Book Review: Hearts in Atlantis

I just finished Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King and I am overwhelmed.  The book is 522 pages and, despite a bit of a sore wrist, I could not put it down.  My buddy Ben recently posted a review on a book called On Writing by Stephen King and it was interesting to revisit that post.

I commented on his post that I had read somewhere that Stephen King brought this image forth.  When reading his horror, he wanted the reader to experience putting a piece of gum on a bedpost at night having a moth fly onto the gum and die that night and the reader to put the gum in their mouth and begin chewing it (before they realize a dead moth is on it).  A visceral and clear experience indeed.

I bring it up because Stephen King is a genius.  Hearts in Atlantis is a story told in 5 or so segments that interweave.  He touches on the beauty of childhood, romance and war throughout.  If there was any doubt in my mind that he's brilliant beforehand it's gone now.

The thing is I remember reading Salem's Lot and being, literally, scared to death going to sleep after reading it.  And, I remember, reading Cujo and being scared (a classic example of how a movie just doesn't do it from a book).  I am amazed that he could make a rabid dog scary...seriously that's amazing.

The first part of the book which focuses on childhood friends and memories I felt almost as if I was sitting on hill at dusk or in the evening literally watching the lives develop.  Apparently they made a movie about this book and I heard that it's just this part...understandable but disappointing.

And when he described the experience that many of the characters had in Vietnam I felt inside the experience like never before.  He definitely has a position on the war and lashes out, through the characters, at those who supported it.

I am convinced that he has figured out how to allow beauty to simply flow and manifest through him.  Put a bit differently, for me to delineate the gems in this book would be an exercise in futility.  It's in some way like the first time I saw Pulp Fiction.  I was fried watching it because the lines came so fast and furious.

In spite of that reality, a few of the absolute home runs out of it:

• When discussing a sleep over he talked about how the main character and his friends were "joking" about the scariness of Frankenstein on the way home...but when his bud started snoring, things changed:
  
  "But in the dark, after S-J had started to snore (or worse, if Bobby was alone), Dr. Frankenstein's creature seemed a lot more.....not real, exactly....but....possible."  (Brilliant!)
• He wrote about the origin of the peace symbol the sparrow track with the circle around it which has a combo of British Navy shipshore letters N & D. 
  
  "The letters stand for nuclear disarmament.  Bertrand Russell invented the symbol in the fifties." It's a fact that he shares, but it's so unusual and easily woven in that it's striking.
• Referring to smoking habits:  "Cigarettes were Agent Orange that you paid for."  That is too funny.

It was a joy to ride the literary rainbow that is Stephen King's talent and imagination a beautiful gift.  I emailed my Mom early on to ask her if the book ended up being a horror book (yes, my mom recommended this one, she is as good as they come with recommendations for me).  She said no so I kept on reading.

I understand that Mr. King is super wealthy and successful and even to a certain extent appreciated.  But I realized after putting Hearts in Atlantis down that I have fallen well short of recognizing his artistry primarily due to my conditioned point of view that he primarily writes horror.....the horror.

Comments

[Ben Casnocha]

Sounds good -- I'll have to read it.