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vini-monteiro · 4 days ago

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★★★★★

'À Espera de um Milagre' traz a história do condenado John Coffrey e sua relação com o guarda penitenciário Paul Edgecombe. Edgecombe já viu muitas coisas bizarras durante a carreira, mas John Coffrey é uma das figuras mais estranhas que já conheceu. Acusado de estuprar e matar brutalmente duas garotas, seria o homem a encarnação do mal? Ou algo completamente diferente? O guarda está prestes a descobrir verdades terríveis e assombrosas que desafiam todas as suas crenças.

Originalmente, 'À Espera de Um Milagre' foi dividido em seis partes lançadas uma em cada mês. Stephen King quando criança, consumia este tipo de literatura e queria testar se este formato ainda era viável para época, além disto, o autor justificou a escolha declarando que, deste modo, não seria possível bisbilhotar o final da obra e com isso aumentaria o suspense da trama.

Stephen King revisa algumas partes da história ou algum personagem no começo de cada capítulo, o que ficou um pouco repetitivo. Lembrando que a publicação foi fragmentada, então é compreensível que o autor tenha inserido estas revisões para fazer o leitor recordar de algumas informações importantes sobre a narrativa.

A história é narrada em primeira pessoa por Paul Edgecombe, um idoso que vive em um asilo. Paul escreve suas memórias e experiências como chefe dos guardas no corredor da morte da penitenciária de Cold Mountain. Edgecombe se debate em um conflito moral entre o cumprimento de seu dever e a consciência de que um dos prisioneiros poderia ser inocente no crime pelo qual foi condenado.

King intercala a história entre o passado, na prisão e o presente no asilo em que o velho Paul se encontra. Paul Edgecombe, nem sempre segue uma linearidade ou a ordem cronológica dos acontecimentos. É frequente que Paul fale sobre fatos que aconteceram antes da chegada do prisioneiro Coffey ao Corredor e que logo em seguida acrescente informações sobre o que ocorreu após sua passagem por lá. A escolha narrativa não atrapalha o desenvolvimento da história e nem a deixa confusa.

A escrita do autor é tão fascinante, que nesse livro existiram momentos que eu fiquei até com pena da situação de alguns prisioneiros. O personagem Paul entrega algumas situações antes mesmo delas acontecerem, mas isso não estraga a experiência da leitura, pelo contrário, a forma como Stephen King desenvolve todos os assuntos e situações, deixa a obra muito envolvente.

Eu não considero 'À Espera de um Milagre' um livro de terror, ainda assim esperava que houvesse algo gênero presente na trama. Isto acabou não acontecendo, mas não me decepcionei com a obra. Para quem conhece Stephen King pelas obras mais voltadas para o terror, se surpreenderá ao ver ele entregando algo tão dramático. Eu achei o livro longo, porém não cansativo. A escrita é fluída, a narrativa interessante e os personagens cativantes que prendem a sua atenção.

Paul Edgecombe é um personagem paciente e bondoso, que faz o possível para que os seus colegas de trabalho não maltratem os condenados à morte. Em contrapartida, temos o Percy Wetmore, servindo como uma espécie de antagonista. Ele é aquele tipo de vilão que todo mundo detesta: mesquinho, ignorante, e sempre tentando se dar bem. Outros personagens também são ótimos, como Brutus Howell, melhor amigo de Paul, e o ratinho domesticado, Sr. Guizos.

A obra é composta por personagens carismáticos e muito marcantes. Em 'À Espera de um Milagre' o autor trouxe em particular mais sensibilidade em seus personagens ao descrevê-los com um lado emocional e psicológico melhor explorado, se compararmos com outras obras dele. Porém isso é feito sem diminuir o suspense e até mesmo a brutalidade de algumas situações.

A obra de King também traz temas desconfortáveis, como nepotismo, doenças terminais, a vida em um asilo, o dilema moral dos agentes penitenciários e tudo isso dentro do cenário da Grande Depressão como pano de fundo da história. Para coroar a crítica ao sistema, o racismo estrutural norte-americano é abordado de forma magistral, tanto no livro quanto no filme.

