The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: Notes
Robert Whelan
page 9.
Foreshadowing of Trisha getting lost, and foreshadowing that she'll be
thinking that sometimes people who get lost die. Redundantly foreshadowed
*again* later.
Her mother "could have waited while she went behind a tree."
"that was why she had stepped off the path and behind a high stand of
bushes".(the high stand of bushes is never mentioned again, and she doesn't
"step off the path" later, but down an overgrown trail, and THEN off the
path, and then down a slope, with no hiding behind bushes or trees
mentioned.)
15.
"it wasn't because she had a headache but because she was trying to
keep her brains from undergoing spontaneous combustion or
explosive decompression or something." Reading passages like this
make my brains want to explode. Or something. This is supposed to
be Trisha's humorous observation of her Mom's stress, which conflicts
with the stress Trisha is supposedly under. If she can ponder different
ways of describing her mom's rubbing of her head, can she really be
that upset about the arguing between her mom and brother?
21. Why is Trisha wasting the readers time pondering whether every
Applachian trail is as "well maintained" as this one? Is King
trying to paint her as a person who only cares for the neat
and pretty, so he can bash her in the face with horrid reality?
19. "oh-boy-waterless cookware voice". Is she trying to SOUND
fake? Sarcastic? Or is she REALLY trying to soothe the tempers
of her mom and brother? King's humorous jab at the TV commercials
interferes with the portrait of Trisha's efforts. If King hates
Television that much, there's a simple solution. Turn it off. Then
maybe he could spend more time interacting with real people, and
lending real characterization to his fictional characters, instead
of stuffing his novels with TV references.
20. Her mom and brother's arguing seems to Trisha like a
"Sick kind of making out". Has Trisha "made out" before, at
the tender age of 9? Sick or otherwise? It's a peculiar
observation from someone who is otherwise not described as
having had any kind of sexual experience, even a mild kind
of "making out." I know that, at 9 years old, "making out"
would have made me ill. At that age I wouldn't have thought
there was ANY good kind of "making out", let alone a "sick
kind" to compare it to.
21. What has drinking from a rusty pump have to do with Bilbo
from THE HOBBIT?
21. "There *was* a pump, that was the grammatically correct way of
putting it." What a ridiculous thought for a girl to have. It's
not particularly grammatically correct either. Just as correct
to say there IS a pump, even if it's behind her.
22. Trisha remembers THE HOBBIT as being "about guys that like
to walk in the woods". King is being sloppy here, inserting his
own memories of LORD OF THE RINGS, into THE HOBBIT. Nowhere
in THE HOBBIT do "guys" "like to walk in the woods."
22. "The main branch, not quite as wide as the avenue now, but
still not bad, went off to the left". Trisha seems to
be being portrayed as incredibly citified, in her judgements
on what's a "good" size for a hiking trail. What difference
does the size make, anyway?
23. More, redundant foreshadowing:
"Later on, after she was good and lost, and trying not to believe
she might die in the woods..." which is a repeat of page 9, where
she's foreshadowed as "Trying not to think that sometimes when people
got lost in the woods they got seriously hurt, sometime they died."
22. Trisha "walked a little way down the path." Contradicted later
when Trisha remembers that she walked 50, 60, or 70 paces down
the path. Apparently King needed to revise how far she went down,
to make it believable that it she can't find the other trail, which
would have been right there had she only gone a "little way" down
the path. A "little way" is believable for someone who wants to
take a quick pee. It's not believable, though, for someone who gets
lost between the fork of two trails, which is why King changes it
later, in Trisha's memory of what she did.
22. The Trail Trisha walks "a little way" down is described as
"smaller, and mostly overgrown" and "here the pines crowded in
and there was underbrush as well" giving the impression that it's
a place MORE likely for Trisha to find cover in than the main trail,
which is why I assume she decided to use it. Still despite the impression
of close, "crowding" pines, once she gets off the trail she considers
herself too exposed, and the sense of being surrounded by "crowding"
pines disappears, so King can make her go down a slope a ways in
order to lose sight of the path, a path which the pines, presumably,
no longer crowd around.
Trisha decides to go down a slope until she's out of sight of the
path. If she finds a slope that begins AWAY from the path, then she
would only need to go down it a little way, body height. She could
look at the path while standing up, but when she squats to pee she
could be completely hidden. Unless the slope down (which is later
described as the lesser slope of a ravine) begins at the trail, which
I assume is NOT on the slope itself, in which case, no matter how
far down the slope you went, a person on the trail, looking down the
slope, would still be able to see you unless you hid behind something.
Perhaps Trisha is simply going as far as she can until the number of
trees that accumulate between her and the path obscure her from view.
It contradicts the "crowding" impression given previously,
however, in which it seems that they are so close together that hiding
would be easy by just stepping away from the path. And she is not
described as finding a slope until she's away from the path, so her
going all the way to it's bottom is not really believable. Just
stepping over the lip would be enough to hide her.
23. "Em-BARE-assing as Pepsi might say". Why can't she think these
thoughts on her own, instead of providing footnotes to everything?
When she says "Fuck" later, why not let us know "as the old
Anglo-Saxons used to say."?
24. "Oh Waterless Cookware!" exclaims Trisha, and laughs at how
funny this is. Why is she thinking about this? Suddenly the
God/Narrator description of the kind of voice she used to sound
cheerful is fully part of her consciousness. I believe that
Stephen King, the author, goes around making gratuitous descriptive
references to television commercials, but am I to truly believe that
a 9 year old girl spends as much time as King apparently does watching
infomercials, and thinking about them sarcastically, so that she can
compare herself to them?
24. "A mosquito whines bloodthirstily around her left ear", but
Trisha is unable to whack it, until she finishes peeing. When
she's done, she hears it approach her ear again, and whacks it,
leaving a "bloody smear". Mosquitos that haven't bit you yet don't
leave bloody smears.
25. When Trisha first left the path, she was described as
"stepping carefully around brambles." Would she really think
that going up a steeper slope than the one she came down,
so steep that she has to use tree branches to pull herself
up, is a preferable shortcut than climbing up the way she
came? If she only went a "little way" down the path before
she left it, then it's unbelievable that she fails to find
the other path. If she went "50, 60, or 70 paces" down the
trail, as she remembers later, then it's unbelievable that
she would really think of crossing this 50, 60, 70 pace gap
through the woods, starting with a steeper slope than the
one she came down, and full of brambles, and "underbrush"
that she has to "skirt around", a true shortcut.
27. "After 10 minutes" Trisha starts to get worried. Why doesn't she
think to turn back? Answer, because then King would have to think
up a more believable reason for her getting lost.
27. "Probably not more than fifty paces (surely no more than sixty,
seventy at the very most." This is the revised memory of how
far down the side trail Trisha went, despite the earlier description
of her going down a "little way".
32. Trisha remembers her mom's advice "Slap at mosquitos.." "..but it's
better to wave at the little ones." which she gave "perhaps on the
same day that she taught her how to pee in the woods." The "perhaps"
indicates that this is Trisha's thought, because the God/Narrator has
no reason to be unsure of whether it was the same day or not. But why
would Trisha care if it were the same day or not? Was the day that she
learned to pee in the woods such a memorable Mother/Daughter bonding
experience for her? This sidebar was pointless!
Trisha continues on, instead of turning back, and runs across a large
fallen tree. There is a slimy wet hollow leading under the tree.
Trisha chooses to squirm through the slimy wet leaves in the hollow
instead of going around the tree because she "doesn't
want to lose her bearings." Trisha isn't very bright, because if she
were it would occur to her that she can "get her bearings" if they
are so important to her, by simply coming to the same point on the
opposite side of the tree where the hollow is. She'll end up in the
same place, and avoid getting all muddy and dirty. But King apparently
desperately needs a scare, so she slides under, and gets the bejeezus
scared out of her by an odd kind of snake that likes to hang out in
wet soggy leaves.
