The Man in the Black Suit

from Everything's Eventual

This tale was told to King by one of his friends, claiming that it had actually happened. King also said that it was based on the same ideas as Nathanial Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" from Mosses from an Old Manse. "The Man in the Black Suit" is not a Faustian tale, which is what I usually think of when I think of people conversing with the devil.

The only similarity I could really find between the two texts is the devil character. In "Young Goodman Brown" the devil's purpose is to shake the faith (or Faith) of the goodman, whereas in "The Man in the Black Suit" the devil seems to just be hungry. On second thought, however, in both stories the devil does employ the tactic of using someone close to try and sway the protagonist. In "Young Goodman Brown," Brown sees his wife, Faith, among the converts in the woods. In "The Man in the Black Suit," Gary, the protagonist, is told by the devil about the death of his mother.

I remember talking about the symbolism of the name Faith when I studied this story in college. She is not only his wife, but represents his faith in God as well. As he leaves her he says, "My love and my faith...this one night I must tarry from thee." (The link to the ebook is above.) Brown knows with whom he's meeting when he leaves his wife. For so many children, their faith is tied to the faith of their parents. So the supposed death of Gary's mother shakes him as much as seeing Faith in the woods with the devil.

I'm going to have to admit that neither of these stories ranks high on my list of favorites. I also must admit that I bought Everything's Eventual because I wanted to read "1408" before seeing the movie. Since I purchased the entire book, however, I am going to read the entire book from front to back.

Librivox & Project Gutenberg

I previously forgot to mention that in my Stumbling that I have also come across Project Gutenberg and Librivox. Project Gutenberg has a larger selection of eBooks than Planet eBook, though they're not all available in PDF format. Personally, I prefer the formatting from Planet eBook, but that's just me. I'm not discriminating against Project Gutenberg for their formatting.

Librivox is literally translated from Latin as "free voice." That being said, it's a catalog of free audio books. The selection is quite varied, but all of the books are, like Planet eBook and Project Gutenberg, those that are in the public domain.

Planet eBook

This isn't a shameless plug, since I have no personal stock in the website, but I recently StumbledUpon this website Planet eBook. Neat website; it has free classic books in PDF format. The books are probably ones, like on the Librivox website, that are currently in the public domain. Planet eBooks houses such titles as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," Stoker's Dracula, and James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Navigate on over there and check it out!