I had one of those ennui-ridden days yesterday. I had the time and the inclination to read but none of the books I'd downloaded called to me. I nibbled at a couple of them but I couldn't taste them. My imagination couldn't get any traction. So I opted for novelty as an antidote to listlessness and searched for something short and satisfying that I could read in an afternoon. I found 'Gwendy's Button Box', a novella co-authored by Stephen King (a go-to comfort read author for me) and Richard Chizmar (who I wasn't familiar with) nd consumed it in an afternoon.

I was glad that I'd opted for the audiobook version. Maggie Siff's narration was engaging and soothing and soon I was lost in another Castle Rock story in the 1970s, this time following a decade of the life of a young girl called Gwendy after she has an encounter with an extraordinary man who gifts her a box that is both a blessing and a curse.

I liked Gwendy, as Stephen King intended me to. She is brave, disciplined, mostly kind and is as honest with herself as any of us are capable of being. She's not perfect and she's very young so some of her decision are not a wise as they might be but those things just made her easier to engage with.

The box... well the box is terrifying. It's like handing a child a nuclear bomb and saying "Only press the button if you're sure it's the right thing to do". To make things worse, the box establishes a silently symbiotic relationship with Gwendy, offering her rewards that build dependency and reshape her life to the point where her ownership of her achievements is undermined and she questions the truth of her own identity.

This is a 'thought experiment' story, a 'What if?' speculation about power and choice and consequences, a reflection on the Spiderman truism that 'With great power comes great responsibility' that, in Stephen King's hands, also becomes the life story of a nice young girl whose childhood is ended early by an understanding that the world is not a safe place and that destruction is just a press of a button away, whether that button is in the hands of Nixon or Brezhnev or by Gwendy herself.

I was cruising along happily in the story but I couldn't see how it could be brought to an end, unless it turned into another 'IT' and one decade became three and I was watching Gwendy decide if Y2K would end the world.

The ending, when it came, was dramatic and a little sad but a little too neat and too cosy to be entirely satisifying. Still, my ennui was gone. I'd had an entertaining afternoon and I was ready to read something else.

Then I found that Stephen King's 'The Music Room' had been added as a bonus story. It's short, stylised and delightfully dark and twisted. Just the amuse-bouche I needed to clear my palette and move on to my next book.

The last thing on the audiobook is a conversation between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar about their collaboration on this story. The two of them were internet friends who often exchanged emails and chatted about things. One of those things was a story that Stephen King had started but couldn't find a way to finish. He'd sent it to Richard Chizmar, who turned it into the 'Gwendy's Button Box' I'd just read. Of course, the geek in me desperately wanted to see what the story looked like before the collaboration started and I found myself going back over the story in my head to see if I could find the join.

There are two more Gwendy novellas but I'm not heading there just now. Maybe the next time ennui has me it's grip, they can help me get free.

Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample of Maggie Siff's narration.

https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/gwendys-button-box-audiobook-excerpt ( )

Kurzrezension | Gwendys Wunschkasten
Diese 128-seitige Kurzgeschichte konnte mich ganz gut unterhalten, auch wenn einige Dinge über den Wunschkasten im Unklaren blieben und die Figuren nicht sehr stark ausgemalt waren.
Gwendys Wunschkasten ist auch das erste Buch, welches ich dem King-Universum hinzufügen kann. Dieses Leseprojekt habe ich erst vor Kurzem entdeckt und mich direkt verguckt.

Rezension – Gwendys Wunschkasten
Cover
Die kleinen Silberdollar und die Schoko Figuren sind absolut passend für den Inhalt des Buches, doch vermisse ich auf dem Cover die oft genannten Tasten „rot“ und „schwarz“ des Wunschkastens.

Handlung
Gwendy ist 12 Jahre und übergewichtig. Nachdem sie beschlossen hat an ihrer körperlichen Situation etwas zu ändern, trifft sich nach einem Training auf den mysteriösen Mr. Farris. Dieser überreicht ihr in einem alten Segeltuchsack einen Wunschkasten, voller farbiger Tasten und Hebel an der Seite.
Mr. Farris erklärt ihr kurz dass die einzelnen bunten Taste für die Kontinente der Welt stehen, die schwarze Taste bringt ein großes Unheil und mit der roten Taste ist einfach alles möglich. Und Mr. Farris meint wirklich alles. Außerdem gibt ihr der Kasten jeden Tag ein Schokoladentierchen und ab und zu einen wertvollen Silberdollar.