29.Snakes, despite popular misconception, are not slimy, as would be implied
by this. Also, wet leaves tend to pack down, so it would be hard for a
snake to "slither through them" as is described here, unless the snake
deliberately burrowed into them. I think King was imagining the snake
slithering through normal dry leaves, even though it contradicts the
fact that Trisha is getting sopping wet by sliding through them on
her belly, and later, when she looks at the spot, she sees the impression
she left in the leaves filling up with water.
29. She is so mindbendingly scared by the snake that she bangs her
back into a stump of branch that looks like an "amputated forearm",
in spite of the fact that it's hitting her in the back, and she can't
see how creepily like an "amputated forearm" it looks. Sure, she
COULD have seen what it looked like before she crawled in, but this
wasn't told to us. At no point is she described as looking into the
hollow again so she can actually appreciate the creepy image of this
stump that has hurt her.
29 "She wriggled out from under the tree as fast as she could, probably
looking a little bit like a snake herself."
If this is the God/Narrator telling us this, then why the "probably"?
Either she looks a little bit like a snake or she doesn't. If this
is Trisha's thought about how she "probably" looks, it's out of place
in a passage in which she is described as experiencing "a silent
white explosion of revulsion and horror. Her skin turned to ice and
her throat closed. She could not even think the single word "snake"..."
But as she wiggles out of there, she *is* able to abstractly consider
that she looks like one.
29. Trisha obsesses about the woods being filled with snakes that bite,
as opposed to the one she just encountered, which didn't.
"What if *they* were poisonous? And of courset hey were, the woods were
full of everything you didn't like, everytying your were afraid of and
instinctively loathed, everything that tried to overwhelm you with nasty
no-brain panic."
This contradicts her happy "Hobbit" fantasies about "guys who like to
walk in the woods." Actually, this would have been an appropriate place
for Trisha to remember Mirkwood, from The Hobbit, in which glowing eyes
watched from the trees, and which contained giant, poisonous spiders.
And if Trisha is so terrified, why does she think about it in jokey terms
such as imagining herself in a horror movie called "Invasion of the Killer
Snakes, starring Patricia McFarland, the riveting tale...." It just
doesn't sound like she's terribley focused on her revulsion anymore, if
she can draw back and have fun making up horror movie jokes about herself.
This passage, also, is the first use of the word "nasty" which is
repetitively used to describe Trisha's troubles in a manner that I suppose
is meant to be indicative of cutesie little-girl thinking.
30. Scared of snakes, Trisha heads away from the fallen tree. She
"hurried on, casting mistrustful looks back at the fallen tree"
imagining "battalions of snakes" "like snakes in a Horror movie
starring Patricia McFarland, the riveting tale..." At this point
she trips over a rock "because she had been looking back over her
shoulder." First she's "casting mistrustful looks" and then she's
"looking back over her shoulder" so that she can trip over a rock
and hurt her injured back again. Now, if King had said she was
backing away from the tree in horror, and tripped over the rock,
I'd buy it, but not when he first says she's "casting glances"
and changes it within a few sentences to "looking back over her
shoulder" which makes her seem a total idiot who walks forward
while staring over her shoulder, and not looking where she's going.
At this point, she is no longer sure she's going in the right direction
because she "kept looking over her shoulder", once again contradicting
the "mistrustful glances". So she goes back to the tree, in spite of
her overdescribed terror of snakes, "hating to go back to where she
had seen the snake." She sees the impression she made under the hollow
"already filling up with water" which reminds her how dirty her shirt
was. "That her shirt should be all damp and muddy was somehow the most
alarming thing so far." What, more alarming than possibly being bitten
by a poisonous snake? More alarming than imagined "battalions of snakes"
pursuing her? This girl has the attention span of a gnat.
"She looked along the length of the tree, even scuffed one sneakered
foot through the leaves, but there was no sign of the snake." This is
after her horror and revulsion of the snake, her imagined battalions
of snakes, and her concern that she is wearing sneakers, rather than
protective boots.
"but God, they were so *horrible*, all legless and slithery, flipping
their nasty tongues in and out." Another appearence of the word
"nasty". How cute, and "girly."
"She could hardly stand to think about it even now - how it
had pulsed under her palm like a cold muscle." This is redundant.
It had already been described this way when she encountered it....
"coldly pulsing under her warm hand." We didn't need a recap,
certainly not so soon.
Trisha, after the overdescribed girly terror of the snake, "stand,
either leg to the side of the black divot." (where she crawled through
and encountered the snake) "her butt against the mossy trunk..."
Gee. So terrified of the place that she tripped over a rock, and
imagined "battalions of snakes" coming after her, but now casually
leaning against the tree, with her back to it, and her legs on either
side of the hole where the snake was. Major inconsistency in establishing
Trisha's character.
35. "She started to get up.....and then paused, one knee planted in the
sofot earth beside the ferns, her head up, scenting the air like a fawn
on it's first expedition away from its mother's side. Only Trisha wasn't
smelling, she was listening..." And because Trisha was listening, the
entire "scenting the air like a fawn" description is wasted.
35 "`Besides, you may never get to be Pete's age' the disquieting inner
voice said. How could anyone have such a cold scary voice inside them?"
I'd like an answer to that question too. Trisha seems such a MORBID little
girl, constantly predicting her own death with Gerald's Game type split
personality "voices."
This little morbid thought branches off from her inspection of her
backpack for food, which reminds her, totally out of character, that
she'll have pimples if when she get's to Pete's age, if she doesn't
lay off the Twinkies, and further digresses to this stupid "scary"
voice insisting that she won't reach Pete's age.
36. "`Help me, I'm lost! Help me I'm lost...' the only human sound in the
woods her weepy shrieking voice, calling for help, calling because she
was lost."
See, we didn't need it explained to us that she was lost. This could
have ended with "her weeping shrieking voice." "calling for help, calling
"because she was lost" is annoyingly redundant. It doesn't emphasize
anything. We know she's lost. She's shrieked it twice already.
37. "She yelled for perhaps fifteen minutes. She cried hard for about
five minutes (it was impossible to tell for sure, her watch was back
home lying on th table next to her bed, another smooth move by the
Great Trisha)"
This, apparently, is King noticing that it's wierd for Trisha to
be calculating in her head exactly how long she's taking with her
crying and her weeping. Earlier she had been described as travelling
from where she peed for "about ten minutes". It might have been nice
if King had noted that she didn't have a watch back then, instead of
dumping this important information here, in parantheses, in a situation
where she wouldn't be checking her watch anyway.
37. "Walk or stay where she was"? She didn't know which would be best;
She was now too frightened for anything much like rational thought."
How convenient. "Too frightened for rational thought". I guess this
explains why, when she ponders "walk, or stay where she was" she
doesn't consider the third possibility.... GOING BACK THE WAY SHE
CAME! Perhaps King wants us to think the dread of the squelchy, snaky,
hole under the tree is the reason Trisha isn't considering this
possibility. Well, she COULD go around the tree, and back to the
spot on the other side where she entered the hole, but I guess she
can't, because this might make her "lose her bearings", the excuse
for her crawling through the hole in the first place. And she seems to
have gotten over her fright of the hole, since she is standing with both
legs to each side of it, with her back to it.
This state of being "too frightened for rational thought" also explains
away the fact that, before Trisha returned temporarily to the tree,
she was behaving somewhat intelligently...she was checking out
landmarks and going from landmark to landmark, to insure that she
is going in a straight line. This technique could just as easily
have been used to ensure a straight line back to where she came
from.
