Master of suspense keeps the pedal to the metal
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday December 12, 2009
Under the DomeBy Stephen KingHodder & Stoughton, 877pp, $34.99Reviewed by Van IkinAS THIS epic action-thriller reaches its crescendo, Stephen King draws imagery from T.S. Eliot to heighten his apocalyptic vision. It's audacious self-aggrandisement but this novel is so compelling that many readers will feel it has indeed taken them to death's other kingdom.In a small Maine town in autumn, a flying jetliner is abruptly sheered in half and on the ground a woodchuck is cut in two. An invisible force field has enclosed the town. Birds die as they collide with the invisible barrier (that's how the authorities plot its boundaries), cars crumple into it, pacemakers explode. The townsfolk are severed from the world, perhaps forever.King started this novel in 1976 but ran from the scenario, overwhelmed by the difficulty of determining meteorological and ecological consequences. The trapped town haunted him for more than 25 years until courage returned in 2007-09, bringing this epic to fruition.Every chapter bears the pedigree of long gestation, and not just in intricacy of plot. There is a cast of 100 characters, each carefully delineated, and the hapless town of Chester's Mill becomes more familiar than your own suburb. For the attentive reader, the intertwining of minor details is marvellous, for an object or incident mentioned in passing can pack an emotional thump 100 pages on, giving this doorstopper moments of subtlety usually found in an arty novella.Not that King would want that said; his avowed aim was "to keep the pedal consistently to the metal". But he's done what any pro would do - eased off slightly for bends and curves with scenery, then gunned hard on the straights.Some of the novel's best parts are evocations of stores, businesses, eateries, with King's love-hate for small-town America capturing the kitsch of billboards, the humour of T-shirt slogans and the poetry of humdrum existence. This is an action thriller that knows how to catch enriching detail without losing pace.The long gestation pays a second dividend in ecological edge. When the dome first descends, the town's smarter brains worry about generators and stores of propane gas. But the energy-orientation of 1976 is spliced with 2009's ecological mindset, and the conflict is largely between old and new outlooks.The villain is car dealer Big Jim Rennie, the town's Second Selectman, who manipulates the weaker First Selectman. A local legend, Big Jim secretly makes methamphetamine (never sold within the town) and is not averse to murder. His mentality is that of the greed-is-good '80s and he genuinely can't see beyond this.The hero, Dale Barbara, is a disgruntled Iraq veteran repressing guilty memories. Though burnt out, he is trapped into reluctant leadership - opposing the corrupt cronyism of Rennie and the failure to acknowledge a long-term environmental threat.Rennie recruits special deputies from the ranks of the stupid and mean; Barbara rallies support from citizens with common sense, especially the feisty female who edits the town newspaper. Game on. The town stands in solidarity with Rennie, and Barbara and his supporters become outsiders, then scapegoats.Stated so baldly, the plot may sound trite but King's canvassing of motives and philosophies gives it punch. When trees start dying and the air tastes increasingly foul, suspense explodes.What is the dome? Can it be destroyed? My lips are sealed: the mystery is too tantalising to spoil.The US military fears that the dome is an alien artefact or an enemy weapon. Either way, its missiles merely splatter against it.Is the dome supernatural in origin? It appears in October, just before Halloween; it seems to drive animals to suicide and proximity to it gives children seizures in which they babble prophetically about a funeral pyre of blazing jack-o-lanterns. King craftily shuffles clues against red herrings.Back to Eliot. My criticism of Under the Dome is that it grafts Eliot-style special effects onto an entirely different vision.The novel's epigraph is from a James McMurtry song: "It's a small town, son,/and we all support the team." King's diagnosis of Chester's Mill is that it's just supporting the wrong team. Barbara is no cardboard superhero - he's a flawed individual - but he has the necessary courage, endurance and can-do outlook. All he needs is backing, no problems.Eliot saw no such black-and-white certainty. For him, multiple teams vie for support, many worthy despite their flaws. It's disappointing if King can't see those complexities.As a work of popular fiction, Under the Dome is primarily a "roller-coaster ride". It offers terror, spectacle, hope, despair, lyricism and horror - all skilfully deployed. And the characters, including the bad guys, are so engaging that when the air in the dome runs out the reading experience becomes acutely empathic. Offering a tour de force of harrowing apocalyptics, the last 200 pages cry out to be read at a gulp. I've seldom read anything more sustained.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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