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.
Showing posts with label Gerald's Game. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gerald's Game. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Wow, amazingly enough I have apparently never written about this book before. Fun fact before I start: this was apparently the best selling book the year I was born.
Well, this book is a testimony of sorts. Dolores Claiborne is a woman who lived her whole life on the fictional Maine island of Little Tall. (Hey, while I'm thinking of it, how come the map in the beginning shows all of Stephen King's made-up Maine towns but 'Salem's Lot?) She's about sixty when she is making this testimony, but this is more or less a tale of her life. She's making the testimony to two cops and a stenographer because Vera Donavan, her longtime employer, died in her care and it seemed pretty clear that Dolores killed her--well, due to circumstantial evidence. So not only does Dolores have to explain that, she also chose to explain everything--including the mysterious circumstances under which her husband Joe died, thirty years prior.
The story is told as she tells the cops and the stenographer, and though she responds and interacts with them, their dialogue is never recorded, nor are their actions or reactions--which I think is pretty clever, borderline genius. Because you can't be swayed by them, but you know that they're reacting exactly the same way as you, and it makes the epilogue so much more satisfying and all the more sweeter. It's a lot different from his other books in a lot of ways--even how it is written is extremely different--so it's hard to say "well, if you liked A-Aardvark by Stephen King, you'd like this..." or what, but it's worth a shot. The movie was actually really good too, which was almost a little disappointing when I watched it because I was in the mood for a campy Stephen King movie.
OH, my first note of all doesn't have that much to do with the story either--it's written with Dolores's, er, dialect in mind. I just always found it interesting because... Well, Mark Twain's books like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are written in dialect, thick Southern accents. And that makes it nearly impossible for me to read them. It's like a mental roadblock, simple as that--like in Village of the Damned (I think) when that dude tries to block his mind by imagining a brick wall. Simple as that, only I don't do it on purpose, and it's really frustrating. But my mind just shuts down. But Dolores Claiborne doesn't bother me--granted, I don't know a whole lot of people from Maine specifically, but I do unquestionably know what a New Englander sounds like. So the accent ain't no thang, so to speak. Shout outs to Stephen King for writing about New England, even if it is mostly Maine (Maine is a teensy bit creepy though.)
Anyways. Page three is when Dolores spills the beans that she in fact killed her husband Joe, though everyone on the island has more or less known or been convinced of that for the past thirty years--and she denies killing Vera vehemently, though she doesn't get to what happened until much later. It was more or less circumstantial, though I don't want to quite spoil it.
The reason why I was reading this was to see if I ought to toss it, so to speak--like Chuck Palahniuk's Diary, whenever I think "hey, maybe I should read this book again", I automatically remember the grossest scene in the book that kept me away for so long in the first place. In Diary, it's when the narrator remembers her dead husband piercing his nipple with a button. In this book, it's when Dolores recalls the later years of caring for Vera: Vera went senile towards the end, and got mean--as Vera puts it, one of her ways of being a bitch. She just spread her literal shit EVERYWHERE--she would try to "save up" on her crap and create a real nasty mess for Dolores just because. The worst one described, it's all over her, it's spread on the walls--and she's giggling and laughing like it's so cute. It's a disgusting scene.
This book also has these recurring elements--as Vera slips into dementia she starts seeing things she describes as wires coming out from corners, or dust bunnies coming out from under her bed. This always throws me. It seems pretty clear that they're metaphors for old demons coming back and what have you, and it is somewhat clear (or at least possible) that Vera is describing whatever she's seeing the best she can and that's not necessarily what they are--like reports of supposed UFOs before planes were invented. They're described as cigars in the sky, saucers, etc, because that's the best frame of reference that could be conjured. Plus, Vera is losing her mind at this point in the testimony.
