This novel concerns John Smith, a school teacher who falls into a coma after a car accident and awakens five years later to realize that he has psychic powers.
I was kind of surprised how much time is spent covering John's time in the coma. I can understand why, but at the same time, it would've been interesting if, after the accident, the next chapter showed him waking up so that the readers were as thrown off by the missing five years as John was.
What's with John referring to his father as "Daddy"? For crying out loud, you're a grown man. He doesn't even do it once, but several times throughout the novel. I found it really odd.
You'll recall in my review of the film adaptation, I said that the "dead zone" referred to the area of his brain that had activated and thus, caused the visions. While John's doctor, Dr. Weizak does say that a part of his brain did "wake up", that isn't what the dead zone refers to. One of my readers even kindly pointed out that this wasn't the case; the dead zone referred to a damaged part of his brain that blurred the visions. Whenever there was some piece of information that John couldn't ascertain, he would declare that it was in the dead zone. So yeah, you could say that my knowledge of the dead zone was in the dead zone. It's worth noting that the book's page on TVtropes posits the same explanation that I did, even if it is an incorrect interpretation it's comforting to know I'm not the only one who had that impression. Wikipedia's page, however, does provide the correct take on the term.
Like most superpowers, John's abilities are viewed as a detriment. It's true, he uses them for the greater good to try and save lives (stopping a serial killer, warning a nurse that her house is on fire, telling a student to have his graduation party somewhere else since the steakhouse they were going to patronize is going to be hit by lightning) but he doesn't really want the power. When people send him letters asking for help, he often ignored them and whenever he did flash, the person who he was touching was often left terrified. They may not have known the exact nature of what was going on, but they felt that something was screwy.
You'll recall that one of the problems I had with the film adaptation of Thinner was the fact that none of the characters were likable. With the obvious exception of two, all of the characters seen in the novel are likable, decent people. Even John's mother, Vera, in all of her religious mania never really came off as malicious. She snaps at Sarah early on, but eventually warms up to her.
Speaking of Vera, she's a tad unbalanced to say the least. Passionate and faithful, sure, and it's clear that she loves her son, but her desire to believe reaches ridiculous heights. She's quick to sign on to any program no matter how bizarre. She even embraces the idea of aliens coming to save her.
Now, I know what you're thinking, that it's some jab at Scientology. The thought crossed my mind, but I dismissed it since I saw the movement as too recent. After doing some research (read: I checked Wikipedia) I saw that Scientology has been around since the 50's so while I won't declare that King's intention was to poke fun at the group, it's an interpretation worth considering. Interestingly enough, I've seen History Channel documentaries that discuss the idea of extra-terrestrial encounters in the Bible. I think Ezekiel was the book that came up most frequently. It's some crazy stuff, awesome in it's own way, but still kind of crazy.
One of the issues that comes into play (especially in the later pages) is the old "if you could stop Hitler before he rose to power, would you?"
This scenario becomes a driving force for Johnny after he has an apocalyptic vision caused by his handshake with rising politician Greg Stillson. That whole trait was an interesting development for John. There's a point where he goes around shaking politicians' hands to see if they're on the up and up. He even gets to shake hands with Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, which is pretty cool. Having a few psychics around would certainly make elections more interesting.
For a book with only 400 pages, there sure is a lot of plot crammed in here. Even with everything that happens, it never feels rushed and while it can be a bit episodic at times, it all comes together quite nicely. When it comes to essential King reads, I think this one is overlooked at times. It's got great characters, a good story, and it's long enough to flesh everything out, but not so big that it becomes long in the tooth.
If you haven't read it yet, I recommend checking it out, and if you have read it; it's a good book to revisit.
No comments:
Post a Comment