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Title: Under the Dome by Stephen King
Details: Copyright 2009, Simon and Schuster
Synopsis (By Way of Author's Web Site Description): "On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a selectwoman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I've spoken before about my pretty-much lifelong reading of Stephen King. In that pretty-much lifelong reading, I haven't read everything. There's still books, many of them quite famous, scattered across his CV that I've never read. This was one of those books.
How I Liked It:
Have you ever wished a story was in the hands of a different author? Yes, I'm well aware I just mentioned the fact I've made a habit of reading Stephen King's work. But stick with me.
Have you read a biography of someone amazing and the author was bad, so it felt like a waste? Same goes for an historical event that fascinates you. The same can be true of fiction, in that you like the bare bones of the story, but the way it's told, not so much. You'll see what I mean by the time I'm done.
The little town of Chester's Mill, Maine should be enjoying a gorgeous fall day, and the residents are trying. But a terrifying barrier has appeared above them, crashing planes, severing limbs, and crashing cars. Get too close and you might just lose your pacemaker. In the wake of the chaos, first selectmen "Big Jim" Rennie looks to seize even more power, installing a lackey as the new town police chief. Big Jim doesn't stop there. He slowly attempts to expand and install new "police", all of them either corrupt, incompetent, or both, including his murdering son Junior.
The main antagonist to Big Jim's plan is an Iraq War vet and diner chef named Dale "Barbie" Barbara who was trying to hitchhike out of town (more on that later) when the Dome came down. Not long before the story takes place, Barbie got on Junior's bad side with the girlfriend of one of Junior's friends (more on THAT later, too). Barbie was innocent of the accusations against him, but got beat up anyway, and is now done with this town.
In the chaos, warring factions break out and Big Jim is hell-bent on accumulating power and hoarding resources. Barbie is forced, along with a ragtag group of protagonists, to fight against both Big Jim and the Dome.
When the Dome is finally lifted, it's not through power like Big Jim's, but through something far more subtle and far more powerful that Barbie and his crew is able to crack.
I realize complaining about a Stephen King book being dense and puffy is akin to complaining that many are set in Maine. I don't have a problem with length at all. It's when it feels like it's too much filler does it become a problem in a book that's 100 pages or 1074. 11/22/63 is another King brick (although two hundred pages shorter than this book) and it uses all those pages. Too much of Dome feels unnecessary and almost as though it's stalling for time. I realize this is a huge cast of characters and King tries to give us a bit of life story of even the most tertiary of characters and that's going to take time, but after awhile it feels exhausting.
But the bare bones story! I assumed this was an allegory for misuse of power and themes of "power-over" run throughout the book. According to King, though, this book was started in the 1970s (and put aside for years) with the nascent ecology movement, and it's about climate change and how "we all live under the dome" (meaning earth). Also, "Big Jim" Rennie is based on Dick Cheney and his toady installed as police chief (while Big Jim really pulls all the strings) is meant to be George W Bush and also concerns the then-recent Bush administration.
Which is pretty right for a book written in 2009 and which is presumably set in 2009, save for a truly bizarre fan theory that the book is actually set in the future, in 2017. Which of course overlooks all the evidence in the actual text that this is supposed to be October 2009. Permit me to show you!
Whatever scribble-dee-dee dogsbody might have written it, the bastard [President] had signed it himself, and using all three of his names, including the terrorist one in the middle. Big Jim hadn't voted for him, and at this moment, had he teleported into existence in front of him, Rennie felt he could cheerfully have strangled him. [...]
Big Jim was sure the pro-abortion son-of-a-buck knew nothing about faith-- to him it was just a buzzword[.] (pg 270)
That sounds like President Barack Hussein Obama (who absolutely would be called "pro-abortion" by someone like Big Jim) and who thanks to a Constitutional amendment, couldn't be the President if it were 2017 but was the President in 2009, obviously.
