Chapter 22 is mainly devoted to the town's growing dislike of Mike and Mattie. Terrible forces are at work in the town to hurt them or at least drive them away.
Mike awakens from his dream and doesn't know how to describe it. Visions? Time travel? He thinks someone is trying to send him a message, he just doesn't know what that message is supposed to be. Mike's psychic powers are developing too. He can tell when Mattie is going to call and what she's wearing, what her and Kyra are having for breakfast etc.
Mattie calls to tell him that she got her job back. Now that Devore is dead, the librarian doesn't fear his donations stopping. Mike thinks this is a ploy by the unseen spirit in the town to keep her on the TR. Mike is also getting closer to Kyra, Mattie's daughter and she says, "love you" to Mike on the phone. Mike is taken aback but responds in kind. The house wants Mike to help Mattie and says so with the magnets on the refrigerator.
Mike determines that he'll get to the bottom of what's going on in the town and drives to the florist where Kenny Auster's wife works (Mike has decided from the dreams that Kenny Auster is also trying to hurt Mattie). He can't find Kenny's wife and thinks that the whole town has a group unconscious that is trying to get at Kyra and her Mattie.
Next Mike heads to Bill Dean's house to confront him about what's going on. Bill no longer wants anything to do with Mike and tells him to leave town again. Mike says that he is just trying to help Mattie. Bill replies that he's just helping her so he can have sex with her. This weighs on Mike repeatedly after this and he wonders at times whether his motives are "pure."
Mike claims that the townspeople set the trap for Sara Tidwell's son and that's the big secret everyone has. Mike also claims that the town somehow killed his wife, even though she was in Derry, for digging up secrets about the town.
Mike next talks to his housekeeper, Brenda, for information about who Carla Dean was. Brenda tells him that Carla was Bill's twin sister who died in the 1930's from the fires Max Devore set when he left the town.
Mike comes up with the name Kito for the child who may have died in the lake or the one that got caught in the trap. I'm not sure the first time the name Kito cropped up in the book, I think it was one of the names that Mattie saw on her refrigerator. He notices that a lot of people whose names started with K or C have died and he knows that the spirits are planning to get Kyra next. Mike immediately thinks of leaving town, but knows now that Mattie has her job back she won't leave with him. As soon as the thought comes to him to leave the spirits in the house come alive and every noise-making device in the house comes on. The ghosts grab his hand and make him write HELP HER HELP HER. Mike is thus convinced he needs to stay.
Mike goes to get supper at the Village Cafe and gets an anonymous note telling him to leave town.
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The level of hostility and the forces at work are ratcheted up in this chapter. Now we enter the phase where it's almost entirely supernatural forces at work trying to hurt Mike and his people. He knows that right now things aren't strange enough to get Mattie to leave but he fears that it will be too late if they wait much longer. So we have the spirit in the house (we're not sure who's. It's Jo's mixed in with a few other spirits) trying to help Mike but the town itself and most of the townspeople in it (those whose families have been in the town since 1900 or so (the time of Sara Tidwell) are out to get them.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 21 (pages 356-374)
This entire chapter is a "dream" sequence in which Mike and Kyra travel back in time to the 1900 county fair. I will describe this chapter as "real" because that's the way Mike describes it and at the end of the dream he has a ribbon and pine sap that he picked up from his travels back in time.
The first thing he notices as he wakes up by Dark Score lake is that there is Royce Merrill's gold tip cane laying in the bottom of the pond and by this he knows that Royce has just died. Mike keeps walking until he gets to the county fairgrounds and he hears Sara Tidwell singing and once he enters the fairgrounds everything becomes much more vivid to him and he knows that this is no dream. He walks around the grounds and sees everyone dressed in 19th century attire (including himself). He goes up to the bandstand to see Sara playing and notices that while everyone is dressed in the period, Sara is dressed in Mattie's dress. Kyra appears and she runs to him and it's clear that both of them are asleep but have somehow been transported back in time. Everyone Mike sees he can identify as an ancestor of one of the current townspeople.
Here introduces something that maybe I missed or hadn't been brought up before, that Sara is an evil spirit . Mike gets chills from her and she laughs at him. He tries to leave with Kyra but Devore (we're assuming Max Devore's grandfather although he isn't given a first name) appears with six other people, two of them who appear to Mike to be ghosts, and try to block his way. Mike notices one of the men with Devore looks a lot like him (Mike) and he thinks that this might be the person Max was referring to when he said that his grandfather was from the TR. Perhaps his grandfather was a henchman for the evil Devore. After they get closer to the group, Mike realizes that they are all walking corpses.
Mike and Kyra run away into the Haunted House that's at the fair and after walking through it, they get away from the bad guys and Kyra takes one door back to her house and Mike takes another. Mike awakens with the ribbon and pine sap from the "dream."
A big plot point from this is that the Sara Laughs or Sara Tidwell's spirit is torturing Jo's spirit in the house. At the end of the chapter Mike hears Jo's spirit screaming and Mike implores the other spirits to leave her alone.
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I suppose this will be another plot added to the book. Jo's spirit being trapped in Sara Laughs and Mike trying to free her.
The first thing he notices as he wakes up by Dark Score lake is that there is Royce Merrill's gold tip cane laying in the bottom of the pond and by this he knows that Royce has just died. Mike keeps walking until he gets to the county fairgrounds and he hears Sara Tidwell singing and once he enters the fairgrounds everything becomes much more vivid to him and he knows that this is no dream. He walks around the grounds and sees everyone dressed in 19th century attire (including himself). He goes up to the bandstand to see Sara playing and notices that while everyone is dressed in the period, Sara is dressed in Mattie's dress. Kyra appears and she runs to him and it's clear that both of them are asleep but have somehow been transported back in time. Everyone Mike sees he can identify as an ancestor of one of the current townspeople.
Here introduces something that maybe I missed or hadn't been brought up before, that Sara is an evil spirit . Mike gets chills from her and she laughs at him. He tries to leave with Kyra but Devore (we're assuming Max Devore's grandfather although he isn't given a first name) appears with six other people, two of them who appear to Mike to be ghosts, and try to block his way. Mike notices one of the men with Devore looks a lot like him (Mike) and he thinks that this might be the person Max was referring to when he said that his grandfather was from the TR. Perhaps his grandfather was a henchman for the evil Devore. After they get closer to the group, Mike realizes that they are all walking corpses.
Mike and Kyra run away into the Haunted House that's at the fair and after walking through it, they get away from the bad guys and Kyra takes one door back to her house and Mike takes another. Mike awakens with the ribbon and pine sap from the "dream."
A big plot point from this is that the Sara Laughs or Sara Tidwell's spirit is torturing Jo's spirit in the house. At the end of the chapter Mike hears Jo's spirit screaming and Mike implores the other spirits to leave her alone.
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I suppose this will be another plot added to the book. Jo's spirit being trapped in Sara Laughs and Mike trying to free her.
Bag of Bones: Chapter 20 (pages 331-355)
It looks as though this chapter is the start of Part II in this book. Max Devore and the custody battle seem to be gone. In this part it looks as though Sara Laughs will be the new focus of the novel, but who knows for sure?
Mike goes to the park to meet Mattie and Kyra for lunch. Mattie discusses with Mike that the magnets on her refrigerator have been spelling out words. They've even given a crossword clue, "ninety-two down" which is different from Mike's clue, nineteen down. Mattie says that most of the words are names and one of them is Carla. Mike goes in for this kiss after lunch and Mattie reciprocates and invites him over for (presumably) sex later on that night after Kyra goes to bed. Mike hesitates and "needs some time."
Mike goes home and takes a cold shower (literally) and calls Jo's brother, Frank, for information on what Jo was working on when she came up to Sara Laughs. Frank tells Mike that he was the man Jo was with at the softball game in 1994. Mike is relieved that she wasn't having an affair. Frank also tells him that she took him up to the Sara Laughs but wouldn't let him in because the house was "dangerous." Frank wants to know what's going on but Jo can't tell him. Frank asks if she has told Mike but Jo says that Mike's working on a book and needs to focus on his work. But if he finds out on his own then it's "meant to be." Jo goes into the house, presumably to confront the spirits somehow and after a little while she comes back out looking very relieved. That's when her and Frank go to the softball game. She mentions to Frank that she's been talking to the town's people and mentions Royce Merrill (who is a 95 year old, portrayed as evil by King, who saw Mike with Kyra when they first encountered each other on the highway then went telling the whole town about the incident). Jo says Mike shouldn't talk to him because Royce, "might let the cat out of the bag." Mike thinks this refers to what Max Devore said when he said that Mike's family came from around the TR. Jo also told Frank that Mike had picked out Sara Laughs, that it, "called to him." This "demolished one of the basic assumptions I'd made about my married life." (page 351). Mike always thought that Jo had picked out Sara Laughs and is shocked to remember that he had been one who saw it first and liked it.
Mike gets off the phone with Frank and calls Royce Merrill but he doesn't answer. He finds on the refrigerator the words "Lye still" and associates them with old tombstone sayings. Then proceeds to write until bedtime.
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As I said before, I think this chapter represents the second part of this novel. A number of the plot points have been resolved (seemingly), evil Max and the custody battle and Mike and Mattie's growing affection that they can't express (will they or won't they?) seemed to be cleared up. And Mike's suspicion that Jo was having an affair seems to be explained. What's left? The haunted house, Sara Laughs and the mysteries surrounding the town and it's people (including whether or not Mike's family is from the TR, meaning he might have a different father or grandfather from the one he knows) seem to be what the rest of the book will be about but we'll see as we read along.
Mike goes to the park to meet Mattie and Kyra for lunch. Mattie discusses with Mike that the magnets on her refrigerator have been spelling out words. They've even given a crossword clue, "ninety-two down" which is different from Mike's clue, nineteen down. Mattie says that most of the words are names and one of them is Carla. Mike goes in for this kiss after lunch and Mattie reciprocates and invites him over for (presumably) sex later on that night after Kyra goes to bed. Mike hesitates and "needs some time."
Mike goes home and takes a cold shower (literally) and calls Jo's brother, Frank, for information on what Jo was working on when she came up to Sara Laughs. Frank tells Mike that he was the man Jo was with at the softball game in 1994. Mike is relieved that she wasn't having an affair. Frank also tells him that she took him up to the Sara Laughs but wouldn't let him in because the house was "dangerous." Frank wants to know what's going on but Jo can't tell him. Frank asks if she has told Mike but Jo says that Mike's working on a book and needs to focus on his work. But if he finds out on his own then it's "meant to be." Jo goes into the house, presumably to confront the spirits somehow and after a little while she comes back out looking very relieved. That's when her and Frank go to the softball game. She mentions to Frank that she's been talking to the town's people and mentions Royce Merrill (who is a 95 year old, portrayed as evil by King, who saw Mike with Kyra when they first encountered each other on the highway then went telling the whole town about the incident). Jo says Mike shouldn't talk to him because Royce, "might let the cat out of the bag." Mike thinks this refers to what Max Devore said when he said that Mike's family came from around the TR. Jo also told Frank that Mike had picked out Sara Laughs, that it, "called to him." This "demolished one of the basic assumptions I'd made about my married life." (page 351). Mike always thought that Jo had picked out Sara Laughs and is shocked to remember that he had been one who saw it first and liked it.
Mike gets off the phone with Frank and calls Royce Merrill but he doesn't answer. He finds on the refrigerator the words "Lye still" and associates them with old tombstone sayings. Then proceeds to write until bedtime.
