Chapter Three
‘If you start to slide you might not be able to stop’. So says Jacobs, but that is how this chapter feels, too – like the reader has been shunted down a slope into the uncanny with no way to climb up and out. King does an excellent job of creating a chilling and engaging story in this chapter.
The tone and content of chapter three are definitely out for scares, but perhaps not as one might have expected them. The terrors that open this chapter are dreadful and repulsive, but actually rather tenderly detailed, and the real horror of the events is how wonderfully sad they are. The imagery circulates between the beautiful, the uncanny, the heart-breaking and the downright disgusting in a way that sends the reader teetering and off-balance.
The use of narrative past tense accelerates the feeling of hopeless despair and horror, as whenever Jamie’s narration refers to one of the characters in his present, the past tense descriptors make it sound like they are already dead.
The structure of the plot, too, seems designed wobble the reader by skirting and scurrying around the information the readers want in order to create suspense – and, for me, this is definitely working to create an engrossing and spooky story.
Illusion and the power of lying to the frightened are themes that continue to escalate and lend the book a buzzing, forthcoming sense of unease. This chapter builds on the characters recurrent thoughts about the light and darkness in us all and in the world. It is rather a tired trope, but I feel like King is bringing some life back to it.
Chapter Four
Acoustic is sweet, but electric is powerful. That seems to be the message to take from this chapter.
It rather pains me to say so, but this chapter felt a little redundant. I enjoyed it, but it felt a little surplus, and this is reflected in the length of this chapter review – I do not have much to say about it. The chapter feels like it was added as a tension breaker, but I did not feel that this break in tension was needed – I was enjoying the shivery descent into the bizarre, the wretched and the revolting, and I was looking forward to more of the same.
The events of this chapter could have a great significance down the line that I can’t yet see, of course. I will have to trust the process and continue on into the unknown.
