11/22/63 – February CC Book Club Selection

Parent Cafe
101

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After reading Mary’s comment, I went back through my notes to see if I could find anything with deeper meaning or symbolism. </p>

<p>On page 66, Al asked Jake if he’s heard of “Occam’s Razor. Jakes response:

On page 303 we read of this theory again when Jake decides he doesn’t need to live in Dallas until 1963.

If Jake had kept this theory in mind later in the story, he would have acted on the odd feeling he had about the car he kept seeing over and over again, the car that ended up being Sadie’s ex-husband’s.</p>

<p>Perhaps this is King’s way of explaining his belief that Oswald acted alone? I know it’s a reach, but I’m looking for depth.</p>

<p>On page 492 we learn Oswald was reading Atlas Shrugged. King must have used that book purposefully. I read Atlas Shrugged many, many years ago, so I’ve got nothing in my memory to quote. Wikipedia says “The theme of Atlas Shrugged, as Rand described it, is “the role of man’s mind in existence”.” </p>

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I think it does! When Jake meets Sadie at Jodie’s Centennial Celebration, she says to Jake, “Mr. Amberson, where do I know you from? Because I do know you, I’m sure of it.”</p>

102

<p>Thanks BUandBC82. I’m happy to give credit to King where credit is due! I found another quote that reinforces the recurring “Occam’s Razor” theme, from the Green Card Man to Jake:</p>

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<p>I missed the Atlas Shrugged reference. However, at the part of the novel where Jake realizes he forgot to return The Chapman Report to the library, I made a note in the margin, “Look this book up.” </p>

<p>Here’s what I found: </p>

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<p>It was made into a movie in 1962:</p>

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<p>Looking for a connection to 11/22/63….nope…I got nothin’. :)</p>

103

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<p>Maybe … the hero John Galt of Atlas Shrugged reveals himself to the public in a long speech on … Nov. 22. </p>

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<p>(Actually, I can’t see King being unaware of this literary date.)</p>

104

<p>^ Amazing! What a great find! </p>

<p>And doesn’t that describe the novel 11/22/63 as well? Depending on the reader, “either inspiring, infuriating, or terrifying.”</p>

105

<p>LOL, I take back my final comment in post 102. I was browsing the Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination site and other conspiracy websites (I expect a knock on the door from the Feds any day now :)) and I learned that there was a police report allegedly found in Marguerite Oswald’s archived papers that describes an altercation between two men at Oswald’s rooming house at 621 N. Marsalis on October 12, 1963. Conspiracy buffs believe the men were Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald, although they gave different names to the police. Here’s the CTKA summary:</p>

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<p>And how did this report end up in Marguerite Oswald’s papers? Supposedly, the report was slipped by a Dallas police officer to a friend of Marguerite Oswald, a man by the name of…Al Chapman. </p>

<p>Roger Craig, the Deputy Sheriff in Dallas at the time of Kennedy’s assassination, wrote this in his 1971 memoir:</p>

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<p>So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, The Chapman Report. I think Stephen King was having a little fun with us when he chose the title of Jake’s library book!</p>

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<p>Great detective work ignatius and Mary!</p>

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<p>I second that ** BUandBC82**, very interesting details** Mary13** and Ignatius!</p>

108

<p>I found it SO interesting that King gives a nod to the conspiracy theorists, with whom he disagrees, at the end of this book, when he stated his wife is one.
This interview focuses on the issue at the beginning.</p>

<p>[Errol</a> Morris Interviews Stephen King - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/errol-morris-interviews-stephen-king/]Errol”>Errol Morris Interviews Stephen King - The New York Times)</p>

<p>Q You mentioned that in the afterword, that you and your wife disagreed.</p>

<p>A.
She loved John Kennedy in a way that I never did. I grew up in a Republican household, though my mother cried her eyes out when Kennedy got shot. Little John-John salutes the casket when it goes by. You couldn’t help it, whether you were Republican or Democrat. I don’t know what would happen now, but I do know one of the reasons to write the book was because there’s so much hate in the air now, so much hate. A lot of it’s directed at Obama. I think I decided I wanted to write this book when Obama was giving the State of the Union speech and that guy shouted, “You lie!” You know? It’s a real change in American politics, and it goes back to Kennedy, because people hated that guy, too, until he died.</p>

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<p>^Good point. I fear for Obama, now that people use a line from a Psalm to justify praying for his death. That’s really scary.</p>

