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"Under
the Dome" by
Stephen King
; Scribner (1,074 pages,
$35
)
———
It's hard
not to feel a twinge of sympathy for
Stephen King
.
Not
because he's suffering a dip in popularity, a decline in
wealth or a dearth of creativity — rather, his
gripping narratives must now contend with the low hum of
horror in the everyday background. Whether it's the
threat of swine flu, a fragile stock market or the
omnipresent spectre of terrorism, reality is often far
more nerve-wracking than any imagined boogeyman.
What
better way for King to confront this considerable
obstacle than drafting an epic firmly rooted in an
anxious, post-9/11 landscape? "Under the Dome"
is the best-selling author's most substantial tome since
1990's revised, uncut edition of "The Stand"
("Dome" weighs in at 1,074 pages).
In it, he
attempts to sum up the last decade of American life in
microcosm, right down to the bitterly political fissures
in the facade of small-town existence; the creeping
pestilence of meth addiction; our country's hair-trigger
paranoia and the veneer of religion judiciously applied
by hypocrites.
Utilizing
a cast of more than 100 characters and his signature
brand of pop culture-infused prose, King crafts a
viciously entertaining, if thematically thin, thrill
ride, pitting well-intentioned good against pure evil.
Bucolic
Chester's Mill
,
Maine
, a town of only a few thousand, is suddenly and
mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world by a
transparent, domed force field (fans of "The
Simpsons Movie" might be a bit startled by this
plot device; aside from the obvious similarity and the
fact that King beat the Simpsons to the punch by a good
couple decades, the two works have precious little in
common).
A
gorgeous fall day gives way to death, panic and chaos,
as the townspeople struggle to make sense of this
upheaval. There are those frightened souls who,
nevertheless, want to proceed rationally
(soldier-turned-short order cook
Dale Barbara
; indefatigible medic
Rusty Everett
; no-nonsense newspaper editor
Julia Shumway
) and those who want nothing more than to twist the
puzzling situation to their advantage (town selectman
Jim Rennie
and his hapless cronies, including Rennie's mentally
disturbed son, Junior). The struggle to maintain some
semblance of normalcy quickly devolves into a fight for
survival, as tradition and decorum give way to startling
savagery.
Adapted
from a novel that King first attempted to write in the
late '70s, "Under the Dome" wastes little time
doling out the queasily specific gore — the body count
starts to mount just five pages in — and King
maintains a breathless pace as the crisis escalates.
The good
people of
Chester's Mill
slowly realize the gravity of the situation, as
commodities like propane begin disappearing and access
to food becomes restricted. King displays his flair for
flitting between various narrative threads early; the
opening sequences of carnage and confusion feel like
dispatches from a war zone. Evocative and suffused with
dread, the first 200 pages or so are some of the most
grueling and vivid King has authored in some time.
When
"Under the Dome" segues from the initial shock
into the town's drift into "us" versus
"them," King becomes mired in the minutiae of
small-town backstabbing and picket fence gossip, making
the tale's middle third a bit mushy. "Big"
Jim Rennie
, the tale's de facto villain, is a satiric riff on
Rush Limbaugh
-as-born-again-car-dealer; while many of Rennie's deeds
are repulsive, too much of King's characterization
consists of barbed criticism of the religious right wing
rather than character development.
The
author also seems overly infatuated with reinforcing
just how much has changed culturally since his
"Captain Trips" apocalypse in "The
Stand" 30 years ago. His ceaseless references to
CNN
personnel becomes irksome by the novel's final chapters;
it doesn't add any verisimilitude, any more than do his
frequent allusions to
James McMurtry's
"Talkin' at the
Texaco
."
"Under
the Dome" also suffers — surprisingly — from
its supernatural twist. Without treading into spoiler
territory, suffice to say that much of the protracted
climax, despite tying in thematically and driving home
King's overall point about man's inhumanity to man,
feels like a compromise. Explaining the dome's genesis
and its reason for existence dilutes some of the novel's
potency and gives the finale a pat air, which undermines
some of its early brutality.
Inevitably,
King's sprawling, cinematic narrative will draw
comparisons to the vastly more engrossing "The
Stand." Of course, doing so diminishes
"Dome," which never quite musters "The
Stand's" precise balance of moral outrage, gritty
thrills and engaging characters.
Although
"Under the Dome" attempts to bear a similar
allegorical weight, it fails to shoulder the burden,
instead settling for slick, violent theatrics laced with
a handful of utterly gorgeous passages. Despite falling
short of brilliance, many of "Under the
Dome's" pleasures stem from enjoying a graceful
writer at his wryly pessimistic best.
But try
as he might, King's tireless imagination and nimble
wordsmithery simply cannot compete with modern life's
unsettling realities — a truly terrifying notion.
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