"You'll go to jail for this," she promised Junior in a low, trembling voice. "Bush and Cheney are long gone. This isn't the United States of North Korea anymore." (pg 303)
Yes, given hindsight to who was actually President in October 2017, that has aged poorly, but this book was published in 2009 and this text supports that that's when the story takes place.
She got back into the Volvo (the sticker on the bumper, faded but still readable: OBAMA '12! YES WE STILL CAN) (pg 305)
That's about the only thing I saw that could possibly date this as 2017, as presumably an Obama reelection sticker in 2009 although absolutely existed, would be far more likely particularly faded, in 2017, obviously.
But does it really matter when this actually is supposed to be? We-ell. A little. Stephen King, who's never been great at writing for generations other than the Baby Boom (and whose dialog is occasionally cringe-y all around), tries his hand at some Youth Slang yet again, unfortunately. This is not the first time but this is particularly painful.
Joe has-- with real reluctance-- vetoed another Norrie masterpiece that goes 'Take off the gags! Take off the gags! Let us talk to the press, you fags!'
"We have to be politically correct about this," he told her. (pg 203)
Okay, Joe McClatchy is supposed to be thirteen and "genius", particularly with computers. His friend Norrie is the same age (thirteen). What is it with certain authors trying to make teenagers saying 'politically correct' past 1993 a Thing? The only teenagers that would say that past, say, 2000 come from enthusiastically conservative homes or they were sucked in by enthusiastic conservatives. A thirteen-year-old just casually dropping that slur is lot less likely in 2009, particularly if they were progressively-minded enough to help organize a protest (as these children are doing) against what they feel is the tyranny of the town. Not to mention that Joe McClatchy is described to have a "FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE" bumper sticker on his backpack.
Add to this that this is the way Norrie is described by King:
"Word," Norrie said. She was a tough kid, a smalltown riot grrrl with a modified Tennessee Tophat mullet 'do, but now she only looked pale and sad and scared. (pg 223)
The Riot Grrrl movement using both that slur and suggesting gay-as-insult is pretty unlikely. Do I think a smalltown thirteen-year-old would try to absolutely ape the style/fashion of that movement while missing the more important aspects? Sure. But probably not one still using that slur in 2009 (or 2017). I wonder if King thinks "riot grrrl" is interchangeable with "punk rock", although people could convincingly argue homophobia isn't punk period.
And nothing there, not even dust-kitties. Baaarbie was a neatnik. Junior considered taking the Imitrex in his watch-pocket, but didn't. (pg 379)
"Neatnik" like beatnik and peacenik? As in, a term out of the 1950s and 1960s that it wouldn't be likely for a guy in his early 20s like Junior to know, unless he was quoting his parents or grandparents (and that would be mentioned in the text)?
"Yes!" This time the girl rolled her eyes to show what an annoying stupidnik Caro was being... and Caro sort of loved it. (pg 851)
That's another "nik", this time in the voice of a woman in her early twenties.
"Cool, Mrs McClatchey," Benny said. He raised one hand. "Give me five, mother of my soul-brother." (pg 506)
I'm not saying a thirteen-year-old, particularly in 2009 when YouTube and other places offering old programming existed, couldn't adopt slang from forty to thirty years prior, but I am saying it would be remarked upon by other characters or in some way mentioned that that character is using vintage slang (I don't know, how about "A couple months ago, Benny stumbled across old '70s comedy skits on YouTube and fell in love and wouldn't stop using the slang no matter how many times people begged him to stop.")
"Ollie," Benny said. "this is another fine mess you've gotten me into." (pg 535)
Those thirteen-year-olds in 2009! Always quoting Laurel and Hardy! Seriously, anything in text about how the character Benny likes old movies or something, or a character asking him why he talks like that and he defends that old slang is better or something. People are definitely allowed to like and use slang and expressions and media outside of their generation! I have my whole life! But it's generally something distinctive, and it comes across that way particularly in fiction.
And as we've seen, it's not just the one character, it's several characters talking not of their generation. The Internet has made it easier than ever for anyone to ape slang of pretty much any generation, let alone a writer with the experience and resources of King. It's just lazy to write dialog that way.