John Coffey é negro e o principal hóspede do corredor da morte. Corpulento e iletrado, foi o único apontado como perpetrador dos crimes acusados. Mesmo sem precedentes, jurando ser inocente, Coffey é sentenciado à morte. Durante a leitura sabemos que ele é inocente, mas mesmo assim, ele termina sua vida no Corredor, porque ele é negro.

A leitura de 'À Espera de um Milagre' traz um certo desconforto proposital, é emocionante, intrigante e alguns momentos e até divertida. Os seus personagens cativantes compõem essa trama trazendo tristeza, angústia e dor. A obra é um livro que não deixa dúvidas da maestria autoral de Stephen King. Aclamado como um dos maiores escritores da contemporaneidade, ele parece não perder uma única oportunidade de mostrar a que veio. Com tantos assuntos complexos, 'À Espera de um Milagre' é uma obra comovente que nos faz refletir sobre a vida e o que fazemos dela.

#À Espera de um Milagre #stephen king #resenha #livros #literatura #livro #leitores #leitura #crítica #microblog #artists on tumblr #tumblog #blog #mistério #literatura americana

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im-tired-boss · 3 years ago

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Unraveling At The Seams: Chapter 1

Lillian Moores is a 19 year old seamstress who moves down to Louisiana to help care for her ailing grandmother. That in itself is a difficult task, one that is made infinitely more complicated when she catches the eye of the one 21 year old her grandfather desperately wishes to keep her away from.

Heat.

Burning, uncomfortable, stifling, suffocating heat.

It was the only physical thing that Lillian Moores could focus on in that god forsaken train ride. She’d lost track of how long she had been there, sitting on the cushion with the uncomfortable bumps that felt suspiciously like nails. Her neck was stiff from the angle it was turned at to shield her face from the sun. She wasn’t entirely sure how she would handle the sun when she settled into Louisiana; small details like that weren’t ones she had time to think about before she left home. Her only hope was that that when she was out of this metal box, everything would feel a bit more bearable.

Despite her entire family being as southern as cornbread and banana pudding, she’d never spent a day in a state that got less than a few feet of snow a year. Her parents had moved out of Louisiana long before she was born. Hal and Melinda viewed their only grandbaby as a perfect reason for a vacation, so growing up, Lillian never had to go to Louisiana to see them. To be frank, she never had to leave her home for any reason beyond the few hours it took to go to the city to buy the fancier fabrics she worked with.

Now here she was: 19 years old, sick to her stomach with worry, and diving headfirst into the unknown.

It was the small things she noticed first. The sloppier writing in letters, the complaints of headaches over the phone that were quickly laughed away, the hushed conversations her parents would have about her grandmother becoming progressively more forgetful. None of it concerned Lillian, at least until she was approached by her father and asked if she would consider moving down south to help care for her grandmother.

Apparently, Melinda had doctor’s visit after doctor’s visit with a new failed medication after every trip. The bills were adding up and Hal couldn’t take any more days off work.

Lillian would have to help with the bills too, but she didn’t mind that. Her job at least could be done at home. She had been sewing for as long as she could remember, and in the last few years she had started to make decent money from it. She could stitch just about anything together: dresses, suits, nightgowns. On occasion she would make lingerie sets as well, though she hid those projects from her parents. They would raise hell if they found out, but the money was just too good to pass up.

The sewing would have to wait until she was settled a bit. Her machine was too heavy to bring with her so she had it shipped separately. With any luck it would arrive about a week after she did. She wasn’t sure what she would do until it got there.

The closer she got to her destination the more violently her leg bounced. She had taken off her glasses hours ago, finding the inability to see what was coming at her comforting. She didn’t know what was waiting for her when she stepped off the platform, but she knew whatever it was wasn’t good.

She felt the anxiety bubble in her chest and stomach. It was a vile feeling. Her breath was coming in gasps and she felt like retching. She knew she had to pull herself together quickly when the sunlight cut out and the train slowly came to a stop inside the station. She pinched herself hard enough to bruise where the skin would be hidden by the sleeve. Sometimes a little pain helped her pull herself out of her own head.