The only thing that really throws the idea of Vera doing her best to describe an unknown thing is that later Dolores has a dream of her own dust bunnies, that they grow together and form first Vera's husband's head and then her dead husband's head (although the timeline in the testimony goes back and forth, that memory is obviously from a time after Joe's death) and it gnashes its teeth and whatnot... I have trouble believing Dolores would have that trouble too, even if it was really harrowing. That whole bit is tough to swallow, especially because it doesn't have a lot of other connections to anything in particular mentioned or hinted at in the book. (Vera was a little anal retentive when she was still all there, and maybe her anal retentiveness and inner demons got merged, but... Ehh. I don't know. I'm just not feeling it.)
The start of the main trouble, Dolores explains, well... No, not so much explains, but it becomes clear later on that it is the major turning point in the book. When she first presents it it only has importance as being the last time dead husband, Joe, ever beat her. He hit her in the kidneys and after dinner she whacks him in the side of the head with their cream pitcher, and then brandishes their hatchet, making it pretty clear what will happen if he raises a hand again. Their daughter Selena wakes up, takes in the scene, but Dolores sends her to bed without turning around. Of course, we find out that Selena saw everything and thought wrongfully--as the man visiting Vera's the morning before the testimony takes place--that Dolores did it--that it was all Dolores's fault. You know.
She also tempts Joe to kill her if he's that mad, but she assures him at Shawshank they're sure to have "one of those orange suits just your size" (King 68).
But months pass, Selena hits puberty and enters high school... and the two seem to get close, and Selena seems to get cold towards Dolores. Dolores isn't stupid, she knows how that night looked and figured it was the cause, but... it's even worse than she thought. See, she thought maybe they were just bonding, whatever. Well, Joe decided he liked that. A little bit more than a father should, if you get my meaning. The second she hears this, "All at once I understood everythin, and Joe St. George's days were numbered from that moment on" (King 95). So clearly a powerful motive behind the murder exists--and I think at that point no-one would question the murder. Like I said, King does not give any direction to indicate how the stenographer and cops listening to the testimony react, and it does him well. Unquestionably they react in the same complex way the reader does (who wouldn't?) and extra direction would just hurt it and make it unrealistic and awkward.
She then describes how life had changed in the house in the past few months--how at first they were close then they grew apart, and Selena began avoiding him--Dolores explains how the second oldest, Joe Junior, began avoiding his father as well--but I'm not sure if it was sexual abuse in his case, at least, Dolores never talks about it. She seems kind of disconnected to her other two--well, or they're not as important to the plot. (But I am curious!) But yeah, it seems that Joe Junior just realized that his father was little and hateful on his own and hated them for that. Almost everything in his life seems to have been done in reaction to his father--Dolores recalls an A+ project Joe Junior did on FDR. Joe Sr hated FDR the most of all the presidents, referred to him as "'Franklin D. Sheenyvelt'" (King 133). ("Sheeny" is a slur for a Jewish person.) And we learn pretty early on that Joe has gone on to a career in politics as a Democrat--just like FDR, just the party his father always hated. Meanwhile, the youngest child, Pete, wanted to be just like his scumbag father (obviously he didn't know about the sexual abuse and whatnot, but he imitated Joe's walks and mannerisms and rude language and other behaviours) is revealed to have been killed in Vietnam. Dolores refers to him as her "lost little lamb" at some point (I'm sorry--it seems that I didn't mark the spot!) so it seems as though after his father's death he just kind of wandered off there and got killed--but would have disappeared anyways. If it hadn't been Nam, it would have been something, anything.
She tells Vera about it in a few days at work, and Vera listens pretty calmly. Keep in mind--Vera's husband had died by this point too, and she was more or less living all year on the island. And Vera listens and goes, "'Husbands die every day, Dolores. Why, one is probably dying right now, while we're sitting here talking. They die and leave their wives their money... I should know, shouldn't I?'... 'After all, look what happened to mine... An accident... is sometimes an unhappy woman's best friend'" (King 146-147). Dolores almost faints dead away and ask what Vera means, Vera says "'Why, whatever you think'" (King 147), and that's more or less that. It's obvious... But not quite. Not quite.