"Wonder Woman is not a goddess," Joe said, taking one of the elderly Winstons and smoothing it straight. "Wonder Woman is a superhero." He considered. "Maybe a superher-ette." (pg 500)
Speaking of lazy, a character that's thirteen and described as a genius doesn't know the word "heroine"? Or any thirteen-year-old, period?
So we've got some wince-worthy King dialog full of slang and out of era, puffiness and filler. Something not usually a Kingism but unfortunately prevalent in this book is slightly uneven characterization and all-over sloppiness that really, badly needed more polishing. But back to typical Kingisms, including the main one holding this book back for me.
When people ask me if I find King books scary, usually, the honest answer is no. I don't find them scary, but I find them interesting. I can be plenty frightened of things, even fictional things. But generally King doesn't frighten me because as a whole, his works are usually just too plain over the top (often with a side of gross) to provide a genuine thrill. Not that, again, they can't be interesting, but my frightening cup of tea is usually a suggestion and subtlety, which King generally doesn't do.
This is probably the most crucial part of where in the hands of a different author, the book would've had a different effect. Another book about about dystopia, Lois Lowry's The Giver, had a far greater impact with a tiny, tiny fraction of the deaths of Under the Dome and it's a YA book.
No one is spared from King's slaughter, whether it's adorable animals, just-there animals, suicidal sufferers, victims of police brutality, recovered addicts, gang-rape victims, children (including babies), pretty much anyone. But after pages and pages of King trying to outdo himself with endless death and slaughter of innocents, it has the opposite effect he intended: rather than mass devastation and loss and horror, it's just another death on the way to the ending. It reads a lot like he tried to substitute a body count for an impactful feeling and the more it didn't work, the more bodies he threw at it.
Still though, buried beneath the frustrating Kingisms (even more on those later), is an important story about mercy, humanity, and responsibilities of power, all of which go well with King's statements of what this story is supposed to be about. And even with the King puffiness weighing it down, the story still has a decent amount of suspense and thrill, even if the payoff to it all isn't what it should be.
It's hard to attribute what in this is wrong because of King as an author, or what in this is wrong with King and some laziness/more work needed specifically with this particular book that could've been finessed. I honestly think it's both. Under the Dome for all its flaws truly does have an important and necessary story to tell, and the themes are frightfully ever-relevant. It's just a shame that the story itself got buried under so much debris. While King is indisputably the author who wrote this story, we can only hope the book inspires a author more up to the task to better communicate its message.
Notable: I've mentioned before that whenever there's a false rape allegation in fiction, it's going to be tricky and the author has to handle it verrrrry carefully. Why? Why, you ask, in a science fiction novel about missile-proof dome clamped over a fictional New England town by some force, should the author care about fictional people?
Well, someone coming forward about a sexual assault that they know didn't happen is statistically pretty unlikely, as rape is a vastly unreported crime. The fact "she's lying" (and I don't use that pronoun casually, although victims of all genders are dismissed) is frequently used as a claim from everyone to sitting Presidents to Supreme Court Justices.
That makes any fictional story (and we're talking about a prominent author, one of the most prominent and bestselling fiction authors in the entire world in a book guaranteed to a be a bestseller with massive attention with a screen adaptation) where that actually happens a question of is that element truly necessary to the plot, and also, how is it handled.
Before the story (with the Dome) takes place, a very young twenty-something waitress (I think she's intended to be the same age as Junior, who's mentioned that he's in his early twenties) takes a liking to a thirty-year-old cook (Dale Barbara, the vet who is King's primary protagonist in the book) and gropes him, offering to let him grope her in return. He declines. She corners him and throws herself at him and kisses him, and at first he returns it (noting the quality of her breasts, no less, "good" and "young and firm"), but realizes it's a bad idea and rejects her.
