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.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
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.
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