38. "When she got to her feet again (waving her cap around her head
almost without realizing it). First I've noticed of this redundant
"without realizing it" phrase.
38. "I don't know why we have to pay for what you guys did wrong."
"It occured to her that those might be the last words she would
every hear Pete say". WHY is she being so morbid? Predicting her
own death? King is hammering home his point that if her parents had never
gotten divorced, this would never have happened. Yeah, Divorce is Bad.
It's much more Important to make this Important Point than to make your
characters, and their thoughts, believable.
39. Trisha starts to panic, removing all possibility that she'll ever
be able to backtrack from the fallen tree to the ravine where she
peed. Very convenient. As she runs "the breeze in her face...was cool
and strangely exhilarating", ripping tears in her clothes and skin
on thorns and branches, just to make all you Constant Readers wince.
She comes to a cliff's edge, and sees "nothing but a grey shimmer of
early summer air through which she would fall to her death, turning
over and over and screaming for her mother." What an active imagination
Trisha has! And despite this vivid picture in her head of her falling
to her death, we are treated to the following passage...
40. "Her mind was gone again, lost in that white no-brain roar of
terror. Trisha swerved to theleft, and as she did, her right foot
kicked over the drop....she could hear the pebbles (falling)....
Trisha bolted along the strip....with some confused and roaring knowledge
of what had almost happened to her, and also some vague memory of a
science fiction movie in which the hero had lured a rampaging dinosaur
into running over a cliff to it's death."
Okay. So Trisha, when she first hits the cliff's edge, vividly imagines
falling to her death, while screaming for her mother, but seconds later
is only able to figure out what almost happened to her in a vague
memory of a Dinosaur movie? How convenient. It prolongs the
Terror on the Edge of the Cliff a little longer, so that Trisha
can grab onto a tree at the last minute.
41. Not only does Trisha gratuitously imagine falling to her death, while
screaming for her mother, only to forget about it and continue running
along the cliff's edge, when she finally stops she gratuitously imagines
falling AGAIN, with this gruesome imagery....
"An image came to Trisha then, one that was terrible in it's utter
clarity." She imagines a "dead branch punching through the underside of
her jaw and up through her teeth, tacking her tongue to the roof of her
mouth like a red memo, then spearing into her brain and killing her."
Lovely! Only I don't believe a nine year old girl would gratuitously
imagine such a thing. I particularly object to the "memo" simile.
Trisha would really be comparing her speared tongue to a "memo" at
a terrified moment like this? I guess King is used to large novels
with lots of extra characters for him to gratuitously mutilate, and
misses it so much he has to force Trisha to imagine gruesome things
happening to her, to make up for it. Next time, just write another
rip-off of "Salem's Lot" Mr. King, so you can gruesomely kill off
and mutilate the various companions of the protagonist. Hey...
wouldn't a story about a troop of girl scouts getting lost in the
woods have been fun? That way, one could have fallen, screaming
for her mother, and another could have had her tongue speared
to the roof of her mouth, and another bitten by a poisonous snake,
and another stung to death by wasps, and another lost in quicksand...
Why did King limit himself with just one little girl? He's obviously
champing at the bit.
42. "(turning it around so the bill pointed backwards without even
thinking about it). AGAIN. If she's not thinking about it, why
must we?
42. Trisha, so horrified by her near escape, faints. As she lies
there, "the first mosquitos alit on her eyelids and began to
feed." What, only her eylids? Is that the best part? Or is
King just trying to gross us out? He partly succeeded, in my
case, but I think it's gratuitous for him to focus on something
that Trisha won't be aware of until she wakes up. Reminds me
of the gratuitous focus on the Dog eating the corpse of
Jessie's husband, while she's asleep. Had no purpose but to
be nasty.
43. Woken up by thunder, she sits up "grabbing and replacing her
baseball cap without even thinking about it"...AGAIN.
43. "A tall, half dead spruce on the valley floor below her suddenly
exploded and fell into two flaming pieces."
Now, why would Trisha notice that it was a "half dead spruce"
particularly when there's no reason to notice it until the lighting
hits it, and makes fall in "two flaming pieces"? Also, I'm
fairly sure that the laws of physics still prevent lightning from
striking trees in valleys....because lightning takes the shortest
path to ground, and will strike the hills surrounding a valley.
I'm sure exceptions to the rule can be found, but in general,
lighting does NOT strike in valleys.
(to be continued.)
mst
>19. "oh-boy-waterless cookware voice". Is she trying to SOUND
>fake?
> funny this is. Why is she thinking about this?
Just one question:
WHAT THE HELL IS WATERLESS COOKWARE?!?!
Maybe if I knew that, the whole book would suddenly come alive for me and
all my previous complaints will wither away in awestruck appreciation of the
literary gem TGWLTG really is.
--
Teri
++++
"Well, since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable
to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."
Tock the Watchdog
Jeff & Traci De
>
> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
> >fake?
> > funny this is. Why is she thinking about this?
>
>
> WHAT THE HELL IS WATERLESS COOKWARE?!?!
>
> Maybe if I knew that, the whole book would suddenly come alive for me and
> all my previous complaints will wither away in awestruck appreciation of the
> literary gem TGWLTG really is.
>
> --
> Teri
LOLOL
Nah, it wouldn't help a bit.
It is stuff that actually exists though. I mean, King didn't invent it
for the book. As I recall, it's just what it says, cookware that you
don't need to use water with. Don't ask me...
Traci
--
Therefore, I say that if you really insist on keeping this amendment in
the Constitution, then we must keep to the spirit of it, which means you
can still own a gun, but it must be a musket. That's what the framers had
in mind, so lets see how tough today's gangs are when they have to deal
with a weapon that takes some skill to operate.
~ Bill Maher
Liz
> mst wrote:
> >
> > Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
> > >19. "oh-boy-waterless cookware voice". Is she trying to SOUND
> > >fake?
> > >24. "Oh Waterless Cookware!" exclaims Trisha, and laughs at how
> > > funny this is. Why is she thinking about this?
> >
> > Just one question:
> >
> > WHAT THE HELL IS WATERLESS COOKWARE?!?!
> >
> > Maybe if I knew that, the whole book would suddenly come alive for me and
> > all my previous complaints will wither away in awestruck appreciation of the
> > literary gem TGWLTG really is.
> >
> > --
> > Teri
>
> LOLOL
>
> Nah, it wouldn't help a bit.
>
> It is stuff that actually exists though. I mean, King didn't invent it
> for the book. As I recall, it's just what it says, cookware that you
> don't need to use water with. Don't ask me...
>
> Traci
My ever so humble opinion is that she is using the 'oh so cheerful' upbeat voices
used in the infomercials to try to make the best of things. She engages in that
mode to try to draw Mom and brother out of their endless arguments and then later
uses it on herself to try to encourage herself when she needed it. I've always
thought of those commercials (whether they be for waterless cookware or car polish
or whatever) as 'cheerleader' sounding things, so immediately put that frame of
reference into play when she used that phrase. Make any sense?
Liz
Web Master
: mst wrote:
:>
:> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
:> >fake?
:> >24. "Oh Waterless Cookware!" exclaims Trisha, and laughs at how
:> > funny this is. Why is she thinking about this?
:> Just one question:
:>
:> WHAT THE HELL IS WATERLESS COOKWARE?!?!
:>
:> Maybe if I knew that, the whole book would suddenly come alive for me and
:> all my previous complaints will wither away in awestruck appreciation of the
:> literary gem TGWLTG really is.
: LOLOL
: Nah, it wouldn't help a bit.
: It is stuff that actually exists though. I mean, King didn't invent it
: for the book. As I recall, it's just what it says, cookware that you
: don't need to use water with. Don't ask me...
