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All fair points Moth but I thought they brought the roont ones back to keep control. They gain nothing by killing them and by returning them it becomes a sort of uneasy truce. The townspeople don't die, they know the ones that get taken aren't slaughtered and they certainly can't complain themselves. Basically the town puts up less of a fight that way. Edit- And for me at least the wait on the books in this series actually made them easier to swallow. Like how Macdonalds tastes like poo poo and you you know it but if you have been hearing about food since eight a.m. and now it's after five and you haven't eaten, you're gonna love that double quarter meal and the fries. kenny powerzzz fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 04:56
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I tried re-reading The Dark Tower about a month ago, but gave up 2/3 of the way through The Drawing of the Three because the Detta/Odetta stuff was driving me up the loving wall. The Gunslinger is great, though. I imagine I'll get back and finish The Drawing of the Three soon, I just had to take a break.
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Feb 27, 2014 05:11
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I've spent some time thinking about it and I still can not fathom how King took the story in the direction it ultimately went. Seriously, it's like if Star Wars promised a Luke/Darth Vader showdown and instead after 7 movies you get Luke vs. Count Dookoo.
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Feb 27, 2014 12:24
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I enjoyed the DT series pretty much from start to finish, so I guess I'm in the minority there. I do think King made a mistake though in not simply including the epilogue as a normal ending without the weird preamble. I think Roland in a seemingly endless loop is pretty drat important to the story and a lot of the setting and events of the series make more sense in that context. I'm not sure what was really going on there, but it comes off like King expected people to hate whatever ending he wrote, and he was going to pre-emptively cut them off at the knees by telling them their thoughts on the ending are irrelevant.
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Feb 27, 2014 17:32
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Basebf555 posted:I enjoyed the DT series pretty much from start to finish, so I guess I'm in the minority there. He's not caught in an endless loop, though. At the very end, he's got the horn, which during the iteration we read throughout the series he'd originally left/forgotten at Jericho Hill. A big theme of the series is that the gunslingers have to "be true" if they are ever to truly reach the Dark Tower. This is explicitly why they stop to help out at the Calla, even though before they know about Black Thirteen and the cave and so on there is no reason to. (Eddie says something about how it would suck to not reach the Tower because they died defending some dinkie little town.) Roland doesn't truly end the quest or "get" to the Dark Tower until he does so while remaining true the whole way. Part of that is remembering to pick up the horn after Cuthbert dies. This is why he thinks about it throughout the series--it comes up almost at the very beginning of the series, and it comes up in various flashbacks in Wolves. In the iteration or loop of the quest at the very very end of DT7, he has apparently remembered the horn, and remained true--so maybe this loop will be different. The theme of "being true" to what it is to be a gunslinger or of the line of Eld mostly fits in with King's belief that it's the journey that counts, not just the destination or "the squirt" at the end of sex. Another thing about him having the horn is that it lets him blast it when he reaches the Tower... Like he does in the original poem, which may actually be the final loop.
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Feb 27, 2014 19:35
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Bigass Moth posted:I've spent some time thinking about it and I still can not fathom how King took the story in the direction it ultimately went. Seriously, it's like if Star Wars promised a Luke/Darth Vader showdown and instead after 7 movies you get Luke vs. Count Dookoo. He got hit by a car and got obsessed with mortality and things ending, which changed his mood from "the most epic thing ever" to "everything is minor when it all comes down to it." He changed from Lovecraft unfathomable evil to "evil is mostly stupid" because his mood changed over the years, and the last three TDT books were rushed in the middle of a particular one.
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Feb 27, 2014 19:40
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DirtyRobot posted:He's not caught in an endless loop, though. At the very end, he's got the horn, which during the iteration we read throughout the series he'd originally left/forgotten at Jericho Hill. I didn't get the sense that the horn meant that he was really all that close to the final journey. I think its one in a long list of things he has to correct before he's allowed to enter the Tower. Not the least of which is dropping Jake in The Gunslinger. I know were shown via the horn that its technically possible for Roland to change and eventually enter the Tower, but I didn't get the feeling it would be happening any time soon. So ok, not endless, but for practical discussion it pretty much is.
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Feb 27, 2014 21:32
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Basebf555 posted:I enjoyed the DT series pretty much from start to finish, so I guess I'm in the minority there. I did too and the things people are pointing out only struck me later after a second or third read through. They mostly are true though. And I would love for another DT book, flawed or not.
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Feb 27, 2014 22:02
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DirtyRobot posted:
My interpretation is that the entire series is a prequel to the poem and have actually been happy since reading the book and coming to that conclusion.
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Feb 27, 2014 23:31
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Invicta{HOG}, M.D. posted:My interpretation is that the entire series is a prequel to the poem and have actually been happy since reading the book and coming to that conclusion.