110

<p>That was a terrific interview, SJCM. I liked Stephen King’s sensitivity in talking about the human moments, his wanting to be careful about using the word “evil,” his worrying about a certain part of the book being boring, etc.</p>

<p>What King said at the very end of the interview resonated with something I felt about the book.</p>

<p>He says that time travel was used simply as device, that the book was not a time travel novel per se. “It’s like ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ Swift never goes into this big long thing about well, there was a genetic mutation and therefore these people became small, and all the rest. We don’t really care about that. It’s just the idea: they’re there. Then we can use it to examine real life.”</p>

<p>I found some of the time travel details in “11/22/63” clever and entertaining…things like the way Al bought and sold the same meat over and over, for example…but I never worried too much about JIMLA or how things worked with the Yellow Card Man, because they just didn’t seem that important.</p>

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<p>Easy detective work on my part re Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand devotees consider Nov. 22 an important date. (Gotta love the internet!) One example:</p>

<p>[What</a> connects John F Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher and John Galt? – Telegraph Blogs](<a href=“http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100011096/what-connects-john-f-kennedy-margaret-thatcher-and-john-galt/]What”>http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100011096/what-connects-john-f-kennedy-margaret-thatcher-and-john-galt/)</p>

112

<p>Did you think Stephen King (or Jake Epping) gave enough of a nod to the racism that would have been prevalent in Texas from 1958 to 1963? As far as I can recall, Jake addresses the issue only a couple of times, once when he sees the sign for the “colored bathroom” that turns out to be a board over a stream (p.280), and again when he considers renting a room from the nasty racist Ray Mack Johnson (p. 297). I realize that Stephen King wasn’t trying to write the The Help, and that he had his literary hands full dealing with the Kennedy assassination. Still, it seems like overall, Jake’s experiences in the past were far more Richie Cunningham than Jim Crow. </p>

<p>One reviewer who was bothered by this wrote, in essence (I’m paraphrasing), “Why let a little thing like institutional racism ruin a really good root beer?” [Kemper</a> (Overland Park, KS)'s review of 11/22/63](<a href=“http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/237061218]Kemper”>Kemper (Overland Park, KS)’s review of 11/22/63)</p>

113

<p>Mary–I thought there were more instances of racism? They seemed painful enough to me but maybe I was reading my own nod of recognition into it. Yep, that’s how it was…</p>

114

<p>mommusic, there are probably passages that I’ve forgotten, but in general, it didn’t seem like undertones of racism permeated Jake’s experience in the past. Rather, the unpleasant incidents were isolated and Jake tried not to become too engaged. And maybe that’s okay. Racism wasn’t the battle that he was there to fight. He recognized and abhorred it, but acknowledged reluctantly that he had to live with it while he pursued his primary goal: “Telling myself I could live with a little racism, that I wouldn’t melt. Telling myself it was the temper of the times, and it was probably the same just about everywhere” (p. 298). I would think, though, that it would be very hard to get used to that “separate but (un)equal” culture and all the prejudice he must have witnessed on a regular basis.</p>

115

<p>If you are looking to try more Stephen King, the book of short stories, “Different Seasons” includes one of his best stories- Shawshank Redemption. I also like the overall premise of Insomnia- another long book, but a intriguing mind bend, though the evil character does include some very unpleasant sections. </p>

<p>I did not read the dark tower books for several years as I did not see myself as interested in Westerns, but despite some extreme wierdness in sections, I found it interesting and also one of those ‘make you think’ kinds of books. The Stand was another good one.</p>

116

<p>The question about Jake’s awareness of racism is an interesting one. I admired King’s inclusion of the incident where Jake discovered the restroom facilities for black people that consisted of a board across a stream. </p>

<p>That was a strong scene, and one of the ones that I know will remain with me long after I have forgotten a lot of other things about the book. Perhaps its vividness compensates, to some degree, for racism not having been mentioned very many other times.</p>

<p>(One of the other acknowledgements of segregation in the book occurred when Jake tried to get a room at a certain motel and was told that it was for blacks only.)</p>

<p>Mary13, you said you think Jake probably would have witnessed prejudice on a day-to-day basis, and you implied that this makes one wonder why it would not have been mentioned more.</p>

<p>I contend that Jake might very well not have encountered very much racism in the settings where the story took place. In Maine during the late 50s, there would not have been too many black people. In Jodie, there would probably not have been any black kids in the school where Jake taught.</p>

<p>When I was a teenager in Texas in the early 60s, my high school was all white except for a few Hispanic students. This was not because of a policy of segregation, but because no black families lived in the district. Other San Antonio high schools did have a mixture of black and white students. I know that other areas of Texas were segregated at that time.</p>