Yup -- you can cook vegetables, for example, without putting them in water and
meat without using grease or oil. One of those infomercial products.
--
Bev Vincent
Houston, TX
-- "God might be a sports fan, but he's not a Red Sox fan."
Lisa
:-)
Lisa
QDaisy
JSM
"After reading the pregame, I realized this book would suck."
R. Whelan
(Not really a quote, just a paraphrase of everything Robert wrote before the
book was even released.)
"Now that I have read the book let me prove to everyone just how much this
book sucks by disecting every little thing *I* perceive as poor literature,
horrible writing and just plain, totally unbelievable (to me) plot devices."
R. Whelan
(Once again, not a quote, just a paraphrase of what has come and what is to
continue, ad infinitum, until Hearts of Atlantis is released and he can
prove just how much *that* book sucks.)
Robert, you point out the stupidity involved in Trisha getting lost as if it
is totally unbelievable. To that I respond "If people always did the smart
thing, no one would ever get lost." The fact that people *do* get lost proves
people do stupid things. Why should Trisha be any different?
As for the rest, you are harping on what amounts to insignificant details and
writing style. If you find it impossible to enjoy a book unless the details
are absolutely perfect, I don't understand how you can enjoy any book short of
full fantasy. If you no longer enjoy King's writing style, Great! Wonderful!
I'm happy for you! But I think we get the point by now, and many people still
enjoy his style (or at least find it inoffensive enough that it doesn't
interfere with the story.)
And finally, I am sure I could come up with a reasonable explanation or
rebuttal to every point you make, with a few possible exceptions (like feeding
on the eyelids - which didn't bother me as much as you but did seem somewhat
more for the gross-out than not). Reasonable to anyone except, of course, you.
But I have better things to do than follow the writings of someone that made
up his mind before ever reading a word of the novel and now, IMO, is only
trying to prove he made the correct decision in *his* pregame by nit-picking
the novel to death.
I was hoping to read a review of the novel written by you, but once again you
have dived into minutiae instead. More the pity.
Have a nice day!
Oh yeah! You can send me a nice thank-you note for pointing out the bit about
the rusty *lipped* pump. (BTW: You screwed up on that little detail. The whole
pump wasn't rusty, just the lip was rusty! Using your reasoning I guess your
whole post must suck because you screwed up the minute details. Maybe I SHOULD
spend time dissecting your post to see exactly how many details *you* screwed
up..!
Naw...;)
--
John for e-mail, "mod_con" = "modcon"; "nospam.org" = "ionet.net"
randall
but he must be stupid, niave, or a terrible liar. I respect liberals that
pick a path and stay on it but this guy is so wishy washy that it disgusts
me to even read a quote by him in a news group. Sorry for the rant but he
really aggravates me. Now back to your regular programming.
Jeff & Traci De
I'll agree he is pretty all over the place. But yaknow, most real
people are. In my experience, only political activists are all the way
down the party line.
Not to say I agree with all or even most of Maher's sentiments. But he
often makes good points, and is amusing even when he doesn't.
Traci
sig snipped out of respect for your feelings ;-)
Richard Harter
>Just a short comment on your Bill Maher quote. Bill is not an ignorant man
>but he must be stupid, niave, or a terrible liar. I respect liberals that
>pick a path and stay on it but this guy is so wishy washy that it disgusts
>me to even read a quote by him in a news group. Sorry for the rant but he
>really aggravates me. Now back to your regular programming.
I understand the Sears is having a special on a sense of humor; you
might rush down and check it out. You never can tell when having one
will come in handy.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.
Ted Samsel
: "randall" <rand...@lava.net> wrote:
: >Just a short comment on your Bill Maher quote. Bill is not an ignorant man
: >but he must be stupid, niave, or a terrible liar. I respect liberals that
: >pick a path and stay on it but this guy is so wishy washy that it disgusts
: >me to even read a quote by him in a news group. Sorry for the rant but he
: >really aggravates me. Now back to your regular programming.
: I understand the Sears is having a special on a sense of humor; you
: might rush down and check it out. You never can tell when having one
: will come in handy.
Make sure you get the maintenance agreement, too.
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)
Heather Henderson
little pitcher, and has a good nickname: "Flash".
I wonder what he feels about being a character in a Stephen King book.
--
Heather Henderson
HRH...@aol.com while I'm on the road
http://scc.net/~heather
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
nos...@forme.thanks
intended in the Second Amendment is the right to own muskets...]
Norman Rockwell writes:
> Just a short comment on your Bill Maher quote. Bill is not an ignorant man
> but he must be stupid, niave, or a terrible liar. I respect liberals that
> pick a path and stay on it but this guy is so wishy washy that it disgusts
> me to even read a quote by him in a news group. Sorry for the rant but he
> really aggravates me. Now back to your regular programming.
He's not ignorant, but he must be stupid? They must be after your
AK47 arsenal again, Henry. Maher made a satirical jest. What are
you, "niave" or something? And the jest would seem to accompany a
strong opinion thereby nullifying "wishy-washy". Wouldn't it now?
Jim Collier
Max Devore
Heather Henderson <HRH...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:7g5173$9a7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
> I'm interested in the book because I like Tom Gordon too. He's a stylish
> little pitcher, and has a good nickname: "Flash".
>
> I wonder what he feels about being a character in a Stephen King book.
"For a man like Stpehn King to do something like this is truly a blessing to
me an my family," said Gordon, who was "most of the way" through King's
224-page novel at the time. "It's all my family is talking about," continued
Gordon. "I'm very excited about it. I'm just grateful it was Stephen King
doing this and not somebody pulling a prank."
(King added that he was glad he hadn't decided to do The Girl Who Loved
Darryl Strawberry given that players recent umm hijinks)
See the full story at
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/118/living/King_homers_off_Gordon%2b.shtml
Robert Whelan
continued... (Note. This is not a review, just the transcription of
my notes on the book, with some explanations.)
39. When Trisha almost runs over a cliff, she sees "nothing but
a gray shimmer of early summer air...". This despite the
fact that earlier, before she went on her panicking rampage
through the woods, she had noticed that the last bits of
blue were vanishing from the already cloudy sky. After
she saves herself from falling off the cliff, she notices
"the sky, now, sagging with rainclouds." This conflicts
with the impression of the "shimmer of early summer air"
which I would associate with sunlight and heat, not cloudiness.
43. The descriptions of the ever present cloud of bugs seems
overdone. Surely during a downpour the number of bugs would
decrease at least a little!
46. "(it never occurred to her, then or later, that littering - any sign
that
she'd been there might actually save her life.)
Well, since she doesn't litter, and it doesn't occur to her, why waste time
telling us about it? Had she littered, and had it eventually led to her
rescue, it might be significant. Why not tell us about what Trisha *was*
thinking instead?
At this point, Trisha eats the last of her food. This is significant
later, when she recollects that she had, in a totally unbelievable
fashion, passed up the opportunity to eat because she "hadn't thought"
to collect any edible berries she had come across.
51. It has been raining all night, and as Trisha descends a steep,
rocky slope to get to a stream, the text tells us "but it continued to
drizzle" to establish that the rocks are going to be especially
treacherous. As she climbs down, a wasp flies into her face, making
her panic, lose her footing, and fall screaming.
Wasps don't fly around in the rain, even a drizzle. Since this
wasp's nest is found at the bottom of the slope, apparently this
wasp was leaving the nest...for no particular reason but to
gratuitously crash into Trisha's face.
52-54. Screaming in pain and terror, Trisha falls down the slope, but
despite
the overdescribed pain and terror, she is still able to casuallly consider
the roots of a bush she tries to grab onto as "stupid" for being too weak
to hold.
