So, I finally found a copy of Gerald's Game! Like Dolores Claiborne, it's very different from his other books--it's much more alarming and serious in some parts, realistically creepy (think Ed Gein) at others, and 2 spooky in quite a few.
Like I mentioned a couple of posts ago, this book is about the girl that Dolores sees during the eclipse, and thinks later (at Vera's death) that the girl is in trouble. Similarly to the book, as Selena was molested, Jessie, the main character, was not molested--but there was a sexual run-in that she describes as a "scratch" more than anything else. It was bad but not the worst, but still, that's like saying a bullet to the appendix isn't as bad as to the head--it will probably still kill you or mess you up pretty badly.
Anyways, the connections to the other book pretty much end there. Jessie mentions that her visions of Dolores are like a radio picking up a signal (King 167), but... That's about it. Nothing major about it. It's almost disappointing even, because Jessie describes Dolores which sort of ruined my image of her.
So! Anyways. The book starts out with the "terrible trouble" Dolores senses on the day Vera dies. Jessie and her husband, Gerald, are at their summer home for an autumn weekend. The only way Gerald can get excited lately is by handcuffing Jessie to the bed. Jessie balks this time (later she claims it's because of the spit on her husband's chin reminds her of a certain bit of cum, but we'll get there--it might be added that she asks her husband to stop and he willfully ignores her and indeed continues crawling up on her) and eventually kicks her husband off the bed when he refuses to unhook her. He then has a major heart attack and she is left chained up to the bed.
First, the book starts with the same "path of the eclipse" map as in Dolores Claiborne--duh! But I was still surprised to see it.
Jessie faints after Gerald falls to the floor and clearly dies. Anyways, my next note doesn't have to do with the book specifically--just this edition. Someone stuck a temporary butterfly tattoo in the page break before where chapter two starts. It's pretty shocking, and kind of eerie considering there is a painting (or some kind of wall art) in the bedroom of a butterfly described later on.
Like Dolores, Jessie hears voices in her head--but not Vera, as clear as she's next to her speaking--it's her roommate from college, Ruth. She also hears a voice she has always heard that she refers to as the "goodwife" and a voice she associates with her young self, though it's not quite her, I don't think, it only looks like her in her visions.
Oh, and a stray dog gets into the house--the front door wasn't shut all the way--and begins to eat Gerald's corpse. The dog is kind of major in the book until she imagines a man/ghost that she names the "Space Cowboy" (yes, like the Steve Miller Band song)--actually, there seem to be some weird hints (or weird hints I thought I'd saw) until the end that the dog and Jessie are in for some weird Disney happily-ever-after ending--like, the dog was, for a while, the pet of a young girl, but her father didn't feel like paying for its license. Stephen King describes a couple of times how it played fetch with the young girl. So, when Jessie drops the little jar of Vaseline, I thought, you know, that the dog would instinctively grab it and bring it back despite everything and she'd use it and they'd go skipping off into the sunset. Or at the end, I thought it would protect Jessie from the Space Cowboy, despite being terrified of him... And then they'd drive off together in Jessie's car, happy as clams, happily ever after. You know. Just like how Stephen King usually does things.
When Jessie first imagines she can see her younger self (in stocks), she refers to herself as a "daughter of Eve" (King 71). Again, I suppose it's not that weird of a way to refer to a female, but, a little Chronicles of Narnia much? Peculiar.
Ruth's voice tells Jessie that "us high-riding bitches have to stick together" (King 99)--if you'll recall, one of Vera and Dolores's favourite little phrases.
Anyways, a major point in the book is Jessie admitting to herself and coming to terms with what happened that night of the eclipse--the real-life Ruth knew something bad happened to Jessie at some point, but Jessie never said it all and when Ruth started asking about it, Jessie moved out. So, with nothing really much else to do, she begins remembering.
