On Stephen King’s “Under the Dome”
Before last Friday, I had never finished a Stephen King book. In fact, I’d only ever tried to read one — his “Under the Dome,” three times. Each of the three tries ended before page 200. For some reason, the narrative just fell off at that point for me. It perplexed me, and the over 1100-page length of the book didn’t add any motivation for wanting to push through to the end.
On the fourth try, close to a year after the third, I finally moved past the 200 page mark, and with relative ease. I can’t comprehend what failed so hard the first three times. When I finally chose to pick U.T.D. up again this summer, with ample free time to delve into the characters and the plot, I didn’t find the novel anywhere near as troublesome as my first three attempts at a reading. Quite the contrary, the narrative hummed along quite nicely, right from the off.
I think part of the turn off was hearing of King’s somewhat unique narrative style, referred to as a ‘slow builder.’ “But,” they, most notably my dad, would say, “once you get past the first 200 pages or so, you won’t be able to stop.” I don’t think it was that dramatic, and I don’t know if I encountered much of the slow build with U.T.D. As noted, the plot drove consistently from the moment the dome first fell over Chester’s Mill. That’s not my fault with the novel. In fact, I think that’s the novel’s strongest point, and a highlight of King’s style — the ability to take the full host of complex characters and weave them all together into a narrative that never felt tiresome, bogged down or cautious.
My main fault with the book comes from where the plot ends — the climax and the resolution. With the 850-or-so pages of build up, full of excellent detailing and sub-plots both small and large, I expected the book to conclude in an ultimately satisfying way. I was sorely let down during the last 250-or-so pages, however.
I see the plot as having three separate, cascading climaxes. Without spoiling these moments, I’ll give a brief rundown of each. The first is a town hall standoff that ends with a frantic shoot out and general panic, the second is a drug-induced gunfight leading to a massive, nuclear-fallout-like explosion, and the third is the final encounter with the aliens that are controlling the whole thing.
I guess that’s a pretty big spoiler. Yes, it is aliens that are controlling the dome. And what’s better, it’s alien children, and the dome is their play toy.
Anyway, that’s only relevant with the third climax. The first two are simply pure chaos, driven by characters acting completely irrationally, and both behind the guises of the effects of drug use. Both make little sense. The first is easier to explain, as individuals will often make wild decisions in large crowds under intense pressure, especially a force of inexperienced, underage policemen.
The second makes less sense and is fairly demoralizing to read happen. To watch all the characters that we’ve grown to know intimately burn down in the fireball fallout of the massive explosion is really quite sad. I feel the novel deserved better than a burn-everything-down finale.
Finally, the finally conversation between one of the main protagonists and the alien children is just a weird thing to read. King tries to jack-knife in a moral lesson about guilt and acceptance, but it ends up landing very dully as the world around these individuals burns down.
In fact, this interaction draws upon my biggest, overarching fault with the book. I hate, detest the fact that we know where the dome came from. I think it ruins all of the suspense that was built throughout the first three-quarters of the book once we realize that it really is just alien children. Somewhat paradoxically, I would have much preferred zero explanation for the arrival of the dome. This would have felt much more satisfying. I would have even been content with the dome never leaving, the characters trapped forever in an unknown fate under the massive fishbowl.
Instead we get a strange science-fiction explanation for its arrival and a poorly executed moral lesson for its eventual disappearance.
Please don’t get me wrong — I enjoyed reading this book. The first three-quarters were excellent, and really kept me hooked and quite on the edge of my seat as I watched a team of rag-tag protagonists wage a political battle with a fantastical megalomaniac dictator while trapped in truly impossible circumstances. The human drama elements of U.T.D. are handled wonderfully. It’s the science-fiction and the eventual pay-off that leave me feeling a little let down.
If you want to stop at, oh, let’s say page 850 and not finish, I wouldn’t blame you at all.
