# 11/22/63 - Stephen King Novel \[SPOILERS\]
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 1, 2011, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700 "2011-12-01T14:29:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/141 "2012-02-16T18:36:46Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> Jake’s weirdness is one of the things that bugged me. Though it was no doubt an artifact of King starting the book in 1972 and not finishing it for 40 years.
>
> He was born in 1976 and knows all the lyrics to a Rolling Stones song that was released when his parents were teenagers. And he regularly used “disco” slang, which is what twinged Sadie’s weird meter in the first place. That all makes sense if the “present” is 1972, but shouldn’t Jake be using early 90s slang and singing Pearl Jam?
>
> And how would he help Al? Al is four years old when Jake lands in the Land of Ago.
>
> ETA: About the date. I don’t think any American should be able to just _know_ what happened on 11/22/63 (that’s 18 years before my birth after all). But if someone leads with “It has something to do with the President,” Kennedy’s assassination should leap out at you.
You read a book about a guy who goes through a secret passageway in the back of a diner and comes out in 1958 and lives there for 5 yrs planning to stop the Kennedy assassination… and the part that is too much for your suspension of disbelief is that he was singing to himself the opening lines of a hit Rolling Stones song?
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/142 "2012-02-16T20:21:18Z")
> [@johnspartan](#):
>
> You read a book about a guy who goes through a secret passageway in the back of a diner and comes out in 1958 and lives there for 5 yrs planning to stop the Kennedy assassination… and the part that is too much for your suspension of disbelief is that he was singing to himself the opening lines of a hit Rolling Stones song?
It goes to characterization. The guy was born in 1976 and yet he talks like he was 22 in 1976, with the disco slang, the lack of references to anything any American actually born in 1976 would consider cultural touchstones (grunge, rap, MTV, etc.)
And the more I think about it, I was irritated by the “Jimla” word as well… what is it with King and the bizarre word(s) he has to repeat in his novels? It makes me so smucking mad.
Tak!
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/143 "2012-02-16T21:39:01Z")
Wolf!
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### Author:  [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/144 "2012-02-17T00:03:16Z")
M-O-O-N, that spells JimLa.
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### Author:  [@mundylion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mundylion)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/145 "2012-02-17T21:46:15Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> The book’s name is _It_. (And Who is on second.) It’s scary, though. For me, one of his scariest.
Thanks to this thread, I got IT from the library and really liked it. Creepiness abounds, yes, but I think I have found that it’s only the scary _movies_ that I can’t handle, the book was no problem at all.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/146 "2012-02-18T15:54:38Z")
About _It_.
The group child sex scene at the end of _It_ ruined the book for me. It felt gratuitous and pervy. I actually remember very little else about it, except that jarring, ugly passage.
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### Author:  [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/147 "2012-02-18T19:55:50Z")
> [@Eve](#):
>
> And drop the lame attempts at humor. His few jokes and wisecracks in this book thudded like “unfunny uncle at dinner party” humor.
Sweet Jeebus, ain’t that the truth! And I wish someone would run him over again if he ever tries to emulate African American dialog. I cringe in horror more at his black character’s dialog more than an army of shit weasels.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/148 "2012-03-18T23:29:17Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> And the more I think about it, I was irritated by the “Jimla” word as well… what is it with King and the bizarre word(s) he has to repeat in his novels? It makes me so smucking mad.
>
> Tak!
Dammit, halfway through the first page of this thread I decided to make this same joke. Cibola!
I liked this better than a lot of what I’ve read from King lately, even down to the ending. It did get a little draggy and annoying during the amnesia phase, but otherwise I was happily along for the whole ride.
The little visit to Bev and Richie also felt like a gift of sorts. When Big Steve decides to turn on the magic, he really makes things sparkle.
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/149 "2012-03-25T03:34:20Z")
Finished it yesterday.
I think it’s better overall than it would have been if King had finished it in the '70s. But I agree with all who say Jake has a Boomer’s perspective. At the start, Jake is only a few years younger than Mr. Rilch and me. We both think he should be quoting Simpsons and Star Wars, not classic rock songs, and that he should reference **Back to the Future** , not the Bradbury story. But his attitude towards life is late-middle-aged, too. I find it very hard to believe that someone born in 1976 would slip so easily into a lifestyle that to him should have seemed very slow and restrictive. King shows him musing that he won’t miss websurfing because it was kind of annoying…and that sounds like someone who got used to it later in life. And like many people who are not straight white males, I was constantly aware that only a straight white male could be the main character for the story to unfold the way it did. For instance, I doubt a woman would have been able to buy a gun in those days.