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As I said before, I think this chapter represents the second part of this novel. A number of the plot points have been resolved (seemingly), evil Max and the custody battle and Mike and Mattie's growing affection that they can't express (will they or won't they?) seemed to be cleared up. And Mike's suspicion that Jo was having an affair seems to be explained. What's left? The haunted house, Sara Laughs and the mysteries surrounding the town and it's people (including whether or not Mike's family is from the TR, meaning he might have a different father or grandfather from the one he knows) seem to be what the rest of the book will be about but we'll see as we read along.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 19 (pages 318-330)
The big news of this chapter is that Max Devore has supposedly committed suicide right after Mike called and agreed to Max's terms about not asking questions about him. Early in the morning Bill Dean calls him up with the news that he has heard on the six a.m. television news.
Rogette Whitmore had called a 2 am press conference, per Devore's orders, to give the world the news of his death. Devore had carefully planned everything out and Mike comes to the conclusion that the letter Max had sent to him was a veiled suicide note because it contained phrases like, "let me rest in peace" and "urgent business I need to take care of."
Mike is relieved and glad that Max is dead but is concerned that the local townspeople might blame him and Mattie. That their custody battle drove him to kill himself.
Bill again warns Mike, but in a friendlier way, to leave town. He says the local townspeople think he is, "shacking up with Mattie" (why this is such a big issue in this book bothers me. I'm not sure what the objection the townspeople would have for them being together. The age difference? They don't like Mattie in the first place. Mattie should never be allowed to be in a relationship again? King should explain the reasoning behind this if it is going to be a huge plot point. I feel like I'm reading The Scarlet Letter here and New England Puritanism is back.)
Mike hangs up the phone and thinks that he and Bill Dean are back on better terms but not really friends again. That had changed when he, "realized what he (Bill) had almost called Sara and the Red-Tops." (Page 323). This again brings up Mike's new psychic ability. He had no way of knowing what Bill was going to say but somehow he has a psychic flash telling him what Bill was thinking.
He calls Mattie and of course Mattie is relieved and upset about Max's death all at the same time. They agree to meet the next day for lunch in the common green so everyone can still see them.
Mike's brother, Sid, then calls. It had been so long since his brother was introduced I forgot he existed. Mike asks him about their father and where he came from and their grandfather etc. A large plot point emerging is that Max said that Mike and his father came from the same background, and since Mike is a different generation than Max, Mike assumes that Max means his grandfather. But Mike's father and grandfather were fishermen, while Max's was a logger so Mike is still wondering. He doesn't get any answers from Sid. Mike ends the conversation and goes back to the kitchen and finds that the magnets have spelled out CARLADEAN. Mike thinks it means Carla Dean, but Mike doesn't know anyone related to Bill Dean named Carla. He only glimpses this for a second before the letters are scattered away. Mike hears the "Oh Mike, Oh Mike" he heard from the tape recorder earlier and now he knows it's Jo's ghost who put the name there but he thinks a different ghosts knocked the letters off because that ghost didn't want Mike to see what was on the fridge.
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Since this is only page 330 of a 530 page book, I doubt we've seen the last of Max Devore. This is probably where the supernatural elements start ramping up. So far this book has been very "normal." We get a nice little 75 pages or so of a man grieving for his dead wife, which was very well done. Then the next 125 pages we deal with Mike getting to know Mattie and her daughter Kyra. Another 100 pages of larger than life (and most decidedly not normal) Max Devore. Mike seems like a nice and decent human being except for his constant obsession of sex with Mattie. Which after a while, does get to be just a little bit creepy. He seems pampered and self-obsessed and maybe throughout the books he'll learn to be a more giving and caring person, who knows?
Rogette Whitmore had called a 2 am press conference, per Devore's orders, to give the world the news of his death. Devore had carefully planned everything out and Mike comes to the conclusion that the letter Max had sent to him was a veiled suicide note because it contained phrases like, "let me rest in peace" and "urgent business I need to take care of."
Mike is relieved and glad that Max is dead but is concerned that the local townspeople might blame him and Mattie. That their custody battle drove him to kill himself.
Bill again warns Mike, but in a friendlier way, to leave town. He says the local townspeople think he is, "shacking up with Mattie" (why this is such a big issue in this book bothers me. I'm not sure what the objection the townspeople would have for them being together. The age difference? They don't like Mattie in the first place. Mattie should never be allowed to be in a relationship again? King should explain the reasoning behind this if it is going to be a huge plot point. I feel like I'm reading The Scarlet Letter here and New England Puritanism is back.)
Mike hangs up the phone and thinks that he and Bill Dean are back on better terms but not really friends again. That had changed when he, "realized what he (Bill) had almost called Sara and the Red-Tops." (Page 323). This again brings up Mike's new psychic ability. He had no way of knowing what Bill was going to say but somehow he has a psychic flash telling him what Bill was thinking.
He calls Mattie and of course Mattie is relieved and upset about Max's death all at the same time. They agree to meet the next day for lunch in the common green so everyone can still see them.
Mike's brother, Sid, then calls. It had been so long since his brother was introduced I forgot he existed. Mike asks him about their father and where he came from and their grandfather etc. A large plot point emerging is that Max said that Mike and his father came from the same background, and since Mike is a different generation than Max, Mike assumes that Max means his grandfather. But Mike's father and grandfather were fishermen, while Max's was a logger so Mike is still wondering. He doesn't get any answers from Sid. Mike ends the conversation and goes back to the kitchen and finds that the magnets have spelled out CARLADEAN. Mike thinks it means Carla Dean, but Mike doesn't know anyone related to Bill Dean named Carla. He only glimpses this for a second before the letters are scattered away. Mike hears the "Oh Mike, Oh Mike" he heard from the tape recorder earlier and now he knows it's Jo's ghost who put the name there but he thinks a different ghosts knocked the letters off because that ghost didn't want Mike to see what was on the fridge.
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Since this is only page 330 of a 530 page book, I doubt we've seen the last of Max Devore. This is probably where the supernatural elements start ramping up. So far this book has been very "normal." We get a nice little 75 pages or so of a man grieving for his dead wife, which was very well done. Then the next 125 pages we deal with Mike getting to know Mattie and her daughter Kyra. Another 100 pages of larger than life (and most decidedly not normal) Max Devore. Mike seems like a nice and decent human being except for his constant obsession of sex with Mattie. Which after a while, does get to be just a little bit creepy. He seems pampered and self-obsessed and maybe throughout the books he'll learn to be a more giving and caring person, who knows?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 18 (pages 302-317)
We now have the aftermath of Mike Noonan's little adventure in the lake with Max Devore. Mike stumbles into his house, wondering what to do about the attack that Max launched on him. His first instinct is to call the authorities but after a minute he thinks better of it. He knows that there were no witnesses and it would be hard for most people (especially the reader) to believe that two elderly people almost killed a healthy middle-aged man by pelting him with rocks.
Mike also takes into consideration his "celebrity status" and we get a couple of paragraphs of thought about his feelings about the media. King has always had a pretty decent relationship with the press and a few years ago you could always find him in the front section of Fenway Park watching the Red Sox games. But writers are very small on the celebrity scale and King is one of the biggest authors around. I wonder if he would even get top billing on the Tonight Show over, say, Mathew Broderick? King gives the same old celebrity cliches that just because people are famous that doesn't give the public a right to know every detail of their private lives. King gives the argument very briefly and I think even he doesn't buy it.
Noonan then tries to call his lawyer but his lawyer is away so he leaves a message. He then calls Mattie and is saddened to hear her sound sad and resigned because she was fired from her librarian job. The official explanation was layoff but she knew that Max Devore used the threat of withholding money from the library to get her fired. Mike automatically thinks of making her his private mistress as long as she, "never says no." But thinks better of it. He then tells Mattie that he will take care of her and thinks that, "You'll never take your clothes off when I'm with you. That's a promise." Another instance of Mike lying to himself, all he thinks about with Mattie is having sex with her.
Mattie tells Mike that John called her and they are going to have lunch together soon. Mike immediately invites himself, and Mattie is very excited. Oh, Mike when will you let the girl go?
Mike stares at the refrigerator with the alphabet magnets on it and begins rearranging them, in a trance. I wonder how many thoughts King has while rearranging his fridge magnets? He gets a delivery from Max Devore saying that Max will drop the custody case if Mike, "ceases to ask questions about him, and if you promise to stop all legal maneuvering." A pretty easy deal since, to my knowledge, Mike is not asking any questions about Max Devore except when it comes to Mattie and Kyra. Mike quickly calls Max and gets his assistant, Rogette, and agrees to the deal. At the end of the chapter, Mike goes to the refrigerator and sees that the magnets are rearranged into a message that he thinks means 19 down. Mike then goes to look through his old crossword puzzle books but can find none with any 19 down clues that might apply to him or his current situation.
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Analysis:
This is simple chapter with a quick setup for the next chapter (which I will talk about in the next post). The man delivering Max Devore's message is characterized very weakly and I'm not sure how King wants us to see him. Mike sees that he looks like Woody Allen and is dressed like Woody Allen but then Mike quickly realizes he is just another man, "who sold his soul to the devil." And so can't be Woody Allen at all. The character description falls into one of two categories in this novel. A) You're either totally with Mike Noonan and Mattie or B) You're not with him and are in the pocket of Max Devore and therefore barely human. The only character with any kind gray area is Bill Dean, who we'll see in the next chapter. I thought earlier, when he warned Mike to get out of town, King was putting him simply in the evil category but it looks like he's going to fall into at least a little bit of middle ground and be back on Mike's side somewhat. But we'll discuss that in the next chapter.
Noonan then tries to call his lawyer but his lawyer is away so he leaves a message. He then calls Mattie and is saddened to hear her sound sad and resigned because she was fired from her librarian job. The official explanation was layoff but she knew that Max Devore used the threat of withholding money from the library to get her fired. Mike automatically thinks of making her his private mistress as long as she, "never says no." But thinks better of it. He then tells Mattie that he will take care of her and thinks that, "You'll never take your clothes off when I'm with you. That's a promise." Another instance of Mike lying to himself, all he thinks about with Mattie is having sex with her.
Mattie tells Mike that John called her and they are going to have lunch together soon. Mike immediately invites himself, and Mattie is very excited. Oh, Mike when will you let the girl go?
Mike stares at the refrigerator with the alphabet magnets on it and begins rearranging them, in a trance. I wonder how many thoughts King has while rearranging his fridge magnets? He gets a delivery from Max Devore saying that Max will drop the custody case if Mike, "ceases to ask questions about him, and if you promise to stop all legal maneuvering." A pretty easy deal since, to my knowledge, Mike is not asking any questions about Max Devore except when it comes to Mattie and Kyra. Mike quickly calls Max and gets his assistant, Rogette, and agrees to the deal. At the end of the chapter, Mike goes to the refrigerator and sees that the magnets are rearranged into a message that he thinks means 19 down. Mike then goes to look through his old crossword puzzle books but can find none with any 19 down clues that might apply to him or his current situation.
