From the Library Book Review: Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’
Under the Dome (2009)
Publisher: Scribner
Written By: Stephen King
Review By: Kayley Viteo
There are many things you can say about Stephen King and I would wager that many of them are good. I don’t think anyone can fault him as a story creator – how someone writes so many unique stories in such a relatively short period of time is a mystery to me. Still, even though King wrote one of my favorite novels ever (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon), I do think his actual story telling ability can be slightly hit or miss. No matter how unique the plot is, the writing can get lazy if you’re not careful. If your novel is 1000 plus pages like Under the Dome is, lazy writing gets annoying really fast.
Under the Dome is about the fictional town of Chester’s Mill, which suddenly finds itself encased in a dome, where nothing can get in and nothing can get out, except for a small – very small – amount of air. The cast of characters is a large one, ranging from Big Jim, the car salesman who plays dictator in the aftermath of the Dome’s arrival; Junior, the deeply disturbed son of Big Jim; Barbie, the ex-Marine who becomes our hero; Julie, a journalist who becomes (of course) the love interest for the hero; and, of course, everyone else in the town. Overall, there’s an interesting mix of characters here. However, beware – that cast of characters list in the beginning of the novel? It isn’t for just for show, you’re probably going to actually need it to keep all the names straight.
The major fault with Under the Dome is that it really is just too long. At its simplest, the story is about human nature and what happens to a society when it is put under enormous amounts of stress. The answer to that question is depressingly predictable – hell breaks loose. What should result (at least in my mind), would be a taut thriller where you really get to know each character so the ensuing craziness has a real emotional impact on the reader. For me, King failed to do that; additionally, whatever momentum Under the Dome has after a rather gruesome and fantastic beginning is ultimately lost in a baffling number of subplots. Yes, they all sort of intertwine in some fashion or another – tapping into the idea of a small town/”everyone knows everyone” idea – but switching perspective every other chapter is tiresome. About 100 pages from the ending, I put it down to take a completely necessary break, and it felt like 500 pages of the book were completely unnecessary. Some of this is due to the ending, which feels too easy.
That’s not to say Under the Dome isn’t entertaining. There are some great moments and long stretches where I really found myself completely captivated, but King spends way too much time on things that really don’t matter and not enough time giving us an ending that, especially after 980 pages, the readers deserve.
My advice? Stick to King’s older material.
