So yes, I reread this book recently.
Resonated far more the second time around. The love story with Sadie, the paradox of going back in time and altering the past, and what the ramifications might be for the future with the butterfly effect. The irony of almost wanting to go back years earlier to do it again to save the woman he loves, even after having just saved John F. Kennedy, the main goal that he had been aiming for right from the beginning of the novel.
In the end, Jake goes back to the alternative version of 2011 that he has largely created by altering history. As it turns out, far from having made things better, it actually made things worse.
***** SPOILER ALERT *****
***** SPOILER ALERT *****
***** SPOILER ALERT *****
What he finds is that the world has turned into a nightmare. Just before he left late November of 1963 after saving Jack Kennedy from an assassin's bullet, there is a huge earthquake in Los Angeles that kills at least 7,000 people. He is sure that he would have remembered that if it had happened just like that in history, and then becomes sure that his intervening with history has in fact likely caused that tragedy to occur. And he is right, because the Earth itself has become destabilized in the new version of 2011, which Jake gets to visit.
He also mentions political trends. Al, the owner of the diner and the original founder of the time tunnel, or hole, or gate, or whatever you want to call it, was almost positive that things would be better had Kennedy lived. He rationalizes that the United States would never have gotten involved to such an extent in Vietnam, for example.
As it turns out, things did not end up so great in the country, just because Kennedy survives in this fictional account. He expects to beat Goldwater handily in his 1964 reelection bid, but only wins in a surprisingly close election. Then, his hopes of changing the Jim Crow laws and practices in the Deep South are nowhere near as successful as they had historically been in the previous world that Jake knew, because Kennedy was not able to twist arms and apply political pressure and savvy quite like LBJ was able to do.
In fact, Alabama Governor George Wallace, known best as one of the last, truly prominent segregationist figures of the era, is elected President after Kennedy. Wallace launched nuclear attacks, which set other nuclear powers fee. There is a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which is only stopped when the United States, Russia, and China all threaten to bow those two countries out of existence. Still, much of the damage has now been done. Also, Wallace winds up being the president who gets assassinated. But not before he does serious damage. Reagan reaches the White House after that, but does so in 1976. And he is evidently not nearly as politically untouchable in this new version of history as he seems to have been in the previous version of the world that Jake knew.
Meanwhile, the world is tumultuous in others ways, as well. The earthquake in Los Angeles which occurred just after jake saves Kennedy is actually a presage of things to come. In fact, earthquakes and all sorts of other natural (or rather, unnatural) disasters have begun to become both more frequent and far more serious. It is estimated now that the world will literally tear itself apart by 2080. Reality itself is threatened, as there now exists these kinds of watery ripping sounds, which Constant Readers of Stephen King will know reveals that the end of what we understand as reality is near. And on top of all of this, the United States in the new nightmarish version of 2011 which Jake has unknowingly created seems almost like a dystopian nightmare, almost like a version of George Orwell's 1984.
Jake realizes that altering the future is not a good idea, after all. Far from making the world a better and safer place, he realizes that there are numerous strings linking the past and the future, and that there are not an infinite number of these strings. So he has to go back to "reset" the past. No saving anybody - and there are other situations which Jake got involved in to avoid horrors that befell people - because he now knows that intruding on the past is detrimental to the future. Still, he has one last temptation: he wants to live with his love Sadie, a woman whom he fell in love with after moving to Texas in preparation to assassinate Oswald. In the end, he realizes that even this is intervening too much with the future, and so he goes back to "his" 2011, albeit reluctantly.
However, he cannot simply end it there. While he recognizes that interfering with the past, and thus altering the future, cannot end well, he does make changes to his life in the present. He moves to Massachusetts, and then visits Jodie, Texas, the town where he had a life, and where he and Sadie fell in love. She actually was killed by Oswald when Jake saved Kennedy from assassination, but in this version of 2011, she is still alive. And he decides to have one last dance with her, even though she is much older, and cannot quite place him, even though she suspects that she knows him, somehow.
As with almost all King books, this is very well written. The characters feel mostly real, their logic and actions under the circumstances believable. And he makes the circumstances feel real, even though this scenario of a time traveler managing to save Kennedy from assassination is, obviously, the stuff of pure fiction. I would strongly recommend this book, not least of all because you really get a feel for some of the real differences between the era of the 1950's and 1960's, and our more modern world.
Stephen King's “11/22/63”
(Originally published on December 13, 2011)
This book was long, and took me longer to read than most of his long books, even. It came out on the 8th, and I had initially wanted to finish it on time for the actual anniversary (hard to believe that it has been 48 years since the assassination of JFK, which took place slightly less than 11 years before I was born!). Yet, the devil fools with the best laid plans, right? I actually misplaced this book for an entire week, only to finally find it at my weekend job, tucked away in a desk drawer. I immediately got back to work on it, although my hopes of finishing it by the 22nd were obviously gone by then.
Having long been anticipating this one, because it sounded intriguing, I was counting down the days until it was finally released like few books that have come before it. The idea is this: a man gets the opportunity to go back in time, and he has a very specific mission: to save John F. Kennedy from the assassin's bullet on that fateful November day in Dallas. Only, of course, he is a human being, and so he gets wrapped up in very human concerns. Understandable. He meets a girl, falls in love. He makes mistakes, and then has to cope with these, even pays quite a price for them. Still, he feels himself to be on a mission. But then he is torn between his commitment to saving JFK (and thus altering world history for what he assumes to be for the better), and his desire to be with her throughout his preparations for this epic event.
I have never read a bad Stephen King book, and this one was not disappointing, either. He, like Erik Larson, is able to make the past come alive, and he was convincing this time, as well. The fifties and sixties felt real, and the most convincing aspects of this are in the details. He pays attention, and being such a seasoned author, he makes this look easy. Of course, the premise of time travel may sound absurd and unrealistic, yet he makes it seem, and feel, very realistic and close. He puts you in the shoes of the main character.
There are questions left, of course. The main question seems to be one that applies in our present day lives, ironically. Can we, as human beings, possibly understand the full ramifications of our actions? Even if we mean well, there are some things, some realities, that we cannot change. In creating a character and situation where the past can be changed, a well intentioned man is forced to ask himself if having the power to change the past necessarily means that he should, even if he initially thinks that by so doing, the world would be a better place. It shows us, ultimately, that although perhaps we see that our efforts will be with a design to eliminate evil or create a better world, we ultimately cannot know the full ramifications of our actions. It is a story about acceptance, ultimately. Of coming to terms with our own smallness, our inability to alter the past, or indeed even the present, and make it exactly what we would want it to be, ideally. Ours in not an ideal world, and we just have to cope with it the best that we can. Things can be worse, even when we perhaps lose sight of this fact.
This book was a departure for Stephen King, because it has a lot to do with an actual historical event, and has virtually nothing to do with much of his other works. Yet, he has one interesting diversion, when the main character visits the world of Derry in 1958, and meets a couple of the characters from an earlier work of his, “IT”. That was quite entertaining and enjoyable, and showed cleverness on King's part. Yet, the book remains unique among his works. Of course, I personally have always felt that he was too quickly labeled as writer of “horror”, when some of his most memorable works, such as “Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile”, in fact have nothing to do wit horror. Much like those, this is an enjoyable read that brings the past to life, so that you almost feel like you yourself were in Dallas on that fateful day that changed the world, nd serves also as a reminder that we cannot change the past and make it what we wanted it to be. We simply have to adapt and go on with our lives.
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