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Analysis:
This is simple chapter with a quick setup for the next chapter (which I will talk about in the next post). The man delivering Max Devore's message is characterized very weakly and I'm not sure how King wants us to see him. Mike sees that he looks like Woody Allen and is dressed like Woody Allen but then Mike quickly realizes he is just another man, "who sold his soul to the devil." And so can't be Woody Allen at all. The character description falls into one of two categories in this novel. A) You're either totally with Mike Noonan and Mattie or B) You're not with him and are in the pocket of Max Devore and therefore barely human. The only character with any kind gray area is Bill Dean, who we'll see in the next chapter. I thought earlier, when he warned Mike to get out of town, King was putting him simply in the evil category but it looks like he's going to fall into at least a little bit of middle ground and be back on Mike's side somewhat. But we'll discuss that in the next chapter.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 17 (pages 284-301)
The greatest chapter in an otherwise so-so book. The chapter is devoted to our "hero" Mike Noonan being pelted with rocks by Max Devore and his secretary the elderly Rogette Whitmore. In chapter 17, Mike says that, "Michael Noonan, Max Devore, and Rogette played out their horrible little comedy scene Friday evening." (page 272). This would lead me to believe that King knows this upcoming chapter is funny (I would say hilarious).
Mike takes a walk by the lake and is overtaken with spirits entering his body. His mouth fills with water from the lake (this is used throughout the book to mark when the spirits are entering him) but when he goes to spit it out nothing comes out. His head is filled with multiple spirits all shouting at once.
While he is going through this spell of demon possession, Max Devore comes up behind him and says, "Whore master, where's your whore at?" Max is in some kind of motorized cart and Rogette Whitmore is beside him. In this section, King has left any kind of reality based characterization behind and Max is a mix of Ross Perot and the grandfather on "King of the Hill." He taunts Mike about Mattie and Mike tells him to go to hell. Max tries to run him down with his cart and to avoid this, Mike jumps off the embankment into Dark Score lake.
This is where the chapter really takes off. Max's assistant, who has been described as being about seventy, starts to throw rocks at Mike as he tries to swim away to home. King does a very good job of describing what it's like to have rocks thrown at you while you're swimming. King (like most popular writers) is quite adept at describing action sequences. Mike tries to come up for air, down comes another rock. He looks up to see Rogette standing at the cliff with more rocks and Max egging her on and laughing. It's all very funny and I bet King had a good time writing this chapter.
The fact is, that Mike Noonan is a pretty unlikable protagonist. He does nothing but think about himself and while he appears to have feelings for Mattie all the forty something thinks of when he's with the twenty year-old Mattie is just straight-up sex.
There's a part in an earlier chapter where he's telling Mattie the meaning of the short story, "Bartleby," by Mellville. Noonan says that Bartleby is the first "existentialist protagonist" in American literature. This is because he has no family or community affiliation. Work is his only connection with human society. When he stops working, "he floats away like a balloon." King inserts this little bit of wisdom, and while it's an OK interpretation of Bartelby it doesn't fit Mike Noonan at all. Bartleby refuses to do work, even though he is capable of it. Therefore voluntarily cutting those ties. Mike cannot perform his chosen task and therein lies the difference. No other line of work is even discussed in the novel for him and Mike also serves on a number of volunteer boards and such. Mike's no existentialist hero, just an asshole. Believe me, he takes no joy in anything but his writing and the thought of sex with Mattie. I loved seeing him pelted with rocks for ten pages.
At the end of the chapter he struggles to get to his floating deck in the middle of the lake, out of range from the rocks. He tries to climb the ladder then clearly feels a hand helping him up onto the deck. He knows this is Jo's ghost helping him in a physical way.
Wonderful chapter.
Mike takes a walk by the lake and is overtaken with spirits entering his body. His mouth fills with water from the lake (this is used throughout the book to mark when the spirits are entering him) but when he goes to spit it out nothing comes out. His head is filled with multiple spirits all shouting at once.
While he is going through this spell of demon possession, Max Devore comes up behind him and says, "Whore master, where's your whore at?" Max is in some kind of motorized cart and Rogette Whitmore is beside him. In this section, King has left any kind of reality based characterization behind and Max is a mix of Ross Perot and the grandfather on "King of the Hill." He taunts Mike about Mattie and Mike tells him to go to hell. Max tries to run him down with his cart and to avoid this, Mike jumps off the embankment into Dark Score lake.
This is where the chapter really takes off. Max's assistant, who has been described as being about seventy, starts to throw rocks at Mike as he tries to swim away to home. King does a very good job of describing what it's like to have rocks thrown at you while you're swimming. King (like most popular writers) is quite adept at describing action sequences. Mike tries to come up for air, down comes another rock. He looks up to see Rogette standing at the cliff with more rocks and Max egging her on and laughing. It's all very funny and I bet King had a good time writing this chapter.
The fact is, that Mike Noonan is a pretty unlikable protagonist. He does nothing but think about himself and while he appears to have feelings for Mattie all the forty something thinks of when he's with the twenty year-old Mattie is just straight-up sex.
There's a part in an earlier chapter where he's telling Mattie the meaning of the short story, "Bartleby," by Mellville. Noonan says that Bartleby is the first "existentialist protagonist" in American literature. This is because he has no family or community affiliation. Work is his only connection with human society. When he stops working, "he floats away like a balloon." King inserts this little bit of wisdom, and while it's an OK interpretation of Bartelby it doesn't fit Mike Noonan at all. Bartleby refuses to do work, even though he is capable of it. Therefore voluntarily cutting those ties. Mike cannot perform his chosen task and therein lies the difference. No other line of work is even discussed in the novel for him and Mike also serves on a number of volunteer boards and such. Mike's no existentialist hero, just an asshole. Believe me, he takes no joy in anything but his writing and the thought of sex with Mattie. I loved seeing him pelted with rocks for ten pages.
At the end of the chapter he struggles to get to his floating deck in the middle of the lake, out of range from the rocks. He tries to climb the ladder then clearly feels a hand helping him up onto the deck. He knows this is Jo's ghost helping him in a physical way.
Wonderful chapter.
Bag of Bones: Chapters 15 & 16 (pages 238-283)
Chapter 15 is fairly brief, describing Mike's deposition and further talks with Mattie and Mike's lawyer. The deposition and Mike's verbal sparring with Elmer Durgin, Kyra's court appointed guardian (who is in the pocket of Devore), is uninteresting and weak.
Durgin is introduced quickly by Mike as a small fat man, and while Mike "likes most fat people," he labels this one immediately as a "ELFF" or "evil little fat folk." Apparently there are a race of fat people that are to be hated on sight because these particular fat people (under 5 foot 2) hate the whole world because they are fat and especially hate anyone who is not fat. I'm not kidding, that's what King writes on page 239 of this book. Way to go with the stereotyping King and character development.
The main plot point of the deposition is that Durgin bluffed that he was going to play a tape of the phone call the Devore made to Noonan on July 4th where Mike lied about his first encounter with Mattie. In the deposition Mike declares that he doesn't remember the conversation he had with Devore and Durgin has a tape recorder there to start playing what would appear to be the tape but ultimately he does not. Mike later asks his lawyer about this and he comes to the conclusion that Max Devore probably has many other tapes with incriminating evidence on them and he doesn't want to introduce this tape because of the fear that the court would subpoena more tapes that he doesn't want heard.
After the deposition Mattie, Mike and the lawyer, John Storrow all go for a little picnic and talk for a little while about the case. John is convinced that Devore will drop the case.
At the end of the chapter Mike goes back to Sara Laughs and then the first fully sustained moment of supernatural horror appears. As he walks into the house he hears the bell by the Moose head ringing loudly (Bunter's Bell). Mike stops at the doorway and asks, "Who's here?" And a loud sustained shrink issues from the house and then after a minute or two it stops. After that Mike hears the sobbing. When the sobbing stops again he goes to the refrigerator and see that the magnets are rearranged to say, "Help I'm drowning." The chapter ends.
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Chapter 16 moves the plot a little further along. Mike sees that in the night the ghost has overturned the flour and is trying to spell out something but all it could do was make squiggly lines in the flours. Mike goes to the softball game in the hopes of seeing Max Devore, but Max doesn't show up and the only people he sees are John Storrow and Mattie there together, also looking for Max.
The next day Mike has a conversation with Brenda Meserve about the history of the TR and Dark Score lake. She tells Mike that one of the Red-Top boys who was in Sara Tidwell's settlement around the lake got caught in an animal trap and died later of infection. Brenda says that's why the settlement disbanded but her mother says the boy's ghost still haunts the lake.
Another boy that died around the lake was a boy with the last name of Auster. His father, Normal, drowned the baby by putting his head under the water pump until he was dead. Then the father took a shotgun and shot himself. The father might also be haunting the lake Brenda thinks.
Mike then goes to the library, careful to talk mostly to the other librarian (Mattie works at the library) to give the appearance that nothing is happening between him and Mattie. He wants to find some histories about the town and the lake. He finds a picture of Sara Tidwell and the name of the boy who got caught in the trap was a Tidwell and Mike thinks the boy might be the nephew of Sara.
John Storrow calls Mike up and is excited about the case because he hired a detective who has evidence that Durgin is being paid by Devore. John also tell Mike that he is interested in Mattie.
John doesn't even ask Mike if he interested in her himself. This is a huge mistake on King's part because large portions of the book are devoted to Mike and Mattie trying to be seen only in public and not appearing romantic at all on the lawyer's advice. If the lawyer thought that nothing was going on or that nothing was likely to happen he would not have given that advice and the fact that he doesn't even ask Mike or bring up the possibility that since Mike is paying all this attention to her, not to mention $75,000 in legal fees that Mike, might, you know, have some kind of feelings that are least a little bit romantic towards her. Storrow is either really dumb, really mean and inconsiderate or King was writing very sloppy.
After the conversation he starts to think about Jo and whether she really was cheating on him with someone up on the TR and whether or not she lied. The TV immediately turns on to an old movie with a woman shouting, "I am not a liar!" I thought that was kind of cool. Ghosts communicating via TV shows. Nice.
The next morning Mike runs into Bill Dean, the caretaker, and now that Mike is asking a lot of questions he warns Mike to stop. Bill is no longer the nice old man but another stock King villain. We know this because Bill describes the Tidwell settlement and says that they left because they were wanderers but Mike knows psychically that Bill was going to say niggers instead of wanderers (page 278). Bill is trying to be nice but underneath you can tell that King is just aching to make him a cliched villain and probably by the end of the novel he'll be holding a gun to Mike's head telling him to get out of town.
At the end of the chapter Mike makes a call to Jo's old friend and asks her if Jo was cheating on him. Bonnie declares absolutely not but she does say that Jo quit all of her volunteer committees and activities in the winter of 1993. But Mike has Jo's old calender from 1994 and see that it is full of notes that she is going to committees throughout that year even Bonnie just said she had quit them all which Mike did not know about. Mike thinks that on all those days that instead of being on the volunteer boards she was at Sara Laughs.
Durgin is introduced quickly by Mike as a small fat man, and while Mike "likes most fat people," he labels this one immediately as a "ELFF" or "evil little fat folk." Apparently there are a race of fat people that are to be hated on sight because these particular fat people (under 5 foot 2) hate the whole world because they are fat and especially hate anyone who is not fat. I'm not kidding, that's what King writes on page 239 of this book. Way to go with the stereotyping King and character development.
The main plot point of the deposition is that Durgin bluffed that he was going to play a tape of the phone call the Devore made to Noonan on July 4th where Mike lied about his first encounter with Mattie. In the deposition Mike declares that he doesn't remember the conversation he had with Devore and Durgin has a tape recorder there to start playing what would appear to be the tape but ultimately he does not. Mike later asks his lawyer about this and he comes to the conclusion that Max Devore probably has many other tapes with incriminating evidence on them and he doesn't want to introduce this tape because of the fear that the court would subpoena more tapes that he doesn't want heard.