She stood on wobbly legs and moved to the overhead cabin to collect her luggage. She struggled with it, nearly falling when she stepped on the platform. The station was loud and busy, but she eventually was able to find her grandfather. He met her with the brightest smile that she’d seen in ages. She rushed over to him, and he quickly pulled her into a hug.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you.” He mumbled into the top of her head. “It’s been so long since the last time I saw you.” She laughed and nodded her head.

“I’m happy to see you too, Grandpa.”

“Here, I got this for ya,” After he pulled away from Lillian, he grabbed a few pieces of caramel from his pocket and dropped them into her hands. “They’re the same ones I used to sneak you when you were little. I hope you still like them.” She unwrapped one and popped it in her mouth, a mischievous smile making its way to her lips as she followed to the nearest exit.

“Car-mul is one of my favorite desserts.” She laughed openly at the scoff he gave off.

“Now young lady, I know you know how to spell because I helped teach you. C a r a m e l. It is pronounced care-a-mel and you know it.” Every time Hal had visited his granddaughter they had this fight without fail. She would say something in the funny accent of hers and argue tooth and nail about her way being the right way. Her daddy and her mama would always complain to Hal and Melinda that she sounded too much like the locals, but it was all in good fun.

He loaded her bags into the back of his pickup truck and helped her step into the vehicle. One thing she didn’t inherit from him was his height. Her mama was short, and Lillian was even shorter. It bothered her, and everyone knew it. Every pair of her shoes had a heel in it, some more than others.

Her eyes closed when her head hit the back of the seat. He glanced over at her a few times as he was driving. “Tired?” She nodded her head, not bothering to look back at him.

“I didn’t sleep very well on the train. It was loud, and bumpy. Every few seconds I was getting thrown around.”

“You can sleep when we get home. I made up the guest room real nice. I had Jan, the wife of a good friend of mine, help with the decorating. “

After that, things fell silent for awhile. Lillian was slipping in and out of sleep, the exhaustion of the past few days finally catching up to her. Hal, however, was much less composed though he didn’t let it show. He didn’t know how to brace her for what Melinda had become. Lillian had never known her grandmother to be anything but kind and mild mannered. Never cussed or said a harsh word to anyone.

That Melinda hadn’t been around for quite some time.

Hal didn’t wake Lillian for quite awhile after he parked in front of his house. Who knew how much sleep she would get that night after his wife saw her. His wife had been increasingly forgetful over the past few months and Hal could only pray she would remember their granddaughter. If she didn’t, who knew what cruel things she would say to Lillian. When he felt he had stalled for long enough, he reached over and shook Lilian awake.

Her confused features were illuminated in a beautiful orange light cast by the sunset. “Before we go inside, I need to prepare you for what you might” he paused, his words getting caught in his throat. “For what will happen. Your grandmama loves you, Lillian. You know that. But,” he paused again, tears welling up in his eyes. “she isn’t herself, honey. She’s cussing, being downright awful to anyone she comes across. She has moments where she’s back to being our Melinda, but they aren’t too common anymore. If she doesn’t get any better in the next few weeks our doctor has a real special doctor for us to visit in Baton Rouge, but until then, don’t take anything she says to heart. You hear me?”

Lillian didn’t know what to say so she didn’t speak. She simply nodded her head and did her best not to let tears spill down her cheeks. She kicked lines in the dirt as Hal collected her things. She watched him walk in and out of the house, but she couldn’t find it in herself to follow. She was terrified, and the longer she spent looking into the open doorway the worse her fear became.

Her hands were shaking like a leaf in autumn when she crossed the threshold. The house was dark and dusty. It had no feeling of warmth, which was ironic considering it was at least 90⁰ outside. The couch pillows were thrown around and blankets littered the floor. Dishes were piled on the kitchen counter and the icebox was empty except for a few pieces of meat that had clearly gone bad. The pantry was equally as barren.