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Feb 28, 2014 08:49
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Yea that is true, when you read the poem it suggests that the horn is really the key piece Roland's missing, blowing the horn of Eld upon reaching the tower is his destiny or whatever. I still prefer to imagine Roland living this loop into near infinity, each time changing one little thing that wasn't right. .
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Feb 28, 2014 17:58
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Each time hoping the next leap will be the leap home.
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Mar 1, 2014 17:13
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Talisman chat: "On the Outpost road, you dripping penis?" One of the finer/funnier King lines.
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Mar 1, 2014 18:53
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I'm finishing 11/22/1963. I've never been one to care about love stories, and the way King writes his female characters sometimes makes me care even less (see: Frannie and Stu, Leigh and Dennis). But sometimes King hits one out of the park with regards to love stories, in a way that really draws me in. Jake and Sadie and Louis and Rachel (Pet Sematary) are examples of the latter. I guess it may be because King writes longing better than he writes love, but for whatever reason I actually did care about the love story part, certainly more than the rest of the book
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Mar 1, 2014 23:12
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More Talisman chat! A line that's stuck with me since I first read it: "...But its mother. Dear god, what was its mother?
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Mar 2, 2014 03:36
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JohnnyCanuck posted:More Talisman chat! That would fit nicely into IT two (The it'terning)
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Mar 2, 2014 04:30
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Ok, so just finished 11/22/1963, and overall it was an OK book, but not an unforgettable one. The good: - I really liked the premise, and the basic dynamic of time travel in it. The whole you always go back to the same time and reset everything solves a number of time travel tropes. Additionally, it creates the interesting dynamic of having to live in the past for a while, socializing, etc., which leads to all sorts of interesting dilemmas. - I liked the idea of the past fighting to keep itself intact. It makes for an interesting "antagonist." - Finally, as I mentioned above, I think this book gives King plenty of opportunities to do something that I think is one of his strong suits, which is writing about the feeling of loss and/or longing. Which for me were the more memorable parts of IT, Pet Sematary, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption. Sadie herself isn't a good character - too much "damsel in distress" - but the parts about Jake struggling with keeping her away and not involving her, and then letting her in even as he knew it might mess her up, were pretty good. The bad: - The book sometimes feels too nostalgic for the 50s and 60s. He mentions segregation and racism, but those parts where he does feel tacked on, as if a first draft was all positive and someone went "hey, things weren't that good." - The whole thing with time travel destroying the world through earthquakes also felt tacked on at the end. Like he wanted to make sure that going back again would really be an obviously bad idea in order to get some finality in the book. It could have been an interesting concept if presented from the start, but added at the end of the last few chapters just felt like a cheat. I think a more interesting ending would have been one where Jake kept going back, the difficulties of keeping each reality straight in his mind, people reacting differently, including Sadie, because of his age, etc. Or even just the realization that good deeds don't always lead to good endings. It would have been a better ending than "hey, it was all for nothing anyways because if you change too much the world destroys itself, so go back once again and everything will be ok. We would have told you about this sooner but couldn't because while we are this secret group of people who are able to spot time bubbles, we can't make sure that the people we hire will do their jobs." This, in particular, felt very dissatisfying.
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Mar 2, 2014 16:21
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How are people getting on with their It reads/re-reads? I know some have finished but there are likely some of the 20+ people who jumped in still reading it.
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Mar 2, 2014 16:45
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joepinetree posted:Ok, so just finished 11/22/1963, and overall it was an OK book, but not an unforgettable one. I see where you're coming from, but I read it more as a response to the increasing glorification of the 50s/60s in the US right now where he is very, very nostalgic of the past at first (with the soda for example) but the more time he spends there the more he realizes how lovely the reality of the era actually was. Keep in mind that he doesn't really experience that life and society truly until he starts to actually live there, and it's at that point where he has to come to terms with the bad aspects he was able to gloss over or ignore when he was just a visiting tourist, so to say. It's been over a year since I read it but the racism/segregation seemed like it was the first time he was confronted with his own misconceptions, which lead to further contemplations, most notably the issues of women and their roles in society (especially with regards to his love interest) and the poor and immigrant populations (the whole spying on Oswald and the Russians.) These issues were integral parts of the plot so I think it's appropriate he spends a lot more time on those. I think that if he had spent more time on issues of race it would've felt tacked on for correctness' sake or something, precisely because it didn't affect the story in any way. Not to say it isn't an important part of history, just that because it isn't part of the plot it's understandable that it only plays a minor role. Anyway, a friend of mine is writing a thesis on this exact same subject, so I'm very interested in hearing what you all think about.
