Stephen King : Under the Dome

[KcMizzou]

Anyone pick this up? I'm only about 170 pages in (out of 1100 plus), but it's pretty cool so far. Here's a review...

First, about that dome. We'll be stuck under it with the residents of Chester's Mill, Maine, for most of the thousand-plus pages of Stephen King's impressive new novel, so a few facts may be handy.

For starters, it is invisible and impenetrable -- a force field, really, sci-fi flick allusions included. So its sudden manifestation one autumn day causes many bad things to happen. A plane crashes into the dome, some cars and a truck crash into it, flocks of birds crash into it and die. People die too.

And King handles these initial catastrophes as he will handle much of the mayhem ahead: with a grim yet almost jocular kind of matter-of-factness.

The most significant thing about the dome is that it prevents anyone from entering or leaving a small town that feels suddenly much smaller. Forget that some kids' parents are out of town, or that most of the fire department happens to be away. The big problems stem not from what's stuck outside, but from what's stuck inside.

Is this your average New England village? The hometown pride, neighborly generosity and petty rivalries are unmistakably genuine. But Chester's Mill seems to have extra room in its budget for dark secrets, religious and moral hypocrisy, and latent but powerful human malevolence. In other words, it's a Stephen King kind of town (just up Route 117 from Castle Rock, for those keeping track). So the stage is set for an old-fashioned battle between good and evil, of the scope and intricacy King first achieved with 1978's "The Stand."

The good guys include Dale Barbara, a drifter who served in the Iraq War and is haunted by memories of something that went terribly wrong in a gymnasium in Fallujah. On his side are a physician's assistant, the editor of the local paper and a computer-savvy kid and his skateboarding pals.

As for the bad guys? Nowhere in sight is King's perennial antagonist, Randall Flagg, who apparently couldn't bust through that dome either. But who needs the embodiment of evil when you have folks like Big Jim Rennie, owner of the local used-car lot and the town's second selectman? Born-again Big Jim never utters a curse word ("clustermug," "cotton-picking" and "rhymes-with-witch" are among his favorite turns of phrase), but he has the darkest of secrets to protect, as well as an insatiable hunger for power and control that needs only a nudge -- or in this case, the isolation afforded by an inexplicable force field -- to be kicked into high gear.

When that happens, and when a resistance rises up in opposition to his power grab, the result is a vivid and harrowing tale, expertly constructed, intensely moral and often thrilling, related with the masterful ease we have come to expect from its author.

That Rennie is the real star of the show says a good deal about King's intentions. Rennie's command comes from his ability to manipulate and his willingness to capitalize on the fear of others. "Fearful people need strong leaders," he reflects, and the dome, he wants them to believe, is the result of a terrorist plot. Naturally, anyone opposing him must be in league with the plotters.

The atrocities pile up fast as King describes with lucid prose and chilling precision the genesis of a fascist regime. It's rendered on a miniature scale but is all the more terrifying for the claustrophobia induced by the setting.

There are ecological problems to be reckoned with and questions of food and propane supplies. The story is overtly informed by certain contemporary horrors -- flashbacks to that gymnasium in Fallujah are especially fraught.

But let's not call this political allegory. Let's say instead that King is interested in portraying the everyday outrages that result when reason is abandoned for fear and panic, and that he knows where to look for examples.

Little wonder that the crime most consistently highlighted in "Under the Dome" is that of complicity. When you're in the grips of a good book, King seems to say, it's OK to sink in and enjoy the story. But when real human evil takes hold and the powers that be are transformed into the powers that shouldn't, it is not all right to sit back and watch.

There is a tipping point in this novel. When things get so bad that the struggle between Rennie and his foes ceases to matter, the focus shifts, perhaps necessarily, back to the dome itself. Which is unfortunate, because the dome is significantly less interesting than what it inspires its captives to do.

By this point, however, King already has us.

"Under the Dome" is the work of a master storyteller having a whole lot of fun, and he makes it hard not to join in.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov...nment/et-book9

[KcMizzou]

It reminds me a lot of "The Mist". Random group of people isolated by an unexplainable event. (in that case a grocery store) The people themselves provide most of the "horror".

[notorious]

Wife read it. She said it was OK, but didn't like the ending.

[Ebolapox]

lemme guess; aliens?

[KcMizzou]

Originally Posted by notorious

Wife read it. She said it was OK, but didn't like the ending.

Seems typical for King. I didn't care much for the ending of It, or The Stand, either... but the "journey" was pretty badass. He's always had a problem with the endings.

I think "The Long Walk" is still my favorite King story.

[Nzoner]

I'm closing in on page 800 and loving it,not since The Stand has a King book kept me this engrossed.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by KcMizzou

Seems typical for King. I didn't care much for the ending of It, or The Stand, either... but the "journey" was pretty badass. He's always had a problem with the endings.

I think "The Long Walk" is still my favorite King story.

"The Long Walk" is great. It comes in a close 2nd behind both versions of "The Stand" IMO.


I am amazed that Sci-Fi hasn't made a movie based on "The Long Walk". They would probably take a steaming crap on it,though.

[SAUTO]

i think ill give it a shot.


sounds like life. its not about the situation, its about the people in the situation. thats what makes it. people handle shit differently.
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[KcMizzou]

Originally Posted by Nzoner

I'm closing in on page 800 and loving it,not since The Stand has a King book kept me this engrossed.

Awesome. I'm loving it so far... good to hear.

[irishjayhawk]

I wanted to read it when it first came out after having read Duma Key. I ended up buying it on ebook - my first - for the nook but funnily enough, never started it. Got engrossed in others. Perhaps I'll give it a shot, though August is a packed month for me book wise.

[keg in kc]

Read it when it came out. I'm not going to spoil anything, but the first 850 pages or so are the best work King's done in years. And then, unfortunately, it completely falls flat, and the last 200 pages...not real good.

[Fairplay]

I liked the book. It felt like the Stephan King of old.
A lot of people dying, dead, or going to die. Good verces evil.

Pictureing the scenes when the Invisable dome comes down on the city and the intial chaos was cool.

[Frosty]

I couldn't finish it. It was basically just a thinly veiled political rant by King.

[Hydrae]

My wife is reading this currently, I look forward to her finishing so I can have a shot at it before it is due back to the library.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by notorious

Wife read it. She said it was OK, but didn't like the ending.

That's a prerequisite for every Steven King story, I stopped reading his McBooks back in high school.