,000 words over the span of a few hours. Don't recommend that. It wasn't that much fun. but Earlier it was 2,500 words.
Speaker: The fish is getting bigger. There was some of it already there. And so I'm trying to do math in my head, but unfortunately I have an English degree.
Speaker: Let's talk about endings. There are definite spoilers ahead, so keep listening at your own risk. Annie dies. There. Spoiled it for you.
Speaker: But real talk, though. Originally, Stephen King was planning for Annie to kill Paul and bind his finished manuscript in his flesh. Wow. Thank God that version didn't make it to print.
Speaker: All throughout part three, we see Paul putting a plan together to kill Annie before she kills him. And finally, at the end of this part, we see his plan in action through a messy, prolonged, and frankly grotesque fight to the literal death.
Speaker: Paul lights Misery's Return on fire. Annie jumps on the burning manuscript. She catches fire. Her flesh burns. Paul hits her with a typewriter, which was supposed to bash her brains in, but just injures her back. She stumbles and hits her head on the mantle. At some point, Paul stuffs some burning pages of the manuscript down her throat, which somehow still does not kill her.
Speaker: Paul is literally crawling away from her and she grabs onto his left leg only for it to slip out of her hands. Okay, I have to interrupt you because this is morbid, but when Annie latched onto Paul's left leg and he was able to pull through her grasp because he was missing a foot, I cackled. It is really funny. She cut off his foot so that he couldn't escape. That was the whole point of the hobbling. And unfortunately, he was able to escape because she cut off his dang foot. She didn't think ahead with that one.
Speaker: And honestly, I love a scary story with some humor in it. And while I don't think that humor was the intent, I accept it and I love it. Paul finally gets through the door and shuts it, only for her fingers to reach under the door because she still isn't dead. Paul takes the medicine and passes out, only to be woken by the state troopers who return to find Annie not dead in the bedroom, but dead on her way to the barn, where she was apparently going to get a chainsaw to finish Paul off.
Speaker: damn, this is one of those like, like whack-a-mole, just still not dead, still not dead.
Speaker: And I think, I think my grimace was just like growing and growing and growing throughout that entire scene, fight scene. I will say that, you know,
Speaker: the movie shows a much more cinematic and compact fight. We still get Paul who lights Misery's Return on fire. Annie jumps on the burning manuscript. Paul hits her with a typewriter, which is followed by a brutal physical struggle. And there's even a point when we think Annie is dead after Paul trips her and she falls and hits her head on the typewriter, but she's not dead.
Speaker: Ultimately, Paul kills her with a couple of swift blows to her head using a metal pig doorstopper and she dies on top of him. The movie fight scene was a little bit less impactful than the book. He hasn't shown getting rescued, just laying there on the ground like a like a bird's eye view over him.
Speaker: Then we jump to 18 months later in New York City, where Paul's meeting with his agent discussing his new book, which has moved him beyond just a romance writer. He says he hopes that readers enjoy the new book, but that he wrote it for himself.
Speaker: Alternatively, i do like how Misery's return is a wild success at the end of our book that we're reading, and he's able to finish the series for good and on a high note.
Speaker: Yeah, and I like in the book how um you know we end, the final part called goddess, right, ends with Paul's like struggling to, he has some writer's block, right? He's struggling to write again. And then the very, very end of that, he finally finds a way.
Speaker: um And I found that to be kind of like we're in this spot of uncertainty, but it feels hopeful.
Speaker: Hot quiz! Would you pass the English Lit quiz if you only watched the movie? First question, what was the name of the book Paul finished writing at the beginning of the book? Hint, it's not in the Misery series.
Speaker: Answer, Fast Cars. Second question, how did Annie Wilkes murder the state trooper? Answer, the book had her stabbing him with the cross from her cow's grave and then running him over with a lawnmower. The movie had her shoot the adorable sheriff, not the state trooper, with a rifle when he discovered Paul trapped in the cellar.
Speaker: Question three, how did Annie Wilkes maim Paul? Answer, she cut off one foot with an ax, then cauterized it. She also took a thumb with an electric saw. Do you think it was like a Thanksgiving turkey saw type thing? don't know.
Speaker: I don't know. Did she have to plug it into a wall?
Speaker: Outlet logistics. ah We had a few nitpickings. It's time to pick some nits. Pick those nits. I don't think I liked the Africa stuff. It's kind of hard to pin down exactly why. It's just a little bit weird. I don't think Orientalism is the term that I'm looking for, but it's certainly exoticism.
Speaker: Most of this stuff comes from the book within the book, Misery's Return, or in Paul Sheldon's panicking and seeing Annie as an entity or a stone idol. What do you think? Yeah, I feel like I didn't understand why Misery's Return had to take the story to Africa. Like, it didn't necessarily feel earned, but it did set up the hobbling scene for the main novel.
Speaker: And similarly, I felt like there were way too many references to Scheherazade in the book. Alluding to it once or twice, I think, would have been fine, but it felt like once every, like, 20 or 30 pages, which was too much.
Speaker: If I remember right from the last episode, I got really tired of hearing about how short Poppy was and also reading the phrase sad puppy eyes over and over again. So I totally get it. He really did repeat it a whole lot.