So an accident is orchestrated. I'd rather not share how she did it--though I guess I've spoiled a lot--but Dolores did it. I don't feel bad about this one because she goes out and says it on page three, remember?
"'Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive,' she says. 'Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to'" (King 169). This quote probably looks a little silly out of context, but it has stuck with from the very first time I read this and every time I read this book I'm almost in suspense for it. In terms of the book, it means a lot, and it's almost like it has its own weird power.
Oh, and here's one thing I somehow never realized, any of the others times I've read this book. Dolores's maiden name is Claiborne, the name she took in marriage was "St. George". Hm... in Britain names like that are/were pronounced a little different, like St. John as I think the last name of the fellow in Jane Eyre would be pronounced "Sinjin", for example. But I wonder if over here it would be the same? Well, either way, that's not the reason why I made this note. A short time after Dolores tells Vera what had happened with Selena and Joe, it's announced that there will be a visible eclipse that will cover the island. Vera decides to hold a huge party and in getting the house ready goes a little nutty and fires some help over something stupid--the girl drops a cracked plate or some such thing. Dolores chewed Vera out afterwards, and Vera gave her the job back. Anyways, after Vera leaves to the ferry with her guests, the girl who had been rehired thanks Dolores for what she did and says: "'I know it was you, Missus St. George [that got my job back]. No one else'd dare speak up to the old dragon'" (King 173). Honest to God, never got that before. (Referencing the story of St. George and the dragon, guys!) I have no idea how I missed it...
One thing that bothers me is, there are hints to a little girl in this book, kind of like how in Salem's Lot the opening chapters and ending chapters are about an unnamed man and a boy. Whenever I read that book, I always think that maybe I have some grasp of who the man and the boy might be... Mark, if that was the guy's name, and some sole boy survivor...? But in retrospect it never quite seems to pan out. (Seeing the movie might actually help.) Same with this. Occasionally Dolores has visions of a girl around ten years old. The first time she sees her is a few hours before the eclipse, in her vision the girl is sitting on her dad's lap with an eclipse viewer, and she says that maybe the dad's hand was too far up the leg. Right before Dolores goes through and kills Joe, she sees the little girl again, searching under her bed for something. In this vision the girl looks up at Dolores, sees her seeing her, and asks who Dolores is. Many years later she thinks of the girl again, and never explains it or even looks back on it: "'That girl's in trouble... the one I saw on the day of the eclipse, the one who saw me. She's all grown up now, almost Selena's age, but she's in terrible trouble'" (King 255). Well--I said I didn't understand then, but a quick look at Wikipedia reveals the girl to be the young version of the main character in King's book Gerald's Game. Supposedly that last vision refers to a specific event or some such thing in that book. Not sure why Dolores and the girl are connected, actually, but the premise of that book looks kind of interesting, anyways....
Anyways, Dolores moves on, talks about her relationship with Selena "now"--because, she says, at the end of the day, all that she did (in terms of killing Joe) was for her. Selena in this time doesn't eat enough, drinks like crazy (like Joe did) and never comes around. Unmarried, of course. Though they write and talk on the phone, they're basically estranged. I would love to see this story and how the aftermath looks from her point of view. Who knows? Stephen King has been working on a sequel to The Shining for a while, maybe this will be next...
There's a crazy revelation right at the end of the book, but I don't want to spoil it. But it has to do with Vera, and it is HUGE.
The book ends strongly, and the epilogue is immensely satisfying. It implies that there's still a tad bit more, and like I said, it would probably require a sequel of sorts from Selena's POV, but I want to see it so badly (even if it isn't necessary at all to the main point of the story). So, yeah. This is pretty different from Stephen King's other books, but it's the most real--and not just because the only supernatural occurrences are Dolores's visions of the girl in Gerald's Game. King creates a convincing--um, character study probably isn't the right word, but he certainly creates a realistic character that hits home hard. And the way he presents his story is very clever and very satisfying. High five, Stephen King!
