I just read on another board the opinion that the Yellow card men could be breakers from the Dark Tower world. But they were breaking the world by destroying the beams bit by bit. When George returns to Lisbon Falls the world sure seems broken…intersesting thought.
I just finished and I liked it. I also expected the Low Men to be the Bad Guys and was pleasantly surprised I was wrong. Not because I don’t like them but because it seems sometimes the whole shared world ends up being a crutch for King. A few other points:
I wonder if the the whole “Jake recovers from his beating” section was King working through his own experience after his accident.
The first person narration really worked. King doesn’t use it often and I think it helped me connect with Jake.
It bugged me that he had Ritchie imitate Johnny Carson years before he became the Tonight Show Show host. I was sure the mistake would end up being a plot point (Jake would realize he wasn’t in his history) but nope it was just a mistake I guess.
It was nice to see them again, and it was interesting to see Derry from a whole new perspective. It was also interesting that Jake made some comments about Derry that someone reading Stephen King’s books might have made (like how people refused to see what was going on in Derry in spite of all the evidence). The evil standpipe that scared Jake was a nice touch, too - didn’t the kids have a bad experience in there, too?
I don’t think any real Low Men showed up, but there sure were a few characters who were like Low Men in training.
I think Joe should go back and re-write endings for all of King’s early work. 
The Yellow Card Men seemed more like the people who were working to save the beams, rather than breaking them. I didn’t see the Tower and Beams and all in the story, but there were hints around the edges.
King spelled the Montreal Canadiens “Canadians,” too - that bugged me.
I really enjoyed this book - I’ve loved his last couple of books. He’s really toned down the creepy, icky stuff and upped the story-telling, in my opinion. It was great to see the day-to-day living in 1958-1963, too - apparently they smoked a lot in the Land of Ago.
I just finished this book and I liked it a lot.
It’s always seemed to me that there are two people writing Stephen King books.
One writer seems to hate the act of writing, and throws in nasty stuff to creep you out, and lots of product placement and stupid curse word and attitudes that don’t really seem to advance the story that much.
The other writer is the one who writes interesting, thoughtful stories that suck you in and keep you up reading into long hours of the night.
Of course, there’s some overlap. But I was happy that this book seemed to have been written by the second writer, rather than the first one.
When the main character got back after preventing Kennedy’s assassination and encountered the Yellow/Ocher/Green/Black man, I thought “Whoa, veering off into SF territory here, are we?” Then I thought ge would go all Captain Kirk/Edith Keeler and let the world collapse, just so he could have his girl.
I liked the actual ending much better.
Do you mean now as well as his earlier works, Archergal? I think he’s dialled the creepy stuff waaaay down in his last couple of novels.
I don’t know, Duma Key had it’s fair share of creepiness.
Honestly, this book is the first Stephen King I’ve read since Dreamcatcher. That book grossed me out so much I couldn’t bear to read any Stephen King till now.
This seems to happen with me periodically when I read Stephen King. After I read Pet Sematary, I didn’t read any other King for YEARS.
Ah, my condolences. An awful book…at least, it seemed so the one time I was able to force myself all the way through it.
I’m reading it now and skipped the posts b/c of spoilers. Overall I think it’s good. More when I am finished.
MC$E is right, that Duma Key did have a significant amount of creepiness, but the book was so good that (for me) it more than made up for it. I know what you mean about the two authors, though - I sometimes wish he’d dial down the creepiness/grossness just for the sake of being gross, but he is Stephen King, after all - I have loved his recent books, but I can’t guarantee you that they won’t be too gross for you.
I quite reading the Dome book too. But I did finish this one. Overall OK; I liked the Derry/Jodie stuff better than the Dallas stuff. I like the romance angle of it, found it believable and touching. King is kind of obsessed with abusive husbands, isn’t he? Anyway, I really didn’t buy the crazy fucked up alternate future but I knew it was coming. The last scene was nice. Makes me want to go back and re-read LIBRA or maybe finally read Ellroy’s AMERICAN TABLOID.
Didn’t Stan Lee* write his “hip, happenin’ kids” as saying “Ginchy”, too? I remember Mary Jane Watson saying it (dressed in white vinyl go-go boots, of course).
