I just finished Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and now I’m holding back tears and I need to write something down immediately.

I consider myself a fan of Stephen King. I want to say that came to King quite recently, all though when I looked up that post I realized that it’s eight years old this year so maybe ”recently” is a relative term. Anyway, for those eight years I’ve read quite a few of his novels and a couple of his short-stories and I pretty much love them all. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is probably my all time favorite, thus far.

Unsurprisingly I’ve watched the film version quite a few times and I love it. Part of the magic of listening to this novella now is in my memories of the movie. Even though it is narrated by the wonderful Frank Mueller, some times I hear Red’s words in Morgan Freeman’s voice. I also see Freeman and Tim Robbinson in my mind’s eye.

But mostly the magic i King’s writing, and his impeccable ability to have empathy for his characters, and to make us readers feel for them. Red is by no means a saint. In fact, he is indeed a murderer. If we disconnect him from the story, and from Freeman’s portrait of him, we all agree that he should be behind bars. But I don’t thing anybody can read the novella, or watch the movie, and believe that he is not worthy of redemption, and of hope.

This feels very topical today, when there is an election year here in Sweden and much of the past for years, both from the current government and from the opposition, has been about being
tougher on crime, on locking people up for longer times, on making it easier to lock people up. I honestly think every single politician should read this novella this year, to at least have some empathy.