{"id":2801,"date":"2010-08-26T21:18:27","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T11:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=2801"},"modified":"2014-05-12T19:30:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T09:30:32","slug":"under-the-dome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=2801","title":{"rendered":"Under the Dome"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Under the Dome by Stephen King<\/em><\/p>\n

Under the Dome<\/em> is a monstrous 1,000 page novel from Stephen King about a small American town which suddenly finds itself trapped under a giant invisible force field.\u00a0 King absolutely runs with this idea and has written an entertaining tale where the action comes in thick and fast, right from the opening pages.\u00a0 Despite the books length, it doesn’t take long for events in Under the Dome for things to turn all Lord of the Flies<\/em>.\u00a0 About twelve pages, if memory serves.<\/p>\n

Easily the highlight of this book is the character Big Jim Rennie, a used car salesman and the town’s second selectman.\u00a0 He is enourmous in both size and stature.\u00a0 It is Rennie who seizes upon the town’s predicament and rules over its people using fear-mongering and bible-thumping.\u00a0 With his bad ticker, religious indoctrination and ailing body, King writes Rennie like a caricature of Dick Cheney and clearly he has the time of his life doing so.\u00a0 One of my favourite chapters in the book titled Feeling It in which describes Rennie’s appreciation for the local girls basketball team which was both an unexpected and a clever way to describe what makes him tick.\u00a0 It doesn’t take long for Rennie to seize control of the town and this sets up the backbone for the story as some of the town’s residents attempt a resistance, often with incredibly disappointing and heartbreaking results.<\/p>\n

Not being a regular reader of King’s novels, I was a little put off by the sheer amount of sexualized violence in the books opening chapters, however I felt that the book ultimately didn’t include these passages needlessly.<\/p>\n

On a different note, I also came to enjoy King’s playful narration of the story.\u00a0 At times he takes care to include references to obscure real world musicians and bands, then in the same breath he mentions a television series spin-off to Lost<\/em> or alludes to an Obama 2012 election campaign.\u00a0 Despite the incredible concept, at times King appears to be taking great pains to present the story as scientifically accurate as possible.\u00a0 Then he introduces a dog that can talk to the dead.<\/p>\n

Not unlike Lost<\/em>, one of the most enjoyable things about Under the Dome<\/em>, once it gets going, is the sheer number of characters there are and how you become attached to them.\u00a0 King does a great job populating the town of Chester’s Mill with a cast of brave heroes, corrupt politicians, humble doctors, intrepid reporters, dogs who talk to dead people, clever kids, aging hippies and rabble-rousing drunkards.\u00a0 There are so many terrific pairings in this book.\u00a0 The power-monger Rennie with the brow beaten Chief of Police Randolph.\u00a0 The crusty old hippie Thurston and his young lover Caroline.\u00a0 And perhaps best of all, the unexpected bond between the wimpy first selectman Andy Sanders and the drug-addled psychopath Chef Bushey.<\/p>\n

Having such a vast mix of characters allows for King to shift the tone of the book from thriller to comedy and back again.\u00a0 He also gives you just enough time to get to know the charactersso that genuine concern sets in when they starting dropping one by one.\u00a0 I became quite attached to certain characters and was mentally shouting at King not to kill them by the end of the book, just as much as I was eagerly and patiently waiting for that bastard Rennie to get his come uppance.<\/p>\n

Under the Dome<\/em> makes for great holiday reading material.\u00a0 As a slow reader, thats where I found the time to get through it.\u00a0 Once it gets its hooks into you, it becomes a compulsive read to find out what happens next.\u00a0 The pacing and pleasure to be had in going through this book is not unlike spending a rainy weekend indoors with a season of a good tv show on DVD.\u00a0 In fact, someone should probably make this book into a show.\u00a0 It’s probably already happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Domo arigato, Mr King.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[2399,614,615],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-club","tag-book-club","tag-stephen-king","tag-under-the-dome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2806,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions\/2806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}