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Mar 2, 2014 18:16
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Taeke posted:I see where you're coming from, but I read it more as a response to the increasing glorification of the 50s/60s in the US right now where he is very, very nostalgic of the past at first (with the soda for example) but the more time he spends there the more he realizes how lovely the reality of the era actually was. Keep in mind that he doesn't really experience that life and society truly until he starts to actually live there, and it's at that point where he has to come to terms with the bad aspects he was able to gloss over or ignore when he was just a visiting tourist, so to say. I don't think it would have been necessary to make it play more than a minor role. But the problem is that what reference is there feels entirely parenthetical. He spends 3 or 4 years in the south in the late 50s and early 60, and the references to race or segregation are entirely disconnected from the rest of the plot. Sometimes there will be a reference to a sign, or to some background character saying something. But none of the main characters or the main locations ever discuss it in any way. Sure, for the sake of the love story gender is at the forefront (but even then it was mostly restricted to obviously hypocritical school board members and Sadie's parents). But specially in his small town life in Jodie is like race, civil rights, segregation were entirely nonissues. For the sake of comparison, he did a much better job on race in IT. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 18:31
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True, and I agree that IT deals with it much better although that has mostly to do with the fact that IT is a much better book in nearly every way (in my opinion) and that one of the main characters in IT is black. Truth be told, I'm not American and not all to familiar with small town life in the US, much less in that era, but Jodie struck me as a pretty much completely white town. I'm not sure how realistic that is, but it didn't struck me as odd because in IT Mike's family are the only black people living there in the childhood period, if I recall correctly. I've heard and read stories (here on SA even) of people growing up in a small town and not seeing a single black person until they're in their teens and move away to a larger city. It's my understanding that it wasn't uncommon, even or especially in the south for a small town to be completely white. Also, I seem to remember his (social) life in Jodie being limited to the (white) school and Sadie, leaving little room for anything else. As such I'm not surprised he (Jake) didn't pay any attention to anything outside of that, especially considering his life at that point is pretty idyllic and his only concerns are keeping it that way and passing the time. For him it was a non-issue. Jake is very, very passive in his observations and has to be confronted with an issue on a personal level before he pays any attention to it. Poverty, for example, is also something that is all around him throughout the book (realistically) but isn't given much (if any) thought until it's inescapable by the simple matter of him being forced to live in poverty himself. I don't know if that should be read as a flaw on Stephen King's part or the character's. Like I said, it's been a while since I read it and I'm not trying to defend Stephen King, because he certainly has his flaws, but it is an interesting discussion. 
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Mar 2, 2014 19:09
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But even in an all white town, racism and segregation would still be present. I don't mean this to say that King should have written "a time to kill" or made it a central figure in his book. Its more that in almost every sense Jodie is the anti-Derry: it's a town where everybody likes each other, supports each other, has each other's back, and students are inspired by teachers and everybody is perfectly socially progressive, with the exception of the 2 school board members. This is an issue because, first of all, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the book. Significant changes in the past in other places lead to some sort of karmic negative backlash, but in Jodie itself all the changes lead to general improvements. Second, and perhaps more important, it doesn't really lead anywhere. This is in large part because of something else I mentioned: the earthquakes that result from time travel that felt tacked on - especially since resetting them fixes things and they don't seem to happen when Al lives in the past, but would if Jake just went back and lived in Jodie. I would have understood setting Jodie as this perfect home for Jake if the end was based on some real dilemma about whether to go back again or not given the failure of the first time. But once you introduce world-ending earthquakes as a result of traveling back again, whatever dilemma feels hollow. Think about Pet Sematary: part of what made it so interesting, as someone mentioned above, is that you know what the bad choices are, and yet you completely understand the protagonist doing what he did. In 11/22/1963, Jodie seems set up so perfectly to create a similar type of dilemma at the end, but world-ending earthquakes make the bad choice obviously bad and the decision about whether to go back moot. Again, it is a good book. But it is more forgettable and far less powerful than it could have been given the above.
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Mar 2, 2014 21:49
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WattsvilleBlues posted:How are people getting on with their It reads/re-reads? I know some have finished but there are likely some of the 20+ people who jumped in still reading it. I finished it last week and loved it. I realized around halfway through that I hadn't read it before, once the differences between the book and the miniseries became more apparent. The major story parts were pretty similar, which is a great compliment to the miniseries...they really did a great job with it, especially the half with the children. It really struck me how much it reminded me of growing up in Maine, though for me that was the 80s. We even had a big fight between young kids and bullies, and us young kids won...though we were throwing crabapples instead of rocks so nobody got badly hurt. Biggest difference was that I never really had a close group of friends there. I didn't start making good friends until moving to California before 8th grade. (Well, biggest difference being no child-killing monster living under the town I guess. Though Sanford was enough of a shithole to not be surprised if there HAD been one.)
