My take on “Under the Dome” by Stephen King

I just finished listening to the Audible.com audiobook of Under The Dome, and I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about it. Now I’m blogging about it. There’s just no stopping me.

I’ve always been a reader, and when I was a kid I used to take pride in the sheer size and density of the books I read, and the fact that I always completed books, no matter how impenetrable the prose. I specifically remember reading “The Arms of Krupp” when I was 10 – it took me about a week. At some point, our neighbors across the street (the Smith family) gave me a box of second hand paperbacks, because they’d “heard I was a reader” and might find something worth reading in their box of leftovers. And I did, underneath all the romance novels and other crap I found two books that affected me greatly: “Dracula”, complete with creepy cover art (true to the description in the book, unbelievably), and “Someone Like You” by Roald Dahl. I still have both of these books. By the time I read these I had already spent some time watching classic horror movies – one of our local stations had a late Friday night feature called “House of Fear” and they had an endless supply of old Universal horror movies, which I loved (and still do). Both books just fascinated me, and I’ve reread each many times. I turned Lisa on to the Dahl book recently, and she is really enjoying it. If you only think of Dahl as a children’s book author, you are really missing out on some interesting stuff. Several of the stories were made into Twilight Zone or Hitchcock TV episodes. Dahl was very familiar with the darker aspects of human nature.

I think what happened is that I found I enjoyed the thrill of a good horror novel or movie. Notice I said “good”. The horror genre as a whole is infamous for more than its share of crap – largely because it makes money, I imagine. Anyway, I quick discovered the works of H.P. Lovecraft, probably at the public library. If I remember correctly it was an Arkham House edition of “The Dunwich Horror and Other Tales” and also included The Outsider, The Rats In The Walls, Pickman’s Model, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and several other chilling tales. This was fascinating stuff for me; new and complex ideas written in a way that engaged both intellect and emotions. Highly recommended. But then I ran into some trouble; I had quickly run through the “classics,” and there really wasn’t much of anything being published in the genre at that time.

Then came Stephen King, and right behind him a host of others. I first read Night Shift, which I absolutely loved and still do. King has always been good at short stories, and his recent collection holds up well too. Then Salem’s Lot, which I quickly realized was essentially a modern day rewrite of Dracula, and I was hooked. Carrie, The Stand, The Shining, the Bachman books, The Body, The Mist, I read them all and loved them. Even his nonfiction books on horror and writing. But along about It I started to lose interest. Seems like he got big enough to where people were afraid to edit his stuff, and much of his later stuff is just bloated and unfocused to me. And I moved on to others; Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon (who seemed to be bent on mirroring King’s topics for a while), F. Paul Wilson, James Herbert, lots of others. Graham Masterson, who wrote terrifically gory and yet scary stuff. Some splatterpunk even. But I finally grew tired of the whole thing, and haven’t read much horror in the last five years or so. I still read Koontz now and again, but he seems to have lost his way as well.

The early reviews of Under The Dome referenced King’s early work directly. I decided to give it a try based on the reviews I read. Apparently he started it very early in his career but couldn’t figure it out and left it for decades under the bed or something. That may be; the writing definitely sounds like his early days. Lean, to the point, and brutal in its depiction of the darker aspects of human nature. The audiobook I listened to is narrated by Raul Esparza, who is a Broadway actor. He does a reasonable job; he struggles now and again with the required accents, and mispronounced a few things (“Chinook”) but overall his reading was compelling and exciting. The book is very long, and it took me a long time to get through it as I was listening during commute time largely, on my ipod.

I’m convinced now that it ranks among his best work. It combines elements of The Stand (good vs. evil) along with elements of The Mist (small group being held prisoner by an unseen force) as well as countless other examples of King’s insight into small town life and human behavior. It’s very dark, and it’s a difficult read in some ways. Bad things happen to good people. And its depiction of the hypocrisy of organized religion may turn some people off. Parts seem a bit far fetched, and some suspension of disbelief is required. Jack Reacher makes a bit of a cameo, which was welcome.

Bottom line, I think King’s observations about the way humans might behave in this particularly stressful situation is interesting and the story he tells is compelling. If you’re a King fan at all, you should read it. If you’re easily offended, you might want to avoid it :).