Works Cited: King, Stephen. Dolores Claiborne. Viking: United States of America, 1993.
Well, this book is a testimony of sorts. Dolores Claiborne is a woman who lived her whole life on the fictional Maine island of Little Tall. (Hey, while I'm thinking of it, how come the map in the beginning shows all of Stephen King's made-up Maine towns but 'Salem's Lot?) She's about sixty when she is making this testimony, but this is more or less a tale of her life. She's making the testimony to two cops and a stenographer because Vera Donavan, her longtime employer, died in her care and it seemed pretty clear that Dolores killed her--well, due to circumstantial evidence. So not only does Dolores have to explain that, she also chose to explain everything--including the mysterious circumstances under which her husband Joe died, thirty years prior.
The story is told as she tells the cops and the stenographer, and though she responds and interacts with them, their dialogue is never recorded, nor are their actions or reactions--which I think is pretty clever, borderline genius. Because you can't be swayed by them, but you know that they're reacting exactly the same way as you, and it makes the epilogue so much more satisfying and all the more sweeter. It's a lot different from his other books in a lot of ways--even how it is written is extremely different--so it's hard to say "well, if you liked A-Aardvark by Stephen King, you'd like this..." or what, but it's worth a shot. The movie was actually really good too, which was almost a little disappointing when I watched it because I was in the mood for a campy Stephen King movie.
OH, my first note of all doesn't have that much to do with the story either--it's written with Dolores's, er, dialect in mind. I just always found it interesting because... Well, Mark Twain's books like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are written in dialect, thick Southern accents. And that makes it nearly impossible for me to read them. It's like a mental roadblock, simple as that--like in Village of the Damned (I think) when that dude tries to block his mind by imagining a brick wall. Simple as that, only I don't do it on purpose, and it's really frustrating. But my mind just shuts down. But Dolores Claiborne doesn't bother me--granted, I don't know a whole lot of people from Maine specifically, but I do unquestionably know what a New Englander sounds like. So the accent ain't no thang, so to speak. Shout outs to Stephen King for writing about New England, even if it is mostly Maine (Maine is a teensy bit creepy though.)
Anyways. Page three is when Dolores spills the beans that she in fact killed her husband Joe, though everyone on the island has more or less known or been convinced of that for the past thirty years--and she denies killing Vera vehemently, though she doesn't get to what happened until much later. It was more or less circumstantial, though I don't want to quite spoil it.
The reason why I was reading this was to see if I ought to toss it, so to speak--like Chuck Palahniuk's Diary, whenever I think "hey, maybe I should read this book again", I automatically remember the grossest scene in the book that kept me away for so long in the first place. In Diary, it's when the narrator remembers her dead husband piercing his nipple with a button. In this book, it's when Dolores recalls the later years of caring for Vera: Vera went senile towards the end, and got mean--as Vera puts it, one of her ways of being a bitch. She just spread her literal shit EVERYWHERE--she would try to "save up" on her crap and create a real nasty mess for Dolores just because. The worst one described, it's all over her, it's spread on the walls--and she's giggling and laughing like it's so cute. It's a disgusting scene.
This book also has these recurring elements--as Vera slips into dementia she starts seeing things she describes as wires coming out from corners, or dust bunnies coming out from under her bed. This always throws me. It seems pretty clear that they're metaphors for old demons coming back and what have you, and it is somewhat clear (or at least possible) that Vera is describing whatever she's seeing the best she can and that's not necessarily what they are--like reports of supposed UFOs before planes were invented. They're described as cigars in the sky, saucers, etc, because that's the best frame of reference that could be conjured. Plus, Vera is losing her mind at this point in the testimony.
