If you're bored with a given scene ("Under the Dome"), it's certain King will take you somewhere different within two pages. And the places are lurid. Our hero must watch as his captor pees all over his belongings. The heavens become almost black when the sun goes behind a particular patch of pollutants on the dome. A woman discovers her neighbor--now dead by self-inflicted gunshot wound, and floating in a puddle of blood. And then there's Jim Rennie--viewing his own storm troopers as expendable, setting up individual minions for failure. (And maybe King was thinking about Mitt Romney here.)
It's also worth noting that King pays a good deal of attention to marital love--in this book, in the JFK novel, and in "On Writing." He lingers over the very-adult reconciliation of Linda and her husband, which becomes very sexual very quickly. People swallow their pride and use humor to get what they want. Like Val McDermid's characters, the smart ones, in King, are frequently making use of rhetorical strategies to steer themselves through tense situations. You come for the gore and the otherworldly catastrophes in King, but--as Janet Maslin has observed--you stay for the kitchen-sink details. It's life, but faster and more exciting.
P.S. It's such queasy fun to watch the devolution of Junior--whose speech is more and more affected by his un-diagnosed brain tumor. He starts saying crazy things: "You're on thin nails." "It's either right or high, low or left." Barbie recognizes something is wrong and--in a nice bit of irony--Rennie, Sr. observes nothing amiss. It's delightful to see Barbie react with concealed repulsion and genuine concern as Junior obliviously advertises the fact of his own lunacy. And another thing: Who more astutely than King observes the random role of cruelty in American life? There's nothing clearly wrong with Georgia's background. She's just evil. She's like the bullies in "It." If it's not an otherworldly clown menacing you, it's the boy (or girl) next door.
***
I’m seeing “Sweeney Todd” downtown tonight, so: a few thoughts about an overlooked gem. “By the Sea” is an “I Want” song for Mrs. Lovett. It’s especially poignant, because it’s toward the end of the show, when it’s pretty clear that Mrs. Lovett will not make it past her next birthday. This is a show about unrequited love. Mrs. Lovett schemes and schemes for Mr. Todd’s attention, and Mr. Todd can’t be bothered. Throughout the song, he has just one observation, muttered over and over: “Anything you say. Anything you say.”
Form underlines content: Mrs. Lovett’s supreme intelligence is evident in her rhymes. “With the sea at our gate, we’ll have kippered herring- wot have swum to us straight from the Straits of Bering! Ev’ry night, in the kip, when we’re through our kippers, I’ll be there slippin’ off your slippers!” (Sondheim seems to be tipping his hat to his mentor, Hammerstein, and to “Carousel.” “He spends so much time in his round-bottomed boat that he can’t seem to lose the smell of fish.” “When the children are asleep, I’ll dream with you.”)
Mrs. Lovett has an eye for detail and a pronounced appetite. Earlier, when Sweeney worried about getting access to the Beadle, Mrs. Lovett began to daydream about gillies: “I’ve been thinking flowers, maybe daisies, to brighten up the room. Or gillies. Nothing like a nice bowl of gillies.” And here: “I can see us now, in our bathing dresses! You in a nice, rich navy, and me? Stripes, perhaps.”
Another treat in this song is a buried agenda: Mrs. Lovett wants to make clear that Sweeney needs to marry her. “We shouldn’t try it (cohabitation) till it’s legal for two - hoo!” But: “A seaside wedding could be devised...Me rumpled bedding legitimized!” And, sensing she may have just become too pushy, Mrs. Lovett tosses Sweeney a bone: “We could share our kippers with the odd paying guest from the weekend trippers...Have a nice sunny suite for the guest to rest in...Now and then, you could do the guest in! By the sea!”
I met Julianne Moore yesterday (!), and I’ve noticed she has a certain approach to characters. She says she doesn’t choose heroes. She doesn’t feel obligated to play “strong women.” That’s because, as creatures, we humans are not very strong. We’re conflicted and vulnerable and irrational. And that’s what Julianne Moore chooses to put on screen. I think Sondheim would have a great deal to say to Ms. Moore. If only she did more singing!
It's also worth noting that King pays a good deal of attention to marital love--in this book, in the JFK novel, and in "On Writing." He lingers over the very-adult reconciliation of Linda and her husband, which becomes very sexual very quickly. People swallow their pride and use humor to get what they want. Like Val McDermid's characters, the smart ones, in King, are frequently making use of rhetorical strategies to steer themselves through tense situations. You come for the gore and the otherworldly catastrophes in King, but--as Janet Maslin has observed--you stay for the kitchen-sink details. It's life, but faster and more exciting.
P.S. It's such queasy fun to watch the devolution of Junior--whose speech is more and more affected by his un-diagnosed brain tumor. He starts saying crazy things: "You're on thin nails." "It's either right or high, low or left." Barbie recognizes something is wrong and--in a nice bit of irony--Rennie, Sr. observes nothing amiss. It's delightful to see Barbie react with concealed repulsion and genuine concern as Junior obliviously advertises the fact of his own lunacy. And another thing: Who more astutely than King observes the random role of cruelty in American life? There's nothing clearly wrong with Georgia's background. She's just evil. She's like the bullies in "It." If it's not an otherworldly clown menacing you, it's the boy (or girl) next door.
***
I’m seeing “Sweeney Todd” downtown tonight, so: a few thoughts about an overlooked gem. “By the Sea” is an “I Want” song for Mrs. Lovett. It’s especially poignant, because it’s toward the end of the show, when it’s pretty clear that Mrs. Lovett will not make it past her next birthday. This is a show about unrequited love. Mrs. Lovett schemes and schemes for Mr. Todd’s attention, and Mr. Todd can’t be bothered. Throughout the song, he has just one observation, muttered over and over: “Anything you say. Anything you say.”
Form underlines content: Mrs. Lovett’s supreme intelligence is evident in her rhymes. “With the sea at our gate, we’ll have kippered herring- wot have swum to us straight from the Straits of Bering! Ev’ry night, in the kip, when we’re through our kippers, I’ll be there slippin’ off your slippers!” (Sondheim seems to be tipping his hat to his mentor, Hammerstein, and to “Carousel.” “He spends so much time in his round-bottomed boat that he can’t seem to lose the smell of fish.” “When the children are asleep, I’ll dream with you.”)
Mrs. Lovett has an eye for detail and a pronounced appetite. Earlier, when Sweeney worried about getting access to the Beadle, Mrs. Lovett began to daydream about gillies: “I’ve been thinking flowers, maybe daisies, to brighten up the room. Or gillies. Nothing like a nice bowl of gillies.” And here: “I can see us now, in our bathing dresses! You in a nice, rich navy, and me? Stripes, perhaps.”
Another treat in this song is a buried agenda: Mrs. Lovett wants to make clear that Sweeney needs to marry her. “We shouldn’t try it (cohabitation) till it’s legal for two - hoo!” But: “A seaside wedding could be devised...Me rumpled bedding legitimized!” And, sensing she may have just become too pushy, Mrs. Lovett tosses Sweeney a bone: “We could share our kippers with the odd paying guest from the weekend trippers...Have a nice sunny suite for the guest to rest in...Now and then, you could do the guest in! By the sea!”
I met Julianne Moore yesterday (!), and I’ve noticed she has a certain approach to characters. She says she doesn’t choose heroes. She doesn’t feel obligated to play “strong women.” That’s because, as creatures, we humans are not very strong. We’re conflicted and vulnerable and irrational. And that’s what Julianne Moore chooses to put on screen. I think Sondheim would have a great deal to say to Ms. Moore. If only she did more singing!
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