Insomnia
Stephen King
January-February 2010
I picked this one up because of the connections to the Dark Tower books, of course. According to Book VII, this King novel is the key to understanding the multiverse. I was a little disappointed because the connections were few and far between. The Wiki entries pretty much cover the mentions in entirety! Book VII even changes a couple things mentioned in this novel. According to Insomnia, Patrick Danville was destined to die while saving two men, including Roland. It didn’t happen like that in Book VII.
This was a long book, nearly 800 pages. The first 200 were pure exposition, setting up Ralph and his life in Derry. There was not even a hint of supernaturalism until nearly 1/3 into the book. There are many connections to his other books that take place in and around Derry, especially IT. Still, I like my King books with a little more paranormal, if you please.
That being said, one gets attached to these characters, of course. Ralph Roberts is a likable elderly man, but surprisingly unflawed, or at least not very introspective.
The narrator captures the voice of Ralph very well, without being overpoweringly New England. Eli Wallach is an older actor who appeared in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, among a number of minor film roles. His other characterizations here are passable, but nothing spectacular. I question the choice of the production to not speak aloud the chapters and subchapters, a King staple. It results in book on tape that is not delineated, making it hard in some way to follow along. The weird music and sound effects that are used as transitions between unnamed chapters is stark and sometimes drowns out the narration.
Overall, it was a King experience, so characterization rules the day. I can’t imagine investing the time it would take to actually read this, however. But as I get older, it’s harder to justify investing that kind of time into ANY novel, which is a scary, sad statement.