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Mar 3, 2014 23:37
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I am almost doen with it. I have been busy with other things, and unable to give it time.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:20
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I haven't been able to spend much time reading recently so have been getting through it very slowly. I've been enjoying it though. I'm a little over third of way through (2nd interlude) and feel it's really starting to pick up now so hopefully I'll be able to find more time for reading and really get into it like I'd like to.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:26
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One of the things I really enjoyed about IT compared to a lot of King's other books is that it really feels like a book with an actual plot. A lot of King's books basically just take a crazy situation, drop some interesting characters into it, and then you watch while that situation plays itself out to its logical conclusion, at which point King just sort of brings things to an end. With IT there's more of a sense of a momentum carrying through the whole story, and the main characters have specific objectives that they set out to accomplish and then face obstacles along the way. Not to say that there's necessarily anything wrong with the way King normally writes books. Having character / setting driven stories where the supernatural elements don't necessarily drive the story so much as they intensify an already unpleasant situation can be really interesting, but I think it can also contribute to the general sense that King often doesn't know how to give his books a satisfying ending.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:09
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Helsing posted:One of the things I really enjoyed about IT compared to a lot of King's other books is that it really feels like a book with an actual plot. A lot of King's books basically just take a crazy situation, drop some interesting characters into it, and then you watch while that situation plays itself out to its logical conclusion, at which point King just sort of brings things to an end. With IT there's more of a sense of a momentum carrying through the whole story, and the main characters have specific objectives that they set out to accomplish and then face obstacles along the way. The Dead Zone has an awesome ending and one of his best books.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:12
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I haven't read the Dead Zone but maybe I should check it out given that it was written at what I think of as the height of King's career (early to mid 1980s). The premise sounds pretty neat as well.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:21
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Helsing posted:I haven't read the Dead Zone but maybe I should check it out given that it was written at what I think of as the height of King's career (early to mid 1980s). The premise sounds pretty neat as well. The movie is also awesome as its Christopher Walken at his best, and directed by David Cronenberg. It can also act as a sequel to The West Wing.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:23
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The tv show was pretty decent, from what I remember. It also had Nicole de Boer in it 
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Mar 4, 2014 20:02
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I lucked out at Goodwill last week and got Joyland for a buck. It was a fun, easy read, similar in tone to some of his short stories. I feel like sometimes King whiles away an afternoon turning out these stories that just happen to be floating around in his head, but he's so experienced and adept at his craft by now that its all a lot of fun to read.
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Mar 4, 2014 23:33
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Remember when King was all 'Joyland will never be available as a downloadable e-book to make a point that physical books shouldn't go out of style'.
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Mar 6, 2014 18:13
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Franchescanado posted:Remember when King was all 'Joyland will never be available as a downloadable e-book to make a point that physical books shouldn't go out of style'. It wasn't just King http://boingboing.net/2013/05/29/why-cling-to-the-past-exclusi.html
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Mar 6, 2014 18:16
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I just started rereading Pet Sematary for the first time since 85 or 86 when I was in 7th grade. In the edition I am reading King talks about to him it is his scariest book, and how it was inspired by his youngest son (Owen not Joe right?) who almost ran out onto the road. Also he states that his wife told him it was too hosed up and he put it in a drawer until he used it as a last book to get out of his contract. I am just to where Church gets it, but it might be one of my top five King books (with The Shining, Salem's Lot, The Stand, and It). Funny the book was a lot scarier to my 7th grade self the first time, but it is hitting a lot closer to home this time due to me having a family now.
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Mar 8, 2014 02:07
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Reading 11/22/63 for the first time. The Derry parts are interesting, as I finished IT a couple of months ago. Now, I think Richie is a really good kid but damned if I don't find his voices annoying. He just doesn't know when to quit, which is a big part of his character of course. Especially the pickaninny voice.
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Mar 8, 2014 23:29
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bean_shadow posted:Reading 11/22/63 for the first time. The Derry parts are interesting, as I finished IT a couple of months ago. Now, I think Richie is a really good kid but damned if I don't find his voices annoying. He just doesn't know when to quit, which is a big part of his character of course. Especially the pickaninny voice. Yeah I didn't enjoy 11/22/63 as much the first time through and quit halfway through the Derry part, but when I finally read IT and came back to 11/22/63, I loved the entire thing.
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Mar 9, 2014 07:28
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Will someone here tell me what's the etymology of the word "Langolier"?
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Mar 9, 2014 11:46
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finished Full Dark No Stars "Fair Extension" was a pretty good 2/3 of a story I just wish he'd finished it. I'd like a fair extension on this story XD
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Mar 9, 2014 12:32
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I finally started "Under the Dome," and I can't get past the first 50 pages. It's just not pulling me in the way a King book usually does.
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Mar 9, 2014 14:10
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supermikhail posted:Will someone here tell me what's the etymology of the word "Langolier"? Cocaine, weed, alcohol and Listerine.
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Mar 9, 2014 15:05
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