11/22/63 - Stephen King Novel [SPOILERS]

Cafe Society
81

I don’t know if there’s a precise answer to this better than “messing with time at all is bad, plus maybe things are still recovering from the massive timestreamfuckery you just did, so…”.

Just speculating here, it seems likely that the whole situation would have played out entirely differently if Jake hadn’t existed. In the standoff we saw, Clayton knew of Jake and specifically summoned Jake to come attend the situation. If Jake hadn’t existed, there’s no reason to think Clayton wouldn’t have fixated on something else, possibly seeing a relationship between Sadie and Deke that wasn’t there, etc.

AFAIK we don’t get an official answer, but there are plenty of plausible answers.

As for the rose colored glasses issue, I did get a bit of it… like SK’s attitude was “well, it goes without saying that MOST aspects of American culture were way better, everyone was friendly, kids were polite, milkshakes were better, cars were cool. But don’t forget about the racism! and domestic violence!”. Which (aside from being a weird echo of Starving Artist debates, presumably due to historic harmonies) strikes me as basically facile.

82

Thanks, but I dont think you understood my question. You hit the nail right on the head though - if Jake hadnt existed, the whole situation would have played out differently. That’s why I am asking why the situation w/o Jake (after the reset) was so very similar to the situation when Jake had existed in that particular timestream. The gun and the casserole is what I am fixated on. Jake brought the gun and suggested that Deke bring a distraction aka the casserole. So, my question is, if Jake didnt exist in the “reset” where did the gun come from and why was Deke there in the first place?

Are you saying that without Jake, Clayton might have picked Deke as his fixation? I could go with that but I am still fixated on the gun. Deke didnt own a gun and Clayton came without a gun. So the question remains - where did the gun come from?

83

I just finished it today and I really enjoyed it. I wasn’t expecting to. Under the Dome had some good parts, but one of the worst endings of his… and that’s saying A LOT. I don’t even remember what Duma Key was about other than some vague details. I am quite sure I am not alone in being extremely disappointed by the last few Dark Tower books. So even though the short stories and novellas still are mostly good, novels haven’t done it for me in a long time.

When I got it and saw it was 800+ pgs and I only had 2 weeks to read it (no renewals), I was filled with more dread. I finished it in less than 72 hours, which is no record for me, but still nearly 300 pages a day and pretty respectable, as I did many things other than reading. I really didn’t like putting it down and I’ve been kind of sad since I finished it, a phenomenon that hasn’t happened with SK in a while. I don’t know if the book will keep well over time. If I reread it in a few years, I might think it’s crap. But right now I like it and it feels nice.

I don’t think the 50s and 60s were too rose-colored. If it wasn’t portrayed as appealing at all, it would make George/Jake’s conflicts seem stupid. I am the same age-ish as George, so it was kind of annoying sometimes when he’d know some esoteric bit of trivia from history class (not his best subject, he’d say and explicitly say it wasn’t from Al’s notes), but then sometimes was completely ignorant of things that seem pretty obvious to me.

I do think the book could have used some trimming, but I think SK is beyond editing now. It wasn’t tedious, but it could have saved some trees.

And he can explain it by the syphilis or whatever, but the whole crazy bookie was too much for me. I’m not saying a bookie would have hugged George and given him a lollipop, but it was voodoo-shark level of determination for what really could have been a lucky bet. If George had done something more blatant or if he had run into the same guy in TX, it woudl have been more believable. George/Jake pointed it out himself, but stocks would have been safer. Or Vegas, as mentioned upthread.

I think Al was a dumbass for waiting so long to get Jake’s help. I think his waiting was the past being obdurate through him, making him a dumbass.

The saved-JFK timeline was so messed up not just because of the changes Jake/George had made in that one trip, but because of all the changes made by all their collective trips. This was said by the card guy at the end. So it makes me wonder that if Al and Jake had only made a couple trips each, would the saved-JFK timeline ended up so badly? It seems like the implied moral was “If you find a door to the past and you want to save the president, don’t waste all your visits on buying meat for cheap.” (And why wouldn’t Al charge close to market prices and keep the difference as a profit, rather than having very low sales because people were afraid of his cooking because it was so inexpensive?)

84

I recall thinking that it was implied that the bookie guy somehow sensed that there was something wrong with Jake, presumably due to the time travelling… people who were insane or very sick somehow were aware of it.

85

I spent weeks listening to the audio version of it. At 31 hours it took a lot of trips to get through it. When I got near the end I listened to the last hour or so at home.

I liked it a lot but think that, had I been reading it rather than listening, there was a fair bit of the second half that I would have skimmed. I wanted to know how things worked out but started to find Sadie and the whole Russian scene pretty tedious and repetitive.