A horrible nightmare comes first, she's playing croquet, the sun goes out, she's naked--and Gerald approaches her, but he open his mouth and the dog 's head pokes out, and then the dog's head opens and out appears his father's head (or vice versa, I can't seem to find the exact page.) I'm... not really sure how to approach that one, but it's worth pointing out for its similarities to the can tahs (taks?) in Desperation (the can tahs in The Dark Tower are a little different). The can tahs are these stone carvings of animals, some of whom have open mouths with tongues that are a different animal and such--they cause intensified sexual and violent reactions in those who touch them (for the most part), eventually driving you insane if you're in contact with them for too long. Can tahs are referred to as "little gods" in King's Desperation, can taks are "big gods"--I guess if they've been more or less controlling Jessie's behaviour and dictating a lot of her life, this weird, Freudian demon would be an acceptable "big"/"little god".
Sooo as for the eclipse itself, the family was going to a woman in the area's home to view it (might I add that Jessie's family had a summer home too). Jessie decides she wants to spend the day alone with her father--and her father agrees to that. In convincing his wife to allow that, they get into a huge fight--his wife accuses him of acting as though Jessie is more like his girlfriend than daughter. ...Well, foreshadowing alert...
What follows next is honestly one of the most disturbing things (in my opinion) that Stephen King has ever written. She sits in her father's lap to watch the eclipse--she's about twelve at the time, by the way, developed a little--but she sits in her lap, thinking nothing of it, even though it is "strangely full of angles this afternoon" (King 152). She wiggles around, trying to get comfortable and he does not push her off--he gasps, but says nothing, tells her he's fine and shifts a little on his own. What a scum.
He does not... eh, put it in, but he comes on the back of her panties. Jessie runs in to wash it (her father sends her in rather than apologizing or anything right away).
He eventually comes up after her. He apologizes, tells her she can never tell anyone, and--UGH! In Dolores Claiborne, Joe tells Selena that a wife has certain duties, a man has certain needs, and Dolores was just not doing any of it. Also she hit him in the face with the creamer. Surprise surprise, Jessie's father says the same thing--and at first says he must tell his wife. Jessie is terribly ashamed (but lucid enough to know that she shouldn't be feeling bad like that, her father should be) and begs him not to--she believes that her mother will say it's her (Jessie's) fault. I could punch Jessie's father for his reaction to this fear: "'Oh no--I don't think so,' Tom said, but his tone was surprised, considering... and to Jessie, as dreadful as a death sentence. 'No-ooo... I'm sure--well, fairly sure--that she...'" (King 182). What an awful, manipulative bastard. He saw his angle and moved right in on it. And he uses scare tactics to keep her mouth shut. What a scumbag. He tells her that her way is best, too, so if she should have to keep quiet about it, if it should torment her--well, it was her choice. Her own fault. That was what she chose and wanted. What a dick.
I seem to have lost another note regarding something in this situation--she notices, when reliving the memory, that when her father says he loves her and he's sorry when it's all through, he looks away--she becomes enraged because the whole time, as he lied to her and terrorized her, he looked her right in the eye, but he couldn't look her in the eye to tell the truth. I thought it was the other way when I read it though--he was scaring her on purpose, and then when he apologizes he looks away because he's not really sorry--not about that itself at least, he got his rocks off. This is because it's supposedly common knowledge that liars will look away from you when they lie unless if they're really good at it. Maybe he feels bad because of possible repercussions, but not that he did what he did. He undoubtedly rationalized it by saying to himself, well, at least I didn't go all the way... And, as Ruth's voice points out, he probably planned it. He does feel Jessie's breasts a couple of times before he comes. And I can't help but notice that he didn't exactly kick Jessie off his lap to go and take a cold shower or anything.
