But yesterday I did something with a Stephen King novel that I'd never done before -- I skimmed it.
I'm referring to the huge (almost 1100 pages) new novel "Under the Dome", which came out a few days ago.
I picked up my copy at the Barnes and Noble in Hadley on Thursday, and eagerly dove into it, setting aside "David Copperfield", which I had just started reading (I'm on a bit of a Charles Dickens kick).
About thirty pages into the book, I started to feel uneasy. No, it wasn't because there was anything particularly scary or creepy in the story (something you very often run into with King's tales, and that's a good thing). No, the reason was… I was bored. There was a fascinating set-up -- a small town is suddenly and mysteriously covered by an impenetrable dome (actually, it's not REALLY shaped like a dome, regardless of what the cover art depicts, but that's a minor point). But as I read on, I discovered that the cast of characters, especially the bad ones, seemed plucked from other King works.
And from then on, the action became fairly predictable. I was disappointed -- I was looking forward to getting immersed in an interesting exploration of what might happen to the people of a town put into this bizarre predicament. But by this point I had completely lost interest in the book, except for one thing -- I wanted to find out if the dome ever went away. So, with close to a thousand pages left to go, I skimmed all the way to the end, and found out.
Why did I bother skimming, and not just go to the last few pages? Well, as I have almost always had good luck with Stephen King's novels, I thought that MAYBE as I skimmed along I might spot something which would pull me back into the story, and cause me to slow down and start reading normally again -- maybe even go back to where I started skimming and read from there. Alas, it was not to be. -- PL