Speaker: But the Scheherazade in Africa and all the references to the hobbling practices and the diamond mines is so connected that I kind of disagree with it not being earned, even though I don't really necessarily like it.
Speaker: My guess, based only on what's in my head, I didn't read this anywhere, is that the idea of Scheherazade started first because Paul had to keep the story going in order to stay alive longer.
Speaker: i used to watch these horrifying documentaries about Africanized killer bees, so bees in Africa also makes sense. And then Annie mentions the Kimberly Diamond Mines, which was in South Africa. And I guess that's how we got to hobbling.
Speaker: A quick movie based nitpick. I really need to make a list of bad CPR in movies and Misery is in running for first place. Annie uses three different rhythms during her chest compressions and none of which are staying alive by the Bee Gees. Yeah, it's kind of impressive that she was even able to revive him because she definitely wasn't doing it right.
Speaker: One of my nitpicks is I didn't like Misery as a name. Like for the novel and the movie title, sure. But as for the main character of Paul Sheldon's hit romance series, i respectfully did not get it.
Speaker: Like I kind of wondered if it was supposed to be a nod to 17th century Puritan virtue name trends. But then the Misery series seemed to take place in like the mid to late 1800s. So that didn't really seem to make sense or fit.
Speaker: So, Jen, I have to ask, and I'm far more interested in your response than anybody should be in mine. Are you a book nerd or a movie buff? I think I really want to be a book nerd, but I do think based solely on if I would read the book again or watch the movie again.
Speaker: I really don't know that I could stomach reading this book again. So I think I'm going to to go with movie buff because I could see myself watching the movie again. But we'd have to do like revisit and record another episode for me to read the book again.
Speaker: Because it like just like grossed you out so much or It was just like. like it It's a few pages. it i don't mean any disrespect by this, but it like it wasn't enjoyable.
Speaker: Which part wasn't enjoyable specifically? Just which part wasn't as enjoyable? Because like, did you hate it or was it just not for you? but Like, it wasn't to my liking. um Okay. It wasn't in an enjoyable read because i like, needed to know what happens next. And I don't like how my body functions when I'm at that level of anxiety and stress for 400 goddamn pages. Yeah.
Speaker: And like towards the end, it made me a little crazy. Like there was there was one evening where I was like, I've been listening to the book and like washing dishes and stuff. And then Adam came home and started talking to me and i just kind of like at him.
Speaker: That was so loud. Like, I'm sorry. But I just, like, I wasn't emotionally regulated while reading it, and I like to be emotionally regulated. Whereas with the movie, for the most part, it's just, like, hmm, a little suspense, a little thrilling, and then there's kind of, like, the end really escalates a lot, and but not for very long, and I feel like I can handle that, you know? Whereas the book, I just don't think...
Speaker: I don't think I could. we can't handle the suspense. And also part one is just so long. I think if part one was like half um as long as it is, then maybe it would have been easier. But like I was so happy when part one was done.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. I think that's an acceptable answer. It was really long one. I'm sorry. i know it's probably not what you wanted to hear. no no, no. As long as I told myself, I'm like, as long as as Jen doesn't totally effing hate it. don't.
Speaker: As long as you didn't hate it the way that you hated Forrest Gump, I'm okay. It's fine. Okay. Yeah, no. I definitely, if, okay, gun to my head and I had to reread a book and it was Forrest Gump or Misery, I would pick Misery a thousand times over Forrest Gump.
Speaker: that speaks volumes oh my word
Speaker: uh happily I would gleefully read misery over Forrest Gump because at least this book is like intelligent yeah anyway I'm curious what about you Em are you a book nerd or a movie buff Oh, this is even harder than the books where I don't like either of the book or the adaptation, to be honest. um i really love listening to audiobooks whenever I walk the dogs.
Speaker: So I'm kind of leaning more towards book. Also because I read the book so many times before I watched the movie for the first time. um I love Kathy Bates.
Speaker: Love Really love the movie, but I'm going go book. Nice. Yeah. October is coming up and we are escaping Annie Wilkes horrifying house and trading misery for a little magic.
Speaker: Practical magic. That is make sure to join us next month on Thursday, October 15th. When we discuss practical magic by Alice Hoffman, the story of sisters, Sally and Jillian Owens, a family legacy of magic and a centuries old curse. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not going to the first.
Speaker: Thank you for listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast. Watch for new episodes out the third Thursday of each month. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Speaker: Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Book Club, the movie. You can also find us on Patreon, Facebook, or on our website, bookclubthemovie.com. This podcast was created and produced by Jen Moyer and M. Lord. Our music and mixing is by Jason Lord of Studio Topaz.
Speaker: Voice acted by Ethan Gallardo. And we just want to give a big thank you to our friends and family for your love and support. And thank you, dear listener, for joining our book club.
Speaker: See you next time, nerds. And buffs. Bye.
Speaker: Do we have our post-credit clip? Honestly, i was thinking midway through. i was like, it would be really funny if the post-credit clip was just us going. blue no and la la la Really is noticeable. ah Give me a bag of that effing. Paul Sheldon. More of a. And Paul's literary art.
Speaker: Argent. Fuck. Okay.
Speaker: okay
