It is also tempting to think that the positive attitude Scott has about his condition is similar to that of the veteran author himself – not only to have had a life, but to have had a good one. The discussions Scott has with his friend, retired doctor Bob Ellis, over his weight loss sound like the sort of discussion King will have had about his own brushes with mortality, as do the internal monologues Scott has with himself over his life. As the story progresses, there’s contemplation over the meaning of life and an evaluation of what makes a life valuable. Beyond the Matheson-esque beginning, Elevation is really about life and about the realisation that life is finite. It is interesting to think where Stephen got the inspiration for this one. Scott, unlike Billy, comes across as a nice guy. In places, as Scott contemplates his life, it actually becomes life-affirming. However, where Thinner and Shrinking Man lead to downbeat, even darker ends, Elevation (as the name suggests!) is upbeat by comparison. The reason for this is never given – it just is. Here however the oddity is that although he is losing weight day by day, Scott’s weight stays the same whether wearing clothes or not, or even holding a weight like a dumbbell. This reminded me a little of King’s/Richard Bachman’s Thinner, where Billy Halleck is cursed to lose weight. In Stephen’s novella, Scott finds that he is weighing less but for a different reason – he seems to be getting lighter.
In The Shrinking Man the hero finds that he is losing weight and getting shorter in height.
Though it is set in King’s home territory (a welcome return to Castle Rock), the lead character is Scott Carey, the name of Richard Matheson’s lead character in The Shrinking Man (1956), later made into the movie The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).Īnd like the Carey of Matheson’s novel, the Carey of Elevation has a problem. And so, a mere two months after Stephen’s last novel ( The Outsider), we have this novella.Īs if the dedication wasn’t clear enough, there are clues throughout this one that Stephen is paying back a love of a fellow author and his work.
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