Trisha is "screaming in pain, and terror, and surprise", she bends her
leg painfully, in a way that made me think she would be permanently
crippled, smashes her arm, bruises her ribs badly, and yet all this
pain and terror is forgotten when, at the end of her fall, she feels
a sting from a wasp! Is the pain from a wasp sting SO bad that it
overwhelms the pain and terror of falling down a rocky slope?
"...and then, before she could even look up from her arm, a needle
of pain drove into her..."
When she opens her eyes, she's surrounded by wasps. Why so active?
It's been raining all night, and it's still drizzling, but these
guys are buzzing mad, and apparently all out of their nest
before Trisha can look up, just because Trisha banged into their tree?
Wasps are described as "plump, ungainly poison factories". This
exact description is repeated again twice in this short novel, on
page 80 and 209.
64. "arm farts were the funniest thing in the universe, except for real
farts."
Now, I don't want to impose sex-roles on children, but I can't help
thinking
that Trisha is an unusual little girl, as are her friends with whom she
likes to make farting noises...Trisha is being made the perfect "Daddy's
Girl" here...just as Frannie in the "Uncut" THE STAND loved to curse
with her father. Stephen King loves farts, so he imposes his love
for them on this little girl.
65. Trisha's dad, despite the fact that King characterizes him as drunk
because he is dripping his ice cream, sound far too wise and coherent
for a drunk, as he tells Trisha about God, and the "subaudible."
66. One of the rare moments in the book when I was happy. Trisha has
flashback conversation with her father about God. After his rather
comfortless explanation of the "subaudible"...
"She had gotten it, but hadn't liked it. It was too much like getting a
letter
you thought might be interesting and important, only when you opened it it
was addressed to Dear Occupant."
69. "Didn't realize she was doing it" Again.
71. "The bark scraped against the wasp stings against her hip, but she
hardly
noticed." Then why must we?
75. "She knocked on the wood of the tree trunk without realizing she was
doing
it." (sigh)
80. "plump ungainly poison factories" AGAIN (to describe wasps in a dream.)
82. I found Trisha's vivid appreciation of the damage done to her face
by mosquito and wasp stings to be overdone, particularly since it is
taking place by moonlight, in the reflection of a pool. Exactly how
much detail can one see by even strong moonlight, in a pool? A pool
is not exactly a mirror, no matter how strong the moonlight. The
smashing of a mosquito, bloated with Trisha's blood, which squirts
into her eye, is totally gratuitious, and depends quite a bit on
the assumption that the light is bright enough to appreciate the
redness of the blood for the full gross out effect, as does Trisha's
gratuitous description of a wasp sting as looking like an "erupting
volcano".
83. Someone pointed out that the episode of "I Love Lucy" that Trisha
describes as having seen on "Nick at Nite" is totally made up. I'm
depending on this at second hand, but if it's true, it's very lazy,
and very clumsy, and is contemptuous of the problem caused when
readers who are "Lucy" fans are dropped from the story by the
recognition of this as totally made up. I suppose it works for those
who don't know "I love Lucy" that well, but shouldn't King aim
a little higher in his desire to convince his audience?
88. The crisis, in a clumsy sidetrip to visit her distraught parents,
is shown to reunite her mom and dad when they have sex. The sexual
attraction begins when Larry comforts Quilla after she awakens from
a nightmare about Trisha being menaced. Her nightmare, implying that
she had been asleep, is contradicted later on page 92 when it states,
after letting us know that they had had "satisfying but unplanned
sex." that "Of the entire family, it was Pete McFarland.."(the brother)
who slept the most uneasily." But Pete isn't described as waking out
of a screaming nighmare the way Quilla did. Sounds like King was
considering giving the nightmare to Pete instead, to contrast Pete
with the sexually sated parents, but never went back and edited out
Quilla's nightmare.
90. "`Imagine something nice - best thing to do when the Sandman's Late,
Trisha.' Imagine she was saved? No, that would only make her feel worse,
like imagining a glass of water when you were thirsty. She *was* thirsty
she realized."
Ugh! Do I have to explain why this is a ludicrous train of thought?
90. She should save the batteries." One of the many repetitions of her need
to save batteries. One mention would have been enough. Particularly
annoying if you are waiting for her to "discover" the batteries in her
Gameboy, assuming it had batteries of some kind. I just wish some
mention of the batteries, or lack thereof, had been mentioned so that
this did not become an unresolved red herring.
94. A flashback to Trisha and Pepsi's experiments with makeup, which
resulted
in Trisha's remembering that they "probably looked like the worlds
youngest
stripteasers." Seems an odd way for a 9 year old girl to think about
herself, and an odd way for King to be thinking about a pair of 9 year
olds.
94 - 95 Trisha thinks about how hungry she is. Imagines having hamburgers
and other foods. Strangely contradicted when she reaches the swamp,
she recollects...
99."She had already passed several more clumps of bushes loaded with them"
(berries) She should have picked them and put them in her pack, but
she had been concentrating so hard on the stream that it hadn't occurred
to her to do so."
I really find it hard to believe that a little hungry nine year old would
concentrate so hard on following a stream that it would not occur to her
to take advantage of FOOD. Do any parents out there have kids with this
problem? It's totally bizarre.
Because of her hunger, and her memory of having passed checkerberry bushes
on her way down the stream, Trisha decides, not to go BACK to those
checkerberry trees that she conveniently forgot to take advantage of, but
to head forward into the boggy "oozy" land ahead, because she think she
sees a hill ahead that she imagines will be full of checkerberries (and
this is what triggers the recollection of having passed, without thinking
about it, the checkerberry trees along the stream.).
102. Impelled by hunger to walk in the "oozy" ground into the swamp, Trisha
finds out that it's getting muddier and wetter, when she loses her shoe.
in the deep mud. At this point she realizes that the hill she imagined
being full of berry trees was an illusion. You would think she would
now head back to drier land, and to where she knows the berry trees
are that she conveniently ignored before. But no...
"She turned and looked back but could no longer tell where she had entered
the purgatorial zone. If she had thought to mark the place with something
bright.."
Despite her retroactive bright idea of marking the stream with a piece of
her poncho, Trisha fails to realize that she has been traversing "oozy"
ground, and has, as anyone traversing such ground, left a trail of
footprints behind! All she has to do is follow them back! But King, as
usual, doesn't let Trisha try too hard to figure a way back, because he
wants
her to head deeper into the wet muddy swamp.
Look back at these descriptions of her first entering the swamp...
p 97. "a deceptive crust of moss over a soupy pocket of mud."
p 99. "she tested a patch of soft ground, and watched with profound
misgivings
as water promptly seeped around the toe of her sneaker."
She would definitely have left footprints behind, even if they were among
the "hummocks" of slightly more sturdy ground she uses to step on.
102. "Oh Fuck" says Trisha, "for the first time in her life." Wow. Does
anyone
truly believe this? I was using it at 8, even though I didn't know what it
meant. Kids repeat what their friends say.
108. It seems kinda desperate to try to make Beavers seem scary. Trisha is
delighted by the Beavers, as they remind her of illustrations in "Wind in
the Willows" (which I'll accept, even though there are no Beaver
illustrations in that book, that I remember) and when the Beavers see
her they all RUN AWAY. Which makes Trisha's later worry about their
big teeth, and the idea of them swimming up to her underwater and biting
her seem contradictory of her positive reaction, and gratuitous.
109 Trisha encounters an Island covered with edible plants..."Bug island
would be a better name. There were *lots* of bugs out here, of course,
but
she kept replenishing her mud pack and had pretty much forgotten about
them now."
Here we have a contradiction...Trisha is surrounded by clouds of bugs, that
she's
forgotten about, which must be thicker than the overdescribed clouds of them
when she was in the the woods, because this is a swamp, but she's still able
to notice that this island is "buggy"? How? It must be mind-bogglingly black
with them! Horrible, horrible example of King, noticing his own continuity
errors, and thinking he has fixed them simply by commenting on them.
