Stephen King's 11/22/63

I'll pick it up soon for sure. Sounds like it could be pretty great.

Looking forward to diving into this over the weekend.

The title alone intrigues me due to its significance. I literally just found out about this, so I think I'll actually let a modern King book surprise me for once.

 

What's interesting about this is that I just started rereading some of my favorite King stuff, novels and short stories alike. I've never soured on him like everyone else seems to have, though I will admit many of his later works are deeply flawed, so to rediscover what makes the man great is quite encouraging. His short stories might be even better than his novels (personal favorite King novels: The Stand, The Dead Zone, Misery, the first three Dark Tower books), though.

 

Anyone else agree, or am I just rambling?

Downloading this book onto my eReader tonight.  Real excited!

Just about finished with the book.   It's a little flabby in places but a really solid novel.   Once thing I really love about this book is how it handles changing the past and the way the past wants to remain the same.   It's a neat narrative device and a neat twist on time travel.   Highly recommended.

Bit late to the game, I guess.  hopefully people are still reading this thread.

 

I'm 2/3 of the way through the book, really enjoying it.

 

The one thing that drives me up a wall though is King's insistence on calling out his other books.  Early on, I dug how he did this, and liked the idea that the big evil in a number of his books was somehow connected.  But in some books, and this one specifically, he drops in characters as complete fan wanks, and I can only imagine how a non-fan reads this stuff.

 

SPOILERS

 

The Richie and Beverly scene in Derry must have been completely baffling to anyone who hasn't read It.  Who are these people?  Why do they have this weird aura of having lived through something momentous.  What are they even talking about?  It would be one thing if Jake passed them quickly in the street, but he talks to them forever, and there's no relevant followup (except for the equally annoying conceit that Jake essentially starts writing It).  It's 100% King just waving to his fans, and while I get that he has a lot of fans, from a "this is a standalone book that is written for normal people who may not have read his other books" it's a scene that's a confusing mess if you don't know the backstory.

 

With that said, are there any folks who haven't read It who read that scene and had another reaction?  I'd be interested to hear King virgins' take on the scene.

All right, I just finished this yesterday, and thought it was rather excellent. Laundry list!:

 

-Stephen King has rarely done "deep" characters, but he's great at giving us likable heroes and hissable villains who are just rounded enough to make the story work. I particularly loved his whiny, yet rage-filled characterization of Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

-The world of the past feels tangible, and I love that King never totally lets the reader forget about the uglier side of the past.

 

-People rag on King for crappy endings, but I've never thought this is true. Have some of his books ended flatly after great build-up? Sure, but just as many have great endings. I particularly love Misery's ending that suggests Paul will never quite be free of Annie's influence, and I will defend The Stand's climax to my dying breath. Additionally, he almost always knows how to perfectly end a short story or novella. Anybody remember The Jaunt? "LONGER THAN YOU THINK, DAD!" I really like the ending here myself: Jake stops the assassination, but loses the girl, comes back to a hellhole, so he has to make one last trip, then close the circle.

 

-With the right cast and director (i.e. not Mick Garris), this could make a hell of a mini-series.

Edited by Chris Spider - 12/28/11 at 11:56am

I saw something on Wikipedia about Jonathan Demme doing something with it, but take that with a grain of salt, it being on Wikipedia and all.  But yeah, anyone but Mick Garris.

 

I really enjoyed the book, even the ending (glad it wasn't an ending with a bunch of shit just blowing up).  As for the winks, nods, and straight up shout outs to his older books, I dig those myself.  If you never read IT, and have no idea who these two kids are, just get through it and move on with the story.  Better yet, go read IT.  You could do far worse.  I'm reading Bag of Bones right now, before I take my chances with the (shudder) Mick Garris mini series, and so far enjoying it more than I thought I would.  But there was a way more subtle nod to Insomnia, when Frank, the main character shows up for a page or two.  But that was done in a way more subtle way as not to be distracting, to where if you had never read Insomnia, you would probably never notice, but if you had it's a nice little catch.  Also the writer from Dark Half is mentioned I think.  Either way, subtle or not, I still enjoy it.

 

I have been recommending this book to everyone I know (that's about 4 people, to be honest).  I actually had no intention of reading it, since I have little to know interest in the Kennedy assassination.  It turned out to be way more interesting about that, and while at first whenever it would go to Dallas and Oswald, I would just want the story to get back to Jodi, I eventually got sucked into the Kennedy aspect of the book as well.  This may sound dumb, but I would get so sucked in, hoping he would stop the killing, and thinking about all the people who were heading to the motorcade were so excited to see him, that every once in a while reality would click and I would think, "Crap, this really happened, and there is no changing it.  Jesus I feel sorry for everyone there at that time."  Yeah, I know.  Silly, but that's what happens when I get sucked in.