Infuriated, she tells her boyfriend he raped her and the boyfriend and his friends proceed to beat up the cook. The young woman goes forward to the police with her claim, but stops short of actually filing it, choosing to slink away (NOTE: A good number of actual, real-life sexual assault victims get so far as the questioning stage and choose not to file a report, largely because it's too traumatic, they fear being believed, and/or are dissuaded out of it by law enforcement. This does not make them liars or cowards, it makes them people doing as best they can for themselves after a traumatic event).
The incident where the cook is jumped is a large part of his catalyst to try to leave town before the Dome comes up, and why he's on a shitlist with prominent people in town.
But is it absolutely necessary to the plot? Can the story not go forward without her making the false allegation? Not at all, it's actually quite avoidable.
Instead of the waitress making the false rape allegation because he turned her down, she could easily have been flirting with him and coming on to him and her boyfriend witnessed it and assumed that it was the cook harassing his girlfriend, and chose to attack him and thus put him on aforementioned shitlist (with the girlfriend not correcting him with the truth, lest she be attacked by him for attempting cheating). So a woman "crying rape" after being rejected really didn't need to exist fictionally in this story at all.
Given the high percentage of sexual harassment/assault of real life women/female-presenting people (we're non-binary inclusive in these parts: deal with it) in service jobs (especially waitressing), this is an added frustration to having it be a waitress making the false claim, and at her job of all places.
Aside from the storyline not really needing to exist in order to set up the dynamic of the cook being on the outs, King does not handle it well. The cook tells his story of being falsely accused of rape and questioned by the police to a sympathetic female character:
"That was [the questioning police officer's first suggestion to Barbara]. Then he said maybe it wasn't quite rape, but when she got scared and told me to stop, I wouldn't. That would make it rape in the second degree, I guess."
She smiled briefly. "Don't let any feminists hear you say there are degrees of rape."
"I guess I better not." (pg 247)
What is the point of that line? To suggest that only feminists care about rape? To suggest that feminists are overreacting about how rape is handled by the laws in (at least) the United States? I'm a feminist so I freely admit I'm "biased" that way, but rape is rape. While there might be a minute legal distinction as far as Barbie describes is concerned, rape's still rape. Having that cutesy line out of the mouth of sympathetic female character is... quite a choice by the author. Like having a twenty-something waitress grope and sexually proposition an older man at her job, instead of the far-more-likely reverse.
Conversely, actual rape takes place in the book (more than once), most notably the gruesome and graphic gang rape of a female character. In this setting, again, a book destined to be a bestseller with a screen adaptation from arguably America's best known fiction-writer, care should be taken with this and too often it was not.
While pondering the aftermath of the rape (and seriously contemplating suicide), the victim reflects on her life, including her occasional bouts of youthful sexual promiscuity including having multiple partners, and an occasional stint as a sex worker, a very infrequent necessity that she describes as neither pleasant nor unpleasant but reassuring that that form of income was at least available. The character notes that she "sold what [her attackers] had taken by force." (pg 354)
Why is it relevant that she was an occasional sex worker? Or the fact she'd had sex with multiple people, sometimes at once? While the character reflects after detailing her sexual history that what "happened last night was different" (pg 355), before launching into gory detail, of course it's different. She was raped. When she choose to have sex either for pleasure or for income, that's completely different from enduring violent abuse that's named in the text as taken by force. So why on earth bring up her sexual history? It doesn't even mention that she's thinking about that because she's afraid it'll come up if she goes to report it, she had no intention of reporting it because it was done in part to keep her quiet and put her in her place. I guess an argument could be made that this is about the character trying to parse it out for themselves, but she's shown to be scared and crying during the ordeal, and it's shown that it was meant to be a threat. In no way in the text is there even a suggestion that it's consensual. It's be more remarkable (and realistic) if she'd detailed her history with sexual harassment/assault and how this was different.
Again, people might take issue with the fact I'm bringing a real world critique into a story that's clearly fantasy. But a critical lens matters no matter what genre you're reading, especially when you've got a platform like King's, and there are real messages relevant to the real world in this book that he clearly wants to convey. So let's make sure they're the right ones.
