Peasants Under Glass?

Voice mail from Diane Eaton, at the Gazette: “Keep me posted on the Mike D’Aloisio author event coming up in March.” (Sorry, Diane … an invisible, unbreakable force field just sealed off the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, in Stephen King’s newest book … let me just find out what happens to the people initially injured ….)

Reminder email, automatically generated from “etides”, telling me sales tax is due soon. (Sorry, Governor, they’ve just doubled the size of the emergency ‘police’ force, and I’ve got to see if the missile breaks through the Dome or not…)

Every night this past week or so, I have come home, and as quickly as possible, shut out the world, to get lost Under the Dome. You would think as the manager of a bookstore, I would read each day for hours on end, actually being able to justify my reading time more than other people can (“It’s my job!”). As much as I love to read, I don’t often allow myself the luxury of getting completely swept away in a book, because I have to be careful, rationing my time and energy to take care of the business, my relationships, and my health.

My approach to reading is different now: trying to be an adult, mindful of my responsibilities, I budget my time, savoring my books for an hour here and a half hour there, instead of inhaling them. Not so with Stephen King’s Christmas gift of 2009. Despite its hefty 1,074 pages, this latest novel from King does not drag under the bloat which has weakened many of his books of recent years. The pace is relentless, compelling the reader to walk, trot, run and full-out sprint to the finish, then leaving him sorry to leave the (remaining) people of Chester’s Mill, and their struggle, behind.

Compared by many in the literary world and across King’s readership to his other weighty, survival-story novel, The Stand, King also began this novel early in his career, in 1976, but abandoned it after several attempts at making the more scientific aspects – medical, meteorological, militarily – plausible enough. Fans of The Stand will easily recognize themes with which King has wrestled in his best work – the psychology and actions of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and the importance of hope.

An enormous difference, however, between the two books – besides their actual publication date – is the manner in which God is handled, and the actual manifestations of Good and Evil. Sure, there’s an obvious struggle of good versus evil in Under the Dome, as the population of “The Mill” quickly divides into two camps, but it is more subtle and a lot less supernatural than the population division that happens in The Stand.

In The Stand, the characters, the only survivors of a U.S. devastated by a superflu virus, begin dreaming of God’s representative on Earth, an old black woman from Nebraska, and Evil’s representative, a man who is, if not the Devil, at least an incarnation possessed with the ability to do dark magic and to inspire extreme destruction. People choose which representative to join, as the book moves towards the final stand of humanity. Under the Dome presents an entirely different scenario: the two camps are those trapped in a small town, many who choose to follow Town Selectman “Big Jim” Rennie, and a few who distrust, oppose, and eventually act against him. Rennie has no supernatural powers; in fact, he is a big fish in a small pond that has now turned fish bowl. Whereas most of the population of “the Mill” desperately pray that the scientists and military minds working on breaking the Dome will succeed, Rennie seizes the situation as his God-given chance to come in to full power. In a matter of days, life in the Mill is less like small-town America and more like Hitler’s Third Reich or Stalin’s Russia.

With this, King delivers the theme that will make Under the Dome one of his most remembered works: this is a tale of the slippery slope of evil – not evil as in some supernatural clown-ghost in a sewer pope, but the hurt we human beings can inflict on each other, from playground bullying to nuclear war.

Peasant under glass or Small World in a Snow Globe? Email Hobo your thoughts at frommyshelf@epix.net. “Lord of the Flies” or “Brave New World?” For more book reviews, go to Hobo’s blog, frommyshelf.blogspot.com. Hobo warns his readers that King’s new book does include sex, drugs, and a Christian radio station gone bad, but no cats. For a great book about cats, check out Hobo’s book, “Hobo Finds a Home” – soon to be available at the bookstore in Chester’s Mill.