 

I also liked the aspect of how the past didn't want to be changed as well, and found it interesting when *SPOILER* he saved his girlfriend from her ex-husband, and no weird things happened to keep him from stopping him from actually killing her, the reason being that he actually wasn't doing anything to change the past.  So it kind of worked both ways.

 

I could ramble on, but I should get back to work for a bit.

The Jaunt ending still haunts me. That is fucked up.

I liked this book a lot, but it does highlight one of my continuing problems with King.

Nonsense words. It's like some phrase will pop into his head and he goes "aha, there's my monstername/maguffin/thingpulling the strings.

Jimla. No point, no real explanation (spoiler, the yellow card man had become the black card man by the time Jake/George went to Jodie so couldn't have pulled it from his mind as he suggests), just a vaguely unsettling word.

It's like the DEADLIGHTS in It, a vaguely odd pun made into a major plot point (and an awful effect in the movie).

Or the great lost plot point 'Banjo Skank' in TDT series. Interesting sounding name, vaguely ominous but despite peppering the series with it, it went nowhere.

I hope the new one isn't about that.

Anyway, really liked it but could have done without JIMLA!

Just finished this and really enjoyed it with some moderate reservations.  

 

--Agreed that the extended IT cameos were completely unnecessary, not to mention that Richie was far and away my least favorite of the IT kids.  (Beep, beep, my ass!)  

 

SPOILERS, I GUESS:

 

--Also, the final outcome of what actually happens when Kennedy is "saved" was actually pretty obvious.  The conceit that time-traveling "do-gooders" actually fuck things up worse is old as the hills.  I remember an episode of the 1980's version of "Twilight Zone" that had the exact same Kennedy premise, and it essentially ended the same way.   Not to mention that King kind of covered some of this same territory (the reluctant assassin) more compellingly in the second half of THE DEAD ZONE.  

 

Still, it's a compelling read, if not quite up to UNDER THE DOME of his recent output.  

Yeah, but at least King actually followed through on it, with our hero doing the right thing and closing the circle. I'll defend some of his endings more than others, but it does get frustrating when "BLOW IT UP!" is often the solution.

 

So I finished this over Christmas and meant to post, but I got distracted by family.

 

I like how very like King it was, but also how interesting it is when he gets into the historical details. King can write late 1950s to late 1960s really well. I loved Hearts in Atlantis. Though some dislike the time spent in Derry, it reads like the Tom Bombadil section of the LOTR. You have to test your hero with the small stuff before he can try the big stuff. I kinda wished the novel concentrated on fixing the small rather than the big.  Seeing the story of the wheel chair bound girl not work out should have given us a clue about the future end of the novel, but some Quantum Leap like fixing the little things would be nice, but still have the tension, like the Derry story.

 

It also makes you scared for some alternate timeline where George Wallace actually won. Jesus!

Just finished reading the book. I mostly enjoyed it, and was never bored with it, but I think it could have been about one or two hundred pages shorter. Is there any reason why the past couldn't have just taken him to 1963 as opposed to 1958?

 

SPOILERS

 

 

Originally I was giddy when I first read the Derry bits of the book. But after reading George's encounter with Richie and Beverly, it read more like bad fan fiction. It's weird seeing those two characters through the eyes of a new character. The Derry portion of the book is set a few months after the events of IT. Besides being an awkward scene, I didn't like it that it spoiled the mystique of Richie and Beverly that was created in IT. In IT, after defeating IT for the first time, it's said that the seven kids never did all get together after that. Three or four quite regularly, but never all seven. It was implied that the seven of them quickly drifted apart after that. I don't like that Richie and Beverly are still in contact with one another (and oddly taking part in a talent competition). Worse, they still remember the events of IT and talk about it with a total stranger. Beverly even mentions the Turtle, and I don't think she was even aware of its existence in the book.

 

I'm also not really sold on the ending. For one, it took George almost 700 pages of pain and suffering to get to the point where he could kill Oswald, and he finaly does it. The problem is it turns out the world become much worse because of it, so he has to go back to 1958. Personally I think it might have been better had he not been able to go back, that all he had accomplished was for nothing. It would have been a downer of an ending, but I think it would have made for more of an impact. Another idea would be for George to have killed Oswald much earlier in the story, and have him living in 1963 unsure of what the consequences would be. He would then have to decide to stay in '63 with Sadie, or go back to 2011. We could then have him spend more time in the future, discovering how the world has changed, and making his own choice on whether to go back again and fix it. Because I think the reset (even if it's isn't a total reset) gives King too big a safety net.