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On similar, incredibly depressing subjects, King has such a theme going that had it been another author, I would've sworn it was intentional since themes about power imbalance and misuse of power run throughout the book:
What he saw was a lovely combination: a dirty old Ford pickemup with a fresh young blonde behind the wheel. Ash blonde, his favorite blonde of all. Barbie offered his most engaging smile. The girl driving the pickemup responded with one of her own, and oh my Lord if she was a ticktock over nineteen, he'd eat his last paycheck from Sweetbriar Rose. Too young for a gentleman of thirty summers, no doubt, but perfectly street-legal, as they'd said back in the days of his cornfed Iowa youth. (pg 9)
Don't.... do that.
When describing a middle-aged man enjoying and frequenting high school girls' basketball games:
Others are basketball purists, who will tell you-- with some justification-- that the girls' games are just better. Young female players are invested in a team ethic that the boys (who love to run and gun, drunk, and shoot from way downtown) rarely match. The pace is slower, allowing you to see inside the game and enjoy every pick-and-roll or give-and-go. Fans of the girls' game relish the very low scores that boys basketball fans sneer at, claiming the girls' game puts a premium on defense and foul-shooting, which are the very definition of old school hoops.
There are also guys who like to watch long-legged teenage girls run around in short pants. (pgs 445 and 446)
Don't... do that.
Rusty sat in the hallway with his arm around Gina Buffalino and let her cry against his chest. There was a time when he would have felt exceedingly uncomfortable about sitting this way with a girl who was barely seventeen, but times had changed. (pg 578)
(The times changing are referring to life post-Dome.) This one gave me pause because it feels less like a "This isn't right, I don't want to make her uncomfortable" sentiment and more of a "I'm not allowed to do this" sentiment.
"Oh...my...God," Norrie whispers. One fisted hand is pressed between the scant nubs of her breasts as she looks at that pink freak of a moon. (pg 804)
That's... a thirteen-year-old girl. Why go into that level of detail about her breasts? You can do fine with "One fisted hand is pressed to her heart in her thin chest as she looks at that pink freak of a moon." Still a visual description without that level of gross detail.
"Cindy hit me in the cheek, and Lila punched me square in the right boob. How that hurt! I was just getting my breasts, and they ached even when they were left alone." (pg 915)
A character is describing being beaten up by bullies when she was nine-years-old. I guess at least that's semi-relevant to plot, sort of (although it's generally considered pretty remarkable to be developing breasts as early as nine, although it does happen).
"That's Mary Lou Costas. She's seventeen, she's been married a year to a trucker who's almost twice her age, and she's probably hoping he comes to see her."
Henry sighs. "She's still an idiot, but I guess at seventeen we all are." (pg 955)
Henry is a sympathetic character. I'm aware such things being discussed that way in a small town (or elsewhere even) is probably still pretty common (although probably less common to find the name "Mary Lou"), but could at least one character, even an out-of-towner/tourist/whatever comment on the fact Mary Lou Costas was groomed and molested by a grown man when she was underage? She's got a baby with her abuser and no where is it even suggested that what happened to her was rape or even inappropriate, she's just silly for waiting with her baby for a man obviously no longer interested in her.
To be clear and before anyone starts getting any ideas about anything, I am absolutely not accusing Stephen King of anything, and you don't need to bring up his questionable (and sometimes downright awful) statements in defense of Woody Allen (which strike me more as a fan of his work still refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation and playing unnecessary devil's advocate rather than claiming Allen's alleged behavior is somehow justified/acceptable). I'm saying this is the sort of (even recurring!) thing more processing and thought should've cleared out. Hopefully eleven years (and the widespread awareness of several movements regarding sexual assault and victims) later, King would've rethought some of this.
The flip side, sort of, is a kind of double standard that well exists in reality. A prominent couple in the novel is 60-year old English professor Thurston Marshall (shown to have a chip on his shoulder and a superiority complex) and his 22-year-old girlfriend Carolyn Sturges, a graduate assistant in the same department as Moore. Their age difference is at least remarked upon and noted, and the fact Thurston is portrayed as pretty insecure and needed to overstate himself suggests (at least, to my interpretation) that that's part of why he's with a woman 38 years younger than he is.