Hier sollte die Geschichte eigentlich spannend werden, aber sie tröpfelt nur so dahin, und erzählt davon wie Gwendy nach und nach ihr Wunschgewicht erreicht und sonst einfach alles leicht von der Hand fällt. Wenn ich jetzt hier mehr von der Geschichte erzählen würden, dann könnte ich einem Spoiler nicht mehr ausweichen.
Insgesamt ist die Geschichte ganz behaglich zu lesen, auch wenn alles ein wenig grotesk wirkt. Aber ich denke, genau das gibt dem Buch das Mystische, dem sich die Leser:innen nicht entziehen können.

Charaktere & Setting
Die Charaktere sind alle, bis auf Gwendy und Mr. Farris, sehr schwammig und farblos dargestellt, was ich ein wenig schade fand. Aber für ein Kurzgeschichte ist dies wohl zu verzeihen.
Es heißt, dass dieses Buch King-Fans zurück nach Castle Rock bringt. Ich mir aber jetzt nicht sicher bin, ob ich mit Gwendy ebenfalls in dieses Städtchen zurückgekehrt bin. Da die paar King-Bücher, die ich gelesen habe, schon viele Jahre zurückliegen. Viel erfährt man nicht über Castle Rock, aber die gesamte Grundstimmung des Buches ist trotz einer sehr erfolgreichen und glücklichen Gwendy bedrückend und düster. Und irgendwie auch skurril.

Schreibstil
Da ich bisher noch nicht so viele Bücher vom berüchtigten Stephen King gelesen habe und Richard Chizmar für mich völlig unbekannt ist, kann ich nicht genau sagen, wer von beide in diesem Buch mehr heraussticht. Aber es war ein angenehmer lockerer Schreibstil, der auch etwas leicht Bedrohliches in sich hatte. Was dem Buch aber wirklich den richtigen Touch gibt.

Fazit
Ein grotesk wirkendes Buch, welches mich einfach nicht losgelassen hat. Selbst die eintönigen Nebencharaktere können daran nichts ändern. Denn das Mystische stiehlt sich schonungslos in das Leserherz und am Ende blieb ich mit so vielen offenen Fragen zurück, die ich aber auch gar nicht beantwortet haben will. Denn dann wäre das Nebulöse nicht mehr so anziehend. ( )

Interesting quick read. I tend to get frustrated with books like this... too long for it to be a good short story, yet too short to be a decent novel. Just enough to get me interested but not enough to leave me feeling satisfied. I finished this and felt I had more questions than answers...BUT I did enjoy the main character and I’ve already ordered the 2nd book. I’m hoping it will fill in some of the gaps. ( )

A great, quick read. ( )

A short novella which can be read in a couple of hours, this is apparently book 1 in a trilogy and a collaboration with a writer I hadn't heard of before.

Twelve year old Gwendy is exercising one day, trying to get her weight down having had a spiteful comment directed at her and aware that when she starts at the new school shortly she will be bullied if she is chubby. She runs up the stairs to a vantage point in the local park, known as suicide stairs, and at the top a man dressed in black is sitting who introduces himself in a quirky manner. She is naturally cautious at first but he says he has a present for her and shows her an attractive box covered with coloured buttons. Each represents a continent except for the black one which must never be pressed and stands for everything, and a red one which can be anything she wills. A lever on one side produces delicious miniature chocolate animals, one per day, which will allow her to eat her proper balanced meals but not be tempted by deserts. And on the other side, another level occasionally produces valuable silver dollars which eventually help her with college expenses.

The mysterious man in black, who has the initials RF (Randall Flagg anyone?) tells her that to guard the box will be her responsibility. She does so but as she gets older and college looms, what to do with it becomes more of a burden. One or two things happen which make her very wary of it. Meanwhile, it seems to have done a lot of good to her and her family without her having to actively utilise it.

On the plus side, I liked Gwendy as a character: sensible, kind, hard working and so on, she is an ideal guardian for a dangerous weapon. I wasn't such a fan at one point that to overcome a villain she flashes her boobs at him; surely some other method could have been chosen for her to distract a killer? And RF, if it were indeed he, seems far too benevolent. Rather than give it to someone responsible, wouldn't he just press the buttons and blow the world up? The book has some nice illustrations and it was a pleasant read, but on the whole I would rate it at 3 stars. ( )