The idea
of time travel has long been a favorite of mine. While straight lines are great
for getting quickly from one place to another, curves and spirals are much
prettier and more appealing to me. The idea that time can fold back on itself
has gripped my imagination since I first read A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine
L’Engle in elementary school. So I was very excited about this novel about the
effort to return to 1963 and stop the assassination of President Kennedy.
Naturally,
there are twists in this story that only the warped mind of Stephen King can
conjure up, but I totally have to agree that altering small events in the lives
of ordinary people can have unexpected and far reaching consequences. So
certainly, the alteration of a major historical and political event could be
catastrophic. I also happen to think it was lucky Kennedy’s presidency ended
when it did, before the cracks started to show.
I am
tempted to read it again because there were a couple of spots where I was not
really sure why certain things were happening, and I don’t remember them being
resolved. I suspect that in the course
of this very long book, I missed some details. For now I’ve decided to let this
book just marinate in my brain for a while. I may pick it up again someday to
see if I can figure out those couple of passages.
At any
rate, this was an engaging tale of what might have been. I particularly liked that King involved the
sense of smell so much. It is so often
overlooked by writers. I also really liked how well King managed the raising of
the story’s intensity as Jake struggles against the clock up the many flights
of stairs in the Texas Schoolbook Depository building. Each flight up left me
more tense and frantic to know if he’d make it in time.
11/22/63
is a very long book, but it is well worth reading every word.
I loved this book. Every word of it. It had some great twists and things ended up working out in strange ways.
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