And then there's this:
The Rev. Libby, still wearing her Saturday grubs-- and still pretty enough, even at forty-five, to look good in them (pg 157)
Don't... do that.
Okay, remember what I said about realism:
She laughed, but a thrill went straight through her, from neck to knees. It was one she recognized but hadn't felt in a long time. Easy, girl, she thought. He's young enough to be your son.
Well, yes... if she'd gotten pregnant at thirteen. (pg 912)
That's a woman, forty-three-years-old, questioning a relationship with a man, thirty-years-old. It would've been more interesting if King had chosen her to not pay it any mind, but at least she's shown as seeing her knee-jerk reaction as ridiculous.
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As a long-time reader of King's work (who's read his work in all eras), I can tell you that while he's generally been not great on Queer issues (and characters and stereotypes), he's more or less kept up with the times (meaning the homophobia in, say, IT or Rose Madder wouldn't have been out of place in any major movie or TV show that aired the same years those books came out, respectively), if occasionally a half-step behind the times.
So it's somewhat questionable that the only queer characters in this book with such a vast, vast population portray same-gender sex as being childish and shameful. Both characters are women in their twenties that have been friends for awhile and it's shown that they like to occasionally smoke pot and have sex together, despite having male partners, usually.
Sammy coaxed. "Also I've got some great you-know." She always said that, as if someone listening in wouldn't know what she was talking about. "Also, we can you know."
Dodee knew what that you-know was too, and she felt a little tingle Down There (in her you-know), even though that was also kid-stuff, and they should have left it behind long ago.
[...]
"But I don't you-know anymore. Either you-know." (pgs 106 and 107)
To be fair, that could be showing the ignorance of the character and the situation they're both in. But adding to that is the fact that one of them seeks comfort from tragedy with another friend and puts it this way:
Besides, it was Angie that she wanted. Angie who would hug her tight with no interest in the you-know. Angie who was her best friend. (pg 109)
I mean, I guess you could make a point that having a friend with whom you don't have a complicated sexual relationship is a bonus but it kinda a bit suspicious like her friend is "convincing" her to have sex (the old predatory stereotype). Given that this friend is called a "dyke" repeatedly (slurs abound in this book from all angles) by other characters (and is shown to be fantasizing about her friend), it's... well, questionable, like I said. I've also said the representation you choose to show says a lot and this again is not a small cast of characters. With some fine-tuning (and the addition of literally ANY other queer characters), this could work for the book's themes of abuse of power (marginalized people feel compelled to hide and are further marginalized by corrupt authority) but as is, it needs work.
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What impressed her initially was how uneven the sexual division was: eight females and only four males. And of the four males, one was past retirement age and two weren't old enough to get into an R-rated movie by themselves. She had to remind herself that a hundred guerrilla armies in various parts of the world had put guns in the hands of women and kids no older than these here tonight. (pg 806)
Is this is "women-shouldn't-be-in-combat" thing? Because that character is literally comparing adult women to children in combat.
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"I didn't."
It came out sounding like an exotic special on a Chinese menu. Junior's face was a wreck. (pg 875)
Comparing garbled speech from someone with a not-very-functional brain (he is suffering from a brain tumor) to the Chinese language is racist and shitty, Mr. King. Please don't do it. Also that makes absolutely no sense?
