The Dome

The Dome is the title of Stephen King's new book. It is a very thick book indeed. A small town in Maine has an invisible dome suddenly appear and no one can get in and no one can get out. King uses the terrible accident he had in which a driver hit him while he was walking down the side of the road in this novel, he was prescribed Percocet for his pain. Someone in the novel contemplates suicide with Percocet, another becomes addicted to Oxycontin. The man in charge has become rich selling meth, "Big Jim". He has more money than a person could spend in 1 lifetime in an account in the Caymen Islands, but he doesnt' want to retire and sip Margaritas in some tropical local no sir. This little town is his town and has always been his town and he cannot stand the idea of someone else running it. He kills two people in his office with his own hands. Of course you know this is a King novel and that murder and insanity is sure to follow, but there is little magic except of course for the existance of the Dome itself. As for the writing itself I find it is about middlin' folks, middle of the road stuff that we have come to expect from King, which is on a higher level than most writers. King tells us about the motivations of these people and of the awfulness of people quite clearly.

For a writer who writes so much about the unlikely and the never gonna happen in a million years kind of stuff King paints a very clear picture of reality. For his people are real, and just as bad and as spiteful and as mean as they are in everyday life. Being lower middle-class or downright poor as King was in his childhood means knowing how bad people are, and that is a lesson I myself have learned. When people have nothing or very little, their natures are not improved for it believe me.

For all of that I enjoyed reading it, enjoyed a writer putting into words what I myself find so difficult to say. I enjoyed the way Karma has of catching up with the bad guys, now I wish that was a part of reality that I know also.

For life isn't about friendships or love or romance or any of that stuff for most people. It's about power. As the pirate says, "It's what a man can do or what a man cannot do" in Pirates of the Caribbean. I hear it in people's voices and in the way they stand and the way they say the things they say, I hear how much security they have in the world, and how much power. I am pretty much powerless, but I read the fantastic to hear the real so much more. In my own head when I read, I am just reading, just reading.