28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
Yeah I don't see what's so bleak about that ending. All I know is that, according to King at least, my neighbour with "Christians aren't perfect-just saved" bumper sticker is sorely mistaken.
Dunno, pick a random Brian Hodge (from his "The Misbegotten" mythos) or any Laird Barron story if you truly want bleak, unnerving and terrorizing. And they don't even show you the monster or the afterlife. Maybe I just built up an immunity after those two.
28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
Now, don't get me wrong. Should I get to the after life one day only to discover that it is just like the version in Revival, I'll scream in agony "No, they were right! This is horrifying."
But, as far as being the ending to a really good book, it just didn't do it for me. And it pains me to say that about a King novel.
Yeah, the version of the afterlife that King created was pretty dark and depressing. But as the climax of the entire novel? It was kind of like, "that's it?" It would have been different if he had done something more with it other than just showing it to us.
A NEW GAME BEGINS
Fair points
28 in 23 (?)!!!!
63 in '23!!!!!!!!!!
My Collection: https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ion-Merlin1958
The Houston Astros cheated Major League Baseball from 2017-18!!!! Is that how we teach our kids to play the game now?????
Just finished reading this one the other day. I'll restate which a lot of you have already said. The beginning of the book was wonderful, probably one of my favorites. The story did slow ever so slightly as Jamie got older, but I was still completely captivated by it. I would have put the book in my top 10 King books easily, until that is we got to the ending.
I agree. The ending was horrible! I was so disappointed with it. It was just absurd and not even scary in the least. And it took me right out of the story.
I thought it was going to end with a Frankenstein type ending as well, and that he was going to try to resurrect his dead wife or son. That would have been so much better. Or even if he went with something like he did, but giant ants...
You do make a good point though Ricky, which I hadn't thought of. In that maybe that was one option for the beyond but not the only one. That thought sits a little better with me. But why then is he taking everyone he cures with him. I could see him, since he's experimenting with things he shouldn't be, but those that he's healed were innocent bystanders.
I think that maybe they weren't really Patsy and Morrie and all the innocents; they could've been projections, like a type of "trick" by the giant ants/gods/whatever just to torment Jacobs for his own personal Hell. If that's the case though, I don't know why Jamie would've seen them, too.
A NEW GAME BEGINS
Late coming to this, as I just got around to reading it. The ending did stay with me. I'd put it somewhere in the middle of his books, just OK.
Interesting note (to me, at least): as I was reading it, I kept thinking it was a bizarro version of William Kent Krueger's "Ordinary Grace." Maybe because they both featured the same era and similar locales for a significant portion of the story, both involved a minister and the loss of a child, and some other similar themes. The stories are very, very different, but that idea really stuck with me throughout the whole time I was reading it. I'm not saying it was intentional, probably just what I brought to the party.
I think that if you put this story along side From A Buick 8 you can see a commonality between them.
They both span over a long time.
Electrical storm is used to peer into another world.
Alien creatures.
I could see him writing more stories that deal with the "Secret Electricity" and hopefully spending more time in that strange world. I say strange world because I don't think they were peering into the afterlife or Hell. "Go then, there are other worlds than these." ~ King
I envisioned Mother as being a relative to the Crimson King or Pennywise.
Also, if you were expecting a Frankenstein ending and didn't get that, then I think King did well of surprising the reader with something unexpected.
"That which you think, becomes your world" Matheson
I definitely thought he was going to use the bodies of Mary and Victor to resurrect Patsy and Morrie, and maybe use Jamie's body for himself so he could have a new life with them (he was Charlie's destiny after all) and he brought Mother into the world instead.
To the user of how this fits into Kings universe and pantheon, I guessed that the world he saw in that vision was some corner of the Todash Space. In the Dark Tower they talked about the Crimson King throwing people in and when the Beams collapse, them falling into the Todash. Maybe it is the afterlife for all of those touched by the 'secret electricity' since it seems to come from the Great Ones and then lingers with those it touches so that when their souls leave their bodies, they go back to the secret electricity's source.
Overall I thought it was great. It reminded me of what would happen if John Updike and H.P. Lovecraft decided to write Frankenstein
Like many of King's books of late, I see much potential but fall flat at the end. I was really anticipating something about the pole getting struck by lighting over the years. I mean some kind of Ghostbusters-type Ectoplasm shooting out or something. Just watch any porn with a big pole!
