Just some notes on time travel, since it is part of the core of 11/22/63. A lot of this has to do with how King writes and structures a novel.
Not A Big Leap
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.
How Doesn't Matter
King doesn't worry a lot about how things work, he's tracking with characters. So it really doesn't mater how the Dome appears, or how the space ship in Tommyknockers really works, or how the car operates in Buick 8. How exactly did cell phones ringing result in being turned into a zombie? Not clear on that one! And how does an ancient burial ground bring back the dead? Doesn't matter. The vehicle for King stories are never as important as the plot and characters. They don't drive the story, they simply accommodate necessary transportation.
I like King's approach. King also avoids the "why" question! Why is there a time portal here? Well, at least the early side of this book doesn't worry about that. The story just plunges forward!
By cutting out the "why" "when" and "how" questions, King is given the freedom to explain the ground rules for the time portal without getting too detailed. "But why does it work that way?" can't really be asked, since the answer is: Who knows!
And the tricky little gotcha in this time travel scenario: Everything resets on every re-entery. "Why is there a reset?" Well, that can't be explained! Don't worry about it, because we don't need to deal with how's and why's. King don't boar us with details about how it can be, he just says, "Go with it, okay. This'll be fun." I think people who get stuck on details find King difficult to read for this very reason.
My friend Bryant Burnette put it this way:
"If you stop and look at his bibliography, King has written a large amount of books and stories that can be considered to be sci-fi, but he's never worried too much about making his narratives be about the science more than the fiction. Instead, he comes up with scenarios that are just plausible enough that you figure they COULD have a scientific rationale. By focusing on characters who, themselves, don't know anything about how the science works -- Carrie White's telekinetic abilities are obviously scientific in nature, but she is in no position to tell us much about them -- King deftly avoids the need to craft hard sci-fi." (His blog is HERE)Teacher, I Have A Question
Now there is a question that comes to mind. Remember, though, I'm writing as I read -- so many of you have answers I don't! But a question the characters have not considered thus far is, why is THAT date important? They have to wait several years to come to the Kennedy assassination. Why does the rabbit hole go to that date. Is there something they are supposed to do?
Don't forget Doctor Who and his trusty TARDIS! And, of course, Quantum Leap...
ReplyDeleteI think you're totally right about the way King uses science fictional elements as MacGuffins. If you stop and look at his bibliography, King has written a large amount of books and stories that can be considered to be sci-fi, but he's never worried too much about making his narratives be about the science more than the fiction. Instead, he comes up with scenarios that are just plausible enough that you figure they COULD have a scientific rationale. By focusing on characters who, themselves, don't know anything about how the science works -- Carrie White's telekinetic abilities are obviously scientific in nature, but she is in no position to tell us much about them -- King deftly avoids the need to craft hard sci-fi.
Well said, I'm putting that in my article. . .
ReplyDeletedavid
An even deeper question this article raises is what is it that really propels any story? From the Time Machine, to Huck Finn or Hamlet, what kind of engine could it be that makes people turn the page and then come back again and again once the book is finished?
ReplyDeleteNow there's a real question.
Even though I think it was more a rhetorical question that anything else, I'll take a stab at answering that question.
ReplyDeleteThe engine that propels storytelling is identification. We have lots of ways of saying that we enjoyed a story: we say that it engaged us, or that the book was a page-turner, or that the movie sucked us in, or that the speaker at the podium had real presence. What we mean when we say those things -- this i what I think, at least -- is that we've been communicated with effectively. Effective communication is all about doing two things simultaneously: the person (or people) doing the speaking revealing something about themselves, and the person doing the listening learning both something about the speaker AND about themselves.
For the listener/reader/watcher, that cannot happen without identification. I just finished catching up on my television-watching: I watched yesterday's episodes of Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, Homeland, Hell on Wheels, and The Walking Dead. I enjoyed all of them to one extent or another, and it was partially because they're all well-made shows on a technical level ... but moreso than that, it was because each show is able to successfully permit me to explore what an extremely different version of my own life could be like.
Does that mean that I want to be a serial killer, or a CIA agent, or the survivor of a massive plague of zombie-ism, or a '20s gangster, or a vengeful ex-soldier in the Old West? Absolutely not. No; but in watching those shows, I see a fictional version of what life COULD be like. In a way, that process helps me define what my actual life is like.
When we say that we couldn't get into a book, or that a movie was boring, I think that what we really mean is simply that we didn't identify with it.
Now, for those of us engaged in this specific conversation, we obviously feel very positively about the degree to which we can identify with the works of Stephen King. We don't have to be telekinetic teenage girls to identify with Carrie White; we don't have to be trapped inside a Pinto, menaced by a rabid St. Bernard, to identify with Donna Trenton; we don't have to stroll an alien desert in search of a powerful, magical adversary to identify with Roland Deschain; etc. If Stephen King does his communicating effectively, and if we are receptive to what he's saying, then we'll find ourselves enchanted by his story.
Sometimes, if the communication is strong enough we can become engaged by something we're not at all interested in; and, sometimes, if our interest level is strong enough going in, the artistry of the communication can be relatively weak and yet still end up engaging lots of people. (I'm thinking about "Twilight" in the case of that latter example, by the way...)
Ultimately, though, it's all about identification; no story runs without it.
The idea that identification is at the back of a good story does have a ring of truth to it.
ReplyDeleteIf identification is part of what drives a story, then I'd have to say it's identification with archetypes. The funny thing is how old so many archetypes are and yet you can still get a lot of good mileage out of them.
Incidentally, the next time you're ever inclined to think of Roland as "One of the Guys, remember that human jaw bone he keeps in his pocket."