I finished reading 11/22/63 (Stephen King novel) and, as I do with most SK novels, found the journey interesting but the destination leaving something to be desired–not to be critical, it's just not how I would have ended that story. But then, I lack literary depth and probably read too many Donald Duck comic books when I was a kid. (I could never figure out why sometimes the lawns were yellow, in those comics, until I moved to the midwest.)
But some strange things happened while I read it. The Kingmeister himself talked about the harmonics of the past and the present–what I would call synchronicity–and while I got through the part about the protagonist having language difficulties while stalking L.H. Oswald and his Russian speaking wife, a friend in a faraway place who did not know I was reading that told me that she just had a dream in which I was trying to fix her TV set because it was "in Russian" instead of English. Other things happened, like Paula's poast featuring a poem with missing words the very day I was reading a section of the book where signs had missing letters which changed their meanings. Then, just as I was thinking about these coincidences, and also pondering the slight differences in the "stream of reality," shall we say, caused by our character's rummaging around in the past, and comparing the idea to Heinlein's other parallel worlds in The Number of the Beast, my wife looked up at me from where she sat on the couch, stitching, and said, "This sampler has no letter 'J'." (One of the first worlds discovered by the characters in The Number of the Beast was exactly like our world except there was no letter J.) So, you know, I'm freakin' out, man.
The one thing, Stephen King doing such a superb job of leading the reader by the hand through 1958 to 1963, I could never hope to do so well.
That's just too weird about the missing letter theme. It has to MEAN SOMETHING. For a while I thought I'd have to give up my lucky number 8 because it played such a role in my tragic doomed relationship, but then I thought, no, IT'S MINE. I don't. Won't. And last night I was looking through Gatsby's adoption papers and calculated he must have been born June 8.
ReplyDeleteNancy Sinatra was born on June 8th. And Gatsby has boots . . .
ReplyDeleteI just felt a chill run up and down my spine.
I am halfway through right now. I gobbled up the first third, loved the Derry stuff as always, but as soon as he left Maine and the story of Harry's family, it started dragging for me. I don't buy into the larger premise that stopping the assassination = saving the universe, and I guess when it comes down to it, I'm not part of that generation for whom the fantasy of saving JFK has a lot of pull.
ReplyDeleteI'll still read it though because it's King and I'd read him telling the story of a man going grocery shopping. He pulls you in like that, it is such a gift.
Somewhat contrasted by his talent for spectacularly horrible endings. Glad to be forewarned that this is one of those.
I don't buy into the larger premise that stopping the assassination = saving the universe
ReplyDeleteWell I won't say anything, since you said you are going to read it . . . :)
Well, if *I* could fix things I'd have Nixon win 1960 and then IFK in '64 and '68 to correct (and politically capitalize on) Pres. Nixon's handling of the Bay of Pigs ... You know, iust for the hell of it.
ReplyDeleteProlly not going to read it because bad endings do not seduce me. Not to be iudgmental, but I'm reading two books already, which is two more than usual. Iust sayin'.
Thanks, Roy. Until now, no one understood why Extraterrestrial Biological Entity J-Rod pointed to the letter "J" that day.
DeleteJ-Rod