Common Themes in the Works of Stephen King
The Crimson King, representative of the Random. Image via Wikipedia
I was asked to answer a question on Quora about the common themes in Stephen King’s works. I have read everything that King has written, and I have noticed several “big ideas” that recur in his works. Taken together, these ideas provide a worldview that I find very compelling, which is probably why I enjoy King’s writing so much. The following are the seven major themes that seem consistent across King’s body of work. Please note that this essay does contain spoilers for many King books. I have provided as many examples as I can remember, but I am sure I have missed some, so please fill in the gaps in the comments.
1) There are two elemental forces, the Purpose and the Random, which are constantly at war with each other; this battle affects all worlds and all lives. The goal of the Random is destruction of all worlds. The goal of the Purpose, which King calls the “White” and uses synonymously with God, is to hold the Random in check and maintain a balance between the two forces. The “Coming of the White” refers to the restoration of the Purpose, or setting things right after a period of chaos. The Purpose selects and guides humans to achieve its aims; these people, although retaining free will, are in the thrall of fate or destiny, which King calls ka. The Random enlists its own agents, which may be human or supernatural beings.
Examples: The Stand and The Dark Tower series are King’s epics about this ongoing battle, but the theme recurs in many other books, especially Desperation, The Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, It, Low Men in Yellow Coats, Needful Things, and The Talisman. In Pet Sematary, the symbol of the spiral found in the Pet Sematary and the Micmac Burying Ground leads from chaos to order. In The Talisman, this elemental opposition is reflected in the two hotels — the Alhambra Inn and Gardens and the Black Hotel — where the quest begins and ends.
2) Ordinary people, when they come together, can achieve extraordinary things against overwhelming odds. Everyone, even the most ordinary or lowliest person, has something special to contribute. When people form a bond and work together against a common foe, the effects of their contributions are magnified, enabling them to overcome powerful enemies. When the Purpose brings together a group of people in this way, the group is called a ka-tet.
Examples: King introduces the term ka-tet in The Dark Tower series, where it refers to a group where many lives are joined by fate. Ka-tets are also formed in Black House, Desperation, It (the Losers’ Club), Insomnia, The Stand and Under the Dome.
3) The most important thing a person can do is make a stand for the ultimate good. Heroic characters are exhorted to “stand and be true” against the forces of chaos that oppose them so as to preserve order in the world. Making a stand is an incredibly difficult, often self-sacrificing act. It requires faith and courage in the face of overwhelming terror and power.
Examples: Of course, The Stand is the epic story about making a stand against the ultimate evil. Other books where the hero is required to make a stand are The Dark Tower series, The Eyes of the Dragon, It, Needful Things and The Talisman.
4) Everything in space and time is cyclical, and all events are fundamentally connected. This idea is symbolized by a wheel. In Insomnia and The Dark Tower series, King describes his vision of the multiverse as a wheel made up of perhaps an infinite number of worlds, connected by the axle of the Dark Tower, and held together by the spokes, called the Beams. The phrase repeated in many King novels, “Life is a wheel,” expresses the cyclical nature of life and that nothing happens by chance. Ka, or fate, is also “the wheel that moves the world” (Rose Madder). This cyclical repetition can be a Hell for the people caught up in it (“Hell is repetition”), reflecting the Eastern idea of the endless cycle of reincarnation, which can only be escaped via enlightenment.
Examples: The Dark Tower series, which explains the cyclical nature of all worlds, is itself structured as a cycle, with Roland ending up where he began. This theme is also explored in the cyclical nature of time travel in 11/22/63, It’s sleeping and waking cycles in It, Duma Key, Insomnia, Low Men in Yellow Coats, Rose Madder, The Shining, The Stand, Storm of the Century and The Talisman. The idea of Hell as repetition is the major theme of the short story, “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French.”
5) Creation is a powerful tool in service of the Purpose. If the Random’s goal is destruction, then creation is the ultimate weapon against it. This may be why writers figure so prominently in King’s works, as writers literally create worlds when they tell stories. Like any tool, the writer’s ability to create can be used either for good or evil ends.
Examples: This idea is taken to the extreme in The Dark Tower series, where King introduces himself as a pivotal character as the creator of Roland and his world; therefore, he is responsible for Roland’s success or failure in his quest to save all worlds. Writers and their ability to create figure prominently in Bag of Bones, The Body, The Dark Half, Desperation, It, Lisey’s Story, Misery, The Regulators, ‘Salem’s Lot, Secret Window, Secret Garden, The Shining and The Tommyknockers, as well as the short stories, “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” “Dedication,” “The Road Virus Heads North” and “Umney’s Last Case.” In Duma Key, the creator is a painter rather than a writer, but the theme persists.
