by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
It’s a long walk back to Eden, so let’s not sweat the small stuff as we get started on Insomnia.
My copy of Insomnia is a new mass market paperback, but in the time it has been sitting on my shelf, the top inch of the pages are sun discolored. In addition, I had a problem with the roof leaking in my office a while back, so the top of the pages are also swollen and warped. The pages still turn, so I successfully read the book anyway.
In my first reading, I only got about as far as the introduction of the auras and Old Dor’s visit. Not sure why I didn’t just go on and finish back then.
This book was for Tabby … and for Al Kooper.
We’re back in Derry. There are several references to the flood in ’85 that washed out Derry at the end of It. Mike Hanlow is still the librarian in town and does not remember his part in the incidents surrounding It. Forgetting the events of entire novels is a regular character thing in Derry. The grandson of the Irish cop from It is in this novel. The main character’s mother had a cat disappear around the time of the narrative of It when a character in that story had a habit of capturing and killing pets and other animals. The description of the mom’s cat is suspiciously close to the details of a cat we see in that disturbed character’s clutches in It. The “dead lights” are back, too. A birdwatcher in a park serves as an homage to Stan from It. Everyone should have left Derry in 1985 when they had the chance.
This book serves as a long introduction to a character for later in The Dark Tower series – a long introduction. The Crimson King is introduced as well, I suppose. Many characters envision the Dark Tower. Ka and Ka-tet are at play in this story. One boy will be responsible for saving the Dark Tower and all of existence.
The story hooks in pretty early with an accident where the details don’t quite line up. The subplot of the clash between pro life and pro choice in town frames the supernatural conflict between the Purpose and the Random, The Crimson King and the bald doctors, in the story well. The terms long-time and short-time are disturbing in their implications even before they are explained.
The horror of the condition of insomnia in the delayed sleep experiment is told really well.
King uses the descriptor “natty” a lot in this book and the last few stories for “put together.”
Their hyper speech in their altered states of the auras faded on the page. I thought a word had smudged on my page, but it was part of the story. It was faded on purpose to illustrate an aspect of the narrative. Formatters must hate King for these little bits and tricks.
Our traditions and polite practices are an illusion of long life from one generation to the next by short timers.
Boys from across the centuries throughout King’s universe are always calling each other wet ends.
The “One Ring” quote from Lord of the Rings plays into the story.
A Few Good Men was the last movie Ralph went to see before his wife died. They watch Roseanne Arnold on the Whoopie Goldberg talk show. That is a very specific window of time. EMTs giving out pain meds for patients who refuse to go to the hospital to just take home seems a little off. A boy is wearing a Nirvana tee shirt. Connie Chung came out to report live from the Derry Civic Center and then had the energy from her aura sucked away by an old man. You know, typical stuff.
We have an airplane attack like in The Running Man. The sneaker of the little boy killed in Pet Sematary is among the collection of souvenirs in Doc #3’s lair.
The story reminded me a bit of The Golden Years miniseries that King wrote with characters aging backward for a time.
The “rules” of this story weren’t entirely consistent. The actual ending is fairly satisfying and ties into the stakes of the story well enough. There is a little bit of a winding build up between the end of the actual action of the story and this closing scene. The narrative got muddied in the third act as the story sought a conclusive course.
While I don’t rank this book highest in my list of favorite Stephen King novels, I still like many things about it and enjoyed reading it.
My next post in this series will be Before Rose Madder which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
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