110. Notices blood on the island, and imagines that it is the scene of a
bloody Beaver battle. "she wasn't hungry enough to meet a wounded Beaver."
Again, the first I've ever seen of anyone attempting to paint Beavers as
vicious. Maybe it's true...I don't know, but I don't know why Trisha would
think so.
110. Trisha wades through the swamp...."she guessed if she had a leotard on,
she'd look like the guest of the day on "Workout with Wendy" Pump those
hips,
flex those butts, work those shoulders!"
This is an incredibly inappropriate thing for a little girl to be thinking
about
herself as she wades through a swamp...on a par with imagining her and Pepsi
as
"the worlds youngest stripteasers". What the hell is King thinking?
110. Gratuitously, Trisha's delight at finding an island full of edible
plants
is foiled by her girly inability to get over a bloody deer's head on the
island, which grosses her out so much that we are treated to tension as
she
almost faints, with the danger of drowning.
114. "Boys to Da Maxx" This is a totally fictional rap group, of course,
and is what King should have done with Trisha's other favorite books
and TV episodes, instead of making up stuff about real books and TV
shows that are recognizably false.
117. Despite previously nearly falling over a cliff, when she was running,
and the pain of actually falling down a rocky slope, Trisha, when she
hears the sound of water, RUNS AGAIN!
118. "An ugly pocket of nettles that tore fresh cuts on her forearms, and
the
backs of her hands, but she hardly noticed."
Nettles don't have thorns. Unless Maine nettles are different from the ones
I
know, they are plants with small delicate stinging bristles, which feel
like mosquito bites if you brush against them. Nettles wouldn't tear cuts
in anyone. At least, I don't think so. But perhaps there are breeds of
Nettles that DO have thorns? I'm open to this possibility, if anyone can
correct me on this.
118. "She walked along the edge of the drop with perfect
unself-consciousness."
Despite the fact that when she had come near to falling over the edge of
a drop earlier, she had fainted with terror...
118. Trisha walks down a "sluice" and slips, and decides to slide down.
As she slides, she laces up her fingers over her head, and on the
way down hits a rock that "numbs" her fingers, and which she thinks
would have "torn open her scalp". If she hit it hard enough to
"tear open her scalp" then why are her fingers only "numb"? Why
haven't her fingers been torn open?
123. I don't know much about diseases of the digestive system, but doesn't
it take time for a disease to move from the stomach to the intestines?
I just find the fact that Trisha is vomiting AND has diarrhea at
exactly the same time, without any pause between, implausible, and
done only for the gross out, pain piling on pain effect.
123. "Utterly seck-shoo-all." A saying of her friend Pepsi's, but along
with
all the other odd sexually aware comments King is making Trisha think
about
herself, such as picturing her in leotards, or as a stripteaser, I find this
thought of Trisha's disturbing, no matter who she blames it on. Perhaps
King was trying to distinguish between a "good girl" who is merely repeating
sexual phrases without meaning them, and "bad girls" like Pepsi, or
the bad sexualizing influence of Television, but it's unclear.
126. "saving the batteries" Yeah, we know! We know she has to save the damn
batteries!
127. King cuts away to the search for Trisha, and a prank call that blames
Trisha's disappearance on a released felon. Peculiar focus on the fact
that the investigators are looking for possessions of Trisha that do
NOT include her panties, because guys like that like to keep their
victims' underpants. Is King just making this up? Really odd, and
creepy, and more perverted focus on Trisha. Ugh. Also, I doubt that
real police would take a likely prank phone call like this seriously
enough
to call off a search.
137. Trish likes Beavers, but screams like an idiot when surprised by a
deer?
And the deer does NOT run away? I found both elements implausible.
144. Spookiest, and most effective scene in the book, when Trisha converses
with the "blackrobe." The "blackrobe" is spare, and poetic, and
chilling. Trisha shrieks and whines annoyingly.
149. Why the sarcastic "Yeah baby" comment on Trisha's singing to herself?
Is Trisha being sarcastic to herself? Or is King being sarcastic?
I actually, for a moment, felt for Trisha as she sang to herself, only
to be jolted out of it by that rude, cold, "Yeah, Baby."
146. Was frustrated that Trisha, after finally finding a Checkerberry tree
to eat from, is still looking for excuses NOT to eat, as when she
blames the Checkerberry leaves for her hallucinations, and decides NOT
to eat any more of them....the girl needs every bit of help she can get,
and she's deciding NOT to eat things she's been told are good to eat
by her mother?
153. I found Trisha's manic loathing for the sports talk show host peculiar.
For someone alone, in the woods, she's awfully picky about the company
her walkman provides her.
157. Trisha dreams about hearing something "chattering in the woods" and
wakes up to find her own teeth chattering Somehow, other than the
fact that both concepts share the word "chattering" I find it hard to
translate the clicking sound of teeth to the "chattering" of some animal
in the woods.
166. I get the feeling King was trying to gross me out by Trisha's eating of
a raw fish. I just don't see how the girl who wouldn't eat fiddlehead
plants because she couldn't stand the sight of a severed deer's head
would be able to manage this. I personally don't find the image to
be particularly gross, even though I think King wants me to, and it
contradicts her earlier girly squeamishness.
169. I notice that Trisha has already used the phrase "puppy-shit" too many
times already.
170 Trisha's choice of direction is described as ""a bad decision; the worst
she'd made since leaving the path in the first place".. At this point,
after so many bad decisions, I find this ominous foreshadowing
unconvincing, and, in fact, false, since 170 pages of pain and torment
are already behind, and the bulk of what remains involves Trisha's
finally finding her way to safety. Is it really Kosher to falsely
foreshadow disaster?
171. A flashback to her parents' arguments..."(he drank too much, she spent
too much, you promised me you'd, why don't you ever, yatata yatata-yatata,
dahdah-dahdah-dahdah)" King actually considers this illuminating?
182 "puppy shit" again.
187 Still worried about saving her batteries.
190. Wasp god "She is mine, she is my property."
194 Wasp god AGAIN "She is mine, she is my property." Redundant!
197 "Bork the Dork had also said "I must admit that he is a sports fan,
not necessarily a Red Sox fan". Gratuitous repetition of this phrase.
And it isn't that funny, unless you are a baseball fan.
9. "plump ungainly poison factories" for the third redundant time.
By the end I was just coasting. The Wasp Monster turning out to be
an actual bear was unconvincing. Do bears knock over trees and rip
the heads off of deer? Feel that King was making a gratuitous
"Dark Tower" tie in to "The Wastelands" and that Shardik bear.
Both have overdescribed numbers of creepy crawlies on their
faces.
King really dragged out the hospital bedside scene, as Trisha struggles
to make her final "pointing" gesture.
When I've digested all this, I'll post a more concise review....guess what
the verdict will be?
Robert W.
Weismann
> 39. When Trisha almost runs over a cliff, she sees "nothing but
> a gray shimmer of early summer air...". This despite the
> fact that earlier, before she went on her panicking rampage
> through the woods, she had noticed that the last bits of
> blue were vanishing from the already cloudy sky. After
> she saves herself from falling off the cliff, she notices
> "the sky, now, sagging with rainclouds." This conflicts
> with the impression of the "shimmer of early summer air"
> which I would associate with sunlight and heat, not cloudiness.
>
>
you seem to have forgotten the "gray" from the first quote. In order of
appearance, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have (1) the last bits of
blue vanishing from the already cloudy sky, then (2) the gray shimmer of
early summer air, then (3) the sky sagging with raincloads. Progression
towards a summer storm. Perfect sense.
