Ig Publishing's Bookmarked series features writers contemplating the literature that has made deep impressions on their lives and work. Aaron Burch's entry is Stephen King's The Body, a brief but incisive consideration of King's novella and Burch's life in ways that surprise the author and intrigue the reader.
"The Body" is one of four novellas in King's Different Seasons. It is perhaps better known for the film adaptation, 1986's Stand by Me. Burch's lifelong fascination with King began with the movie; he writes here about coming later to King's written work as he becomes a reader, a writer and a teacher. King's protagonist, Gordie Lachance, is also a writer and very much resembles King himself. The layers of meta-awareness continue in Stephen King's The Body: Burch refers to his writing of the book and to its earlier drafts.
Although "The Body" and Stand by Me provide the framework for Burch's contemplation, his work is at least as much self-reflective memoir or personal essay as it is literary criticism. He is a striking character who has a complicated relationship with art--the art he produces (up until now, only fiction) and the art he enjoys.
He elaborates on King's themes of loss and friendship with those of transitions, of firsts: first date, first kiss, first job, first road trip. As Gordie (or King) writes, "There's a high ritual to all fundamental events... the rites of passage, the magic corridor where the change happens." The beauty of Stephen King's The Body is in Burch entering that magic corridor, and splitting the experience wide open. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia