[.ca] Dreamcatcher (ISBN 0743211383)

Chronique amazon.fr:
Un dreamcatcher, un attrape-rêves, est un tissu indien qui sert à repousser ou capturer les cauchemars, apprend-on page soixante-quatre... Il y en a un accroché dans une baraque de chasseurs perdue dans la forêt du Maine accablée par la tempête de neige. Mais celui-ci va se révéler terriblement inefficace dans cette grande réussite, plutôt touffue, de King. Il faut, se dit-on sans parvenir à lâcher le livre, un culot monstre pour convoquer dans un même roman les arguments des films The Thing, Alien, Blair Witch Project et X-files... De l'audace pour recycler allègrement La Guerre des mondes de Wells ou les ficelles des thrillers de parties de chasse façon survival game. De l'assurance pour enrôler l'officier fou d'Apocalypse Now et la figure, archétypale en SF depuis Sturgeon, de l'attardé mental nanti de pouvoirs parapsychiques... On en passe : la liste serait longue. Il faut enfin une sacrée ambition pour vouloir faire entrer, en plus du reste, toutes les théories et phénomènes extraterrestres inexpliqués en un seul roman... de fantastique, qui plus est proprement impossible à résumer. Mais le brio de King est tel, maniant tous ces codes des genres, qu'il s'amuse. Il s'en joue au point de s'offrir le luxe de placer une multitude d'allusions au catalogue entier de la culture populaire d'aujourd'hui. Il en tire même parfois, via la voix de ses personnages schizophrènes et torturés par leur passé, des effets humoristiques. Du culot, du brio... surtout un talent inimaginable, parce qu'avec tous ces ingrédients éculés cela fonctionne effroyablement bien et si aux deux tiers du roman on commence à se poser des questions ("mais où cela va-t-il ?") on aura évidemment tort : ce n'était pas du tout ce qu'on imaginait. Enfin, pour enfoncer le clou, signalons à cette occasion que King, auteur balzacien à sa façon puisqu'il restitue avec abondance les détails de la vie quotidienne (à croire qu'il fait les vide-greniers le dimanche et ses courses en jogging à la supérette du coin), s'il parvient à nous rendre ainsi proches et crédibles ses protagonistes, prend ici une nouvelle facette troublante. En effet, la tentation serait d'interpréter ce roman d'un point de vue "psychanalytique" d'une Amérique traumatisée après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Il y est en effet question, entre autres, d'invasion aérienne brutale de la nation, d'Américains souffrant d'une double personnalité dans leurs pensées (Américain/Alien) et de terreur des spores façon bio-terrorisme. Puisque ce sont un militaire caricatural et un idiot qui vont participer au sauvetage du monde, on est même tenté par malice d'y accoler de vrais noms. Bref, on se demande si ce livre n'est pas une parabole... La surprise réside de ce point de vue dans la courte post-face écrite par King : Dreamcatcher a été terminé en mai 2000 ! Non seulement King nous rend paranoïaque, mais en sus d'être ici un attrape-rêves, il passe soudain pour un devin attrape-subconscient collectif. C'est peut-être le pouvoir parapsychique qui préside à son talent ; bien au-delà de celui qui consisterait à simplement nous titiller avec nos peurs d'aujourd'hui... il anticipe sur celles de demain. Chapeau bas. --Francis Mizio