--
Beth
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field
somewhere and don't notice it."
Alice Walker
Tim Moses
Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>wasp's nest is found at the bottom of the slope, apparently this
>wasp was leaving the nest...for no particular reason but to
>gratuitously crash into Trisha's face.
OR - it was returning to the nest, trying to get out
of the drizzle.
>When she opens her eyes, she's surrounded by wasps. Why so active?
>It's been raining all night, and it's still drizzling, but these
>guys are buzzing mad, and apparently all out of their nest
>before Trisha can look up, just because Trisha banged into their tree?
You ever met a wasp?
Yes - this is wasp behavior.
They take the slightest provocation as a
personal attack, then retaliate 100-fold.
Doesn't matter if you didn't intend any
'insult.'
KAH
Lisa
>46. "(it never occurred to her, then or later, that littering - any sign
>that
> she'd been there might actually save her life.)
>
>Well, since she doesn't litter, and it doesn't occur to her, why waste time
>telling us about it? Had she littered, and had it eventually led to her
>rescue, it might be significant. Why not tell us about what Trisha *was*
>thinking instead?
Maybe the reason he mentions to us that she didn't litter was because if he
hadn't, you would have made 1000 negative comments to the fact that he
HADN'T mentioned that she could have littered and possibly been rescued.
>Trisha is "screaming in pain, and terror, and surprise", she bends her
>leg painfully, in a way that made me think she would be permanently
>crippled, smashes her arm, bruises her ribs badly, and yet all this
>pain and terror is forgotten when, at the end of her fall, she feels
>a sting from a wasp! Is the pain from a wasp sting SO bad that it
>overwhelms the pain and terror of falling down a rocky slope?
Have you ever gotten stung by a wasp?
>It's been raining all night, and it's still drizzling, but these
>guys are buzzing mad, and apparently all out of their nest
>before Trisha can look up, just because Trisha banged into their tree?
I don't know this for a fact, and i'm too lazy to look it up right
now,,,,but i believe that yes, banging into a wasp nest might be enough to
provoke them to attack.
>64. "arm farts were the funniest thing in the universe, except for real
>farts."
>
> Now, I don't want to impose sex-roles on children, but I can't help
>thinking
>that Trisha is an unusual little girl, as are her friends with whom she
>likes to make farting noises...Trisha is being made the perfect "Daddy's
>Girl" here...just as Frannie in the "Uncut" THE STAND loved to curse
>with her father. Stephen King loves farts, so he imposes his love
>for them on this little girl.
Do you have any children? In my experience with them, they all seem to
think that any kind of gross noises that come out of them or other people
are very funny.
>65. Trisha's dad, despite the fact that King characterizes him as drunk
>because he is dripping his ice cream, sound far too wise and coherent
>for a drunk, as he tells Trisha about God, and the "subaudible."
Just because the man was drunk, doesn't mean that he can't talk coherently
about something he believes in. He obviously wasn't "falling on the fall"
drunk. While some, or even most, might get incredibly stupid and
incoherent while drunk, this doesn't mean that everyone in that situation
would be the same. Or maybe all his talk about the sabaudible was just
drunkeness.....there really isn't enough told about the man to know whether
that talk WAS just drunken foolishness, or something he honestly believed
in.
>71. "The bark scraped against the wasp stings against her hip, but she
>hardly
> noticed." Then why must we?
Again, if he hadn't mentioned it, you would have complained that she bumped
against her sting and didn't notice it, then you would have probably
commented that King was getting lazy and that he probably thought that we
had forgotten about the stings she had received there.
>82. I found Trisha's vivid appreciation of the damage done to her face
> by mosquito and wasp stings to be overdone, particularly since it is
> taking place by moonlight, in the reflection of a pool. Exactly how
> much detail can one see by even strong moonlight, in a pool? A pool
> is not exactly a mirror, no matter how strong the moonlight.
If the moon is bright enough, it can make a pond or pool look like a mirror.
Try it sometime.
>83. Someone pointed out that the episode of "I Love Lucy" that Trisha
> describes as having seen on "Nick at Nite" is totally made up. I'm
> depending on this at second hand, but if it's true, it's very lazy,
> and very clumsy, and is contemptuous of the problem caused when
> readers who are "Lucy" fans are dropped from the story by the
> recognition of this as totally made up. I suppose it works for those
> who don't know "I love Lucy" that well, but shouldn't King aim
> a little higher in his desire to convince his audience?
Have we forgotten that this is a FICTION story? I'm not really sure why
this is bugging some people. I have seen every Lucy episode there is...i
think it's a great show. My intelligence wasn't the least bit hurt by the
fact that he made this up. I knew it was a STORY when i started the book.
I wasn't reading it to find out facts.
"Of the entire family, it was Pete McFarland.."(the brother)
> who slept the most uneasily." But Pete isn't described as waking out
> of a screaming nighmare the way Quilla did. Sounds like King was
> considering giving the nightmare to Pete instead, to contrast Pete
> with the sexually sated parents, but never went back and edited out
> Quilla's nightmare.
Just because Peter didn't have a screaming nightmare doesn't mean the he
slept any more easily than his mother or father. Speaking from someone who
doesn't sleep easily at all, i can tell you that sometimes i'd LIKE to have
a nightmare...this would mean that i was at one point asleep!
>99."She had already passed several more clumps of bushes loaded with them"
> (berries) She should have picked them and put them in her pack, but
> she had been concentrating so hard on the stream that it hadn't occurred
> to her to do so."
>
>I really find it hard to believe that a little hungry nine year old would
>concentrate so hard on following a stream that it would not occur to her
>to take advantage of FOOD. Do any parents out there have kids with this
>problem? It's totally bizarre.
Sometimes my kids get so involved in what they're doing that they forget
about food. I understand that she was very hungry by then, but i'm sure
that the foremost thing on her mind at that time was being saved, and to her
the stream meant people and safety. I think that was totally believable.
>
>Despite her retroactive bright idea of marking the stream with a piece of
>her poncho, Trisha fails to realize that she has been traversing "oozy"
>ground, and has, as anyone traversing such ground, left a trail of
>footprints behind! All she has to do is follow them back! But King, as
>usual, doesn't let Trisha try too hard to figure a way back, because he
>wants
>her to head deeper into the wet muddy swamp.
If the swamp was extremely "oozy", then maybe the footprints immediately
filled up again with water, and then disappeared. Makes sense to me.
>
>102. "Oh Fuck" says Trisha, "for the first time in her life." Wow. Does
>anyone
> truly believe this? I was using it at 8, even though I didn't know what it
> meant. Kids repeat what their friends say.
What kind of kids did you hang out with? My son is 9, and the worst he's
said is damnit. My daughter is 8, and she'd never say anything like
that....it's just not her. I cursed for the first time when i was in 6th
grade...i said shit. Not all kids will do what other kids do....some choose
to be leaders instead of followers.
>117. Despite previously nearly falling over a cliff, when she was running,
> and the pain of actually falling down a rocky slope, Trisha, when she
> hears the sound of water, RUNS AGAIN!
Did you ever hear about people that do things they would never be able to do
in times of stress....like lifting a car off of a wounded child? I would
think this was a time of great stress to her, and her body was allowing her
to do much more because of the extra adrenaline that i would imagine was
running through her.
>118. Trisha walks down a "sluice" and slips, and decides to slide down.
> As she slides, she laces up her fingers over her head, and on the
> way down hits a rock that "numbs" her fingers, and which she thinks
> would have "torn open her scalp". If she hit it hard enough to
> "tear open her scalp" then why are her fingers only "numb"? Why
> haven't her fingers been torn open?
Why do some adults fall out of high story windows and die, yet some children
fall out and barely get scratched?