<p>It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but before the civil rights movement, it was very possible for a caucasian young person in the US never really to encounter many black people or have any reason to think about their problems. </p>

<p>On the one hand, black people were suffering because of prejudice, whereas on the other hand there were a lot of white people who actually did not even realize that the black people were suffering.</p>

<p>This represents one component of what might be regarded as the “innocence” of the era, but in this respect I’d have to call it regrettable ignorance.</p>

117

<p>“Telling myself I could live with a little racism, that I wouldn’t melt. Telling myself it was the temper of the times, and it was probably the same just about everywhere” (p. 298).</p>

<p>Mary13–that’s the Jake I remember. Besides, he really couldn’t do anything without changing history.</p>

118

<p>somemom, thanks for the suggestions! “The Body” is another great story from Different Seasons – it was the inspiration for the movie “Stand by Me” with River Phoenix.</p>

<p>NJTheatreMOM, your own experiences during those same years in Texas really help me picture the world Jake was in. I hadn’t thought about the possibility of him living in a mostly all-white, insulated community, but of course, that makes perfect sense. </p>

<p>Imagine how different Jake’s story would have been if he had stepped into Alabama in the mid-1960’s and his goal was to prevent the assassination of Martin Luther King.</p>

119

<p>^^^ I have the nonfiction Hellhound on His Trail - Hampton Sides, on King’s assassination, on my read-soon list.</p>

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<p>I agree. My husband grew up in a small mid-western farming community. Farms passed down from one generation to the next. No one would describe the area as integrated but neither could it be called segregated. Mary’s choice of word “insulated” works. I picture Jodie, TX, in much the same way. Remember Jake Epping specifically looks for a “place that was smaller and less daunting, a place that didn’t feel so filled with hate and violence.” He finds it in Jodie. As the rental agent tells him: “We’re good people around here.”</p>

<p>Don’t forget King also addresses racism through Oswald and anti-communism/segregationist ex-General Edwin Walker. De Mohrenschildt and Oswald touch on Walker’s racism (p. 495), though de Mohrenschildt steers the conversation to Walker’s anti-communist stance. However, in Chapter 20 section 8, Jake watches a telecast in which preacher Billy James Hargis and Walker focus more on segregationist/racist views than anti-communism. Jake thinks at the time that “Walker didn’t deserve killing, but he could certainly do with a brisk shaking.” </p>

<p>I do think that King touches on issues of the day but allows Jake to live somewhat removed from them. King touches on religious prejudice through Charles Frati. Poverty and hard living present themselves along with Ivy and Rosette. Domestic abuse rears up on Mercedes Street along with a general acceptance of it. (Do you remember Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners?) Easy enough for King to bring wife-beating to the fore as Oswald abused Marina. King only touches on racism with the separate-but-unequal restroom conditions. He addresses it more pointedly through the views of ex-General Walker … again easily done as Walker ties more closely to Oswald.</p>

<p>Definitely the small “insulated” (thanks, Mary) Texas town of Jodie serves as a respite for Jake - well, at least until Sadie’s ex-husband strikes. Jodie has its own problems (drunk driving fatality, as an example) but problems Jake feels equipped to handle.</p>

120

<p>Mary13, I like your idea of a book similar to “11/22/63” that would take place at the height of the civil rights movement and involve an attempt to stop the murder of Martin Luther King. Somebody should write it!</p>

<p>One interesting thing about this thread is that it is causing me to realize that there are certain subtleties of the era that younger people may not be aware of, through no fault of their own.</p>

<p>The late 50s/early 60s are often depicted in popular culture…the music, the clothes…but, to a large degree, the “feel” of living back then is seldom very accurately imparted.</p>

<p>In the early 60s there was a book published called “Black Like Me,” by John Howard Griffin. Griffin, a white journalist, took a drug that darkened his skin temporarily, and then he traveled through the Jim Crow south as a black person and wrote about his experiences.</p>

<p>When I read the book as a teenager, it was a huge eye-opener for me, as I am sure it was for many people.</p>

<p>One thing Griffin mentioned in the book was that there was a code in the naming of negroes-only establishments. They had “blue” in the name. This prevented the embarrassment of blacks even setting foot in places where they would be turned away.</p>

<p>Thus, if King had wanted to be more accurate, he would have given the establishment he describes on page 288 of “11/22/63” a name like “Blue Moon Court” instead of “Red Top Inn.”</p>