Hope Springs Eternal... ramblings on Different Seasons

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It is a novella, one of the four stories of the book "Different Seasons" by Stephen King, the King of Macabre. This story has nothing remotely resembling macabre but King still Rules. Last evening I started reading it and finished it off. It made quite a riveting read. The book is very well written. One can feel the indomitable spirit, determination, patience, unyielding will power and conviction (these are all the words that come to my mind presently to describe what one feels while reading the book) of Andy all through.

The story itself, it is narrated by Red, who is serving life imprisonment in the Shawshank prison for committing two, (or is it three?) murders. He does not have any guilt for committing the murder he actually wanted to, but feels sad for the other two who accidentally and unexpectedly get killed in the process. Enter Andy, convicted to life imprisonment for killing his, Andy’s and not Red’s, wife and her lover in cold blood. Andy is quite the reclusive and aloof sort of guy who keeps himself to himself in the prison. Over the years, the only person gets friendly with is Red. Andy is convinced that he is not guilty and he has been wrongly condemned to the prison walls. Instead of accepting or resigning to fate, he patiently, slowly but surely plans his escape and while he is in prison, he finds ways of being alive, alive in the true sense of the word. Reminds me of the line ’’Living is more than merely existing’’.

There is this part towards the end of the book where Red comes out of the prison and then feels that he belongs more to the Shank than the outer world and the idea of committing a petty crime and getting back to prison crosses his mind. By then Andy has already made his jaw dropping escape and he, Red, says to himself that if he tries to get back to prison then it is equal to slapping on the face of everything that he held in awe and admiration of Andy’s spirit of freedom and Hope.

I am sure you understand, going by the way I am raving about the book, how much I loved reading the story. Smiles.

Then there are these lines one comes to, where Andy is convinced that one day he will be free and speaks at length, on Freedom. The part is truly amazing. Now I have to watch the movie one of these days.

Red says towards the end that it is his story. Then he goes on to say that the reader might think that Red actually plays a small part in the story and the story actually belongs to Andy. He then says that it is a part of him that wanted to be free for 37 years, (Red would have been in the Shawshank prison for that many years) the part of him that had Hope, Hope that was in larger quantity in Andy that made him do what he, Red, wished to do. Be Free.

For completion sake, the other three stories in the book are The Apt Pupil, Breathing Method and The Body.