Some Observations on the Book [Many, Many Spoilers]

[Flayer]

Dale Barbara - I thought it funny that I expected him to be the main hero of the story going in but it turned out he really didn't do all that much. He spent most of the book in a cell and his actions outside of it were not all that significant until the very end. He really was more of a MacGuffin to get the good guys and the bad guys to unite under their causes than an actually significant character most of the time. When I read the story he reminded me a lot of Ben Richards from The Running Man, who is one of my favorite SK heroes, because of the toughness and all the biting, sarcastic humor they have in common.

Julia Shumway - She was a character that I loathed at first and grew to like more and more as the story went on. Towards the beginning she was very arrogant and very naive, and her never-ending threat of "I'm going to print it in my paper!" got tiring very quickly. And the disrespect she showed for Colonel Cox was another thing that annoyed me. But her real turning point was when her paper was burned down. It was sort of a catharsis for her: she lost her arrogance and became a much more likable character.

Big Jim Rennie - Another truly great Stephen King villain. I personally feel that a major weakness of SK's more recent novels (Cell, Buick 8, Duma Key, Lisey's Story, etc) is the lack of strong villains in them. Rennie was one truly evil bastard that I loved to hate. He struck me as an amalgamation of Greg Stillson, Colonel Kurtz, Buster Keeton and Annie Wilkes. Stillson for his political nature, overwhelming ambition and violence, and secret love of violence (Stillson kicking the dog, Rennie stomping Rusty's hand); Kurtz for being totally ruthless and self-centered (they were both out only for their own betterment, nothing else) and the command role they both played, Buster in appearance, corruptness, and political position, and Annie for the silly substitutes to swearing (cotton-picking/cockadoodie), self-righteousness, and simple brutality and killer instinct. Rennie truly seemed like a realistic tyrant to me, in the likes of Stalin and Hitler. And the way Rennie's enemies won't take him seriously at first ("He's a used car dealer, for Christ's sake!") seems to be a connection to the very low background Stalin, Hitler, and many other dictators came from.

Carter Thibodeau - He was maybe the novel's most interesting character to me. He struck me as almost a reincarnation of Lloyd Henreid. They both started out seemingly a dumb thug, and became something more, owing it all to Rennie and Flagg, respectively. The extreme loyalty and debt of gratitude they both had, and the right-hand man role, were about the same. Another interesting aspect was really how smart Carter was. As far as book learning goes, he was dumb as a rock (I was almost laughing out loud when he thought anarchy was an archery range), but he had cunning and common sense, and those contradictions made him unpredictable to me. Another was his morals; yes, he was a bastard, but he wasn't completely evil like Jim or insane like Junior, and I was waiting to see where he'd draw the line at what he wouldn't do for Jim.

Chef Bushey - I hated him more than I hated Rennie. The most despicable character of the book, in my opinion. Just as selfish and evil as Big Jim, but there's a difference: Jim's actions, although they were acts of evil against many people, would still have left most of the townspeople alone. Under his thumb, yes, but essentially unharmed. Chef was out to kill everyone. And the scene where gets Andy Sanders hooked on meth was a big reminder to me of when Ace Merill started Buster Keeton on cocaine in Needful Things. Just on grander, more ridiculous scale.

The Ending - The ending was a good one to me, compared with a lot of the other SK books (I have to admit, I'm a huge fan of Stephen King's books, just not most of their endings) but it also had its bad sides. The theme of the book, the "burning ants in a hill," worked very well and I liked the concept of their being entirely at the alien children's mercy and having to beg. It brings about some poetic justice - the heroes become humble and receive mercy, while Jim Rennie, who would never debase himself that way, dies alone in a cellar. The fact that there was no final confrontation between the Friends of Barbara and Rennie's forces was something of a disappointment, but the scenes with Jim and Carter trapped underground were intense and claustrophobic, and I truly was suprised when Jim turned the tables on Carter in their showdown. And his death, alone in the dark, unnoticed by anyone, was fitting, and the whole final sequence reminded me of Larry's journey through the tunnel in The Stand. On to the bad though: a very serious case of Cujo Syndrome. Cujo is my least favorite of SK's books and I can honestly say that I hate that book. Besides it's many flaws, what stands out to me about Cujo was Tad Trenton's unnecessary death at the end. It was thrown in as a cheap shock and tear jerker. The end of UTD was Cujo squared - all the deaths at the end among the survivors: Ernie Calvert, Audrey the dog, Benny, Thurston, and hell, it might as well have been Tad reincarnated when Aidan died. None of them were necessary and it all felt cheap: just throw on some more tragedy on top of the rest of the town dying. They didn't get any dramatic moments in their deaths: they were written off in a sentence each and thrown away like garbage. The other characters didn't even mourn them that much. Norrie, who'd been sneaking kisses to Ben the whole book, hardly notices he's dead. This series of deaths was in my opinion the novel's worst flaw, in what was otherwise Stephen King's best work since It.

