![]() Without Ralph and Lois, Patrick will be killed at the rally according to Clotho and Lachesis, Patrick's death would disrupt the fabric of existence. Again, the book takes pains not to take a stance, instead explaining that the reason for interference isn't the rally itself, but instead a boy named Patrick Danville. Unlike in Gerald's Game or The Tommyknockers, the issues are not black and white, and King never seems to be soapboxing Insomnia is served well by showing, not telling.Ĭlotho and Lachesis enlist the help of Lois and Ralph to intercept Susan Day's rally in Derry. One interesting sequence involves Ralph attempting to save a group of feminists who resist him because he is a man later, they are decimated by a pro-life extremist they trusted because she is a woman. Much of Insomnia tackles contemporary topics - feminism, spousal abuse, and homophobia among them (this latter most interesting, specifically addressing the murder of Adrian Mellon in It) - without allowing the novel to become mired in them, broaching them only in service to the plot. Here, King approaches the pro-choice/pro-life issue judiciously, never letting his authorial voice take a side. The concept of higher purpose versus free will has long interested King, playing out as central conflicts in The Dead Zone and It (not coincidentally, Insomnia is also set in Derry, the former home of It, eight years or so after the events of that novel) King would later look more directly at this struggle in Desperation, The Green Mile and Duma Key.Īn imminent pro-choice rally, headed by abortion rights activist Susan Day, has divided the town by political and ethical lines, much as Castle Rock was divided by the upcoming church bingo event in Needful Things. In a broader context, these four constants are inherent to King's fiction. Their function, indeed, is to sever the lifelines of all living things, serving the purposes of Life, Death, Purpose, and Random (what the doctors explain as the four constants of existence). The Little Bald Doctors are supernatural creatures Ralph and Lois call Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, after the names of the three Fates. If the opening of the novel is a rumination on age and death, the book now becomes an exploration of purpose. The next day, his neighbor is dead of heart failure. During one night of premature waking, Ralph glimpses out his window to see two small, bald men who look like doctors enter one of his neighbor's houses with a giant pair of scissors. A slender stem of this light - a "lifeline" - rises from the heads of people and animals. Ralph and his friend Lois Chasse begin to see what Ralph thinks of as "auras," emissions of brilliant light enclosing every person and thing. Add to all this the fact that Insomnia is King's first "mainstream" novel dependent in part on knowledge of his Dark Tower series (as would later books Hearts In Atlantis and, to a degree, From a Buick 8 and The Colorado Kid), and Insomnia seems almost to resist being read by regular, non-fanatic readers.Īnd yet: after this meticulous construction of Ralph's life early in the novel, Insomnia expands. It is as if the very structure of the book - both as a story and an object - is trying to induce in the reader the sense of unreality that King's main character, widower Ralph Roberts, suffers through as he loses more and more sleep. The cover itself - a garish red and white featuring only King's name and the title with no illustration - is forbidding. ![]() While not dull, the opening sequences (with one startling and effective action sequence near the beginning of the novel) seem to meander without direction. ![]() Its opening pages move slowly, creating a deliberate, off-kilter feel unlike any of King's other novels. While its heft shouldn't put off Stephen King devotees, it is not as accessible to casual readers as, say, It or The Stand, even at hundreds of pages beyond Insomnia's length. It's a long walk to Eden, so don't sweat the small stuff
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