Wayne C. Rogers has a very nice review of 11.22.63 titled, “Stephen King’s, 11.22.63., his best in a decade.” (HERE)
Rogers opens by saying that “Until I finished Stephen King’s newest novel, “11/22/63,” I’d only cried at the end of three of his books.” He recounts the tears flowing during The Stand, The Dead Zone and The Green Mile.
Rogers suggests that the real strength in King’s writing is the characters. I totally agree! 11.22.63 is not an action novel – nor is it really an alternate history novel – nor is it science fiction (sci-fi for those of you who remember how to abbreviate that correctly) – the novel is completely character driven! And that, my friends, is the real joy of a Stephen King novel. It breaks all genre, because he doesn’t write to genre, he write about people!
Even if you spent a lot of the novel yelling at Jake, “you’re an idiot!”, you still care about him. Often characters in a novel can come across very cardboard. I like John Gresham novels, but can’t say I ever really cared deeply about anyone in the novel! Those puppies are totally plot driven, and the ride is awesome. But in the end, I don’t feel a deep connection to the people I met in the book.
With Stephen King, I feel like I’ve met these people. What’s more, characters in his book remind me of people I know (good and bad). Anyone met Mother Abigail? I have! How about Lloyd? Or how about Herold? We have all met someone who might remind us of Jack in The Shining. Worse when we discover a bit of Jack in us! If you ever have to deal with small government and the men who like being big fish in a small pond, then you’ve met Big Jim! What made Carrie so powerful was that we all knew a Carrie in High School. For some of us, we had moments when we felt just like Carrie! Other moments we look back with regret on because we behaved like those who made life miserable for Carrie. Sure, rocks didn’t fall from the sky, and the high school did not burn on prom night! A plague did not sweep America, a Dome did not lock my city in – but it’s the characters identify with. The crazy become believable when you add people you know.
Meditating on what Rogers said, I am quite curious. Do any of you actually cry when you read Stephen King? I like these characters a lot, but I’ve never ever cried reading a book. Never. And I think I’m a pretty compassionate guy. But I don’t cry for people I know aren’t real! I’ve shouted “YES!” before. I got pretty excited when the finger of God reached down from heaven and nuked the bad guys. That was sweet stuff! When Christine took out revenge on the bad boys, that was well worth the price of admission. And 11.22.63 has some definite yes moments. But tears? Am I the only one keeping the pages of my Stephen King novels nice and dry? Really? REALLY!
I did not cry when. . .
The kid in Cujo died
The kid in Pet Sematary died
The kid in The Gunslinger died
The kid in IT died
. . . wow, it’s bad to be a kid in this guys novels!
I did not cry in the Green Mile, The Shining, The Dead Zone, or IT.
Now, two questions:
1. What scenes has King gotten you to cry during? Come on, surely he’s squeezed some tears out of some of you!
2. What characters do you feel like you’ve met?
I cried at the end of "Insomnia" (the first time a novel had ever gotten that reaction from me) and on two or three occasions during Book VII of "The Dark Tower."
ReplyDeleteI was just holding on for dear life in dark tower! I kept asking, "what's happening?" It is definately a series that requires multiple reads.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of sounding callus, which I'm not, not one of King's books has ever brought a tear to my eye. I'm not what you'd call a crying man, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteThat said, near the end of 11/22/63 as events played out in Dealey Plaza on my first read, my mind kept fretting over Sadie and wondering how it was all going to go down. I saw Jake taking the stairs and Sadie the elevator only to have it crash with her in it.
Also, when it got to what became of Oswald, I was nodding my head grimly and thinking that's right.
Obvious spoiler...
ReplyDeleteI cried when Wolf died in "The Talisman." There is still a tear stain on that page of my book.
And then I cried a LOT when I read the last page of the last "Dark Tower" book, but not because I didn't like it. I actually loved the way he ended it. I cried because at that time, we thought he was maybe retiring, and I was grief-stricken that I might never read another new book/story from him.