The only thing that really throws the idea of Vera doing her best to describe an unknown thing is that later Dolores has a dream of her own dust bunnies, that they grow together and form first Vera's husband's head and then her dead husband's head (although the timeline in the testimony goes back and forth, that memory is obviously from a time after Joe's death) and it gnashes its teeth and whatnot... I have trouble believing Dolores would have that trouble too, even if it was really harrowing. That whole bit is tough to swallow, especially because it doesn't have a lot of other connections to anything in particular mentioned or hinted at in the book. (Vera was a little anal retentive when she was still all there, and maybe her anal retentiveness and inner demons got merged, but... Ehh. I don't know. I'm just not feeling it.)
The start of the main trouble, Dolores explains, well... No, not so much explains, but it becomes clear later on that it is the major turning point in the book. When she first presents it it only has importance as being the last time dead husband, Joe, ever beat her. He hit her in the kidneys and after dinner she whacks him in the side of the head with their cream pitcher, and then brandishes their hatchet, making it pretty clear what will happen if he raises a hand again. Their daughter Selena wakes up, takes in the scene, but Dolores sends her to bed without turning around. Of course, we find out that Selena saw everything and thought wrongfully--as the man visiting Vera's the morning before the testimony takes place--that Dolores did it--that it was all Dolores's fault. You know.
She also tempts Joe to kill her if he's that mad, but she assures him at Shawshank they're sure to have "one of those orange suits just your size" (King 68).
But months pass, Selena hits puberty and enters high school... and the two seem to get close, and Selena seems to get cold towards Dolores. Dolores isn't stupid, she knows how that night looked and figured it was the cause, but... it's even worse than she thought. See, she thought maybe they were just bonding, whatever. Well, Joe decided he liked that. A little bit more than a father should, if you get my meaning. The second she hears this, "All at once I understood everythin, and Joe St. George's days were numbered from that moment on" (King 95). So clearly a powerful motive behind the murder exists--and I think at that point no-one would question the murder. Like I said, King does not give any direction to indicate how the stenographer and cops listening to the testimony react, and it does him well. Unquestionably they react in the same complex way the reader does (who wouldn't?) and extra direction would just hurt it and make it unrealistic and awkward.
She then describes how life had changed in the house in the past few months--how at first they were close then they grew apart, and Selena began avoiding him--Dolores explains how the second oldest, Joe Junior, began avoiding his father as well--but I'm not sure if it was sexual abuse in his case, at least, Dolores never talks about it. She seems kind of disconnected to her other two--well, or they're not as important to the plot. (But I am curious!) But yeah, it seems that Joe Junior just realized that his father was little and hateful on his own and hated them for that. Almost everything in his life seems to have been done in reaction to his father--Dolores recalls an A+ project Joe Junior did on FDR. Joe Sr hated FDR the most of all the presidents, referred to him as "'Franklin D. Sheenyvelt'" (King 133). ("Sheeny" is a slur for a Jewish person.) And we learn pretty early on that Joe has gone on to a career in politics as a Democrat--just like FDR, just the party his father always hated. Meanwhile, the youngest child, Pete, wanted to be just like his scumbag father (obviously he didn't know about the sexual abuse and whatnot, but he imitated Joe's walks and mannerisms and rude language and other behaviours) is revealed to have been killed in Vietnam. Dolores refers to him as her "lost little lamb" at some point (I'm sorry--it seems that I didn't mark the spot!) so it seems as though after his father's death he just kind of wandered off there and got killed--but would have disappeared anyways. If it hadn't been Nam, it would have been something, anything.
She tells Vera about it in a few days at work, and Vera listens pretty calmly. Keep in mind--Vera's husband had died by this point too, and she was more or less living all year on the island. And Vera listens and goes, "'Husbands die every day, Dolores. Why, one is probably dying right now, while we're sitting here talking. They die and leave their wives their money... I should know, shouldn't I?'... 'After all, look what happened to mine... An accident... is sometimes an unhappy woman's best friend'" (King 146-147). Dolores almost faints dead away and ask what Vera means, Vera says "'Why, whatever you think'" (King 147), and that's more or less that. It's obvious... But not quite. Not quite.
