This was a bit of a slog for me. It reads as if the author was extremely uninterested or bored with the people she's writing about. I started skimming, which is usually a prelude to me skipping to the end and then dumping a book. Not actually sure if it is the book or my mood, but for my purposes it doesn't matter.

I finished this in spite of my lack of enthusiasm. I did that because while I was trying to decide whether or not to continue, I read the reviews on LT. I don't usually do that until I've finished a book, but there were only 12 or so and I thought it might help me decide if it was worth continuing. They confirmed my thoughts about the book, that it was a multi-generational saga in Ireland from the late 1700s to the early 1900s and not very uplifting. This is not "Trinity", or any of the other comprehensive books which have been written. It is subtle, it doesn't go into detail on any of the major events, only touching lightly as they affect the family of the novel.

I'm not entirely sure how to say this, I certainly don't want to be offensive, and I don't know a whole lot about the history, only the bits I've read about here and there. It is quite possible I am giving du Maurier more credit than she deserves. One reviewer lambasted her as basically a tool of the English establishment and that the book is warped. That may be, I don't know. But here is how an American of average education and intelligence read it. I think she was trying to point out the follies on both sides of the long feud. Whatever her intentions, when I finished the story I did not love the Irish, I did not have respect for the English, I closed the book and said, "To Hell with them all." Meaning the characters, not the actual people of Ireland, England and such. I am glad times have moved forward, because those times sucked. ( )

Monte Bravo es una saga familiar de proporciones épicas, basada en los antepasados irlandeses del amigo de Daphne du Maurier, Christopher Puxley.

AN Anglo-Irish family builds their fortune on the copper found in Hungry Hill. But they never come to understand the people of the area. Personal failings and tragedies eventually bring the family down. But I wonder how one can write a novel set in Ireland spanning 1820-1920 without once mentioning the Great Famine? There are occasional mentions of poor crops and the need for employment and some people choosing to emigrate, but no sense of a national emergency. Guess that is what you get when an English person writes about Ireland.

Another great book from Stephen King marred by a weak ending. ( )

By the time this novel was released, I was in my buy-the-King-book-and-lock-myself-in-a-room-and-no-one-disturbs-me-until-it's-done stage. King was...well...king.

I remember reading this in one large gulp back then, and declaring it good. But I have no memory of precisely why I thought it was good. Yeah, there was the cat coming back, yeah, there was the kid coming back, but...why? All that stuff had been done before.

This time around, for me, there's two distinct scenes of horror, and three gut-wrenching sections.

The first scene of horror is Louis Creed's constant circling of Gage's final moments and trying to play out a different ending. King caught that frustrating moment of a child not realizing this isn't a game, and the parent stuck in that why can't you just understand what I'm saying? loop.

The next is the sections from Louis leaving the gravesite with his broken child until he's got him situated in the car, simply because we know now, we know that, as a parent, this could be any of us.

For me, the gut-wrenching sections were...

When Rachel relates the death of her sister Zelda. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to beat her parents.

When we realize that Rachel, despite her past, is finally, somehow, coming to grips with death overall, and we see that she would somehow survive the death of her son.

And when Rachel's father Irwin actually makes a legitimate attempt at an apology to Louis when it's just too late.

These, and some other notable sections such as at Gage's funeral, Goldman's attempt to buy Creed off, and almost any scene with Jud, really elevate this retelling of The Monkey's Paw into so much more.

In fact, for me, the weakest part was the actual return of Gage. It felt like King had spent so much time and effort ruminating on life and death, what it means to get old, what happens to those that outlive their loved ones...all of it written well and observed accurately and touchingly, that he either didn't have enough gas in the tank, or didn't have the heart to go beyond a basic, phoned-in rendition of an evil killer kid.

Overall, though, his writing here, for one of the last times outside of his short stories and the odd later novel like Joyland, is clean and direct, with virtually no unneeded diversions. There's a sense of horrible dread that runs from the very first pages and never lets up until that last line of dialogue.

And, about that last line. King gives us The Twilight Zone ending, which, to be honest, I wish he'd utilize more. He delivers that last line, then drops the mic. No waiting around, no drawing it out.

King has a fine eye for detail, but this book, about life and death, was one of his best in that regard. ( )