As regards betting in Las Vegas in the 50s casinos didn’t have sports books. Bugsy Siegel had tried at the Flamingo but lost money. Betting on races and sports took place in crappy little “turf clubs” which opened and closed up frequently. The casinos weren’t interested because of the Federal 10% sports betting tax. When it was reduced to 2% in 1974 the casinos jumped in and within 10 years all the “turf clubs” were gone.

Betting the line: sports wagering in American life

History of Casino Sports Betting/

86

Maybe Sadie got scared of Clayton and bought the gun herself. Without Jake around, Clayton might have made his presence known earlier and she feared for her safety. Maybe Deke became aware of the threat and bought the gun. There could be a number of explanations.

I understood the situation to be that the timeline wasn’t terribly messed up from Al’s visits because he changed so very little. The card was yellow. When Jake went back the second time and went to Derry, he made bigger changes (saving Harry’s family), screwed up the timeline in a bigger way, and the card was orange. When he went back and saved Harry’s family, the girl who went hunting, and JFK - well those were massive changes to the timeline, which caused the card to turn black and the portal guy to slit his own throat. So I don’t think it was the number of trips that mattered, I think it was the scale of changes that were made. Al could have continued buying cheap meat pretty much indefinitely, without creating too many problems I think.

87

The timeline itself is almost a character in this book, too - you can fudge a few things here and there, and it will be resilient enough to heal itself. Jake was cutting metaphorical arms and legs off of the timeline , though - he was making massive changes with huge repercussions.

88

A huge logical flaw in the book (that didn’t impact my enjoyment of the book) was that each time Al went back in time to get “good” food, he should have reset the timeline so whoever ate his meals previously would remember crappy food. His food would only be as good as the people who ate stuff from his current trip.

89

Even doing something as trivial as buying some groceries from the past could have huge repercussions, *a la * the butterfly effect. In some ways I almost think you have to suspend all logic when you start into time travel fiction - does Al create a different universe every time he goes to the past to buy hamburger? Does the timeline just heal itself? Why would the timeline heal itself and resist changes?I can sort of buy the timeline being completely resistant to change - what happened happened, and you can’t make it unhappen - but I have a harder time with it just being resistant to change by throwing roadblocks in your way as you try to change it.

90

So far, the only thing that didn’t ring true was Sadie’s reason for leaving Jake – because he sang a raunchy song and used phrases she wasn’t familiar with. I mentioned this to my daughter and she said I should remember that Sadie was already paranoid because of her weird husband, so she was gonna be naturally distrustful when Jake acted “weird”. That made me feel a little bit better about it.

I’m not thinking too much about the timeline changes, maybe because I’m not at that point yet.

91

I think your daughter is right about Sadie. It’s not so much that “George” uses strange sayings and sings songs no one else knows; it’s that he obviously has secrets that he’s not telling her. And like she said, she already had one husband who put a barrier (the broom) between them and she’s not going to fall for that again.

92

I too liked the It kids cameo, and wondered what the original ending was.

I have some nitpicks, but overall I enjoyed the novel. It was an entertaining way to pass the time while catsitting and taking long baths.

Did anyone else expect that Jake/George himself would somehow end up being the yellow card man? It seemed telegraphed but then went in another direction.

On the one hand, the magic earthquakes bothered me as an intrusion on finding out what the timeline would have otherwise been like, but otoh without them there’d be no reason for Jake not to just keep going back obsessively.

I found the malicious bookies to be a bit much. If your big winners all end up dead or beat up you won’t have many customers. Even if that was realistic, there were safer ways (the track, lottery, Vegas, stocks) to make money. Seriously, buy any stock. Cash it in in the future. Trade it for gold. Go back. Trade for more stock. Rinse and repeat.

I too wanted a stab at saving Buddy Holly. But a more glaring error was doing nothing to help Al in the past.

I also thought all the precaution over making sure Oswald was the lone gunman was silly. Kill him when convenient. Fast forward. If you were wrong, just go back. Save yourself several years.

That said, still enjoyed it. Looking forward to the film.

93

Holy crap. Hadn’t thought of that, but of course. That I can think of, there’s no downside to this.:smack:

94

Other than a much shorter book, to be sure.

95

How would he have helped Al? Try to get him to stop smoking?

:eek: You may have just ruined the book for me.

No, just kidding. But that’s a good solution.

96

I don’t want to read the thread due to possible spoilers, but I want to ask - was the title, 11/22/63, meaningful for you (Americans) at first glance? I would have had no idea what the title referenced if I hadn’t searched for it.

97

Yes, I thought this as well.

And yes, to an American reader over a certain age or sufficiently well-read, the title date is obvious.

98

Of course, it’s the day C.S. Lewis died! :frowning:

99

Yep.

Although I guess he might have been worried that making such a huge change would cause the bubble to pop and he wouldn’t be able to go back.

Nope, although I was born long after that date, and it’s not a catchy number like 9/11. But the book cover does have helpful artwork that makes it obvious.

100

Pretty silly idea. There is an excellent chance he would have been arrested.