Fifty years ago today president John Kennedy was murdered. I wasn't alive. In fact, I wasn't even close to being alive. The world of John F. Kennedy has always felt very far from me. A world where men had not walked on the moon; a world where schools were segregated and churches were bombed. I don't know that world.
Stephen King's novel 11.22.63 does what no history book can do -- it takes the reader on a wild ride back into the early 1960's. We do not arrive in the past as historians, but on the trail of a story. Following fictional characters through very real events is an amazing way to tell a story and bring history to life. I loved it! Of course, this has been done many times before, but the skilled storytelling from Mr. King is what makes the time travel so real. I feel like I have indeed been to that era.
Here are some of my notes from my journal as I read 11.22.63
THE TIME MACHINE:
11/22/63 requires a simple leap that isn't very hard for 21st century readers -- time travel is possible. We've had entire series of novels built on the time travel theory. Because it is already an established storyline in our culture, King doesn't have to spend forever convincing of the concept. However, King does some creative rule bending to make his story work -- namely the idea of "re-setting."
A few ways we've gone back in time:
--H.G. Wells novel, "The Time Machine" used a machine.
--Back To The Future, a Delorean.
--Star Trek flew real fast around the sun. (Star Trek 4) Actually, Star Trek often popped through time without a lot of concern for the method used.
--Superman flew real fast around the earth.
--The Gunslinger went through doors.
--In The Time Travelers Wife the traveler manipulated time himself (we think. . .) Of course, the rules of that game involved appearing naked in whatever time he found himself! Glad Jack doesn't have to deal with that little nuance.
Something outside the characters created a time portal. It's not a machine carefully constructed by mad scientist; it's simply a rabbit hole of some kind.
By not building a time machine, King (brilliantly) fixes several problems. For one thing, the novel doesn't need to focus on "where will we go?" The answer is already determined. The question to be dealt with is instead, "What shall we do when we get there?" Also, by not constructing a time machine, King avoids the critical question, "Wow, a time machine -- how's that puppy work?" Doesn't matter how it works! Don't know. It is, what Hitchcock would call a kind of "mcGuffin", existing only to propel the plot.
TIME IS ALIVE
King plows new ground in 11.22.63 with the concept of time itself being obdurate.
What if time wasn't a thing, like a block of wood or even a machine -- what if it was alive? What if time was insulted when people tried to change it? And, the biggie -- what if it could fight back? What if the time line itself was able to protect itself against time-travelers.
Examine this quote, and notice how the past is indeed alive:
"Because the past is sly as well as obdurate. It fights back. And yes, maybe there was an element of greed involved, too."King also writes,
"The past is obdurate for the same reason a turtle’s shell is obdurate: because the living flesh inside is tender and defenseless." (p. 827) Time protects the people within its shell.
Sadie picks up on the theme and tries to relate to it but she uses the wrong word–malelevolent--instead of obdurate. She hasn't experienced the obdurates of the past the way Jake has! It has beat him to a pulp!
The addition of time having will is something I suspect future writers will pick up on.
Genre:
11.22.63 is a genre buster. It is not alternate history! King spends very little ink discussing the real heart of "what if." So what is it?
The scenes after the assassination attempt reminded me of a John Grisham novel as the FBI sneaks George out of Dallas. I enjoyed it, as it is the kind of stuff that King doesn't usually engage in. Big government agents with their own agenda's out-smarted at points by the ordinary guy.
But 11.22.63 is not a legal thriller. It may smack at moments of John Grisham; but it's not Grisham! It's not alternate history. It's really not sci-fi. So what is it? Well, maybe goolosh. That stuff mom made when she had to clean out the fridges -- little bit of everything. Maybe a better way to say it is that it transcends genre, and good novels do that, don't they?
As I traveled through the last pages, I realized what this book was. It swept over me in a wave, and I almost cried out, "OH!" It was both painful, and obvious. This sucker is romance! I'm reading a romance novel! King isn't interested in time travel, he's interested in characters! He's not even that interested in the alternate history -- he is laser focused on those people in the book.
Love is such a messy thing, and gets in the way of good science fiction. It certainly does in 11.22.63. I like the love story quite a bit. That said, I wanted more alternate history. The love story isn't sappy; this ain't Danielle Steel! It is engaging because it occurs while you are focused on other things -- and that's the way love is, it happens while other things are going on. You're supposed to be focused don college classes, graduating, and some girl comes along and -- whoa baby! How many missions have been messed up by love?
Time Travel Tricks?
We never really get to learn what the world would be like if Kennedy had not been shot. Why is that? Because the science fiction gets in the way. Yes, the world is changed by Kennedy's escaping assassination, but the future is also changed by other things George does. So we don't get a "pure" look at the world. More than that, things are being ripped apart by time travel itself. I did not see how saving Kennedy would cause a giant earthquake. The logic escapes me, captain Kirk.
Seriously, now -- which changes history more, 1. JFK escaping death , 2. An earthquake that kills thousands ? I would say the earthquake! Thus the alternate history is affected more by the events in California than by anything in Dallas or Washington.
In regards to the alternate history, I really struggled to accept some of the main ideas. For instance, I think King gives Johnson far too much credit for the Civil rights movement. I also do not see how Kennedy's living changes anything with Martin Luther King. (?) It seems that the civil rights movement had a voice so loud that any American president would eventually be pressed to join in.
Also, would an American president really use nukes? I know that's what LBJ warned about. . . but do we want to believe the press offered up in a political ad? The further away from Kennedy that King got, the more unbelievable I found things.
He creates mega changes to the flow of history, but then keeps smaller flukes. He asks us to take a world where there are incredible racial tensions, hate meetings. . . but Hillary is president. And who calls their meetings "hate" meetings? Starting to feel like Orwell's 1984 here. It felt like King just wanted to make Hillary president, so no matter what flow of history he went with, that was the end in sight.
Question Never Answered:
Why does the rabbit hole go to that date. Is there something they are supposed to do?
The funny thing is, I was never around in the 50s or 60s either, and yet in a way I kind of grew up in the detritus of those eras.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I mean. I got here in 84, just as Stand By Me hit theaters, which means I was also able, much later, to take in SBM along with Back to the Future and a Richie Valens Biopic, La Bamba.
The thing about those films is, I could never tell they were set in a different era back when I was a kid, because the world I saw on the screen and the one I saw outside my own house looked pretty much the same.
It also might have helped that my grandparents house still looked like it did in, say, 68. And my Grand-dad was a voracious PBS watcher, which meant I would see documentaries and variety shows dating from the Johnson administration, so in a way I have this kind of second hand familiarity with those times that i'm not sure many kids my age got at the time.
ChrisC
I look at the time travel bit in the basic way. If every action has a consequence then there’s an infinite amount of outcomes. I had no problem accepting that every possible thing Jake did in King’s story, brought about the events exactly as they were narrated. I think whenever time travel’s involved, no matter the author, there are always a lot of assumptions being made.
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