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10:33 p.m. - June 24, 2002 First of all, I spent practically the whole day yesterday reading Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King yesterday. I went to bed at 2 AM after finishing the book. For the first 300 or so pages, I was completely spellbound by the story, the awe and fantasy. I was able to suspend disbelief for 300 pages or so, and then it descended into this reality--and it felt like a second book rather than a continuation of the fantasy, innocence, and wonder of the first section. Granted, one can argue that the first section is about the loss of innocence. I agree. But I do wish that King kept at it and continued writing the rest of this section, making it a fantasy and about Bobby's loss of innocence; how he was disillusioned, how his friendships with other children formed and fell apart, how his relationship with his mother slowly started building, instead of about ten pages of exposition at the end of the secion saying stuff like, "Bobby grew up. They moved away. He and Carol stopped writing to each other. And oh yeah, Bobby ended up in jail a couple times." I wanted the same sort of detail that King had paid to the story when Ted was still there in person, and describing in great detail Bobby's observations of the world, and his childlike way of looking at things. That's what I wanted. (Here's a great observation on Bobby's part about adults and William Golding's Lord of the Flies: "What if there were no grownups? Suppose the whole idea of grownups was just an illusion? What if their money was just playground marbles, their business deals no more than baseball-card trades, their wars only games of guns in the park? What if they were all still snotty-nosed kids inside their suits and dresses? Christ, that couldn't be, could it?" (pp. 193) After that, it's all Vietnam stuff, which I thought was good too, but it should have either (a) been in another book, or (b) been a continuation of the magic--yes, it is about disillusionment, but what about the threads? How does it continue beyond the characters? I wanted to know more about how Ted affected Carol and so forth. I think King should have written two books: one about Bobby and Ted (and alternately, his childhood, and how in one summer, he gains knowledge of the adult world), and one about Vietnam. They are powerful stories, and yet...yet...I could not bring myself to care about the middle part. I only cared about the first part and the fifth section (epilogue-type section). I think books are supposed to make you question society, if they are well written tomes (ie, Animal Farm, Cry, the Beloved Country, and 1984 are some examples.) However, I closed the book, not thinking about the effects of the Vietnam War or even the loss of childhood, but rather, nitpicky questions like: If Carol was able to see what Liz experienced, then why isn't more mentioned about it in the second section? Why did King choose to not have Carol as a narrator of the story? She's always seen from another point of view, and always from a male point of view. Is there a point to that? What made King think that was an effective way of storytelling? I don't know. I guess I was just wondering about his literary choices. I guess I was having problems because somehow, the book did not seem incredibly consistent. I went to bed very let-down. It's sort of like...I sort of felt cheated. I don't know. I do want to see the movie adapation of this book; from what I've read of the reviews, it sounds like it focuses on the first section of the book, which I think is the correct thing to do. If I had to endure more Vietnam stuff, I'd be bored out of my mind: I've already been through it with Forrest Gump and Jenny. (Ebert describes their journey as exploring every major aspect of the decades: Forrest takes the high route, while Jenny goes into the counter-culture, tunes in, tunes out. By the way, I don't like Forrest Gump.) This book is not the only thing I've been thinking of today. As of today, I've got about 20 days before I'm on that plane home. I've got to pack. Clean. Cancel my newspaper subscription as well as my phone connection. I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, since I've also got to do other things, like writing an article, running errands, etc. And I still haven't heard from Luana. She's supposed to email me and let me know when she's going to be here in Munich. I, of course, would like to know so I can make sure my room's tidy and clean, and that I have food in the fridge (and that I throw out any foodstuffs I've forgotten about). I hope she writes by tomorrow--her plane leaves from Madrid on the 26th... I have this insane desire to list all the books on my shelves here in Munich. Maybe I will, in my next entry.
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