From Amazon.com:
Stephen King fans, rejoice! The bodysnatching-aliens tale Dreamcatcher is his first book in years that slakes our hunger for horror the way he used to. A throwback to It, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher is also an interesting new wrinkle in his fiction. Four boyhood pals in Derry, Maine, get together for a pilgrimage to their favorite deep-woods cabin, Hole in the Wall. The four have been telepathically linked since childhood, thanks to a searing experience involving a Down syndrome neighbor--a human dreamcatcher. They've all got midlife crises: clownish Beav has love problems; the intellectual shrink, Henry, is slowly succumbing to the siren song of suicide; Pete is losing a war with beer; Jonesy has had weird premonitions ever since he got hit by a car. Then comes worse trouble: an old man named McCarthy (a nod to the star of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers) turns up at Hole in the Wall. His body is erupting with space aliens resembling furry moray eels: their mouths open to reveal nests of hatpin-like teeth. Poor Pete tries to remove one that just bit his ankle: "Blood flew in splattery fans as Pete tried to shake it off, stippling the snow and the sawdusty tarp and the dead woman's parka. Droplets flew into the fire and hissed like fat in a hot skillet." For all its nicely described mayhem, Dreamcatcher is mostly a psychological drama. Typically, body snatchers turn humans into zombies, but these aliens must share their host's mind, fighting for control. Jonesy is especially vulnerable to invasion, thanks to his hospital bed near-death transformation, but he's also great at messing with the alien's head. While his invading alien, Mr. Gray, is distracted by puppeteering Jonesy's body as he's driving an Arctic Cat through a Maine snowstorm, Jonesy constructs a mental warehouse along the lines of The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. Jonesy physically feels as if he's inside a warehouse, locked behind a door with the alien rattling the doorknob and trying to trick him into letting him in. It's creepy from the alien's view, too. As he infiltrates Jonesy, experiencing sugar buzz, endorphins, and emotions for the first time, Jonesy's influence is seeping into the alien: "A terrible thought occurred to Mr. Gray: what if it was his concepts that had no meaning?" King renders the mental fight marvelously, and telepathy is a handy way to make cutting back and forth between the campers' various alien battlefronts crisp and cinematic. The physical naturalism of the Maine setting is matched by the psychological realism of the interior struggle. Deftly, King incorporates the real-life mental horrors of his own near-fatal accident and dramatizes the way drugs tug at your consciousness. Like the Tommyknockers, the aliens are partly symbols of King's (vanquished) cocaine and alcohol addiction. Mainly, though, they're just plain scary. Dreamcatcher is a comeback and an infusion of rich new blood into King's body of work. --Tim Appelo

Sweet Dreams cause this one will put you to sleep:
Mr. King's "Dreamcatcher" starts off in dank, dark bar in New England whare Beaver is going throu a mid-life crisis. He goes on hunting trip with his buds Peat, Henry, and car acident vitim (art imitating life for mr. King) Jonesy. They find a man with an alien inside of him. (or s*** weasel as they are called in the book) Before long (achully is it preety long this book drags on like you would not believe) they are in a stuggle to save the planent from aliens that occupy one's body. This plot has never been used before has it? Don't get me wrong King is a great writer. His use of lanuge is only thing that made me continue to read this book. His charecters are very well-drawn aswell. You really get inside thier lives. There is some mysisism in here dealing with a down syndrome kid "seeing the line" and being able to see things others can't. His powers rub off on his friends. Peat has a great sense of direction, Henry can really real with his phsco patants. This book drags on and cantains alot of things and we don't need. What's up with the Rolling Stones song bit. The thing I really did not like about this peice of literature was that it skiped around. It was hard to follow. Not one of King's best. I have no desire to see the movie.

Long live the King!:
This book came out after King's accident and he wrote it by hand, which goes to show his dedication since the book is over 800 pages. I really did enjoy this book, it's pretty fast paced, especially in the begining. Maybe towards the middle it slows a little, but not enough to take away from the books merit. The story is about 4 friends who grew up together (they're from King's uber creepy town Derry) and once helped an autistic boy from bullies back in their childhood. This event forever changed their lives and from on they had psychic abilities. When the 4 are on their annual hunting trip all hell breaks loose when aliens arrive and they have to deal with both them and the government trying to stop them. Very creepy and descriptive, one of the better sci-fi books I've read, especially about the "byrus" an organic alien material that gets on everything and continues to grow. This book is a little better than King's earlier attempt at a UFO/alien story (Tommyknockers) and is much faster. I would highly suggest you read this, even if you're not a King fan but more of a sci-fi fan, you won't be disapointed.