I endured the whole middle part with the school and the endless variety shows. Wasn’t bad, but not what I was reading for. Well, it’s inevitable, the way the portal works: five years is a long time to be a recluse if you don’t want to be, and his travel options were limited. Didn’t care for the love story, although that was more because I could clearly see that getting involved was going to trip him up. I was frustrated every time it did, but in the end, it was a good thing, assuming you’re invested in Jake stopping Oswald. Sadie was right: Jake couldn’t have done it without her help. And it was a good contrast to Johnny Smith in **The Dead Zone**. Johnny didn’t have anyone helping him, which put him under tremendous stress, and with no close friends, he also started to unravel mentally. As a result, at the crucial moment, he stroked out and died. I think not one shot hit the target. I’m happy with the way Jake/Sadie played out too, although probably because I never loved them being together to begin with.
What I was reading for was the counter-assassination stuff, and I was satisfied with that. Although I went into it knowing that he wouldn’t be happy with the results. (King does so love the Monkey’s Paw trope.) So his motivation is, at least partly, to stop Vietnam from happening. Forget JFK for a second. I don’t have King’s perspective; in my lifetime, JFK has always been dead. You might think that Vietnam would be equally irrelevant to me, since I was 3 when the cease-fire was called, but not really. By the time I really became aware of the larger world, Carter had been elected, making him our fourth president since Kennedy. So the ripple had smoothed out by then; we’d given up on Camelot America.
ISTM that Vietnam reverberated for a lot longer, and all through society. Vets: disabled, traumatized, homeless. Immigration: some of my classmates and one of my teachers wouldn’t have been at my school, because they/their parents wouldn’t have wanted to leave South Vietnam. The anti-war stance and distrust of authority my generation was conditioned towards. To me, just Nixon being president was worse for the country than JFK **not** serving two terms. And that’s why I wouldn’t try to stop Vietnam from happening. Too much was affected by it; too much was wrapped up in it. Even if it could be prevented, doing so would cause a huge disturbance in the Force (as my generation would say). Leave out the beams-of-the-universe stuff, and saving JFK might still be for the worse.
Overall, I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it, but I’m not going to push it on them either.
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### Author:  [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/150 "2012-03-25T04:09:56Z")
I finished it yesterday, audio book. Very entertaining. I did not go back and confirm this, but I think there was a non sequitur at the very start. When Jake goes to Al’s diner after Al’s call, he is shocked to see Al’s condition. Al is emaciated, his hair is greyer (or white, I can’t remember), his teeth are worse–and Jake only saw him the day before, less than 24 hours ago! How could he have lost 40 pounds in less than a day?
The rabbit hole explains it all, of course. Al has actually been “away” for years, during which he got cancer, though in reality he was only gone 2 minutes. Makes sense in the context of the story, right?
But Al is taking modern pills, and references the nurse who visits him (weekly or whatever?) and the fact that the “ago” doctor and the one he saw here both came to the same diagnosis–cancer.
Huh? He’s been back less than a day. How did he get an oncologist, a cancer treatment regimen, a prescription filled, and have retroactively had a nurse visiting him? Am I remembering incorrectly? Seems like a continuity error. As if King originally had Jake seeing Al after a month–the difference still would have been startling–then decided to make it a single day to make it more dramatic, but forgot to tidy up the rest of the details.
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### Author:  [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/151 "2012-03-25T05:49:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I doubt a woman would have been able to buy a gun in those days.
Any evidence that this was the case? There was virtually zero limitations on firearm purchases at that time.
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/152 "2012-03-25T06:26:43Z")
Well, I didn’t mean written-down laws. And in fact, I meant to say _easily_ buy a gun. I could be wrong, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a woman trying to buy a gun would be told “Go get your husband.”. And if she said “It’s my ex-husband I need protection from,” I’m not sure what kind of reaction she’d get. So a woman probably could buy a gun, but she’d draw a lot of attention to herself, much more than a man would.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/153 "2012-03-25T10:48:28Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#):
>
> The rabbit hole explains it all, of course. Al has actually been “away” for years, during which he got cancer, though in reality he was only gone 2 minutes. Makes sense in the context of the story, right?