6) The innocent and uncorrupted are closest to the Purpose, which makes them unexpectedly powerful. Generally, the innocents are children, but they could also be the mentally disabled (Tom in The Stand, John Coffey in The Green Mile, Duddits in Dreamcatcher) or the saintly (Mother Abigail in The Stand). Their powers manifest as prophetic visions or dreams, as well as the ability to alter reality and communicate telepathically. Adolescence is a time when the innocent are most vulnerable to corruption, when their powers may be turned to evil, such as in Carrie or Christine.
Examples: Powerful children appear in Bag of Bones (telepathy), Cujo (visions), Desperation (visions and miracles), Firestarter (pyrokinesis, telekinesis and telepathy), Insomnia (can see auras), It (visions and magic), The Langoliers (visions), Pet Sematary (prophetic dreams), The Regulators (also autistic), The Shining (telepathy and visions), The Stand (telepathy and visions), The Sun Dog (visionary dreams), The Talisman (travel between worlds) and Under the Dome (prophetic dreams).
7) The greatest evil that people do is victimization of the weak by the strong. Victimization usually manifests as abuse of animals, women and particularly children. Abuse of the weak is a particular evil of human nature (rather than an elemental evil like the Random), but it can lead to corruption of the abuser by the Random. The abused are generally not rescued; if they are to escape, they must do so themselves, by calling on their inner strength and power. If abused children do not escape or die, they often grow up to commit evil acts as a result of their abuse.
Examples: Child abuse takes places in The Body, Carrie, The Dead Zone, Dolores Claiborne, Gerald’s Game, Insomnia, It, The Langoliers, The Library Policeman, Rage, Rose Madder, The Shining and The Talisman. Wife/girlfriend abuse takes place in Cujo, Cycle of the Werewolf, The Dark Half, Desperation, Dolores Claiborne, Gerald’s Game, The Green Mile, Insomnia, It, Rose Madder, ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Talisman, The Tommyknockers and many short stories.
The true price of publishing? Really?
Here is an argument for why e-books should not be cheap. Is this argument too simplistic, too reaching? Is publishing just refusing to innovate and is mired in its old, inefficient ways of working? Read: The true price of publishing on guardian.co.uk.
Kindle Observations (Sunday Salon)
Here are some observations I’ve made since I’ve started reading books on my new Amazon Kindle. Are you listening, publishers? There may be some handy tips below. And there will be a quiz.
1) I’ve become much more price conscious than I used to be about books. I am much less likely to purchase an e-book at a price point above $10 and much more likely to purchase it at below $8. When purchasing physical books, I don’t tend to think about price as much as if I really want the book as an object. I think this is because there are so many books on my wishlist available on Kindle that they are competing with one another, and they are mostly by authors who are new to me, so they are on an equal footing in other respects. Therefore, I’m more likely to go with the lower priced book. Right now, I’m reading The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, which I think cost around $4.
2) For a science fiction fan, there is a lot to choose from on the Kindle. This is the kind of reading I primarily wanted to get the Kindle for, i.e., books to read once and move on, rather than keep them forever. If it’s a classic that I think I will want to reread, I would rather buy a nice-looking physical copy for my shelves.
3) I am reading more. In fact, I now have at least two books going at a time, one on Kindle and one physical, so I always have a book nearby to read at odd moments.
4) I love the samples. If I read a sample and get hooked, I know I have to buy the book. I almost never read the first chapter or two of a physical book before buying, but with the Kindle samples, the experience between trying it out and sitting down to read it is practically seamless.
I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts as I use my Kindle more and more. So far, I’m glad I got one. I am even cleaning off my bookshelves to make room to display only the most treasured volumes in my collection. My local library can expect some hefty donations soon.
If you have a Kindle, do you have any tips for me?
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The Game of Food
I just finished the first book in the Game of Thrones saga (worth reading, by the way) and then discovered this fun blog: Inn at the Crossroads | In the game of food, you win or you wash dishes…. It combines two of my passions, cooking and books. Now if only someone will blog the fabulous clothes from the book…
Here is my review on LibraryThing.
Worth Reading: The Day of the Triffids
Cover of Day of the Triffids
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1951)
Note: There are some spoilers in this review.