The embarrassment was evident on her grandfather’s face when he saw her taking in the state his house had fallen into. He coughed and shook his head as he tried to find the right words to say. “It normally don’t look like this, but Melinda, she hasn’t been out of our room for some while. She gets too tired to stand for more than a few minutes these days.” He offered her a smile that came nowhere near his eyes. “Come on, I’ll show you up to your room.”

The stairs creaked as they walked up them, and that was when Lillian heard the first shrieks of many.

“Hal? Hal is that you? What fucking slut do you have with you, huh? You motherfucker! You think I couldn’t hear that whore talk?” Lillian froze. Her eyes widened, and she looked to her grandfather in disbelief. Her eyes pleaded with him to give her some sort of assurance that she didn’t hear what she thought she did. However it was clear that was no mistake the longer Melinda’s rant went on. Until that moment, Lillian had never heard pure anger in a sentence. There was no room for anything but rage in Melinda’s words. Hal felt his chest grow heavy at the heartbreak that consumed Lillian’s features.

“Goddamn it, Melinda! That’s your grandbaby.” He shut the door harshly, hoping to shield Lillian from the rampage his wife was going on, but it didn’t help much. Sure, the words were muffled, but it was impossible to miss the venom that dripped from them. Lillian’s face grew warm, and the same uncomfortable temperature from the train seemed to wrap itself around her body and sink its claws in. Her teeth ached from how hard she was clenching her jaw together, but she didn’t want to start crying until she was alone.

“Maybe it would be best if you waited until morning to see her.” She nodded and took a seat on the bed he had led her too. She didn’t meet his eyes until he took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. He nodded toward the gramophone in the corner. “Why don’t you put something on?”

She sniffled, and glanced over at the machine. “I didn’t bring any records with me.”

“I have some in the closet over there. You can listen to anything you want. I’m going to see if I can’t get her to calm down some.” He didn’t say another word until he was just about gone. “Lillian, she don’t mean it.” The door shut with a soft click and the tears flowed freely down her face.

It was all so much worse than she had imagined it to be.

She cried herself to sleep that night, unable to even change from her dress into a nightgown. Even in her slumber she wasn’t able to escape from the absolute disaster her arrival had been. She dreamt of her grandmother that night, replaying the words she had screamed earlier over and over again in her head.

When she woke up in the morning she felt even more exhausted than she did when she finally passed out the previous night. The house was quiet, which she was thankful for. She didn’t want to hear anymore screaming.

She loosened the tie from around her waist and slipped her dress over her head. She put on fresh underclothes and the lightest dress she felt comfortable enough to wear around her grandfather. It was sunrise, and already too warm for her liking. Her curls had tangled during the night, leaving her with a mess that was difficult to run a brush through. Normally she avoided combing her hair dry, but she made an exception.

Slowly but surely she wrestles her hair into Dutch braids that she let fall around her shoulders. While she looked into the vanity mirror, she ran her hands over the flyaway strands at the crown of her head with a frown tugging at her lips. She wasn’t a fan of her hair most days, wishing that it wasn’t white. She didn’t know a single soul below the age of 60 that had hair as white as she did. She spent most of her childhood wishing for it to darken up, but it never did. She smoothed the frizz down with a little gel before going back to her bag so she could apply her face cream.

She tiptoed down the stairs, holding her shoes in her hand to avoid making any more noise than absolutely necessary. She spent some time unsuccessfully searching for some tea leaves, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Hal called out to her. He seemed as tired as she was.

“I was thinking, why don’t you come with me to work today. I can have my folks in the kitchen fix you up something nice for breakfast, and then we can take a nice lunch together. There a real good diner not too far from the prison. I have a few reports I need to write, but I should be able to get them done fairly fast. “ He looked too hopeful to turn down.

Lillian grabbed a few things to keep herself occupied before joining Hal in the truck. The rode was longer than she had expected it to be. The path was all dirt and just as ominous as the name of the prison implied it to be. She could see the penitentiary long before she got close enough the hear the clink of the pickaxes as they hit the rocky soil or see the prisoners that were wielding them. It was large, imposing, and quite possibly the least inviting place she had ever seen.