After the deposition Mattie, Mike and the lawyer, John Storrow all go for a little picnic and talk for a little while about the case. John is convinced that Devore will drop the case.
At the end of the chapter Mike goes back to Sara Laughs and then the first fully sustained moment of supernatural horror appears. As he walks into the house he hears the bell by the Moose head ringing loudly (Bunter's Bell). Mike stops at the doorway and asks, "Who's here?" And a loud sustained shrink issues from the house and then after a minute or two it stops. After that Mike hears the sobbing. When the sobbing stops again he goes to the refrigerator and see that the magnets are rearranged to say, "Help I'm drowning." The chapter ends.
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Chapter 16 moves the plot a little further along. Mike sees that in the night the ghost has overturned the flour and is trying to spell out something but all it could do was make squiggly lines in the flours. Mike goes to the softball game in the hopes of seeing Max Devore, but Max doesn't show up and the only people he sees are John Storrow and Mattie there together, also looking for Max.
The next day Mike has a conversation with Brenda Meserve about the history of the TR and Dark Score lake. She tells Mike that one of the Red-Top boys who was in Sara Tidwell's settlement around the lake got caught in an animal trap and died later of infection. Brenda says that's why the settlement disbanded but her mother says the boy's ghost still haunts the lake.
Another boy that died around the lake was a boy with the last name of Auster. His father, Normal, drowned the baby by putting his head under the water pump until he was dead. Then the father took a shotgun and shot himself. The father might also be haunting the lake Brenda thinks.
Mike then goes to the library, careful to talk mostly to the other librarian (Mattie works at the library) to give the appearance that nothing is happening between him and Mattie. He wants to find some histories about the town and the lake. He finds a picture of Sara Tidwell and the name of the boy who got caught in the trap was a Tidwell and Mike thinks the boy might be the nephew of Sara.
John Storrow calls Mike up and is excited about the case because he hired a detective who has evidence that Durgin is being paid by Devore. John also tell Mike that he is interested in Mattie.
John doesn't even ask Mike if he interested in her himself. This is a huge mistake on King's part because large portions of the book are devoted to Mike and Mattie trying to be seen only in public and not appearing romantic at all on the lawyer's advice. If the lawyer thought that nothing was going on or that nothing was likely to happen he would not have given that advice and the fact that he doesn't even ask Mike or bring up the possibility that since Mike is paying all this attention to her, not to mention $75,000 in legal fees that Mike, might, you know, have some kind of feelings that are least a little bit romantic towards her. Storrow is either really dumb, really mean and inconsiderate or King was writing very sloppy.
After the conversation he starts to think about Jo and whether she really was cheating on him with someone up on the TR and whether or not she lied. The TV immediately turns on to an old movie with a woman shouting, "I am not a liar!" I thought that was kind of cool. Ghosts communicating via TV shows. Nice.
The next morning Mike runs into Bill Dean, the caretaker, and now that Mike is asking a lot of questions he warns Mike to stop. Bill is no longer the nice old man but another stock King villain. We know this because Bill describes the Tidwell settlement and says that they left because they were wanderers but Mike knows psychically that Bill was going to say niggers instead of wanderers (page 278). Bill is trying to be nice but underneath you can tell that King is just aching to make him a cliched villain and probably by the end of the novel he'll be holding a gun to Mike's head telling him to get out of town.
At the end of the chapter Mike makes a call to Jo's old friend and asks her if Jo was cheating on him. Bonnie declares absolutely not but she does say that Jo quit all of her volunteer committees and activities in the winter of 1993. But Mike has Jo's old calender from 1994 and see that it is full of notes that she is going to committees throughout that year even Bonnie just said she had quit them all which Mike did not know about. Mike thinks that on all those days that instead of being on the volunteer boards she was at Sara Laughs.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapters 13 &14 (pages 210-238)
I won't go into too much detail about Chapter 13, it consists of a long (and vile) dream-sleepwalking-ghost groping section where Mike Noonan has dream/ghost-sex with his dead wife Jo, the dead blues singer Sara Tidwell and the still alive Mattie. It's kind of disgusting to read and to be honest, I skipped a large part of it. The only thing of note is that the dream also features Jo's old typewriter she kept in her studio in the barn next door. At the end of Chapter 13 Mike wakes up in the morning from his ghost wet dream and decides to grab the typewriter. Magically he feels none of the panic and anxiety he did when he tried to type on his computer and is able to write eight pages for his next novel.
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Chapter 14 opens with Mike getting a phone call from Mattie and she's excited and sooo happy about the lawyer Mike got for her. She's thanking him profusely and the only thoughts he has are that those thank-you's are invitations to have sex. He's knows they're not but can't help thinking otherwise. Then Mike thinks about an Atlantic Monthly article he read by "some feminist" where she argues that men fantasize about women only as sexual objects not human beings with their own needs and feelings. The article argued that the ultimate male sexual fantasy was to have sex with "this shadow, this fantasy, this ghost." (page 238). King intends this passage to give some kind of greater psychological weight to the preceding chapter. I'm not buying it. It sounds like King wrote a chapter where his character has sex with a couple of ghosts and then looked for a way to rationalize it into greater meaning. Nice try.
Mike's lawyer then calls and updates him on the child-custody case. Things are looking better because the lawyer did some research and discovered that since Max Devore is not married there are only a few options as to who to leave Kyra to in the (likely) event that Max dies before the child is eighteen.
Max's own daughter is in an institution. His only living son is a gay middle-aged man with a "husband." Mike almost does a spit-take when the lawyer tells him the gay man is married...to a man. The book is only ten years old but I guess things have changed in a big way since then. I hear that Maine is now looking to legalize same-sex marriage. So these two factors leave no one really to leave the child with if Max dies (the conservative Maine judge would not give custody to a gay couple). The lawyer brings up the point that Max might marry Rogette Whitmore and then she could take custody of the child but Mike thinks that it would make little difference considering her advanced age.
A main theme of this chapter is that Mike now is able to write again. The phone calls keep interrupting his thought process. Mike is elated at his regained ability to write and feels that he has "lived more in the past five days than in the previous four years." He walks down to the lake and by the shore he starts to sob with relief because he feel he has been "reborn."
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Analysis:
Chapter 13 was not really creepy or scary, just weird and not very readable unless you like ghost-porn.
Chapter 14 was much better but it really served only to advance the plot points. The dialogue was nice and sharp and not too corny. The end of the chapter after Mike describes the plot of his new book, (something about a man accused of being a serial rapist who may or may not be innocent) is actually pretty moving. In two pages King makes us feel Mike's relief at being able to write again and how bad things must have been for him during those four years where he could not. Him breaking down and crying by the lake in relief and thanks was very effective. Nice job.
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Chapter 14 opens with Mike getting a phone call from Mattie and she's excited and sooo happy about the lawyer Mike got for her. She's thanking him profusely and the only thoughts he has are that those thank-you's are invitations to have sex. He's knows they're not but can't help thinking otherwise. Then Mike thinks about an Atlantic Monthly article he read by "some feminist" where she argues that men fantasize about women only as sexual objects not human beings with their own needs and feelings. The article argued that the ultimate male sexual fantasy was to have sex with "this shadow, this fantasy, this ghost." (page 238). King intends this passage to give some kind of greater psychological weight to the preceding chapter. I'm not buying it. It sounds like King wrote a chapter where his character has sex with a couple of ghosts and then looked for a way to rationalize it into greater meaning. Nice try.
Mike's lawyer then calls and updates him on the child-custody case. Things are looking better because the lawyer did some research and discovered that since Max Devore is not married there are only a few options as to who to leave Kyra to in the (likely) event that Max dies before the child is eighteen.
Max's own daughter is in an institution. His only living son is a gay middle-aged man with a "husband." Mike almost does a spit-take when the lawyer tells him the gay man is married...to a man. The book is only ten years old but I guess things have changed in a big way since then. I hear that Maine is now looking to legalize same-sex marriage. So these two factors leave no one really to leave the child with if Max dies (the conservative Maine judge would not give custody to a gay couple). The lawyer brings up the point that Max might marry Rogette Whitmore and then she could take custody of the child but Mike thinks that it would make little difference considering her advanced age.
A main theme of this chapter is that Mike now is able to write again. The phone calls keep interrupting his thought process. Mike is elated at his regained ability to write and feels that he has "lived more in the past five days than in the previous four years." He walks down to the lake and by the shore he starts to sob with relief because he feel he has been "reborn."
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Analysis:
Chapter 13 was not really creepy or scary, just weird and not very readable unless you like ghost-porn.
Chapter 14 was much better but it really served only to advance the plot points. The dialogue was nice and sharp and not too corny. The end of the chapter after Mike describes the plot of his new book, (something about a man accused of being a serial rapist who may or may not be innocent) is actually pretty moving. In two pages King makes us feel Mike's relief at being able to write again and how bad things must have been for him during those four years where he could not. Him breaking down and crying by the lake in relief and thanks was very effective. Nice job.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 12 (pages 176-209)
A nice long chapter describing Mattie and Mike burgeoning relationship. Mike calls Mattie to discuss the lawyer situation but incredibly he picks it up and, without dialing, Mattie is on the other end calling him. The phone never rang at all! That's how connected they are. She invites him over for dinner and he accepts. After dinner he goes into her trailer (even Mattie comments how they should only be seen in public. How having a relationship with a successful, millionaire author who cares enough about her to hire a lawyer for her custody battle makes her a bad mother, I'm not sure. The age difference?) Mike reads Kyra a bed time story and after Mike puts her to be, he and Mattie have a nice, long talk.
Mattie tells Mike all about Max. Max never wanted her to marry Lance and offered to pay her to go away and never see her again. Once she became pregnant Max offered to buy her child for a few million dollars. Mattie told Lance and Lance broke off all communication with his father. (He did this through email because Lance stutters. An unusual plot point considering he's dead. I hope his ghost stutters.) Mattie lets Max see Kyra a couple times a month. But Max is portrayed as a blood thirsty monster throughout. King references him as a villain from The Brothers Grimm over and over. Drilling it into the readers head that he is evil, even though nothing in his actions described has suggested a level of abnormality bordering on the supernatural. There's one scene where Max picks Kyra up and Mattie says he looked at her like he wanted to eat her. I hope that there's going to be some kind of soul-transference type deal where Max wants Kyra so he can transfer his evil and immortal soul into her. That would be really cool.
Kyra has stopped liking going over to Max's but still like Rogette whom Mattie calls "white nana." Does she also have a black nana? An Asian nana? When some one's white they usually don't go around describing other people as white. "My white uncle is awesome!" Aren't all you're uncles white?
Mattie agrees to let Mike help her with the lawyer as long as he really cares about her and it's not a game to him. Mike replies that he's doing this because he's really done nothing of value in the last four years. Four years with nothing to show for it he thinks. There's one little moment when Mike claims that they were both thinking about kissing but Mike lets the moment pass. Mattie says thanks again "and if there is anything I can do to return the favor let me know." Mike immediately envisions sexual favors and chastises the girl in his mind for giving him a virtual invitation to swap sex for law services. Nice.