When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.
I’ve seen this apocalyptic novel referred to as a “cozy catastrophe.” It’s easy to see why the term cozy would be applied to it. For a large part of the book, the main characters hunker down in an English farmhouse in the lush countryside. The only thing that spoils their pastoral post-apocalyptic life are the hordes of Triffids — giant, carnivorous, locomotive plants with deadly stingers whose origins are unknown but appear to have been genetically engineered — besieging the gates. But while the Triffids are more numerous than the surviving humans, they are not more clever, and they can be kept at bay with diligence. By today’s standards for apocalyptic fiction, this story does seem quaint. Violence and death are present, but kept at arm’s length. Still, I think The Day of the Triffids is far too unsettling to qualify as “cozy”; it’s just more subtle that what we’re used to.
I remember how shocked I was when I read this for the first time many years ago, and realized that even before the Triffids lurched on the scene, everyone in the world goes blind as the result of watching a peculiar green meteor shower. This is the real catastrophe that destroys civilization and gives the Triffids the upper hand (so to speak). All of our advances and progress as a species are wiped out literally overnight by such a simple thing. This is not the only apocalyptic book to explore blindness as a catalyzing event, but it was the first one that I read. It wasn’t that the idea was so terrifying, but that it was so isolating. Even the few remaining sighted are cut off because they can’t reveal their ability to see for fear of being conscripted by the blind.
Bill Masen is in the hospital, eyes bandaged from a recent Triffid attack (he works with them), when the calamity occurs. The first few chapters, when he realizes the extent of what has happened and then wanders through an eerily quiet London observing small but heartbreaking scenes of the newly blind, are bleak and disquieting. The overwhelming feeling of The Day of the Triffids is not terror or coziness, but resignation and a gloomy sense of loss. Also regret, as the characters come to realize that humankind must be responsible for what has happened to them.
The Triffids are never a truly terrifying threat, as zombies might have been (although they resemble zombies in many ways). They just are able to multiply and relentlessly besiege the survivors. It doesn’t seem cozy to imagine how tiring it must be, always keeping your guard up against millions of persistent plants. And the novel offers no satisfying resolution (unlike the movie), only a determination by the characters to take their world back. We don’t know if they will succeed.
For more:
Worth Reading: Howards End
Howards End by E.M. Forster (1910)
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.
Image via Wikipedia
If A Room With a View is comedy and romance, then Howards End is its tragic counterpart. This novel examines the social and cultural changes occurring in England during the early 1900s, such as the rise of the bourgeois class, the plight of workers, the call for women’s rights, the urbanization of England and the transition to the automobile.
There are three principal groups of characters, each representing a different social strata. The Schlegels — principally the older sisters, Margaret and Helen — are members of the leisure class, having old money and intellectual rather than professional pursuits. The Wilcoxes represent the rising middle class. And the Basts are working class, living on the edge of extreme poverty, at the mercy of those above them. These three families, thrown together by the cultural shifts happening around them, entangle their lives, with tragic consequences.
However, all of these characters share a flaw, which directly contributes to the tragedy. They all isolate themselves, a pervasive modern problem that Forster presciently portrays here. No character has a real community or sense of belonging. The Schlegels, particularly Margaret, separate themselves via their eccentricities, their insular family life and their intellectual pursuits, which help them avoid emotional entanglements. But the sisters, at least, long for connection. Margaret wants to belong to a community; Helen craves romance. Yet they keep failing to find the connection they seek. The Wilcoxes hold themselves aloof with their antiquated social principles, their hasty judgments of others and their unspoken sense of inferiority to the moneyed upper classes. Leonard Bast is separated not only by his class, but by his refusal to settle for his lot in life, which he is told he must accept. He tries to hold himself to an ideal he has only read about in novels, which leads him into a marriage that he know will be bad and that estranges him from his family.
That is why the novel begins and ends with a house: Howards End. It isn’t a grand estate, but it represents a sense of continuity and belonging, of something that will endure. The Shlegel girls instinctively feel at home at Howards End, and the Wilcoxes are loathe to give it up, even though they don’t really value it. When Margaret forms a rare true connection with the first Mrs. Wilcox, she wants to leave Margaret Howards End, because she understands its importance and feels that Margaret will likewise value it, protect it and pass it on. In a world of change and upheaval, Howards End is a constant, and lives that are lived there, however quiet, are meaningful lives.
