Salem's Lot Journal #3

I will assume you already know. . . this is a great book!  I've said that, right?  Right.  Okay, then.  But, just so you know: THIS IS A GREAT BOOK!

I really like the way King writes.  He talks directly to the reader throughout most of the book.  It is a style that I've heard was a writing "no-no."  In fact, writers are told to "show" not "tell."  But King takes great delight in telling the reader.  Why bother with pages of detailed example when he could just explain something outright.

A good example of this is chapter 10, The Lot III.

Present Tense:

The chapter opens with, "The town knew about darkness."  Now, that is one fantastic opening line, right?

I like the way that the writing moves to the present tense in the description of the town.  Note this line, "The land is granite-bodied and covered with a thin, easily ruptured skin of topsoil."

This passage answers a rather complicated writing question.  (This is stupid, so hold on to ya britches).  Question: Can I speak in the present tense about things that will later be destroyed or killed in the book?  Can I speak in the present tense about a character who is about to die. . . since in my "present" reality, that character would already be dead.  If you can't track with that line of thinking, it's okay, everyone can't be as smart as I am.

A Dark Steinbeck:

The present tense description of the town, all the way to it's soil, reminds me of John Steinbeck's wonderful novel, The Grapes Of Wrath.  Really, King is giving us a dark Grapes of Wrath.  Only, it's not the banking sucking the town dry, it's vampires.  Either way, the town is left desolate, broken and empty.

Get these lines, only imagine they were written by Steinbeck about the 1930's instead of by King about the1979's: "The bank has you, and the car dealership, and the Sears store in Lewiston, and John Deere in Brunswick.  But most of all the town has you because you know it the way you know the shape of your wife's breast."

The Death of A Child:

I find King's discussion of Tony and Marjorie Glick's dealing with the death of their son incredible.  It smacks of realness as King describes Margei's compulsion to clean.  Then, right when King has us identifying with this lady, he goes and gets the monster out of the cellar.  Out comes the dead kid to visit his mama, and suck at her breast.  Only. . . the kid is now a vamp!  Now that is messed up!

"I've had the most lovely dream the last three or four nights, Tony.  So real.  Danny comes to me int he dream.  he says, 'Mommy, Mommy, I'm so glad to be home!  and he says. . . says. . . he says. . . that he's my baby again.  My own son, at my breast again.  And I give him to suck and. . . and then a feeling of sweetness with an undertone  of bitterness, so much like it was before he was weaned but after he was beginning to get teeth and he would nip -- oh, this must sound awful."

Interesting:

King's sense of humor shines in this novel.  Get this line from Ben: "Make the connections.  the world is coming down around our ears and you're sticking at a few vampires."

There are references that do not necessarily slap the 2012 generation the way they would have when the book was first published.  References to Hiroshima are actually lost, because we live in an age when we accept nukes at a different level than people did in the 1970's.  Also, King's references to Ellery Queen a quickly overlooked by the current generation.

I also enjoyed King's discussion of the part of town few tourist ever see.  King has the ability to not only scratch under the surface of a small town, but to give you the guided tour of places you never even considered.  How about a trip to the dump?  Or a shack?  Anyone. . . Anyone. . .