An important plot point brought up is that Mattie saw Mike's wife in the summer of 1994 at a softball game with another man. They were hugging each other and looking a little bit cuddly. It's not too unusual for someone to remember they saw someone briefly four years ago, if it's a person of note. But Mattie has an unusual memory for something that happened for thirty seconds four years ago. Of course Mike didn't know Jo had come up to Sara Laughs in the summer of 1994 and Mike of course needs to know who this guy was and if the pregnancy test she bought the days she died (and didn't tell Mike about) was for this guy's baby. We get a little soap opera mixed in with our horror.
The chapter ends with the ghost spelling out on the refrigerator that Mike's wife is a liar and saying "ha ha." The ghost might be Nelson from the Simpson's.
Mattie tells Mike all about Max. Max never wanted her to marry Lance and offered to pay her to go away and never see her again. Once she became pregnant Max offered to buy her child for a few million dollars. Mattie told Lance and Lance broke off all communication with his father. (He did this through email because Lance stutters. An unusual plot point considering he's dead. I hope his ghost stutters.) Mattie lets Max see Kyra a couple times a month. But Max is portrayed as a blood thirsty monster throughout. King references him as a villain from The Brothers Grimm over and over. Drilling it into the readers head that he is evil, even though nothing in his actions described has suggested a level of abnormality bordering on the supernatural. There's one scene where Max picks Kyra up and Mattie says he looked at her like he wanted to eat her. I hope that there's going to be some kind of soul-transference type deal where Max wants Kyra so he can transfer his evil and immortal soul into her. That would be really cool.
Kyra has stopped liking going over to Max's but still like Rogette whom Mattie calls "white nana." Does she also have a black nana? An Asian nana? When some one's white they usually don't go around describing other people as white. "My white uncle is awesome!" Aren't all you're uncles white?
Mattie agrees to let Mike help her with the lawyer as long as he really cares about her and it's not a game to him. Mike replies that he's doing this because he's really done nothing of value in the last four years. Four years with nothing to show for it he thinks. There's one little moment when Mike claims that they were both thinking about kissing but Mike lets the moment pass. Mattie says thanks again "and if there is anything I can do to return the favor let me know." Mike immediately envisions sexual favors and chastises the girl in his mind for giving him a virtual invitation to swap sex for law services. Nice.
An important plot point brought up is that Mattie saw Mike's wife in the summer of 1994 at a softball game with another man. They were hugging each other and looking a little bit cuddly. It's not too unusual for someone to remember they saw someone briefly four years ago, if it's a person of note. But Mattie has an unusual memory for something that happened for thirty seconds four years ago. Of course Mike didn't know Jo had come up to Sara Laughs in the summer of 1994 and Mike of course needs to know who this guy was and if the pregnancy test she bought the days she died (and didn't tell Mike about) was for this guy's baby. We get a little soap opera mixed in with our horror.
The chapter ends with the ghost spelling out on the refrigerator that Mike's wife is a liar and saying "ha ha." The ghost might be Nelson from the Simpson's.
Bag of Bones: Chapter 11 (pages 159-175)
The chapter opens with Mike waking up in the morning thinking there is someone in the bedroom with him, but surprise-it's just an old jacket he hung up and had forgotten about. Then King adds a neat little saying I had never heard before and (hopefully) has never been said in real life, Mike's so relieved that it's just a jacket he says, "Oh shit. Fuck me til I cry." Classy King, keep it up -the dialogue crackles.
Mike gets served with papers to come testify at a deposition concerning the upcoming custody trial. The person serving the papers is another cliche and the thing I like about King throughout this book is that he keeps saying his characters are cliche but they're not too cliche. George Footman, the process server, says "Don't fuck with Max Devore." Then Mike comes up with another line that would make it more cliche. Sorry King, your character is either a cliche or not a cliche. There's no such thing as "more" cliche, just as there is no such thing as being "more" unique. George Footman's cliche is that he's an alcoholic cop out on the take and will do anything for money. He'll beat you up or threaten you because he's getting paid by Max Devore.
Mike is upset about being served so he calls up a lawyer to see what can be done. Mike's talk with the lawyer is rather well done. King talks about the line that's crossed when a lawyer becomes your lawyer. It's a comforting feeling to know that someone has your back and that no matter what (as long as you pay) they will defend you and your actions. Unconditional love.
The bottom line is that the lawyer needs to represent Mattie. Mike agrees to talk to her about him paying for this high-priced lawyer and wonders if she will agree to let him help her. The lawyer tells Mike to only be seen with Mattie in public so that the townspeople will think they're not having sex. This doesn't make much sense. Unless Mattie or Mike are available for twenty-four viewing, there's no way to know if they are or not having sex. But whatever.
At the end of the chapter we get a brief history of Sara Laughs and the area around the lake. In the 1890's a group of forty or so "pretty special black people" settled the area and they were all in some kind of musical troupe with Sara Tidwell as the leader. They were well received around the area after initial hesitation by the whites and enjoyed a nice career in New England until they packed up in 1901. I really, really hope that this will be the ultimate "King magical black person" novel. Not just one magical black person but an entire settlement of special, magical black ghosts. That would be truly incredible and I do think that we are going to get it later on in the novel. I can't wait.
Mike gets served with papers to come testify at a deposition concerning the upcoming custody trial. The person serving the papers is another cliche and the thing I like about King throughout this book is that he keeps saying his characters are cliche but they're not too cliche. George Footman, the process server, says "Don't fuck with Max Devore." Then Mike comes up with another line that would make it more cliche. Sorry King, your character is either a cliche or not a cliche. There's no such thing as "more" cliche, just as there is no such thing as being "more" unique. George Footman's cliche is that he's an alcoholic cop out on the take and will do anything for money. He'll beat you up or threaten you because he's getting paid by Max Devore.
Mike is upset about being served so he calls up a lawyer to see what can be done. Mike's talk with the lawyer is rather well done. King talks about the line that's crossed when a lawyer becomes your lawyer. It's a comforting feeling to know that someone has your back and that no matter what (as long as you pay) they will defend you and your actions. Unconditional love.
The bottom line is that the lawyer needs to represent Mattie. Mike agrees to talk to her about him paying for this high-priced lawyer and wonders if she will agree to let him help her. The lawyer tells Mike to only be seen with Mattie in public so that the townspeople will think they're not having sex. This doesn't make much sense. Unless Mattie or Mike are available for twenty-four viewing, there's no way to know if they are or not having sex. But whatever.
At the end of the chapter we get a brief history of Sara Laughs and the area around the lake. In the 1890's a group of forty or so "pretty special black people" settled the area and they were all in some kind of musical troupe with Sara Tidwell as the leader. They were well received around the area after initial hesitation by the whites and enjoyed a nice career in New England until they packed up in 1901. I really, really hope that this will be the ultimate "King magical black person" novel. Not just one magical black person but an entire settlement of special, magical black ghosts. That would be truly incredible and I do think that we are going to get it later on in the novel. I can't wait.
Bag of Bones: Chapter 10 (pages 135-158)
This chapter will be known as the "exposition chapter." Bill Dean, the local caretaker, visits Mike at Sara Laughs and gives him an exhaustive history of Max Devore, Lance Devore and Mattie Devore. This chapter reminded me of the scene in Wayne's World, where Chris Farley plays a security guard and gives Wayne all the information he needs to track down the record executive he seeks. ("That guy seemed to have an awful lot of information for a security guard.")
Mike has an hour and a half long conversation with Mike (King gives a specific time frame for this conversation. Bill arrives at 9 am and has to leave to get to his next appointment at 11 am).
Mattie came from a poor family from the area and Lance, the son of the wealthy Max Devore, developed a passion for forestry. Max hired Lance to explore the vast forests he owned in this part of Maine. He also played in the local softball games held every week. The locals played the out- of -towners and Lance would play for either team. He met little Mattie then who was only seventeen and they fell in love.
King describes all of this exposition as coming from the mouth of Bill Dean, or as if the reader should understand that it's coming from Bill Dean but he also adds an odd little paragraph in the middle that gave me pause as to where the information was coming from. Bill's describing how Mattie met Lance and then Mike's narration takes over, " Mattie never said much about it, so I don't know much. Except I do...some of the details might be wrong [but] I got most of them right. That was my summer for knowing things I had no business knowing." So is King saying that Mike is becoming psychic as to the history of the people around him and is the story we're hearing coming from Bill, Mattie or the voice in Mike's head? Later on, Mattie tells her story herself, going into greater detail so we should then assume that the version in this chapter is Bill Dean's alone. But that paragraph throws some of this into confusion.
We find that Lance died retrieving a wrench from the top of his trailer during a thunderstorm. Lightening struck near him and he fell off the ladder. After Lance died, Max came into town and has been there ever since trying to get custody of Kyra.
The plot development in this chapter is that Bill tells Mike about some plastic owls that Jo had ordered in the fall of 1993 and that she came up to Sara Laughs by herself to retrieve them when they were delivered to the house. Mike has no memory of Jo going to Sara Laughs by herself and tries to dig around in his records to account for Jo's actions.
We also get more details about the woman with the face from "The Scream." (I'm not going to call it "The Cry" even though King does throughout the book. I want people to know what I'm talking about.) Her name is Rogette Whitmore, she's Max Devore's personal assistant and the locals think she's a witch. Only in New England do people go around thinking other people are witches.
The chapter ends with Mike making contact with the ghosts that inhabits Sara Laughs. He goes into the dark basement to look for the owls and he starts to hear thudding and Mike starts to talk to the noises. He asks Yes or No questions while instructing the ghost to thud once for "yes" two for "no." It starts off kind of silly but in King's defense, it does get a little creepy after half a page. Mike asks the ghost if it is Sara and the ghosts says "yes and no." At the end of the chapter the ghost has rearranged the magnets on the fridge to spell "hello."
Mike has an hour and a half long conversation with Mike (King gives a specific time frame for this conversation. Bill arrives at 9 am and has to leave to get to his next appointment at 11 am).
Mattie came from a poor family from the area and Lance, the son of the wealthy Max Devore, developed a passion for forestry. Max hired Lance to explore the vast forests he owned in this part of Maine. He also played in the local softball games held every week. The locals played the out- of -towners and Lance would play for either team. He met little Mattie then who was only seventeen and they fell in love.
King describes all of this exposition as coming from the mouth of Bill Dean, or as if the reader should understand that it's coming from Bill Dean but he also adds an odd little paragraph in the middle that gave me pause as to where the information was coming from. Bill's describing how Mattie met Lance and then Mike's narration takes over, " Mattie never said much about it, so I don't know much. Except I do...some of the details might be wrong [but] I got most of them right. That was my summer for knowing things I had no business knowing." So is King saying that Mike is becoming psychic as to the history of the people around him and is the story we're hearing coming from Bill, Mattie or the voice in Mike's head? Later on, Mattie tells her story herself, going into greater detail so we should then assume that the version in this chapter is Bill Dean's alone. But that paragraph throws some of this into confusion.
We find that Lance died retrieving a wrench from the top of his trailer during a thunderstorm. Lightening struck near him and he fell off the ladder. After Lance died, Max came into town and has been there ever since trying to get custody of Kyra.
The plot development in this chapter is that Bill tells Mike about some plastic owls that Jo had ordered in the fall of 1993 and that she came up to Sara Laughs by herself to retrieve them when they were delivered to the house. Mike has no memory of Jo going to Sara Laughs by herself and tries to dig around in his records to account for Jo's actions.
We also get more details about the woman with the face from "The Scream." (I'm not going to call it "The Cry" even though King does throughout the book. I want people to know what I'm talking about.) Her name is Rogette Whitmore, she's Max Devore's personal assistant and the locals think she's a witch. Only in New England do people go around thinking other people are witches.