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She remembered a night when her father had forbidden her to go out to Skate Scene at the mall because she'd said something smart to her mother (as a teenager, Piper Libby had been an absolute font of smart things to say). She had gone upstairs, called the friend she had expected to meet, and told that friend-- in a perfectly pleasant, perfectly even voice-- that something had come up and she wouldn't be able to meet her after all. Next weekend? For sure, uh-huh, you bet, have a good time, no, I'm fine, b'bye. Then she had trashed her room. She finished by yanking her beloved Oasis poster off the wall and tearing it up. (pg 385)
If Piper Libby is forty-five in either 2009 or 2017, she couldn't have had an Oasis poster hanging up in her room as a teenager, as the band wasn't even formed until 1991, didn't reach success until 1994, and didn't reach the States until at least 1995 (this is before widespread Internet use, remember). I found this out with a cursory look at Wikipedia. So either this story was set far, far in the future (I really doubt that it was even set in 2017, honestly, based on the fan theory) which would require us staying longer in Iraq (and also Afghanistan) to justify some comments and the main character's service, or Stephen King just threw that off with the intention of checking it later. Seriously, it would've been so much easier to change that to an era-appropriate band.
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Georgia grabbed a bunch of Sammy's paperbacks off the top shelf of the bookcase and looked through them. "Nora Roberts? Sandra Brown? Stephanie Meyer? You read this stuff? Don't you know fuckin [sic] Harry Potter rules?" (pg 282)
This is a really interesting choice for a number of reasons. Number one, this is a character (Georgia) who is about to (mild spoilers) help brutalize another character (Sammy) and is generally one of the incompetent/corrupt/bully-villains (not to be confused with the evil/corrupt/bully-villains masquerading as Good Christian Leaders, who RULE the incompetent/corrupt/bully-villains).
King has taken swipes at Stephanie Meyer in the past and praised JK Rowling's Harry Potter franchise, although notably in recent years he has split with her (in a little too "both-sides-y" of way, really-- honestly, you can like her work and your previous report with her but goddamn, certain marginalized people being treated like human beings isn't a matter of personal opinions like it's the best flavor of ice cream, Mr King-- but still) on her deeply bigoted and hateful false claims about trans women. So it's kind of interesting here to have one of the bullies share at least some of King's own literary views at the time.
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At times, the writing (told in the third person, mostly) can be incredibly uneven and like King himself isn't sure what he means/wants.
Let us go then, you and I, while the evening spreads out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. (pg 801)
Cool allusion to T.S. Eliot, but kind of weird and out of place here, and like you're getting bored and trying something new.
sometimes watching shows like The Hunted Ones (a clever sequel to Lost) (pg 694)
This came across weirdly in text, and totally out of place (it's not entirely clear if it's the character finding the show clever or the narrator dropping TV show recommendations) and I looked it up and apparently it's completely fictional, as Lost has no sequels. So apparently King is a fan and wants a sequel? I can understand such a sentiment (imagining a continuation of a now-cancelled favorite show) but the phrasing could be a lot less awkward, like maybe
"She enjoyed shows like The Hunted Ones which she never thought she'd like because no sequel to Lost could be as good as the original, but this was so clever."
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Speaking of King referencing other media, there are some somewhat too winking references to his other work, although it's not as insufferable as 11/22/63's references.
I realize when you're an author that has a place pop culture like King's, it's going to be incredibly hard not to somehow reference your own work (in the short story "The Library Policeman", a stern librarian informs the protagonist that the library doesn't contain certain "offensive" material, among them work by Stephen King) especially if a story spawns from another story (or setting) you've written. Referencing his own work is a Kingism.
But these are kind of annoying. I get to some other longtime readers they'll be seen as enjoyable Easter eggs, but I just tend to find myself rolling my eyes.
And how did you secure a perimeter at night? Why, by posting sentries and lighting the dead zone, of course.
Dead zone. He didn't like the sound of that. (pg 91)
Another [online theory] was that [the Dome] was an experiment that had gone wrong and out of control ("Exactly like in that movie The Mist," one blogger wrote). (pg 179)
Before these last few days, Carolyn would have said she had no interest in having children, that what she wanted was a career as a teacher and a writer. Maybe a novelist, although it seemed to her that writing novels was pretty risky; what if you spent all that time, wrote a thousand-pager, and it sucked? (pg 850)
That last one isn't a direct reference to his work, but the line isn't exactly in keeping with the rest of the character as presented and the "thousand pager" in a book literally over a thousand pages gets an eye-roll, especially at the winking "it sucked" line. ENOUGH!
