Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
Thanks! So I suppose before (or during) writing he goes to the real places he wants to depict and takes notes, photos etc.?
I also suppose they do tours in Bangor and visit the places with groups? It's always hard to imagine when reading a book which is such a mix of facts and fantasy what the real places would be.
Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
Not really necessary for most of the places in Maine since he has lived most of his life here but he has gone to places outside Maine as research when he's writing about those, e.g. a copper mine in Nevada when writing Desperation, visited Dallas when writing 11/22/63, and the places he writes about in Florida are familiar to him from spending the winters living there for the past 10-12 years.
The Bangor Visitors & Convention Bureau offers several tours a year and there is a private company that does them in the Bangor area by appointment.
Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
How does it work with adresses? Like for example in The Breathing Method it's about East Thirty-fifth Street 246B, New York. Do such adresses really exist? Or does he also take care to make an adress totally fictional in picking numbers/streets that don't exist?
In a fictional town you can do as you like, but I don't get how you do it with the real ones...
Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
I can tell you this. I have visited small towns : Marquette Michigan, Tannersville New York State, and The tip of the Keewanaw Peninsula in the middle of Lake Superior.I am now in flooded Long Beach, New York( living with no heat and hot water and now back on the net with 14 days without juice. )-P.S. stay away from electronics(i.e. kindles.) my hardcovers and my lady and my hardcovers with candles saved my soul. This like the REACH ;another sort of Wrong beach,Wrong Island-an inescapable insular segregated secret mess of a community. I'm sure as I witnessed the water creating a Tsunami flooding 20 blocks away from the beach- here with four feet of water. During Hurricane Sandy looters were laughing in vernacular broken English" Ha Ha ha my man got the money" as they ran from 7-11 , The irish hate the jews, and the Italians hate the jews and the irish. The Catholics hate the Protestants.Hispanics and blacks of different colors hate each other according to national pride and similar scapegoat judgements. it has been a mixture of "Under the Dome" and "Needful things" here. People throwing out soaked belongings ;photographing them for FEMA checks; then screaming at even less fortunate homeless for rooting through their trash. When there was no power for 14 days, The national guard had to stop people from killing one another fighting for over cell phone charging stations. I'm sure that Mr. Stephen king's universe is VERY much a verisimilitude of anywhere Mr. King has experienced, (including florida and The Southwest- NOT JUSYT MAINE) Human brutality,prejudice, religious zealot fervor judgement, envy, hate, covetousness, violence, and general human grotesqueries of the demons and lesser angels of our being ARE EVERYWHERE, to me that is wht mr. king's work hits deep and rings true in the heart and mind.. Here in Long Beach New York -even prior to the flood- it was (as a monogamous couple )to be deemed selfish; and not cool amongst 18 to 40 year old boundless swingers. Drugs and alcoholism abound, perverts roam the streets spend a night in jail and move on to go right back to torture others. My overall point being that which seems naturally idyllic,-(Forested Maine or Midwest small towns to isolated beach communities- are thin veneer masks of envy,debauchery, plotting twisted lusts, hidden infidelities and the deepest levels of drug or abuse induced degradation one would naively expect to find in a bombed out third world country. The fish stinks from the head down-everywhere. All one can depend on is LONG GAINED TRUST, a slightly opened heart, and faith that there will always be people like those on this site who read Mr. King and gain lesson -filled thrills, comfort and a kind of mass love from the literary escape. After all is said "The artist sees what the artist makes- the viewer/ reader is what they see or get out of it. These places in Maine or anywhere else are as real as the sweat from your nightmares.
Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
I came across this graphic of Stephen King's Maine a while back and thought it might help. I tired to attach the picture, but couldn't get it to work, so I have included a link to the original article below.
Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
Do many people know that the film of the Tommyknockers was filmed in New Zealand (near Auckland, Puhoi, I actually lived there for seven years)...the scenery looks the same as Maine? I wouldn't have thought so!! Anyway, I have always wanted to go to NE, thanks to the mastery of Stephen's writing.
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Re: How close is the depiction of Maine (and other places) to reality?
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