The chapter ends with Mike making contact with the ghosts that inhabits Sara Laughs. He goes into the dark basement to look for the owls and he starts to hear thudding and Mike starts to talk to the noises. He asks Yes or No questions while instructing the ghost to thud once for "yes" two for "no." It starts off kind of silly but in King's defense, it does get a little creepy after half a page. Mike asks the ghost if it is Sara and the ghosts says "yes and no." At the end of the chapter the ghost has rearranged the magnets on the fridge to spell "hello."
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 9 (pages 120-134)
Nothing much happens in this chapter, just King laying the groundwork for later events. Mike Noonan goes to take a walk near the Warrington ( a compound of restaurant-hotel-golf course) and sees an old woman he takes for a ghost standing outside the deck of the bar. The woman is described (to me at least) in a very confusing way. First, King brings up the Munch drawing "The Cry," not "The Scream" as most people in the English speaking world know it as but "The Cry." Wikipedia says that a more direct translation is shriek rather than scream, but it is occasionally referred to as "The Cry."
"Imagine that face at rest." King asks the reader. Then imagine that figure wearing black shorts over a black tank bathing suit. Huh? OK. King says that combination is "strangely formal, like a cocktail dress." I give up Mr. King, I'm not sure what you're talking about...Anyway he waves at the woman, she doesn't wave back Mike turns away for a minute and she's gone. He thinks it's a ghost but "Jo" tells him it's not. Thanks Jo, a ghost telling him it's not a ghost.
Then Mike wonders why he and Jo didn't go to Sara Laughs the previous summer. Mike declares that it was always Jo who brought up the idea of going and she never brought it up this year and he had "forgotten" they had a summer place upstate apparently.
Mike now remembers an old blues song that "Sara Tidwell" a black blues singer from the twenties and for whom Sara Laughs is named after. I think this is the first mention of her in the book and I was a little confused about it, at first I didn't know why she was being brought up. Or who she was. King explains it in the next chapter but for this brief appearance (unless I missed something earlier) the reader is lost.
Mike then goes about cleaning up his offices and Joann's office (it is never made clear what, if anything Joann did as far as an occupation, she seemed to be a full-time volunteer and hobbyist). He finds a dictating machine from his writing days, and instead of thinking about trying to write with it he will use to record the sounds the ghosts in house make during the night. Earlier in the book when Mike's writer's block is described in some detail King tells us how Mike tried to write longhand and even how he tried to write using the Notepad program. But he never even brought up the subject of dictating. But if Mike never dictated before, he might not have thought of it as a viable option. It's just funny how the first thing I thought of when the dictating machine made an appearance was, "Mike's going to try writing with it," and the first thing Mike thought of was, "now I can record those ghosts!"
He sets the tape recorder up and in the morning plays it back and hears a ghostly whisper, "Oh Mike."
"Imagine that face at rest." King asks the reader. Then imagine that figure wearing black shorts over a black tank bathing suit. Huh? OK. King says that combination is "strangely formal, like a cocktail dress." I give up Mr. King, I'm not sure what you're talking about...Anyway he waves at the woman, she doesn't wave back Mike turns away for a minute and she's gone. He thinks it's a ghost but "Jo" tells him it's not. Thanks Jo, a ghost telling him it's not a ghost.
Then Mike wonders why he and Jo didn't go to Sara Laughs the previous summer. Mike declares that it was always Jo who brought up the idea of going and she never brought it up this year and he had "forgotten" they had a summer place upstate apparently.
Mike now remembers an old blues song that "Sara Tidwell" a black blues singer from the twenties and for whom Sara Laughs is named after. I think this is the first mention of her in the book and I was a little confused about it, at first I didn't know why she was being brought up. Or who she was. King explains it in the next chapter but for this brief appearance (unless I missed something earlier) the reader is lost.
Mike then goes about cleaning up his offices and Joann's office (it is never made clear what, if anything Joann did as far as an occupation, she seemed to be a full-time volunteer and hobbyist). He finds a dictating machine from his writing days, and instead of thinking about trying to write with it he will use to record the sounds the ghosts in house make during the night. Earlier in the book when Mike's writer's block is described in some detail King tells us how Mike tried to write longhand and even how he tried to write using the Notepad program. But he never even brought up the subject of dictating. But if Mike never dictated before, he might not have thought of it as a viable option. It's just funny how the first thing I thought of when the dictating machine made an appearance was, "Mike's going to try writing with it," and the first thing Mike thought of was, "now I can record those ghosts!"
He sets the tape recorder up and in the morning plays it back and hears a ghostly whisper, "Oh Mike."
Monday, October 5, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 8 (pages 106-120)
After Chapter One, Chapter Eight might be the best written section of this novel. King starts out strong with a nice writer's exercise in depicting an almost deserted greasy spoon. It's all about the details when it comes to making fiction resemble reality and there are some details here that make the diner stand out in the readers' mind. The old line cook "maybe fifty-five, maybe seventy," is depicted particularly well. The beef-blood soaked clothes but his hands are still clean. King wants to say that underneath all the grime, the cook is just as "professional" as any the "city."
Mike eats his burger and thinks about Mattie Devore and wonders where he has heard that last name before. After a little thinking and a flip through the phone book (the book written in 1998 is already dated in some parts, Mike thinks it's unusual that the phone book isn't attached to a cord to prevent theft but then thinks that's because no one would want to steal a Castle Rock directory because it's such a small town. Now the question is, "Who wants any phone book?" I can't remember the last time I opened one myself.) comes to the conclusion that Mattie's deceased husband was somehow related to the wealthy and reclusive millionaire Max Devore.
Mike leaves the diner and drives back to Sara Laughs and remembers that in his nightmares a radio station bumper sticker was stuck onto the entrance sign of his house. The other two vivid details of his dream had appeared in real life and he wants to know if this third one was real also. There's no sticker on the sign when Mike checks but he feels a "sticky residue" where the sticker would've been and decides to take a look through the garbage where the caretaker might have thrown it away. (A neat little aside that King throws in: The garbage bags are not stored in cans but in an old cabinet so the raccoons won't get in them. Since it's not a can they won't know that it contains garbage. I wonder if that actually works.) And sure enough, the bumper sticker is there, exactly the one Mike dreamed of.
King then has a nice little scene of Mike swimming in "Dark Score Lake" that is just outside his house. This is really the first appearance of the lake in the novel and I have a feeling we'll get more of it before the book is over. In the last chapter when Mike mishears Mattie say her daughter's name is "Kia," Mike has an odd reaction of tasting water in his mouth and out in the lake he realizes he was tasting Dark Score water.
Later on he settles back with a can of Pepsi (remember, he's no longer "troubled" and has forgotten to buy a six pack of beer while he was in town.) and watches the fireworks show from across the lake. But just when the fireworks begin, the phone rings and it's none other than Max Devore the millionaire!
Max wants to know about the incident with his granddaughter, Kyra. Mike denies that anything happened that would appear to make Mattie a bad mother. Max knows Mike is lying and gets angry. A good line that King adds in this section when referring to Max is, "this is a man who hasn't had to conceal his emotions in a lot of years." (116). Because Max is very rich he can rant and rave and be angry any time he wants and there's nothing anyone can do to stop him. I've never thought about that before. For most people with a boss and coworkers who are more or less equal to ourselves we have to be civil and cordial. We have to be "polite." If we are not things can breaks down pretty quickly and we can find ourselves fired from a job or ostracized from a social group. But rich people don't have to act in quite the same way. If they are angry they can be angry. They're too rich to have to be polite. Nice work King, something I've never thought of.
The troubling part of this section is the introduction of Joann's "voice" inside Mike's head talking to him, giving him advice. Why can't this just be Mike's own thought processes depicted instead of his dead wife's. I can see this getting annoying very fast and am fearful of my ability to finish this book if this gets out of hand. The dumbest line she "says" is that when Mike's talking to Max and deciding not to tell him the truth she says, "Be careful Mike. Beware of Maxwell's silver hammer." It took me a while to understand why this was said. Let me take you through my thought process A) It's a reference to the Beatles song off of Abbey Road. B) The song is about a science student going on a killing spree with a hammer. Is Max going to kill Mike with a hammer? Didn't make a lot of sense. Then I saw the name Maxwell-Max. Okay. Then the word silver, meaning money. Max has a lot more money than Mike and will use that money to make Mike regret his decision not to help him. Maxwell's "silver" "hammer." Man ,that's a long way to go for one throwaway line.
Mike goes to sleep and in the middle of the night he starts to hear the child crying again, and then the crying drifts away like "the child is being carried away." An inadvertently funny line is when Mike hears the crying he knows that it's not his imagination and says aloud, "it's scary." You know you're struggling with the horror element in your book when you have to have your main character declare to the reader, "it's scary." The chapter ends with Mike coming to the realization that "Sara is alive" and it's his "home." What this means we're not really sure yet. We'll have to keep reading to find out.
(Quick side note: In this chapter Mike mentions how much me he likes the Beach Boys song, "Don't Worry Baby." And how it's his favorite. It's far from my favorite but a good song, so I looked up the lyrics and to my surprise they're about drag racing and how his girlfriend's love will protect the frightened protagonist from harm during the race. An unusual part of the song happens when Brian Wilson sings loud and clear, "Oh what she does to me/when she makes love to me/and she says/ Don't worry baby." I just wonder what came to most people's minds when he sang that lyric. Was it the old-fashioned "make love to-" meaning sweet talking /flirting or actual sex? This is the mid-sixties and I'd be surprised if most of the listeners didn't think about sex but it was still a popular song and the most groups like the Beatles or even the Stones we're singing about was I want to hold your hand or the most the Stones could get away with (and they still got censored) was "Let's spend the night together." ) Unusual...
Mike eats his burger and thinks about Mattie Devore and wonders where he has heard that last name before. After a little thinking and a flip through the phone book (the book written in 1998 is already dated in some parts, Mike thinks it's unusual that the phone book isn't attached to a cord to prevent theft but then thinks that's because no one would want to steal a Castle Rock directory because it's such a small town. Now the question is, "Who wants any phone book?" I can't remember the last time I opened one myself.) comes to the conclusion that Mattie's deceased husband was somehow related to the wealthy and reclusive millionaire Max Devore.
Mike leaves the diner and drives back to Sara Laughs and remembers that in his nightmares a radio station bumper sticker was stuck onto the entrance sign of his house. The other two vivid details of his dream had appeared in real life and he wants to know if this third one was real also. There's no sticker on the sign when Mike checks but he feels a "sticky residue" where the sticker would've been and decides to take a look through the garbage where the caretaker might have thrown it away. (A neat little aside that King throws in: The garbage bags are not stored in cans but in an old cabinet so the raccoons won't get in them. Since it's not a can they won't know that it contains garbage. I wonder if that actually works.) And sure enough, the bumper sticker is there, exactly the one Mike dreamed of.
King then has a nice little scene of Mike swimming in "Dark Score Lake" that is just outside his house. This is really the first appearance of the lake in the novel and I have a feeling we'll get more of it before the book is over. In the last chapter when Mike mishears Mattie say her daughter's name is "Kia," Mike has an odd reaction of tasting water in his mouth and out in the lake he realizes he was tasting Dark Score water.
Later on he settles back with a can of Pepsi (remember, he's no longer "troubled" and has forgotten to buy a six pack of beer while he was in town.) and watches the fireworks show from across the lake. But just when the fireworks begin, the phone rings and it's none other than Max Devore the millionaire!