>
>123. I don't know much about diseases of the digestive system, but doesn't
> it take time for a disease to move from the stomach to the intestines?
> I just find the fact that Trisha is vomiting AND has diarrhea at
> exactly the same time, without any pause between, implausible, and
> done only for the gross out, pain piling on pain effect.
I guess you've never had a bad virus before, and sat on the bowl with a
garbage pail or pot on your lap so you could do both things at once. (sorry
for the little gross out there.) :-)
>
>153. I found Trisha's manic loathing for the sports talk show host
peculiar.
> For someone alone, in the woods, she's awfully picky about the company
> her walkman provides her.
Some people just have that effect on people. They are very annoying.
Better to be alone than with someone droning on annoyingly.
>169. I notice that Trisha has already used the phrase "puppy-shit" too many
> times already.
When kids get a "pet phrase", they use it to death. Trust me on that one.
Or if you don't trust me,,,,wanna come spend a few days with my kids? :-)
>182 "puppy shit" again.
see above
>Do bears knock over trees and rip
>the heads off of deer?
Do they? Have you researched it?
>When I've digested all this, I'll post a more concise review....guess what
>the verdict will be?
>
>Robert W.
Umm....you didn't like it? I'm curious.......you seem to have so many
problems with this book...and from what I've seen on this ng you have a
problem with alot of his books. I'm guessing that you're a stickler for
details, and you like things to be perfectly right all the time. Maybe you
should get away from stories and things that aren't supposed to be true, and
try some non-fiction books. That's just my opinion though. I know this is
a group to discuss books that we've read, but you seem to put an awful lot
of time and energy into picking apart just about every page. I know I feel
like I put an awful lot of time into this post. But I happen to have some
extra time at the moment.....my kids are all at school, and I needed a
break.
I hope you like the next book better. But if you don't, I'm sure we'll all
hear about it.
:-)
Lisa
QDaisy
Tim Moses
Lisa wrote in message
Robert:
>>64. "arm farts were the funniest thing in the universe, except for real
>>farts."
>>
>> Now, I don't want to impose sex-roles on children, but I can't help
>>thinking
>>that Trisha is an unusual little girl, as are her friends with whom she
>>likes to make farting noises...Trisha is being made the perfect "Daddy's
>>Girl" here...just as Frannie in the "Uncut" THE STAND loved to curse
>>with her father. Stephen King loves farts, so he imposes his love
>>for them on this little girl.
>
>
>Do you have any children? In my experience with them, they all seem to
>think that any kind of gross noises that come out of them or other people
>are very funny.
Particularly little girls with big brothers....
Or (as in my own childhood), little girls who
grow up in a neighborhood that's predominantly
little boys (10 boys: 2 girls....it's a wonder I EVER
learned to jump rope......)
>>123. I don't know much about diseases of the digestive system, but doesn't
>> it take time for a disease to move from the stomach to the
intestines?
>> I just find the fact that Trisha is vomiting AND has diarrhea at
>> exactly the same time, without any pause between, implausible, and
>> done only for the gross out, pain piling on pain effect.
>
>
>
>I guess you've never had a bad virus before, and sat on the bowl with a
>garbage pail or pot on your lap so you could do both things at once.
(sorry
>for the little gross out there.) :-)
OR been pregnant & had morning sickness AND the
runs at the same time....
Oops - too much sharing....
As for diseases of the Intestinal tract:
An irritant CAN hit the stomach & intestines at
the same time. It is not only possible, but LIKELY
that an irritant that strikes at the gastro-intestinal
border will result in simultaneous vomiting &
profuse and watery diarrhea (the upper intestines do
not absorb much water: that's the job of the lower
intestines). Remember, the stomach & intestines
ARE closely connected (!). All an irritant need do
is attack the upper duodenum (right next to the
stomach: it's what the stomach empties into).
It doesn't even need to directly affect the stomach:
if the gastro-duodenal juncture becomes 'upset,'
the stomach can react to this.
KAH
claude
collection and buy him one?? I'll contribute 100 of my up and coming
Scubby Snacks. Anyone else?
--
Claudia
(Group's Official Pantheist)
<:( Teaching a child to not step on a caterpillar is just as
important to the caterpillar as it is to the child.
Weismann
>I have a few comments about your comments.
>>because he is dripping his ice cream, sound far too wise and coherent
>>for a drunk, as he tells Trisha about God, and the "subaudible."
>
>
>Just because the man was drunk, doesn't mean that he can't talk coherently
>about something he believes in. He obviously wasn't "falling on the fall"
>drunk. While some, or even most, might get incredibly stupid and
>incoherent while drunk, this doesn't mean that everyone in that situation
>would be the same. Or maybe all his talk about the sabaudible was just
>drunkeness.....there really isn't enough told about the man to know whether
>that talk WAS just drunken foolishness, or something he honestly believed
>in.
>
>
In my wild days, I partied with some people who got incredibly philosophical
while intoxicated. They could have been blundering idiots sober, but with
some liquor, they could postulate rings around our professors....
JSM
unreasonable and arrogant in his opinions - he will never considering any
interpretation that falls outside his narrow view as having any validity - so
I missed the follow-up post (thank God!).
The reason Robert does this type of thing? He has become obsessed with a
personal mission to prove beyond any doubt that King has become a lousy writer
that is contemptuous of his readers as well as extremely lazy in his
plotlines. This causes him to read whatever he desires that "proves" his
hypothesis into everything King writes and spew it ad-infinitum into this
newsgroup as he attempts to convert others to his view. Disagree with him and
he will tell you you're wrong and his interpretation is the only one that
makes sense or should be considered.
Regarding his 'review', Robert made it very clear in posts made prior to the
release of the book that he thought it would suck - all this just by reading
the 'pregame' that had been posted on the web. With that type of attitude
going into the story there was no way he would ever enjoy it. In fact, at this
point it would be counterproductive for him to say he enjoyed it.
The man should just be ignored until he can discuss something without feeling
as if someone has to 'win' the discussion.
John
In article <7g9me6$5afa$1...@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com>, qda...@prodigy.net
says...
Lisa
brain is temporarily frozen. I think it got numb this morning responding to
his post. So think of something for me, and add it to the contribution
list.
:-)
Lisa
QDaisy
claude wrote in message <37287D38...@ibm.net>...
David J. Loftus
I see Robert Whelan is once again consuming loads of his and everybody
else's time in picking what he sees as nits in other folks' work, rather
than trying to do something creative and original on his own. I saw
him do it with a not terribly distinguished Harlan Ellison story on
alt.fan.harlan-ellison a year ago, and with an ancient Tom Stoppard
play he had read (and the "Shakespeare in Love" movie which he had
not seen) on rec.arts.books four or five months ago. You obviously have
a mind, Robert; why not put it to some good use instead of kicking
people more talented and/or more successful than yourself?
Just one item--
Lisa (qda...@prodigy.net) wrote:
in response to one of the items on Whelan's interminable list:
: > 102. "Oh Fuck" says Trisha, "for the first time in her life." Wow. Does
: > anyone truly believe this? I was using it at 8, even though I didn't
: > know what it meant. Kids repeat what their friends say.
: What kind of kids did you hang out with? My son is 9, and the worst he's
: said is damnit. My daughter is 8, and she'd never say anything like
: that....it's just not her. I cursed for the first time when i was in 6th
: grade...i said shit. Not all kids will do what other kids do....some
: choose to be leaders instead of followers.
I remember being secretly shocked when a good friend of mine habitually used
"shit" at age 11 or 12. He was more popular and less intellectual than
I. I didn't get into the swing of things in this realm until several years
later. One does indeed repeat what one's friends (and parents) say,
Robert -- but one does not necessarily have the same friends and
parents as everyone else.
David Loftus