I guess I haven't really talked about the space cowboy yet, have I? Jessie sees him in what seems to be a dream, a Nosferatu-esque figure with a house doctor's old timey clutch bag made from human parts and filled with jewels. It's hard to tell if he's real or not, even at the end, though he leaves behind a muddy footprint and a pearl earring the first night. But who knows, it's Stephen King. It feels a little awkward and tacked on, and overall, 2 spooky. Like, okay. I don't now how many of you readers watch Nostalgia Critic, but a while ago he did Lilo and Stitch, and he said the relationship of the sisters is so good... But then there's Stitch. Does it have to be there? It kind of gets in the way of that already pretty powerful story. Same here. The Space Cowboy, for me, is the Stitch of this. I'm not sure if he needed to be here as a physical being.
Anyways, she gets out, she starts running because he's at the door--but then when she turns around before she gets to the car he's not there. Was it all in her head? I don't know. This is 2 spooky 4 me.
The book ends with Jessie writing a letter to her old friend Ruth--telling her every single thing that happened, including what she couldn't tell the cops. It's weird, and awkward, but it is kind of interesting. Turns out her space cowboy was an escaped serial killer--that's right, despite every awkward plot device and detail, he was real--named Raymond Andrew Joubert. Excuse me while I sigh forever and roll my eyes. I'd be lying if I didn't find this grossly interesting, the way someone might be reading about Ed Gein, but it just seems so awkward here. It doesn't need to be. I don't know how it could have ended without this afterward, but it's just so... Why? Why bother, there doesn't need to be this. Just make him some kind of mind-phantom visiting from the Dark Tower books or something. I don't know.
A story about Joubert would be its own interesting story--except that history has already done that. May I introduce you to Wikipedia. Interesting, even if it is 2 spooky and plays on some kind of cliche stuff. For example, some of the reasons why Jessie wasn't sure if he was real or not is because he appears to be very, eh, Nosferatu-like. Oh hey, turns out he has a genetic disorder! He really does look like that. And again, the serial killer angle is interesting... but hey, here's Wikipedia, you'll get the same kind of story there. Things are interesting, but I guess maybe you could say it isn't as equipped to survive in this time. I don't know. But I'm not in love with that awkward "This is how it happened" stuff--especially so late in the book.
She even confronts Joubert--he was captured and put on trial for something else--and I guess that confrontation has its own kind-of power. She yells at him, in one of her nightmarish reality-dreams that he's nothing but moonlight--when Joubert notices her he slowly raises his arms next to his head (like he was chained up) and repeats her words--"'I don't think you're anyone!... You're only made of moonlight!'" (King 329). Actually, this scene felt the most real to me, of the whole book. For some reason it was very easy to imagine Joubert's voice as King described it, and it is alarming.
Oh,. and there is a reference to Needful Things--Jessie mentions how there was a "big fire in Castle Rock about a year ago--it burned most of the downtown" (King 316-317). I'm pretty sure she mentions Alan Pangborn by name (last name only) as well, but I can't seem to actually find it. Well, either way, Alan Pangborn is the one who pretty much defeats or chases away Leland Gaunt in Needful Things.
My last note isn't so much a note on the book... didn't really have a place up there I guess, but I think I mentioned how although Jessie is chained and topless, she still has panties on. She does eventually pee herself, but for the first 24 hours or so, she is in dry panties. I feel like King did this not so much because Gerald didn't get to it yet--but because it was just too undignified (for her) to leave her completely nude and unprotected. I don't know. That's how it seemed to me, anyways.
So, overall? The book has its moments. In some ways it is one of King's most powerful books, in others it falls way short of the mark. It wasn't bad to read, but I doubt I'll ever pick this one up again--or if I do, I'll only read up to Jessie's epilogue in letters--or just that part. It's an okay sister to Dolores Claiborne, but pretending up a reason for Dolores's visions ended up doing the same amount of satisfying as this book--heck, Jessie never even addresses that after, when she is in the right frame of mind. That seems especially odd, that that's not even wondered about. I guess in comparison to everything else it's not that important, but...
Oh well. Onto the next thing when we can, I'm heading back to school soon so there probably won't be anything for a while--but see you whenever!
Works Cited: King, Stephen. Gerald's Game. Viking: United States of America, 1992.
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