Howards End is not as much of a pleasure to read as A Room With a View. There are certainly passages where Forster wanders off into obtuseness or inserts too much authorial opinion. But it’s a valuable book to read, to understand this time in history, and perhaps even shed some light on our modern discontents.
For more:
Must-reads (Sunday Salon)
While pondering this question on Quora — What is your list of must-read fiction books? – I came up with a list of 10 books that I consider must-reads from both contemporary and classic literature. To my surprise, the books sorted naturally into themed pairs, and of course, that suggested further books that should be on the list. So, here is my revised and expanded list of 10 20 must-read novels covering 5 7 essential themes.
Theme 1: The Great American Novel
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Extra credit: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Theme 2: Enduring Female Character
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Extra credit: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Theme 3: Dystopian Visions
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Extra credit: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Theme 4: Experiments with Narrative Structure
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- Extra credit: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Theme 5: Comic Satires
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- Extra credit: reread Catch-22
Theme 6: Other Worlds
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Extra credit: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Theme 7: The Unreliable Narrator
- The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- Extra credit: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Monthly Reading: December 2011 (Sunday Salon)
Cover of The Sparrow: A Novel
Happy New Year! I did indeed receive a Kindle Touch for Christmas and am happily reading my first book on it, A Game of Thrones. This seems the perfect book for the Kindle, the reason why I wanted an e-reader in the first place. It saves me having to cart around a ridiculously large book; the Kindle fits snugly into the inside pocket of my purse instead. Also, I don’t have to get rid of the book afterward, as I surely won’t reread it. And an added benefit that I hadn’t suspected is that, when reading a novel with about a thousand characters, if I ever forget who someone is, I only have to touch the screen and become enlightened, rather than trying to flip back through the pages and recall where I saw the name last. So, in short, I am liking my Kindle. And I am liking Game of Thrones.
As for what I read in my last Kindle-less month… I completed four books, but one was a novella and one was a book of fairy tales, so December was actually a fairly light month for me. I also abandoned one book.
The highlight of the month was finally reading Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, which turned out to be my favorite read of 2011. It really does have everything I love in a novel: an imaginative premise, terrific characters, beautiful writing and a moving theme that asks big questions. I remember someone recommending it to me years ago, and I’m only sorry I took so long to read it.
I also read a couple of short selections off my classics shelf: Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, a collection that combines almost-forgotten childhood favorites with some stories I had never read; and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, which is probably the first entry in the ambiguous ghost story sub-genre. I liked the Andersen better than the James, just because James’ writing style is a tad overwrought for me, but it’s such a short book, there’s no reason not to read it.
I read an advance review copy of The Mirage by Matt Ruff, which I have yet to review. The premise is an intriguing one: Instead of 9/11, two planes crashed into twin towers in Baghdad on November 9, 2011. However, it was a very odd story, and I have yet to decide how I reacted to it. I’m sure my feelings toward it are lukewarm.
As for the book I abandoned, it was Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. This is the second of his novels I’ve attempted and given up on, which leads me to the conclusion that he is not an author I will get along with. Ah well, we can’t like them all.
Right now, besides A Game of Thrones, I am almost finished with rereading Howard’s End, another selection off the classics shelf. I’m hoping to read many more classics this year, all in actual book form. I’ll save my trashier reading for the new Kindle.
Roundup: 4 books read, 1 abandoned. Click the titles below for my full reviews or reading notes (some links will take you off this site). My rating scale is explained here.
Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales (Puffin Classics)
The Mirage (to be reviewed); The Turn of the Screw
Short Reads: A Dictionary of the Near Future by Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland gives us several very appropriate terms for describing life in the near future. Here is one particularly appropriate to this blog, and it definitely describes me:
FICTIVE REST The inability of many people to fall asleep until after reading even the tiniest amount of fiction.
Read more: A Dictionary of the Near Future – NYTimes.com.
Independent Bookstores vs. Amazon Revisited
As an avid book buyer, there are times when it suits me to buy from Amazon, times when it suits me to go to the local bookstore, and times when I’m best served by my local library. I use all three depending on my needs, because they all fulfill different needs. I suspect many book buyers are similar, although the frequency with which they use one service or another probably differs. This is where we see the strength of having many choices, having competition and a free market. I would argue that a successful independent bookstore is one that has built an appropriate niche for itself to exist alongside Amazon, not compete with it.
I will agree with the article linked below on one point, however: Amazon does seem to have generated renewed interest in book buying and reading, and that is a good thing for everyone who loves books.
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