So an accident is orchestrated. I'd rather not share how she did it--though I guess I've spoiled a lot--but Dolores did it. I don't feel bad about this one because she goes out and says it on page three, remember?
"'Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive,' she says. 'Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to'" (King 169). This quote probably looks a little silly out of context, but it has stuck with from the very first time I read this and every time I read this book I'm almost in suspense for it. In terms of the book, it means a lot, and it's almost like it has its own weird power.
Oh, and here's one thing I somehow never realized, any of the others times I've read this book. Dolores's maiden name is Claiborne, the name she took in marriage was "St. George". Hm... in Britain names like that are/were pronounced a little different, like St. John as I think the last name of the fellow in Jane Eyre would be pronounced "Sinjin", for example. But I wonder if over here it would be the same? Well, either way, that's not the reason why I made this note. A short time after Dolores tells Vera what had happened with Selena and Joe, it's announced that there will be a visible eclipse that will cover the island. Vera decides to hold a huge party and in getting the house ready goes a little nutty and fires some help over something stupid--the girl drops a cracked plate or some such thing. Dolores chewed Vera out afterwards, and Vera gave her the job back. Anyways, after Vera leaves to the ferry with her guests, the girl who had been rehired thanks Dolores for what she did and says: "'I know it was you, Missus St. George [that got my job back]. No one else'd dare speak up to the old dragon'" (King 173). Honest to God, never got that before. (Referencing the story of St. George and the dragon, guys!) I have no idea how I missed it...
One thing that bothers me is, there are hints to a little girl in this book, kind of like how in Salem's Lot the opening chapters and ending chapters are about an unnamed man and a boy. Whenever I read that book, I always think that maybe I have some grasp of who the man and the boy might be... Mark, if that was the guy's name, and some sole boy survivor...? But in retrospect it never quite seems to pan out. (Seeing the movie might actually help.) Same with this. Occasionally Dolores has visions of a girl around ten years old. The first time she sees her is a few hours before the eclipse, in her vision the girl is sitting on her dad's lap with an eclipse viewer, and she says that maybe the dad's hand was too far up the leg. Right before Dolores goes through and kills Joe, she sees the little girl again, searching under her bed for something. In this vision the girl looks up at Dolores, sees her seeing her, and asks who Dolores is. Many years later she thinks of the girl again, and never explains it or even looks back on it: "'That girl's in trouble... the one I saw on the day of the eclipse, the one who saw me. She's all grown up now, almost Selena's age, but she's in terrible trouble'" (King 255). Well--I said I didn't understand then, but a quick look at Wikipedia reveals the girl to be the young version of the main character in King's book Gerald's Game. Supposedly that last vision refers to a specific event or some such thing in that book. Not sure why Dolores and the girl are connected, actually, but the premise of that book looks kind of interesting, anyways....
Anyways, Dolores moves on, talks about her relationship with Selena "now"--because, she says, at the end of the day, all that she did (in terms of killing Joe) was for her. Selena in this time doesn't eat enough, drinks like crazy (like Joe did) and never comes around. Unmarried, of course. Though they write and talk on the phone, they're basically estranged. I would love to see this story and how the aftermath looks from her point of view. Who knows? Stephen King has been working on a sequel to The Shining for a while, maybe this will be next...
There's a crazy revelation right at the end of the book, but I don't want to spoil it. But it has to do with Vera, and it is HUGE.
The book ends strongly, and the epilogue is immensely satisfying. It implies that there's still a tad bit more, and like I said, it would probably require a sequel of sorts from Selena's POV, but I want to see it so badly (even if it isn't necessary at all to the main point of the story). So, yeah. This is pretty different from Stephen King's other books, but it's the most real--and not just because the only supernatural occurrences are Dolores's visions of the girl in Gerald's Game. King creates a convincing--um, character study probably isn't the right word, but he certainly creates a realistic character that hits home hard. And the way he presents his story is very clever and very satisfying. High five, Stephen King!
Works Cited: King, Stephen. Dolores Claiborne. Viking: United States of America, 1993.
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