Shoulder Warmup
Standing Millitary Press
45 x 10
95 x 10
135 x 10
155 x 10
Pullups
10, 9, 8
then Christan and I got into a fight and I left the gym. Spent the rest of the day reading.
Under the Dome by Stephen King
It takes about 120 pages to get interesting, builds momentum like a tsunami and falls flat in the end.
Unmistakably a Stephen King novel, one in the same vein as The Stand (with about as many characters in considerably less acreage), Under the Dome crackles with fantastic dialogue and almost painfully tight suspense. Seriously, it almost hurts, but not always in a good way. I found myself wondering just how much more could go wrong. Apparently a lot. The upside is that, for the most part, King has a knack for making his characters believable in that good people have bad aspects and bad people have somne good aspects. Though the former sometimes feels a little forced. Elements from "The Mist" and The Stand reappear, and understandibly so. When the shit hits the fan, people are either side with the difficult good or the seamingly easier evil. And under the dome, the shit certainly hits the fan. There are SO many characters that is hard to keep them all straight, particulalry sens ethe setting is all the same area. Several King archetypes reassert themselves. The sometimes dirty mouthed, hot tempered minister who doubts the existence of God, someone with a brain tumor that makes them talk strange, the perfect hero for the job who just so happens to be there when the shit hits the fan, the easily swayed psychophant, a whole bunch of young psyhopaths-in-waiting, the beautiful unmarried heroine, really smart kids, a SHITLOAD of drunks, a crazy drug-addled self-proclaimed prophet (who functions surprisingly well while constantly whacked out on meth) ans, of course, the bad guy.
As to Big Jim Rennie, the really bad guy. Unlike Walter o'Dim or Randall Flagg, who have some some charismatic pull on the reader, I hated this guy from the beginnig. A toad in the worst sense, with no redeeming qualities at all. And this would be fine, but it highlights the hidden subtexts of the novel. I do not think Stephen King likes christians much (at least not the hard-liners). Or the war in Iraq. Or people who doubt global warming. Or Republicans.
Jim Rennie is the conssumate hypocrite christian. A charicature who seems to paint all those who worship their God ferventlty as brainwashed at best, liars at worst. Rennie and the Rev. Coggins suffer from insane beliefs coupled with dubious behavior and sexual fetishes. In the King universe it is fine to believe in God, just do not be so vocal about it. If you do, you just might be crazy. I have no dog in the fight, but I know a lot of christians who belive strongly and are not crazy people. It is his book, but Rennie, while easily hateable, is almost too bad to be true. His balance, to King, is that he is a hypocrite, or worse, a false prophet leading the flock astray, but is so heavy handed it makes me want to be angry for christians everywhere. It is all well and good to doubt and be a hypocrite as long as your faith is quiet and you are the good guy, then it seems less crazy and more a sign of human characterfoible, but "in for a penny, in for a pound" seems to apply here. That or lay it on a little less thick.
The dome itself is a not-so-subtle metaphor for the global warming phenomenon. The only person who rails against the global warming phenomenon is... Big Jim, crazy talking Christian-bigot-pervert.
The book is bent to a liberal standpoint, and that is fine, its King's book, but it is not really what I am looking for in a read. You would think that people who have been around the block would see that every politician is pretty much the same, but perhaps that is my bent. The hero has no love for his time in the millitary, Big Jim (the idiot) and his cronies rail against the president, the millitary is ineffectual, only the good guys happen to bring up the Bush administration and its evils (Darth Vader mask and a Dick Chaney). All subtle hints, but with a thousand-plus pages, it all adds up.
Then, there is the Stephen King ending. He states that this book was a lot longer. It could have spent way more time with the ending. Literally 900 pages bulding up to the horrific climax and then about seventy-five dealing with the aftermath, waiting for a resolution, and then quick, tidy ending that smacked of something I cannot put my finger on. The parrallel structure of ants under a looking glass and the ending itself were weak and underdeveloped, and the wrap-up literally takes all of four or five pages to unravel. Then it is an ending that, to me, made little sense: a sudden psychic link, a sudden parralel situation to the heroine's childhood memory, Oh, MY! But, that's what we got in It, in The Stand, and even in The Dark Tower (though that worked a little better for me). Just like "Lost" the payoff was not worth the investment. A shame.
C+...83
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