Under the Dome Collector's Set Book

In the 2008 film max payne, there's a point in which the gloomy hero is, of course, offered casual sex by this ridiculously beautiful woman:



aware that payne is mourning the murder of his wife she says something to the effect that he can call out his wife's name as he fucks her. ok. this is kinda interesting. if i was directing i'd smash cut to payne pounding away and, yes, squealing his dead wife's name. play it straight. sad and tragic but also kinda funny and very human. offer up a complexity and darkness mainstream movies tend to shy away from.

of course, payne tosses this preposterously impossibly wildly beautiful woman out, offended at the very idea: in movies like this you can't have your hero banging away strange woman or engaging in any kinda deviancy. too much complexity there, folks.

well, there's a whole lot of that shit going on in under the dome, in which the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad (i mean reeeeaaaaal bad. like gang-rape bad, kill-your-own-son bad, mass-murderer bad). and it's a shame b/c there's much to love about this novel.

but it's not just the 'max payne' moments, it's the whole picture. check it: the book's populated with tons of characters and just about all of 'em are all-american folksy types. all have backstories and personal tics and behavioral distinctions, but ultimately... king's view of human beings and human behavior is kinda narrow and uninteresting. strange from a guy with such a fertile imagination for the fantastic.

but here's what's most frustrating: if you're dealing with common folk, it's fun to throw 'em in extreme situations and watch 'em crack. we've seen it all over Apocalit*: lord of the flies, blindness, the road, etc… and this is the part i don't get: the characters that crack when the dome comes down ARE ALREADY ASSHOLES! it's bizarre. what's fun about this shit is watching the slow burn of a decent or sane character as they descend into evil or lunacy. it's kinda obvious what's gonna happen when dick cheney is tossed into No Exit, ain't it? king's bad guys were bad before the dome and once the shit comes down they kill and gang-rape with no fore or afterthought. how the shit is this interesting? has king been too long in the horror genre that he's come to see murder and rape as something akin to jogging around the block or swatting a fly? what's great about murder in serious works of art (and make no mistake: this novel means to be a serious work of art) is not the murder itself but all which surrounds it.

i happen to believe that human existence is kaleidoscopically demented and deranged and far weirder than it appears on the surface. the most 'normal' of us are revealed to be sucking cock in airport bathrooms, talking to snakes or burning bushes or interplanetary beneficiaries, etc… in short, i appreciate people like david lynch not in that he offers an alternative to the humdrum of daily existence but that he throws to the forefront what is actually happening behind closed doors. i reject king's view of the world in that it lacks moral complexity, it lacks the true stink of human existence. blue velvet is heightened for sure, but it reveals what small town americana feels like. it is edward hopper to stephen king's norman rockwell.

and really. what's with all the banter? king has nearly every single character speak as if they were a precocious 13 year old. people say shit like "i'd tell you but then i'd have to kill you' or 'that's why they pay me the big bucks' as if this was the height of cleverness. and when a man and woman dialogue? king's lucky he's a megarich megafamous megastoryteller b/c my man has NO GAME. i mean… check the narrator's description of when our hero finally gets laid.

"Want to?" he asked.
"Yes. Do you?"
He took her hand and put it on his jeans, where how much he wanted to was immediately evident.
A minute later he was poised above her, resting on his elbows. She took him in hand to guide him in. "Take it easy on me, Colonel Barbara. I've kind of forgotten how this thing goes."
"It's like riding a bicycle," Barbie said.
Turned out he was right.

anyway...

the good? gobs of it. what king might lack in his basic presentation of human behavior he almost makes up for in his evocation of a kind of horrible and ineffable beauty. amidst this mash-up of sci-fi & political allegory there are scenes of true beauty and a kind of gritty poetry as the town descends into a Hobbesian nightmare. one that sticks out: as pollutants and dust and pollen collect on the roof of the invisible dome, the townspeoples' view of the sky is skewed, the sky itself appears... different. sunsets seem as when a volcano explodes, a deep rich burning red. and the night sky? a meteor shower appears as streams of pink and red slashing the sky to bits. and minus the 'leatherhead' parts, the final 'fireball and survivor' sequence haunted the hell outta me. some seriously horrifying stuff.

so, yeah. my first foray into stephen king.
badass bestseller horror iconic motherfucker and inspiration behind this terrific terrific terrific song:





i read 1072 pages in just under a week and that's no small feat.
i'd like to share a beer, mr. king, get to know you.
do i wanna tear through your oeuvre? we'll see...


*that my own 'apocalyptic literature' portmanteau, thank you very much