[BombMP]

I'm totally in agreement on the ending of this book and King's endings in general. Not his strongest suit. But there was something I noticed about the characterization in this book that made it stand out from many other works by King. Note Junior and the kids... Big Jim when Junior died... some fairly heavy characterization there for the "bad guys" and I wished I'd seen more of it. But what I saw was more effective than anything I think I've read by King so far. The ending was a bummer however. Barbara might as well not have existed in the book, he was practically just a foil for the rest of the plot. Killing the little boy didn't have any dramatic effect, in my opinion it just served to be a bummer when the book is coming to a close. If you'll really take note of it, the good guys never really ACCOMPLISHED anything by their plans, either. The geiger counter is alluded to but goes out of play, the evidence against Rennie disappears, finding the box is anti-climatic when everybody just packs up and calls it a day afterward. There seemed to be a lot of dead end roads as far as plot development.

[Flayer]

Yeah I've noticed that's a problem I have with a lot of of Stephen King's other works, the heroes not really doing much. The problem is that it's usually the villains doing everything to advance the plot and the heroes are reacting to them. If you asked me about great Stephen King villains I could probably list 30 or so names. If you asked me about heroes I feel are as strongly developed as those villains? Very few. Ben Richards from The Running Man. The Losers from It. Nick Andros from The Stand (who was killed off prematurely anyway). Johnny Smith, Charlie McGee, Ralph Roberts, Jim Gardener, Alan Panborn and Norris Ridgewick, and of course, Roland and the ka-tet.

The problem is that the heroes are nearly always overshadowed by the villains. Randall Flagg's chapters in The Stand were almost always more interesting than those of the good guys, and the same with the secondary bad guys (Lloyd, Trashcan Man, and the Kid). Leland Gaunt, Ace Merill, Buster Keeton, and Reverend Rose dominate Needful Things. Morgan Sloat and Sunlight Gardener are more interesting than Jack and the other good guys in The Talisman. Same goes for Under the Dome, it's entirely the show of Big Jim, Junior, Carter, and Chef.

And even in the non epics this is usually true too. Annie Wilkes completely overshadows Paul Sheldon, Norman Daniels overshadows Rose, Raymond Joubert only making a handful of appearances in Gerald's Game is far more memorable than Jessie, who is the focus of 95% of the story. The Dark Tower series is one of the rare examples where it's the opposite. The one book that really combined strong heroes with strong villains in the best possible way was It, with the Losers on one hand and Pennywise, Henry Bowers, and Patrick Hockstetter on the other.

I don't know if it's just me personally being more interested in villains, but this seems pretty common. The only thing the average person knows about Christine is the car, about The Shining is Jack Torrance and the hotel, about It is Pennywise the Clown. The thing is that the heroes' chapters are usually character development and reacting to the villains' actions, while the villain chapters are ones where the storyline actually advances, where the action actually takes place. The villains are usually the proactive ones in Stephen King's stories.

[ginapenn]

Hm. I'm in total disagreement. Cujo was a very good book and I think Tad's death was fitting. It's fitting because it's closer to real life and that is SK's mantra. This also works for UTD. Maybe read something a little more sugar coated if all the death bothers you?

[Natjen26]

Personally I think the ending was one of the best he's written.
He's at least honest about them, because most deaths are meaningless, not even getting the sentence he's giving them. One by one, it was a shock and it made the story yet more so believable.

As for his depiction of heroes vs villains. I don't believe that heroes are made of people who act.. but of people who react to something that has happened in the right way.
As for this book. The beginning was great, the ending was superb, just the middle dragged on a little.

[ShootDaSquirrells]

I agree with you on everything and personally Carter was my favorite character although he was a bad guy. He was by far the best character in the novel. Big Jim reminds me of Stalin easily and I think why Barbie had a small role was because if you think of it, every dictator has a person that he uses the scare the people. In this case Barbie was going to be that person and if Chef did not blow up the place, Barbie never would have overthrown Big Jim. So Barbie was not much of a hero because he could not be much of a hero.

[jackson992]

The only thing I really disagree with is Chef. I actually liked him and did not consider him to be a bad guy at all. I actually thought of him as one of the heroes of the book.

[Dayne Chastant]

I, personally, found the concept of the aliens interesting. I wonder if "Uncle Steve" has ever read the story ROADSIDE PICNIC by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, a book made famous for the movie STALKER, the movie novelization (by the Strugatskys) and the recent computer games based on the novel (STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, STALKER: Clear Sky, and STALKER: Call of Pripyat).

In it, artifacts are discovered following a second "event" at Chernobyl (a site Gardener had raved over in THE TOMMYKNOCKERS) that can convey special effects and abilities. The concept is given that these artifacts and anomalies are simply little more than the detritus left behind by otherworldly beings, similar to the trash left at picnic sites--castoff trash to the aliens, but strange and dangerous and inexplicable to us.

Dayne Chastant, of the tribe "Constant Reader"

[thsch10785]

I noticed that on page 611 when Junior and Carter where about to set the newspaper office on fire it said "Carter was shot by Junior in the eye. How come Carter Thibodeau became Big Jim´s bodyguard on page 706 and nothing more was mentioned on the dead body after the fire was put out????? thsch10785(at)freenet.de