Perhaps I digress. No...I DO digress!
My point is that I feel there was a lot left just as I feel there was a lot left in UTD. I mean, in this case, it could have gone in the direction of the pole...maybe the pole sent a signal to..whom ever or some such but maybe it had nothing to do with the pole. The point is...it fell flat...IMO.
All that's left of what we were is what we have become.
I read it about a week or so ago and enjoyed it. I thought the ending was rather horrific with its glimpse in to that world. It made me think of the short story N, and I wonder if they are connected in anyway and if we will be given more glimpses in to that world in any future stories. I hope so.
I can see the connection to N, which is inspired by the Arthur Machen story "The Great God Pan." It's not a huge leap from Machen to Lovecraft, who is the inspiration for the end of Revival.
Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
Seems a lot of people are very torn on this book. Personally, it goes up there as one of my favorite King books of all time. It is definitely his most "literary" and reflective on growing old. Those parts were beautifuL, I thought. On the ending, though, I agree I thought he was going to try and resurrect his family, but with the condition they were in after the wreck I doubt that would have been reasonable. It seemed to me Jacobs was more concerned with seeing if there was anything to even bring his family back from. A door for him to walk through and see them again. Could be way off, but I loved everything about Revival
This has become one of my favorite King works. Certainly his most "literary" novel, in my opinion. I was under the assumption Jacobs would go to try and bring his family back, but it made sense that he was more interested in seeing if that door even existed. He seemed much more objective in his pursuits by the end. Subconsciously, he might have been trying to find them, but I think the quest had taken their place at that point.
I agree. This was a wonderful book... killed it in like 3 days.
HELP ME FIND
Insomnia #459
ANY S/L #459
Does the big pole getting electrified by lightning give you ideas for a new porn? Or is it just me?
All that's left of what we were is what we have become.
I waited a year on this book. I originally didn't want to do it at all, because going off of his recent track record, I was dreading King's treatment of religion in this book. But I heard some good things about it, and after sitting on my ipod for a year I finally broke down and listened to it this week.
First off, David Morse reads this book. He's a veteran of a couple of King's movies, and overall an underrated actor. I've liked him since his St Elsewhere days. He was a great narrator, and I believe his narration helped draw me in to the book.
I believe this is his best book since 11/22/63, and one of his best books in many years. It's old school King, 70s vintage. He spends most of the book just telling the story of Jamie's life, and really works on sucking you in and getting you to empathize with not only Jamie, but for at least half the book Charlie. I thought he did a great job developing the character of Jamie, and a good job in telling the story of Charles' fall from grace and his development from simple small town pastor to a carney huckster, to a national preacher, to misguided genius, to madman. Whoever said there was no character development is crazy. That's all there is in this book.
Now, for the big climax and reveal. It wasn't scary, per se, but it was disturbing as hell. This book is still messing with my head. It's very upsetting, very disturbing, and it set my anxieties off big time. Maybe it's because I am older and have dealt with my own mortality recently. Maybe it's because I have religious predispositions and a belief in God and the afterlife. Maybe it's because I can relate to old fashioned small time nuclear family, growing up in a religious house, and then falling away as I grew into an adult. Maybe I just got very attached and empathized with the characters in this book. But when that reveal happened, it really freaked me out. And I'm still thinking about it. And it's still messing with my head. Just considering that happening in the afterlife is down right frightening and disturbing.
My only real problem is with how exactly that whole thing worked with Jamie being the link between the dead chick and the lightning post. I'm not real sure how that worked and he kinda glossed right through that one. The other thing is, why did Charles have to know what was on the other side at that point in his life? The dude was months away from kicking the bucket himself. You'd think at that point he'd just give it up and wait to find out when he died. But I guess he was obsessed. In general I would have liked to have know a bit more about what Charles D Jacobs was doing with his electricity experiments.
Overall, great book, imo. I really enjoyed it and I thought King did a good job writing this book without injecting a lot of personal political or religious views like he has with most of the books he has written in the last 5 years. It is really a throw back to the kind of stuff he wrote in the 70s ('Salem's Lot and The Shining).
A nice analysis. Thanks!
John