Chapter 26 of The Stand has a great section made up completely of transcripts. It reminds me of the radio version of War of the Worlds. When the martians start attacking, everything is described by the news broadcaster for an audience who can't see the events. King does a similar thing with an attack by the army on college students -- not describing the event himself as narrator, but by giving transcripts of police radios.
By the way, both scenes have a character named Philips. (That means nothing -- but is interesting.)
So compare these scenes, noting how the dialogue is used to describe the action.
THE STAND:
“Base to unit 13! What’s going on out there? What’s happening?”
“This is Chumm, Dick. I’ll tell you what’s happening out here. It’s a slaughter. I wish I was blind. Oh, the . . . ! They ... ah, they’re mowing those kids down. With machine-guns, it looks like. As far as I can tell, there wasn’t even any warning. The kids that are still on their feet ... ah, they are breaking up ... running to all points of the compass. . . . I just saw a girl cut in half by gunfire! Blood ... there must be seventy, eighty kids lying out there on the grass. They—”
“Chumm! Come in! Come in, unit 12!”
“Base, this is unit 17. Do you copy? Over.”War of the Worlds:
PHILLIPS: Ladies and gentlemen (Am I on?). Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, back of a stone wall that adjoins Mr. Wilmuth's garden. From here I get a sweep of the whole scene. I'll give you every detail as long as I can talk. As long as I can see. More state police have arrived They're drawing up a cordon in front of the pit, about thirty of them. No need to push the crowd back now. They're willing to keep their distance. The captain is conferring with someone. We can't quite see who. Oh yes, I believe it's Professor Pierson. Yes, it is. Now they've parted. The Professor moves around one side, studying the object, while the captain and two policemen advance with something in their hands. I can see it now. It's a white handkerchief tied to a pole . . . a flag of truce. If those creatures know what that means . . . what anything means!. . . Wait! Something's happening!
(HISSING SOUND FOLLOWED BY A HUMMING THAT INCREASES IN INTENSITY)
PHILLIPS: A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they're turning into flame!
(SCREAMS AND UNEARTHLY SHRIEKS)
PHILLIPS: Now the whole field's caught fire. (EXPLOSION) The woods . . . the barns . . . the gas tanks of automobiles . . . it's spreading everywhere. It's coming this way. About twenty yards to my right . . .
(CRASH OF MICROPHONE ... THEN DEAD SILENCE)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue the broadcast from Grovers Mill. Evidently there's some difficulty with our field transmission. However, we will return to that point at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime, we have a late bulletin from San Diego, California. Professor Indellkoffer, speaking at a dinner of the California Astronomical Society, expressed the opinion that the explosions on Mars are undoubtedly nothing more than severe volcanic disturbances on the surface of the planet. We now continue with our piano interlude.The wasted landscape in The Stand is also reminiscent of Orson Well's version of War of the Worlds. When the cities begin to burn and people start traveling across a broken America, it reminds me of the America presented in The War Of The Worlds. (The radio version -- the book took place in England.) The original movie version did not capture the bigness of the events. The later version, with Tom Cruise, was just. . .
Of course, germs play an important role in both stories. In War of the World's, germs clears the landscape of Martians. In The Stand germs clear the landscape of people.
Discussing the President's planned address to the nation, a newspaper notes:
Advance copies of the President’s speech indicate that he will “spank” the American people for overreacting, and compare the current panic to that which followed Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast in the early 30sFinally, as Trashcanman sets fire to the landscape,
The entire eastern arc of the horizon danced with fire. It reminded him of a Classic funnybook he had owned as a child, an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. Now, years later, the boy who had owned that funnybook was gone, but the Trashcan Man was here, and Trash owned the wonderful, terrible secret of the Martians’ deathray. (The Stand, p.590-591.)
"The original (War of the Worlds) movie version did not capture the bigness of the events. The later version, with Tom Cruise, was just. . ."
ReplyDeleteActually, I thought the Spielberg "Wars" was pretty much okay, not the greatest in the world, but not bad either. I probably helps is you've studied Spielberg's films enough to see that for the most part they are all of a piece, a kind slovenly autobiography is how I think of it.
You know, Chris Hitchens once wrote a book called "Letters to a young Contrarian." You could probably do something with half of these blog posts and make a book of it, Reverend, heh, heh.
Still, on a thematic level what King does with the Wells allusions is put me in mind of Bradbury's Martian chronicles. That seems to imply that our standards of living have made modern man something of an exile in his own home, an intriguing idea that might be amplified in The Stand in the form of exiles getting kicked out of their own home, or maybe having to rediscover what the nature of home is.
ChrisC
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI said nothing about the Spielberg wars -- the one where we spent 2 hours listening to Fanning scream her lungs out. . . that one. And seriously, the spaceships came up from the earth because they've always been among us. How dumb is that. They hid their spaceships undert he cities years ago, waiting for us to just get advanced enough to have fun destroying us. Just brilliant.
I really like your note on Martian Chronicles.
No books from the blog thus far.