Max wants to know about the incident with his granddaughter, Kyra. Mike denies that anything happened that would appear to make Mattie a bad mother. Max knows Mike is lying and gets angry. A good line that King adds in this section when referring to Max is, "this is a man who hasn't had to conceal his emotions in a lot of years." (116). Because Max is very rich he can rant and rave and be angry any time he wants and there's nothing anyone can do to stop him. I've never thought about that before. For most people with a boss and coworkers who are more or less equal to ourselves we have to be civil and cordial. We have to be "polite." If we are not things can breaks down pretty quickly and we can find ourselves fired from a job or ostracized from a social group. But rich people don't have to act in quite the same way. If they are angry they can be angry. They're too rich to have to be polite. Nice work King, something I've never thought of.
The troubling part of this section is the introduction of Joann's "voice" inside Mike's head talking to him, giving him advice. Why can't this just be Mike's own thought processes depicted instead of his dead wife's. I can see this getting annoying very fast and am fearful of my ability to finish this book if this gets out of hand. The dumbest line she "says" is that when Mike's talking to Max and deciding not to tell him the truth she says, "Be careful Mike. Beware of Maxwell's silver hammer." It took me a while to understand why this was said. Let me take you through my thought process A) It's a reference to the Beatles song off of Abbey Road. B) The song is about a science student going on a killing spree with a hammer. Is Max going to kill Mike with a hammer? Didn't make a lot of sense. Then I saw the name Maxwell-Max. Okay. Then the word silver, meaning money. Max has a lot more money than Mike and will use that money to make Mike regret his decision not to help him. Maxwell's "silver" "hammer." Man ,that's a long way to go for one throwaway line.
Mike goes to sleep and in the middle of the night he starts to hear the child crying again, and then the crying drifts away like "the child is being carried away." An inadvertently funny line is when Mike hears the crying he knows that it's not his imagination and says aloud, "it's scary." You know you're struggling with the horror element in your book when you have to have your main character declare to the reader, "it's scary." The chapter ends with Mike coming to the realization that "Sara is alive" and it's his "home." What this means we're not really sure yet. We'll have to keep reading to find out.
(Quick side note: In this chapter Mike mentions how much me he likes the Beach Boys song, "Don't Worry Baby." And how it's his favorite. It's far from my favorite but a good song, so I looked up the lyrics and to my surprise they're about drag racing and how his girlfriend's love will protect the frightened protagonist from harm during the race. An unusual part of the song happens when Brian Wilson sings loud and clear, "Oh what she does to me/when she makes love to me/and she says/ Don't worry baby." I just wonder what came to most people's minds when he sang that lyric. Was it the old-fashioned "make love to-" meaning sweet talking /flirting or actual sex? This is the mid-sixties and I'd be surprised if most of the listeners didn't think about sex but it was still a popular song and the most groups like the Beatles or even the Stones we're singing about was I want to hold your hand or the most the Stones could get away with (and they still got censored) was "Let's spend the night together." ) Unusual...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Bag of Bones: Chapter 7 (pages 93-106)
Chapter seven introduces us to the cute little girl, Kyra, and her mother Mattie. A few things of note struck me when I was reading this chapter. Mike Noonan goes out to get a burger and almost runs into a little girl walking down the center lane of the main road. Noonan rescues her and meets her hot twenty-something mom.
King uses a dramatic incident to introduce us to the little girl, but there's very little drama in the way King tells it. Noonan almost runs the child over but when he goes up to talk to her (she's three), she speaks in cute, precious and frankly unreadable baby-ese, so there's goes the drama of the life or death situation. "I go beach. Mommy 'o'nt take me and I'm mad as hell." Not sure a three year old would say that and it's hard to give King any leeway here. As in most of his stories the kid is too precious to be real. She's a blond white child name Kyra. I've never heard of the name Kyra, and it doesn't sound like a good name to me and I'm even more startled when Mike Noonan declares that if he had ever had a girl with his wife he was going to name it Kia. This book was written in 1998 and I'm not sure if the Kia car company was in America at this time but I laughed aloud when I read that. I laughed even harder when Noonan declares that Kia is an "African name" meaning "season's beginnings." I wonder if the Korean car makers are aware of this? I just like the idea of a kid walking around named Kia.
Mike Noonan saves the child and meets the mom who is driving around looking for her. King goes to great lengths to establish that Mattie (who is around twenty and looks like, "a young Grace Kelly") is not not NOT trailer trash even though she's living in a trailer. She's better than that because she doesn't spank her child and is a fan of Oprah. And, what a coincidence, one of her favorite authors is none other than Mike Noonan. Also her husband's dead just like Mike's wife is dead and she's going through a difficult time. I'm smelling romance here! And just to make abundantly clear what's going to happen, King makes sure that Mike "accidentally" feels her breast while trying to help her put Kyra in the car seat. If that's not romantic I don't know what is.
King uses a dramatic incident to introduce us to the little girl, but there's very little drama in the way King tells it. Noonan almost runs the child over but when he goes up to talk to her (she's three), she speaks in cute, precious and frankly unreadable baby-ese, so there's goes the drama of the life or death situation. "I go beach. Mommy 'o'nt take me and I'm mad as hell." Not sure a three year old would say that and it's hard to give King any leeway here. As in most of his stories the kid is too precious to be real. She's a blond white child name Kyra. I've never heard of the name Kyra, and it doesn't sound like a good name to me and I'm even more startled when Mike Noonan declares that if he had ever had a girl with his wife he was going to name it Kia. This book was written in 1998 and I'm not sure if the Kia car company was in America at this time but I laughed aloud when I read that. I laughed even harder when Noonan declares that Kia is an "African name" meaning "season's beginnings." I wonder if the Korean car makers are aware of this? I just like the idea of a kid walking around named Kia.
Mike Noonan saves the child and meets the mom who is driving around looking for her. King goes to great lengths to establish that Mattie (who is around twenty and looks like, "a young Grace Kelly") is not not NOT trailer trash even though she's living in a trailer. She's better than that because she doesn't spank her child and is a fan of Oprah. And, what a coincidence, one of her favorite authors is none other than Mike Noonan. Also her husband's dead just like Mike's wife is dead and she's going through a difficult time. I'm smelling romance here! And just to make abundantly clear what's going to happen, King makes sure that Mike "accidentally" feels her breast while trying to help her put Kyra in the car seat. If that's not romantic I don't know what is.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Bag of Bones:Chapter 6 (pages 71-92)
This describes Mike's first visit to Sara Laughs after his wife has died. This chapter establishes that it's been four years since his wife died. He hasn't been in a relationship since and has few friends. He can't write and spends most of his days watching movies and doing crossword puzzles. Why the subject of getting a job isn't even brought up, I'm not sure. Let's just say that King wants to establish that Mike is a lost soul looking for release from the grief. Not troubled, he's stopped drinking, just lost and looking for direction.
He goes to Sara Laughs and the sunflowers that are in his dreams are also there in real life. He tries to recreate his dream by walking up the driveway instead of driving up it. Nothing scary happens to him, no dead wife-corpse comes up the drive to attack him. There is a long drawn out sequence where Mike takes a flashlight and shines it all around the dark house looking for the creepy crying child he thinks he hears. Why he doesn't turn on the lights, which he does a few minutes after the noises stop, is not made clear. He wants to leave after he hears the creepy noises but thinking about it, he decides the crying child was just the pipes and he's going to go ahead and stay at Sara Laughs.
The Next Chapter introduces the psychic child which I am dreading and will put off reading until tomorrow. But so far this book is pretty good for a King book and I am still interested after almost a hundred pages. Let's see if the next hundred pages are as good...
He goes to Sara Laughs and the sunflowers that are in his dreams are also there in real life. He tries to recreate his dream by walking up the driveway instead of driving up it. Nothing scary happens to him, no dead wife-corpse comes up the drive to attack him. There is a long drawn out sequence where Mike takes a flashlight and shines it all around the dark house looking for the creepy crying child he thinks he hears. Why he doesn't turn on the lights, which he does a few minutes after the noises stop, is not made clear. He wants to leave after he hears the creepy noises but thinking about it, he decides the crying child was just the pipes and he's going to go ahead and stay at Sara Laughs.
The Next Chapter introduces the psychic child which I am dreading and will put off reading until tomorrow. But so far this book is pretty good for a King book and I am still interested after almost a hundred pages. Let's see if the next hundred pages are as good...
Bag Of Bones: Chapter 5 (pages 56-70)
This chapter deals with the increasing nightmares and visions Mike experiences and the trip to Key Largo he takes to get away from them.
Mike is starting to drink a lot. "The kind of drinking that could get a man in trouble." Oh yeah Steve we all know that kind of drinking.
The dreams are described in more detail and Mike starts noticing irregularities. He has a cut on his hand in the dream and in real life he get a cut on his hand. Hmmm.
An interesting question King poses in this chapter, well I guess interesting is one word for it, is: Is it OK to masturbate to your dead wife's picture?
Mike looks at a picture of his wife in a bikini and starts to become aroused thinking of all the sex they had together, which is described in semi-graphic detail, and that question "pops up." Mike doesn't succumb to temptation and controls himself. It's an odd situation but one that would probably occur in real life. So kudos to you Mr. King for creeping us all out.
Mike decides to go to Sara Laughs, the place of his nightmares, to put his fears at rest. He'll be heading out July 4th.
Mike is starting to drink a lot. "The kind of drinking that could get a man in trouble." Oh yeah Steve we all know that kind of drinking.
The dreams are described in more detail and Mike starts noticing irregularities. He has a cut on his hand in the dream and in real life he get a cut on his hand. Hmmm.
An interesting question King poses in this chapter, well I guess interesting is one word for it, is: Is it OK to masturbate to your dead wife's picture?
Mike looks at a picture of his wife in a bikini and starts to become aroused thinking of all the sex they had together, which is described in semi-graphic detail, and that question "pops up." Mike doesn't succumb to temptation and controls himself. It's an odd situation but one that would probably occur in real life. So kudos to you Mr. King for creeping us all out.
Mike decides to go to Sara Laughs, the place of his nightmares, to put his fears at rest. He'll be heading out July 4th.
Bag of Bones: Chapter 4 (pages 43-55)
This chapter deals mostly with Mike's writer's block. It is so severe he starts to hyper-ventilate when he goes to type something on his computer. He can only use the Notepad function. Also time is running out on his manuscripts stored in the vault.
The biggest plot point in this chapter is the Dream Mike has about Joann at their summer home in Maine "Sara Laughs." He walks up the driveway and her corpse comes running to meet him. I'm not big on dreams being described in literature (even nightmares) it kind of seems pointless to describe a fictional situation "in" a fictional situation. Unless the dreams are short and to the point I lose interest very quickly.
The biggest plot point in this chapter is the Dream Mike has about Joann at their summer home in Maine "Sara Laughs." He walks up the driveway and her corpse comes running to meet him. I'm not big on dreams being described in literature (even nightmares) it kind of seems pointless to describe a fictional situation "in" a fictional situation. Unless the dreams are short and to the point I lose interest very quickly.
Bag Of Bones: Chapter 3 (pages 26-42)
This chapter goes into great detail about Mike's life as a publishing author and his newly acquired writer's block. I was looking forward to hear King's thoughts on the publishing business but was disappointed when nothing of note was revealed to the reader.
