by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s novels and collections in their order of publication. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance set out the challenge for himself and invited others to join in. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my storytelling. I think there are secrets to be discovered or rediscovered in it, too. As Chizmar posts his after read posts and Bev Vincent posts his accompanying history, I will add links to those in my corresponding posts.
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.
Much of what I write in these posts will really be notes for me. I will do my best to make them into coherent observations for you. I will also style my comments to be as spoiler free as possible for those who haven’t read the book, but in a way which will also work for those who have read the books. Be warned though that I am discussing the content of the book and the writing.
Let’s flip into the Territories and get ourselves some fresh air. Wolf!
Quotes by Mark Twain open and close the book. After the intro quotes, we are introduced to Jack Sawyer. The template has been set. After the final scene, we are reminded what type of adventure we were taken on. It’s a long book so easy to forget, I suppose.
A rainbow and a voice, “Come to me.” This is our first hint of what this story may be. Part of me was kind of waiting for the story to start even with a few strange things to keep the reader connected through the setup early on. We find some daydreams that are something more. It took me a while to really get into this story though.
I’m a little embarrassed by how little I realized the influence Lovecraft had on all of King’s work. In my defense, I was reading King long before I dug into Lovecraft. Cosmic horror transformations and consequences to our actions between worlds range from World Wars to construction accidents.
It’s not made clear whether this is a Dark Tower novel although there are many more worlds than these as the magic mulligan in this story reveals.
King uses a magic black man again.
A mall had a Walden Books in it. I miss those days a little.
We keep running across two-headed parrots, sort of talking animals, men flying with their own wings, turning into wolves, and sick queens. This novel has it all. The talking gulls and spiders are unnerving. That’s good work. The flying men is a great sequence to show how our world differs from another, but relates to ours in the way ballet is grounded in the physics of our world. The animal-human hybrids in the alternate world are so distinctive and fully fleshed out.
We have a couple lists of things our character forgets. I don’t think these series of “forgets” work well.
The hotel room is 408.
Lightning plays an important role at the beginning and the end of the book.
The Book of Good Farming is the Bible’s twin in the Territories.
Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are used to describe the shuffling drunk people.
Execution by crucifixion is mentioned.
McDonald’s golden arches — the great tits of America … great line.
King has a lot of “eyes not smiling” or the “smile not reaching the eyes.” Pants “puddled” around ankles is said multiple times in this book. I’m guessing that’s Peter’s writing tick because I haven’t seen King use it before. “Effortfully” is used as in the opposite of effortlessly. That threw me a bit.
King uses a secret passage and peep hole to spy a ruler as a device in this novel after just having used the same thing in the previous novel Eyes of the Dragon. Jack in the Talisman has similar food preferences to the main character in Pet Semetary. Maybe a phase King was going through with his sandwiches and burgers. There is a full moon on Halloween. Maybe the same year and world as Cycle of the Werewolf. “Dim” is used as a nod that actual invisibility is impossible. This is the same concept from Eyes of the Dragon. I know King wrote the portion of the story that takes place in the Depot. Trains in a fantasy world will come back in the Wastelands novel later. The terror of monsters surrounding the train is visceral. King uses cutting palms with fingernails until they bleed yet again.
The character Wolf’s portion of the adventure is really something interesting. Better than the sum of its parts, I think. This feels like the sort of creation that comes from a solid collaboration of authors. I’m curious which author introduced the character and who finished that section. The story of Wolf and the story of the ride across the Blasted Lands are my favorite parts. The Blasted Lands changed the stakes of the story yet again.
The authors handle the flips between worlds well. The transitioned realities hold together as their own worlds.
A little sign states “Earth is our only home.” It is a throwaway line and brilliantly ironic for the story.
“I kept my herd safe,” is a great line. So is “armored virtue” and the “pistol already lengthening his fist.” “As dry as fever” is a good descriptor, too.
The casual regularity of potential child molesters popping up is disturbing. Associating it with being gay was troubling, too.
Richard suddenly remembering all the information Jack needed to know felt a little bit on the nose for moving the story toward the end. Him beginning to forget just as he needed to, felt almost the same way.
As I read his earlier work, I wonder what King thought as he hid a drug habit as best he could while writing in exacting detail about characters using. Recovery is a wild journey and King has had to go through it in multiple forms, including from drug addiction earlier life and later in life physically from the van accident, fortunately both with lasting success.
The character updates for every minor character from the story were a bit much even in a seemingly justifiable moment. The Talisman concept became the ultimate machine of the gods and the “whatever power we need it to have” sort of story device. To a degree, I think the ending of the story was a little bit too neat and clean.
Overall, I’m glad I read it now and not earlier in my life. I’m not sure I would have finished it earlier. I probably would not have appreciated it the way I do now. My next post will be Before Thinner which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
— Jay Wilburn … Wolf!
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