>
> But Al is taking modern pills, and references the nurse who visits him (weekly or whatever?) and the fact that the “ago” doctor and the one he saw here both came to the same diagnosis–cancer.
I noticed this too. And it was such a huge error that I’m pretty sure an editor saw it and just said, “Who cares, this is a Stephen King book.”
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### Author:  [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/154 "2012-03-25T11:13:01Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> I noticed this too. And it was such a huge error that I’m pretty sure an editor saw it and just said, “Who cares, this is a Stephen King book.”
Thanks for confirming. It was such a big disconnect that at first I thought I was getting mixed up in my interpretation of the time-line, and that someone else would explain it away and I’d be :smack:.
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/155 "2012-03-25T14:53:20Z")
I could be wrong but I am pretty sure there is an at least implied gap in time between when Al gave up in the past because of his diagnosis and came back to the present and the moment he called Jake to show him the Rabbit hole and it is during that time period he got his modern diagnosis, nurse etc.
ETA: That said: my problem was that Al’s notes became a crutch. They seemed unusually thorough and precise for a guy who was just a diner owner even if he had years to work on them.
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### Author:  [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/156 "2012-03-25T15:43:14Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#):
>
> Well, I didn’t mean written-down laws. And in fact, I meant to say _easily_ buy a gun. I could be wrong, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a woman trying to buy a gun would be told “Go get your husband.”. And if she said “It’s my ex-husband I need protection from,” I’m not sure what kind of reaction she’d get. So a woman probably could buy a gun, but she’d draw a lot of attention to herself, much more than a man would.
Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that many gun store owners were that misogynist at the expense of their own profits. Anyways, couldn’t you just buy a gun by mail order from Sears or something?
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### Author:  [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/157 "2012-03-25T16:15:57Z")
> [@Quimby](#):
>
> I could be wrong but I am pretty sure there is an at least implied gap in time between when Al gave up in the past because of his diagnosis and came back to the present and the moment he called Jake to show him the Rabbit hole and it is during that time period he got his modern diagnosis, nurse etc.
I don’t think so. Jake is aghast at the not-possible-to-explain change in Al since he saw him less than 24 hours ago. So, while there may have been a gap between his “ago” diagnosis and when he came back–I think there had to be, he is pretty sick looking–he was only back in the present less than a day. How to explain, then, the fact that he’s taking a prescription of modern drugs (I forget which), has had a diagnosis from his “modern” doctor, and he tells Jake he has a nurse come in weekly (or whatever the frequency is)? IOW, in less than 24 hours he has lined up an oncologist, who has confirmed his diagnosis, given him a prescription and, apparently lined up a nurse who has visited him weekly, even though as recently as yesterday (as far as the modern world is concerned), he didn’t have cancer.
Feels to me like a time-line foul up that can occur in time travel stories if you’re not really careful. It doesn’t foul up the story in any major way, and it could be easily fixed without changing any major story element, I think.
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### Author:  [@LynnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LynnM)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/158 "2012-03-26T11:08:47Z")
**Rilchiam** :
" For instance, I doubt a woman would have been able to buy a gun in those days. "
This comment befuddles me. Why would you think that?
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2012, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/159 "2012-03-27T05:31:18Z")
Okay, so I could have bought a gun. But it just seems like a woman buying a gun on her own would be unusual, and be remembered the way a man buying one wouldn’t. And it would be one of many, many small things that I think would cause Jake’s mission to fail if he was anything other than a white male. I’d like to start a thread on this, but give me a minute or three.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/11-22-63-stephen-king-novel-spoilers/604700/160 "2012-03-27T18:28:23Z")
I don’t have a problem with a woman not being able to buy a gun in those days - it’s only been a couple of decades since women have been allowed in bars, allowed to vote, allowed to own property, etc.
ETA: Just to be clear, I have a problem with women not being allowed to do all those things - I can see it in the context of the story, though. 🙂
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