Just finished this last night after staying up til two in the morning. Despite the whole hospital part dragging, once he gets beaten, you know the end is soon and you have to finish it. All in all, I really liked it. I went into knowing practically nothing about the plot, other than a really old quote from before it was written that made it sound like a book about the butterfly effect. I was pretty surprised to find that it was really more of a love story about a man living a double life.
I liked the final ending (with Jake visiting Jodie), but I didn’t really care for the whole Green Card Man, apocalyptic future stuff. Normally I guy who loves time travel and apocalyptic fiction, but since there had been almost none of that in the book so far, it just felt tacked on. But I think I’ve now gotten to the point where I don’t care about King’s endings. I’ve learned that much.
Also, I think the whole Derry section definitely tells me I need to read “It” next. It was supposed to be the next King book I was going to read, but I could never get a copy at the library. Now that I have a Kindle, that’s not an issue.
I’m re-reading it now, and am enjoying it more. I worked slower through the Derry section, and found myself turning to wiki’s article on the city to confirm alot of cross references. i reccomend hard core SK fans check it out, as there were a few things about Derry I forgot. But surfing the net at the same time I was reading felt weird, like watching the wizard of oz while listening to dark side of the moon
I’m looking forward to George meeting Sadie for the first time again, falling into his arms and getting to second base then and there…
“It” is pretty much a Stephen Kind must-read, but set your expectations for the ending way, way, way down. Other than that, it is a great horror book. If you don’t like creepy, it probably isn’t a good choice, though.
Just finished this one. I haven’t read the Dark Tower series and couldn’t finish Duma Key but have read all of the rest. Definitely thought this of of his better efforts.
I think the story would have been stronger if the alternate present had been changed only due to human acts versus the natural disasters.
Also his musing that he could hint at his future knowledge “by telling her that the Dallas Texans – not yet the Cowboys, not yet America’s Team – were going to beat the Houston Oilers 20-17 this fall, in double overtime”.
Technically that game wasn’t played in the fall, but on December 23, 1962, which we call winter in Texas. I can excuse this as Jake’s faulty recollection of Al’s notes, or just a general association of football with the fall season that fit the narrative.
However, this clearly implies to me that King believes the Texans at some point in history changed their name to the Cowboys and went on to become “America’s Team”. In fact, they moved to Kansas City the following season where they’ve played as the Chiefs ever since.
Again, this could be explained away as a mistake made by the character, but the Cowboys were already playing in Dallas at that time, established in 1960 as the NFL’s response to Lamar Hunt’s AFL and his Texans. There’s no way a man who ensured his future via sports wagering could not have known this.
A lot of details about Jake/George’s espionage efforts (not to mention the bug Hosty tipped him off about late in the book) were questionable too, but I’ll save that rant for another day.
But this book took place in the multiverse of the Turtle, and hence the tower. So the whole story could be set in an earth where the variances noted were that earth’s reality. Like the Kansas City Monarchs, and the Takuro Spirit.
That’s a little too fanwanky for me. I’m not familiar with those two examples in King’s work, but the KC Monarchs were an actual team so I don’t see how their presence would support an alternate universe (nor could I find any mention of them in the book). I googled Takuro Spirit and from what I saw I gather it’s one of those things he likes to drop in his works to give them common continuity (like all the Derry references I was able to recognize from reading “It” 20 years ago). However, the only Takuro Spirit mention in this book comes during Jake’s return to the 2011 Canadian Province of Maine, which is obviously an alternate reality. The timeline from which the citation I provided came is clearly meant to be our own circa 1962.
Don’t get me wrong though, I enjoyed the book and can’t fault a handful of errors over the course of a thousand pages. King acknowledges in the afterword that mistakes were made, but also makes clear that he intended the historical setting to ring true. Goofs like this just add a little fun for the observant reader.
Now why the DPD (or FBI) would bug a hotel phone by planting a transmitter in the handset rather than simply tapping the line somewhere less obvious between the room and the switchboard is another matter. The “small blue cylinder no bigger than a double-A battery” Jake/George extracted from the phone sounded like a normally-present capacitor to me, and I fully expected the story to go in a different direction from there based on his mistaken self-assurance that he had secured the line with its removal. (Recall that Hosty’s note said the phone was “tapped” which connotes something subtly different than saying it was “bugged”.) This was when J/G called Deke and told him to burn Al’s notebook. King could have squeezed this story for another 400 pages if he’d allowed the authorities to eavesdrop on that conversation.
That reminds me of something that bugged me a little bit - the Province of Maine. It’s like US Americans think that all you have to do is ask, and Canada would be overjoyed to take any state in. I don’t know a lot about Maine, but I don’t think they’re bringing a lot to the table.
The hero’s name. George Amberson. The uneducated diner owned pulls it out of thin air. The English teacher does not comment on it. Nor do any of the other teachers or librarians. I kept waiting for the hero to get his comeuppance. But I guess it was just me.
I still wished the protagonist had complain more about being in 1958, especially since he was travelling to a point 13-18 years prior to his own birth. Personally, I can’t imagine being sent back to (my equivalent) 1949 and not constantly bitch about how backward everything is. Hell, I can’t imagine being sent back to 1980 without complaint.
I hadn’t heard of that book (my wife had) and I find it believable that a guy can five years with that name and it not being enough of an issue to comment on. It’s not like his name is Atticus Finch or Holden Caulfield or Tom Sawyer.
It was just that after seeing that name I thought it would be a plot point. Someone would mention it. Maybe Stephen King does not know of the book. I just thought it weird that the hero would have that name without something being made of it.
This is only the second King book I have read (other being Dome) because I was afraid of the creepy thing. I liked the Dome and really enjoyed this one, hard to put down.
I grew up in the Midwest 50’s so the nostalgia factor was important. I wondered about the greeting referred to in church after the benediction thinking it was too early for that but rereading the section makes it clear that he was not necessarily talking about a Catholic church so maybe other churches did this in the early 60’s?
I wondered why he didn’t drive to Vegas to place his bets but maybe that wasn’t legal then? I’m not sure.
The poundcake times were wonderful and I thought the ending was very good too.
References were made upthread about reading “it” and I missed the reference. Which King book was that?
King’s been off his feed lately, but he’s sure back on stride with 11/22/63. It’s been a long time since a book hooked me so badly that I rescheduled my day so that I could finish reading it uninterrupted.