Four Friends:
Stephen King's Dreamcatcher is a novel about friendship, and survival. Once upon a time, in the small town of Derry, four brave young boys - Beaver, Henry, Pete, and Jonesy - rescued a mentally ill child from bullies; unaware that their actions would change their lives forever. Now twenty- five years after saving the boy, the friends reconnect in a cabin in Maine for their annual hunting trip. All is well until a stranger enters their cabin claiming that he has been lost in the woods for days. Eventually, the stranger becomes extremely ill and dies having bled to death in the bathroom. To Beaver and Jonesy's surprise, they discover a weasel -like creature emerging from the back of the dead stranger. After much struggle, Jonesy manages to escape from the creature alive while Beaver is killed by it. Jonesy is then shocked to see another mysterious creature that identifies himself as Mr. Gray. At this point, Mr. Gray transforms himself into red dust which Jonesy inhales. By doing so, Mr. Gray is able to take control of Jonesy's body in which he is able to carry out his mission. Meanwhile, Commander Kurtz and his team are set up in the woods and have been destroying the unidentified creatures that have crashed on earth, unaware that one has survived. It is now up to Jonesy, Henry, and Pete to stop Mr. Gray from achieving his goal- destroying all of humanity. The friends discover that survival is hidden in their past and in the dreamcatcher, which has come to represent their bond of friendship. While I enjoyed this book very much, there were parts where it got confusing or when one event in the book carried on for too long. For example, the chase between Jonesy/ Mr. Gray, Henry, and Kurtz, lasted more than six chapters. Another example is when Henry tries to convince a military officer to kill Kurtz and stop Mr. Gray. Other than those parts, I enjoyed reading Dreamcatcher because of the suspense, the terror, and creative approach. Instead of a physical battle, it is a mental battle since the friends have ESP- Extra Sensory Perception- and are able to communicate with one another and the alien. This works to their advantage because they are able to go into their past and present together mentally in order to destroy Mr. Gray. My favourite part is the end, where Henry has to stop Mr. Gray. I would recommend this book to people ages 11 to adult who love having the hair on their back stand up.

C'mon King...I know you can do better than this:
I'm the kind of person who would not be able to go to sleep for days after watching a scary movie (hence I haven't watched one yet), so I felt pretty brave when I picked up Dreamcatcher from my local library. It was my first foray into horror literature. I had read King's less spooky books (The Long Walk, The Green Mile, etc.) before and found them very good so I was expecting to be scared out of my wits. I was sadly (and maybe luckily) disappointed. In the beginning it starts out promising. Beaver, Jonesy, Henry, and Peter are all lifelong friends who come together once a year in northern Maine to go hunting. However their friendship is more than what it appears to be. They all share the special gift of 'seeing the line' which they acquired after saving a boy with downs syndrome many years ago. Their fairly normal lives are shattered during a hunting trip, when a lost hunter comes in to their camp muttering about lights in the sky and strange sounds in the night. Soon they are fighting against extraterrestrial beings who have come to take control of earth and their only hope lays in their special gift. Sound interesting? It is. There are definetly some spooky parts when the friends first encounter the aliens and some typical bloody King violence. However the plot takes a dive for the worse as the story becomes increasingly metaphysical and less and less to do with aliens. As the book progresses King seems to be writing off the top of his head and changing the story as he goes. Although on the surface it melds perfectly on closer examination the plot seems a little clunky and stupid. The book also ends up dragging on way too long. I know King can do better than this. This book scared me less than The Long Walk. He is the numero uno horror writer and one of best writers of all time in many people's opinion. He can definetly do better.

And people don't think Harry Potter 5 drags on???:
This book is simply astounding. I see a ton of reviews here stating this book drags on takes a long time to read blah blah blah. I stayed up for TWO HOURS reading this book! It is astounding! The characters are totally realistic, the aliens are scary, and, even though the aliens come out of people's rear ends, it is even realistic (At least in a sense) because the aliens wouldn't understand that it is gross! Sure, people also complain that the aliens live inside people's bodies is an idea already used, but this movie makes Alien seem like Winnie the Pooh. Like my title, people say this book drags on, at least it has a purpose. Sure, some of the parts in this book are insignifigant, but at least it's fun to read. Harry Potter 5 dragged on and had no purpose. One of the chapters were entirely about homework at Hogwarts, but here, it would usually be about Duddits and, in the end, it actually had an impact at the end of the story. I simply love this novel and I'm going to recommend it to everyone I know. And, I say, give it a shot. This book is simply astounding.