Remembering Under The Dome

Tonight CBS premiers the Summer mini-series UNDER THE DOME.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I loved the book!

Of course, up to this point, all I know about Under The Dome comes from the book.  The images in my mind are formed and built on King's words.  But after I watch the first episode of Under The Dome, everything is going to change.  No longer will my only viewpoint of this story come from Stephen King.  There will now be visual images, new story lines, characters will come to life in a new way.  All of that is good.  I also know that in some ways watching a visual adaptation of a book causes you to forever change your understanding of that book.  So, in some ways, I'm saying good bye today to Under The Dome as I've known it thus far.  (Don't laugh at me, I know this is corny)

A reader builds a special bond with a writer.  Words have the power to move directly from his typewriter where he builds each scene, enacts each sound effect, summons each character -- to my page where I see it all come to life in the theater of the mind.  No middle man needed.  Even though he sells millions of books, each time I read the words it's as if it's just me and Mr. King sitting in a room as he tells me a story.

Under The Dome is a novel that I remember enjoying quite a lot -- but I don't remember a lot of it!  I do not recall each plot turn with the detail I did The Stand.  Probably good, since it will give me some freedom watching the movie.  Has a movie ever irritated you as you watched it because it was making giant turns the book didn't?  What sticks deeply with me is early scenes of the Dome coming down.

Let's have some fun!  I went through some of my Under The Dome Journal entries and collected some of my favorite notes from the novel.

NOTES FROM UNDER THE DOME JOURNAL:

• Two guys walking along, one inside the Dome, one outside the Dome. Nice!
• Wow. This book really, really moves. Chopped off hands, dead people, car wrecks. All good stuff. 

In Their Heads

From Dome Journal #3: I'm freaked out by how King can take me inside Juniors head. I don't like it. I don't want to understand him. But that's what makes King such a good writer. I do identify. I liked the part where he woke up and hoped it was all a dream. I've had bad events in life where I woke up and thought -- ahhh! So it wasn't a dream?!

Can You Lick The Dome?

From Dome Journal #6: . . .It seems that little attention is given to the dome itself. Wouldn't little kids try to climb it? Anyone poked it -- with something other than a cruise missile? Licked it? that only comes to mind because it's Christmas time and I just saw that movie where the kid licks the pole and his tongue sticks. I wonder what would happen if you stuck your tongue to that Dome. . .! Get a shock probably.

From Dome Journal #5: The image of people washing the Dome was wonderful! If only we could do that on planet earth. I have this mental picture of those planes that drop water on fires coming over the dome and dropping water on it so they can see exactly where it's at.

Narrative Coolness!

From Dome Journal #7: One of the things I really like is King's easy, conversational narration. In fact, I find myself saying: "Oh, I didn't know you could do that!"

For instance, the main paragraph on page 474 is wonderful. Notice how King is acting like a tour guide. He suddenly moves to present active tense and speaks directly to the reader. It is as if the constant reader has been transported inside the Dome and is sitting a-top the store roof with Mr. King as he points out what's going on.

• "There is a pause, a moment of in-drawn breath. think of a cat teetering on two wheels, deciding whether or not to go over."
• "See Rose Twitchell looking around..."
• "See Anson put his arm around her waist."
• "Listen to George Roux howl through her hanging mouth..." (yuck)
• "See the reinforcements."
• "Next comes Linda Everett.."
• "See Julia arrive just behind Linda and Marty..."
• "See frank DeLesseps kneel down beside Mel just in time to avoid another rock..."
• "Then... then someone yells. . ."

This is all stuff your English teacher will tell you not to do. But it's stuff readers love! Now, it's annoying when a writer stays in that mode for an entire novel. King doesn't even stay there for one whole page. But when he uses this narrative style, it is very powerful.

THE CANNIBALS:

From Dome Journal #1: Having read the first 120 pages of the Cannibals, I can honestly say that this version is much, much stronger. In the Cannibals people simply spent their time trying to open the door. Interesting, but not superly superly interesting. But the dome coming over an entire town opens the story up. The problems here are going to be much bigger than doors that won't open.

King doesn't take the long build up he did with Needful Things and other books. The action is immediate. The payoff's start coming quickly.

From 2009 Review of The Cannibals: talkstephenking.blogspot: The mystery revolves mostly around doors not opening. I'm sure this is explained much uller in the rest of the text. I only caught one reference to what was happening outside. "Daylight was starting to come out there, but Pulaski could not remember ever having seen a daylight quite like this one -- thin, watery, almost wavery. For a moment he was struck by unreality, by a sense that somehow his eyes were deceiving him. . ." p.42 Then we drop into a flashback.

King cut off on a pretty good line: "for the first time he felt something pierce his confusion and harried annoyance at being late. He found nothing welcome about the new emotion. It was fear." p.61 hehe -- that's good!

What's brutal is what a good read this is. There's a lot oo energy to it. Just straight story! King explains the apartment, moves to his character, speeds through a normal morning, and then slams the whole story into a great problem. No one can get out. I assume by the title that they won't be going to Vons anytime soon. Who gets eaten? Who does the eating? Gosh, my appetite is indeed wetted, Mr. King!

(Unfortunately, Under The Dome never caused the characters to become the Donner Party)

TSK: Under The Dome and Cannibals

Monsters On Maple Street

From Dome Journal #9: This book is starting to remind me of that Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters are due on Maple Street." One of the things I like about King's writing is that he develops themes we are familiar with in new ways. Some seem to see this as a weakness, I enjoy it very much. Besides, King has the ability to up the ante. And I always believe that King gets his ideas out of his own head -- he's not stealing from The Simpson's or Twilight Zone. Anyway, Serling only gave us a quick "what if. . ." while King gives us the full answer "this is what would happen!"

Perhaps even more pointedly, the book reminds me of Star Trek's "Charlie X." (Because in that episode, the Enterprise and crew and nothing more than an alien child's toys.)  The book has also been compared to an "adult version of Lord of the Flies." Appropriate, since it deals with how people change when there is not a larger body to enforce the rules. (Dome Notes)

QUESTIONS. . . 

• Does anyone notice that all of the pictures of UNDER the dome are from OUT of the dome? Why doesn't someone draw a picture of Under The Dome?  (Dome Journal #3)
• Note: The dome traces the exact border of the town. Leading to a question: Is the town a circle? Am I missing something?  (Dome Journal #4)
• I wonder if Julia Shumway is in anyway modeled after Anne Colter. (Dome Journal #4)
• So, what stops the dome from reappearing in another part of the U.S.?
• Is this Science Fiction or Horror?
• Can I buy one of those boxes somewhere? 
• Will the bad guys come to a better-bad end?  
• Did anyone do a body count?  (Anyone want to volunteer to keep the body count for the TV series ?)

TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE NOVEL UNDER THE DOME