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"Are you talking about radiation, Colonel?" someone called.
Cox froze him with a glance, and when he seemed to consider the reporter properly chastised (not Wolfie, Rose was pleased to see, but that half-bald no-spin yapper from FOX News), he went on. (pg 762)
Real life media personalities and politicians dot the landscape of Under the Dome and the main diner's protagonist has a crush on Wolf Blitzer but clearly has disdain for an obvious FOX "News" personality (who, by virtue of co-author, has shared several "bestseller" lists with King) though I can't really see that person calling out questions like this but can quite vividly imagine undermining said news footage on his show (if he still had one).
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Then Samantha Bushey had called to say she'd gotten some new Bratz on eBay and to ask if Dodee wanted to come over and help torture them. Bratz torture was something they'd gotten into in high school-- buy them at yard sales, and hang them, pound nails into their stupid little heads, douse them with lighter fluid and set them on fire [...]
"Yasmin awaits," Sammy said. "And you know you hate dat bitch."
Well, that was true. Yasmin was the bitchiest of the Bratz, in Dodee's opinion. (pgs 106 and 107)
Sorry, Mattel! Had this been published thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, or even nine years earlier, those dolls they're torturing would inevitably be Barbie dolls, as torturing Barbie dolls has existed since Barbie dolls have existed, and I actually haven't heard of anyone torturing Bratz dolls (encouraging people to make annoying repaints of them, on the other hand, that have uncomfortable social and racial connotations...) and Bratz dolls have giant heads.
But kudos to King for at least trying, and reading the Bratz Wikipedia article.
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In "LINES THAT TELL YOU IT'S 2009":
[H]e'd wanted an Apple TV gadget since they'd come on the market some years earlier. [...]
The idea that he could download movies from the Net, then watch them on TV instead of being chained to the smaller screen of his computer, tickled him to death. (pg 734)
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In "LINES THAT HIT DIFFERENTLY IN 2021":
"I'm surprised to find you Force Recon boys stateside," he said, walking a little closer. "That little Afghanistan problem over, is it?" (pg 145)
"Did you really think this would work?" Barbie asked.
"No, but I didn't think I'd ever live to see a man on Mars, either, but the Russians say they're going to send a crew of four in 2020." (pg 440)
He had already started drafting a list of executive orders, which he would begin putting into effect as soon as he was granted full executive powers. (pg 832)
WARNING!
FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY!
KEEP 2 YARDS (6 FEET) FROM THE DOME! (pg 845)
"But who elected him?" Julia asked. "Who gave him the power to do those things?"
"Not you. Your newspaper campaigned against him. Or am I wrong?"
"You're right, she said. "but only about the last eight years or so. At first [her newspaper] the Democrat-- me, in other words-- thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. By the time I found out what he really was, he was entrenched. And he had poor smiling stupid Andy Sanders out front to run interference for him. (pg 1011)
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Lastly, in King's acknowledgments, he leaves this curious passage:
Nan Graham edited the book down form the original dinosaur to a beast of slightly more manageable size; every page of the manuscript was marked with her changes. I owe her a great debt of thanks for all the mornings when she got up at six AM and took her pencil in her hand. I wanted to write a book that would keep the pedal consistently to the metal. Nan understood that, and whenever I weakened, she jammed her foot down on top of mine and yelled (in the margins, as editors are wont to do) "Faster, Steve! Faster!" (pg 1074)
In his thanks to his editor in the puffy Licey's Story where he mentions the fact if readers have ever wondered if he even had an editor and/or complained how much he needs an editor, they should see the story before it had an editor.
You really, really wonder what these books would look like without being edited.
But even more, you wonder what they'd look like with even more editing. I'm not casting any aspersions and King is long past the point of his career where he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, but I wonder if there isn't a push and expectation to churn out the next franchise (and I said franchise, not book) as quickly as possible when they'd seriously benefit from further polishing, particularly for the amount of attention they garner.
Final Grade: C+
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