When she was younger, she never understood why the institution was called “Cold Mountain” considering Louisiana was one of the hottest states in the country from what she had learned. However, it became crystal clear that “Cold” described the emotions of the prison, not the temperature.

Her eyes followed the guards on horses while she drove past them. Each one had a shotgun in the lap and it occurred to her that she had never seen so many guns in one place. “Are they all out there?” she asked as the truck came to a stop at the gate. She heard the guard on the watch tower yell something before they were waived through. “No. Only the good ones.” In that moment, she was scared to think of what they did with the bad ones. She followed close behind him, not feeling comfortable enough to stray far, not that he would had let her anyway.

All eyes seemed to follow her. Some looked curious, while others looked at her like they were a predator and she was their prey. Her stomach churned when a stout and greasy man whistled at her and motioned to her with his tongue. She looked away, but quickly enough to miss the harsh smack a guard delivered to his head as a warning to shut up.

She watched as they moved past block after block until they finally landed on one labeled “E”. He paused for a moment, and looked back at her. “When we walk into this place, you walk down the middle of the corridor, understand?” She agreed and took a hesitant step onto the faded green tile when he opened the door for her. “Keep walking until you reach the big desk at the end. If anyone talks to you from the cells, I don’t want you to respond.”

She felt her heart rate pick up, and she stared at her feet as she walked. She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding when she stepped past the final cell.

“Hal, to what do I owe the pleasure?” A man called out. He looked to be in his 40s, tall with dark hair. He had a comforting feeling to him that helped put Lillian's nerves at ease. Behind him was a larger man with grey hair and a blonde who looked to be in his late 20s at the oldest. Off to the side there was another man, one much shorter than the rest who seemed entirely transfixed by his own reflection as he ran a comb through his dark hair. She didn’t get a good look at him as her attention was quickly brought back to her grandfather.

“Paul, this is my granddaughter, Lillian. I’m taking her out to lunch later, but my office is surrounded by too many prisoners. I’d appreciate it if you’d let her stay here where it’s quiet while I do my work.” It wasn’t a request, and everyone in the room seemed acutely aware of that.

“She can have the desk.” Hal smiled and extended his hand to Paul.

“Good man.” Hal squeezed Lillian’s hand one last time before leaving Lillian to settle in the oddly empty cell block.

“It’s mighty fine to meet you, miss….”

“Moores.” Lillian added.

“Miss Moores. I’m Paul Edgecomb. To my right is Brutus Howell, but everyone calls him Brutal.” Lillian’s eyebrows raised at that, and Paul was quick to notice “it’s just a nickname, an ironic one if you will. Brutal may be big, but he’s as gentle as a lamb. To my right is Dean Stanton. And that” he paused, mild irritation leaking into his voice “is Percy Wetmore.”

At the sound of his name, he glanced over to see what was going on. Lillian froze when her eyes met his. He looked much closer to her age than anyone she had met thus far. His skin looked smooth, and he had a balance of masculine and delicate features to his face. She didn’t miss the slow and deliberate glance he took down the length of her body or the smirk that made it’s way to his face when he met her eyes for the second time. “And who might you be?” he asked, his southern drawl had an arrogant ring to it. He sounded much more like the cat that ate the cannery than a man with purely curious intentions.

Lillian once again found her face flushing red, but this time it traveled to her neck. The funny feeling in her stomach felt suspiciously like butterfly wings. Her throat felt too dry to speak, but luckily she didn’t have to.

“Percy, this is the warden’s granddaughter Lillian.” Paul called out, his words clearly carrying a warning behind them. Percy seemed unbothered, and simply raised a defiant eyebrow at the tone his superior used with him.

“Well, Lillian” Percy’s voice lowered slightly “it is lovely to make your acquaintance.”

#the green mile #fanfiction #percy wetmore #paul edgecomb #brutus howell #dean stanton #hal moores

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