*
And who’s more in touch with The Youth Of Our Age than a middle-aged publisher? I mean, he got all those hep cats at the malt shop saying “Excelsior!”, didn’t he?
My wife actually uses “ginchy” which I think she got from watching Gidget reruns.
Picturing tnetennba’s wife in white vinyl go-go boots…
Just finished it as the plane was touching down at St. Louis this morning and, overall, I liked it - I was riveted enough to start it the evening of Christmas Eve and have it done less than 60 hours later.
However, I do have a few issues with the book, which to me seemed to be an inverted Under the Dome - great story, but crappy ending (IMHO, UtD had a not-great story but a great (if mostly from left-field) ending.)
[spoiler]1. I’m glad King is nostalgic for his childhood (has been since the 80s, it seems), but the book definitely underplayed the irritation a 2011-er would have living in 1958, and overplayed the “horribleness” of modern life. The first time he misses the convenience of his cell phone is 4 years down the road? He doesn’t get bothered about the fact that questions that are easily answered via the net today are, in the Land of Ago, extremely time-consuming (if not impossible) to answer? Hell, doesn’t Jake, at any time, wish for a chalupa? Or a bowl of Haagen-Daz? Or think “Damn, if we were back in 2011, I could rewind this to find out what the guy on TV said”? Or want an ATM?
The root beer is better! That’s all he needs to know!
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I think the ending was a cheat with the earthquakes and “ripping sounds”. It would have been (imho) much better if Jake reset his changes not because he was worried about the Earth being ripped asunder by 2080, but because the historical changes resulting from preventing the assassination really, REALLY sucked. Yes, the alt-history wasn’t all that great, but a large part of that was because of the earthquakes that resulted from the changes to the historical time-line. Drop the damn earthquake, imagine up a limited nuclear exchange between the US and USSR, and have that be the impetus for Jake resetting the world to the current time-line and giving up Sadie.
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Only a white guy could look at the world of 1958 and say “I want to stay here forever - everything is awesome!” With the exception of one or two passages (the colored “bathroom” in NC, for one), the book pretty much ignored the fact that while 1958 might (“Might”, mind you - see point # 1) have been a wonderful time for a white male, it increasingly sucked the farther away you were from that standard. Women issues got more of a look, but Jake didn’t really mind all that much that Sadie had limited career options, income potential, and prospects.[/spoiler]
That ‘ginchy’ word always had something hinkey about it.
I skipped down from post #6 (wherein I said I’d asked for it for Christmas) without reading the rest of the thread because I’m only about 20% through it (he’s still in Derry) and I don’t want to be spoiled. I already wish I hadn’t read about him getting beaten up.
But so far I’m enjoying it. I’ll try to finish it up this week so I can participate in the discussion :).
Another mistake made was when Jake mentioned (to his Fort Worth bookie, iirc, but maybe to Sadie) that the Chicago Bears were going to win the NFC.
(For those who don’t follow American football, “NFC” stands for the “National Football Conference”, which was formed after the merger between the NFL and AFL in 1969-1970. The Super Bowl is played between the champions of the two conferences.)
I also thought he made a mistake by having Vertigo be shown in theaters in 1959, but I was wrong in thinking it was an early-60’s movie - it actually came out in 1958.
One thing that absolutely drove me crazy about the book was the fact that the town is Killeen, not Kileen. I can, perhaps, understand the NFC thing - it’s just one letter in an abbreviation only used once in passing, but to misspell the city’s name every time it is used (and it’s mentioned at least 100 times) is just idiotic. I blame spellcheck and an improper “custom dictionary” entry.
Also, Jake/George kept mentioning how he would smell the oil production facilities of Midland, TX, while in Dallas.
Except the two cities are 350 miles apart! If he was smelling it in Dallas, how could Midland even be habitable?
:rolleyes:
I wondered about the Midland thing, knowing (since I read FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) that it was way on the other side of the state.
I agree with John T’s overall assessment.
I also think, sheesh Jake, you arrive in 1958 and have five years to kill and you don’t save Buddy Holly? Asshole.