The numbers are a cliche: 500,000. The money is a cliche, 3 million a book (there are no discussions of royalties which would've been really interesting.) How much money has King made on a book like "The Dead Zone"? Written in 1980, sold millions of copies since then, made into a movie and a TV series. Ten million on that book alone? Possible, but we don't know and his description of a writer's business dealings is just generic enough so we don't get any answers.
The main plot point of this chapter is that his hard-nosed agent wants another book and Mike can't write but he does have four books that he wrote earlier stored in a safety deposit box ready to go. So he can publish one "new" book a year for four years. After that he's in trouble.
The numbers are a cliche: 500,000. The money is a cliche, 3 million a book (there are no discussions of royalties which would've been really interesting.) How much money has King made on a book like "The Dead Zone"? Written in 1980, sold millions of copies since then, made into a movie and a TV series. Ten million on that book alone? Possible, but we don't know and his description of a writer's business dealings is just generic enough so we don't get any answers.
The main plot point of this chapter is that his hard-nosed agent wants another book and Mike can't write but he does have four books that he wrote earlier stored in a safety deposit box ready to go. So he can publish one "new" book a year for four years. After that he's in trouble.
Bag of Bones Chapter 2 (pages 16-26)
Chapter 2 expands on Mike's career as a writer. A writer like King, a genre writer like King, a best-selling writer like King. Unlike King though, he 's not a number one but a number ten or fifteen best-seller. The biggest plot point in this chapter is the little ritual that Joann and Mike have when they finish the book. Which seems to be that he dictates the last sentence of the book to her while she types it. They drink champagne. He says, "So that's all right isn't it?" She says, "That's all right." Then they have sex. Hmmm. Seems as good a ways as any to finish a novel. Let's move on...
Bag Of Bones: Chapter 1 (pages 1-15)
First person narrative. Starts in Derry Maine one of the famous fictional Maine towns that King loves so. Nice first paragraph, where we discover the protagonist's wife is dead. It's quick and to the point with a nice "real life" detail thrown in to give it greater force. This is what fiction is about. A non-writer would write: "My name is blah-blah my wife died in 1994." But King, for all his faults, is a writer and he uses the writer's tools to flesh out his characters and his plot. He makes everything very real and that's where his success comes from. Authenticity. When he fails on authenticity, his books fail, and almost every time at some point because the reality breaks down and we can all see the strings that move the puppets but his best work contains long stretches of "real life."
He describes the car crash that led up to her death. Her death wasn't called by the crash but by an aneurysm that occurred while she was running to help. I think that he did this because he wants to make sure Joann (the wife) is labeled as a "good person." Why King didn't just have her in the car crash I'm not sure, maybe that will play a role later in the book, maybe not.
He goes into the funeral and the concrete details are superb. I've never lost a spouse but my mother died when I was young and I can imagine that he felt like the protagonist in this book losing his wife at a relatively young age (36). Finding her stuff laying around the house. Little notes etc. I mean it's all cliche but it's also real that's why it's a cliche. It happens to everybody.
The biggest plot point revealed in this chapter is that she was pregnant which Mike Noonan ( the main character) didn't know about. When they performed the autopsy they could tell it was a girl which must mean that Joann was at least a couple of months into the pregnancy. This of course adds more to Mike's grief. Not only has he lost his wife, he's lost a child also.
This is the first chapter that Joann's "ghost" appears to Mike. In a dream of course but I think that soon she will be appearing "for real."
She's an angry, scary ghost which I thought was unusual. It seems odd to me as imagining your just deceased wife as some zombie corpse coming to get you. But that's what she is so far. The Undead clutching her copy of Maughm's "The Moon and Sixpence," and declaring, " It's my dust-catcher." Spooky. Let's read on.
He describes the car crash that led up to her death. Her death wasn't called by the crash but by an aneurysm that occurred while she was running to help. I think that he did this because he wants to make sure Joann (the wife) is labeled as a "good person." Why King didn't just have her in the car crash I'm not sure, maybe that will play a role later in the book, maybe not.
He goes into the funeral and the concrete details are superb. I've never lost a spouse but my mother died when I was young and I can imagine that he felt like the protagonist in this book losing his wife at a relatively young age (36). Finding her stuff laying around the house. Little notes etc. I mean it's all cliche but it's also real that's why it's a cliche. It happens to everybody.
The biggest plot point revealed in this chapter is that she was pregnant which Mike Noonan ( the main character) didn't know about. When they performed the autopsy they could tell it was a girl which must mean that Joann was at least a couple of months into the pregnancy. This of course adds more to Mike's grief. Not only has he lost his wife, he's lost a child also.
This is the first chapter that Joann's "ghost" appears to Mike. In a dream of course but I think that soon she will be appearing "for real."
She's an angry, scary ghost which I thought was unusual. It seems odd to me as imagining your just deceased wife as some zombie corpse coming to get you. But that's what she is so far. The Undead clutching her copy of Maughm's "The Moon and Sixpence," and declaring, " It's my dust-catcher." Spooky. Let's read on.
Bag of Bones By Stephen King: Introduction
I'm starting off with a slightly "easier" book because that's what I've been reading lately. For the past two or three years I've been unable to read with anything like regularity for a number of reasons but now I have the time and the necessary focus to be able to read on a regular basis and I am very grateful for that.
When we begin a book we start first with what we know of the author and his previous books.
Stephen King: I loved him when I was in high school and probably read the majority of his works during that time. Since high school whenever I've tried to read one of his books I usually end up throwing it against the wall in disgust. The cliches are endless, the dialogue stilted and ladled with big fat spoonfuls of faux-New England slang and dialect. But King books were a big part of my life growing up and there are many worse things to read than King.
During the past month or so I've read three King books in quick succession. I started with his earlier books, they are better plotted and less bloated than his later books. I started with the Uncut version of The Stand. A 1000 page book that I had fond memories of in High School and I found it surprisingly good. Despite it's length it was tightly plotted and read very quickly. I did start to notice the King cliches or "tropes" if you want to dignify them with a fancy word. First, urinating in your pants a sign of fear or terror. This was so common in The Stand that I started to chuckle every time it happened and it happened what seemed like thirty times. This will reappear in all of King's books (as far as I know).
King also has alot of sex in his books. Not graphic descriptions but the characters have sex an awful lot. But in the Stand, for the most part it's just like brushing your teeth "Stu and Frannie went to bed and she reached out ready to recieve his love." Or something like that was at the end of every chapter it seemed like. Later on in his work the sex will be described in greater detail but I had forgotten just how constant it is.
King also has a "magical black person" in the Stand in Mother Abigail. This will reappear again and again culminating in The Green Mile. But it's a constant in a great deal of his work.
Then I read The Dead Zone: a very slim book for King. Nice little plot, not his best work but I liked the early carnival scene where he starts to become aware of his powers. The protagonist "John Smith" is just such a "nice guy" that he's kind of faceless and the reader never really feels like he knows him.
The Shining: I think the Shining is a good example of what most of King's work is like. A writer, trying to write starts to make contact with the "other side," with nightmarish results. This one has it all, the little kid with psychic powers, the menacing haunted house filled with ghosts, the magical black person. King does do a good job with his protagonist and his alcohol abuse and his attempts to quit. King has a well-documented history of drug and alcohol abuse until the mid-eighties when he quit due to family pressure. But it's interesting in this and other works that clear signs of alcoholism in the characters are never called alcoholism by King and his characters are never called alcoholics. King himself is the same way, refusing to call himself a drug addict or an alcoholic even when he admitted to being on so many drugs and drink he doesn't remember writing Cujo. Let's just say that Jack in the Shining doesn't deal with his alcoholism in a manner that works. Let's hope King has faced his issues a better way.
Let's get on to the current book, which I had gotten for Christmas in Hardcover in 1998. I remember reading up to page 100 or so and the psychic little girl was introduced and I stopped reading it. The opening chapter were still very vivid in my mind though because they are very good.
Bag Of Bones: By Stephen King
Scribner, Hardcover, first edition, 1998.
When we begin a book we start first with what we know of the author and his previous books.
Stephen King: I loved him when I was in high school and probably read the majority of his works during that time. Since high school whenever I've tried to read one of his books I usually end up throwing it against the wall in disgust. The cliches are endless, the dialogue stilted and ladled with big fat spoonfuls of faux-New England slang and dialect. But King books were a big part of my life growing up and there are many worse things to read than King.
During the past month or so I've read three King books in quick succession. I started with his earlier books, they are better plotted and less bloated than his later books. I started with the Uncut version of The Stand. A 1000 page book that I had fond memories of in High School and I found it surprisingly good. Despite it's length it was tightly plotted and read very quickly. I did start to notice the King cliches or "tropes" if you want to dignify them with a fancy word. First, urinating in your pants a sign of fear or terror. This was so common in The Stand that I started to chuckle every time it happened and it happened what seemed like thirty times. This will reappear in all of King's books (as far as I know).
King also has alot of sex in his books. Not graphic descriptions but the characters have sex an awful lot. But in the Stand, for the most part it's just like brushing your teeth "Stu and Frannie went to bed and she reached out ready to recieve his love." Or something like that was at the end of every chapter it seemed like. Later on in his work the sex will be described in greater detail but I had forgotten just how constant it is.
King also has a "magical black person" in the Stand in Mother Abigail. This will reappear again and again culminating in The Green Mile. But it's a constant in a great deal of his work.
Then I read The Dead Zone: a very slim book for King. Nice little plot, not his best work but I liked the early carnival scene where he starts to become aware of his powers. The protagonist "John Smith" is just such a "nice guy" that he's kind of faceless and the reader never really feels like he knows him.
The Shining: I think the Shining is a good example of what most of King's work is like. A writer, trying to write starts to make contact with the "other side," with nightmarish results. This one has it all, the little kid with psychic powers, the menacing haunted house filled with ghosts, the magical black person. King does do a good job with his protagonist and his alcohol abuse and his attempts to quit. King has a well-documented history of drug and alcohol abuse until the mid-eighties when he quit due to family pressure. But it's interesting in this and other works that clear signs of alcoholism in the characters are never called alcoholism by King and his characters are never called alcoholics. King himself is the same way, refusing to call himself a drug addict or an alcoholic even when he admitted to being on so many drugs and drink he doesn't remember writing Cujo. Let's just say that Jack in the Shining doesn't deal with his alcoholism in a manner that works. Let's hope King has faced his issues a better way.
Let's get on to the current book, which I had gotten for Christmas in Hardcover in 1998. I remember reading up to page 100 or so and the psychic little girl was introduced and I stopped reading it. The opening chapter were still very vivid in my mind though because they are very good.
Bag Of Bones: By Stephen King
Scribner, Hardcover, first edition, 1998.
The First One
This is the first post of this blog. A quick summary of the primary purpose of this website: Everyone reads books differently. We all have different life experiences and knowledge bases which we use to interpret the words printed on the page. Take the sentence: "Mark sat down on the table and began to write." We all have a different image of what a table is. Some would see a large dining room table, some might envision a cramped card table in a dusty apartment. Some might imagine a picnic table in the backyard. Every sentence of every piece of literature is interpreted just a little bit differently in each person's mind. Books are not movies or TV where everything is laid out for you. It takes more work. Sometimes a little bit more work, sometimes a great deal of work. This is an attempt to examine that work in detail. You don't have to have read the book in some cases, some of the posts will have enough explanation to stand on their own. Others you might not understand what's going on until you've read the book. The best thing to do is to pick up the book along with me and read together.
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