(FEBRUARY) I have just started reading this and is it only me,
or is King TELLING too much of the story with several POV breaks? I've
read a lot of raving reviews for this book, but so far at page 97, it
has yet to impress me. Where's the gore? Why was the action so lame to
start off with, it was hard to keep track. I suppose, if you know
Boston, then it isn't a problem. But many people don't. I don't. And it
took me awhile to work out what the "T" is.
I will keep reading, 'cause that's the thing with King. The guy keeps your attention and that is a writer's job, is it not?
I
do like the change happening in the zombies and how King made the night
for humans. Made the humans like vampires. I think there is too many
people still alive and about. One would think that with so many hungry
zombies around at the first attack of the rage, more people would have
been wasted.
(MARCH) Now that I have finished this book, I must say that I am deeply disappointed.
The characters never had any substance to them, except for Jordan and
the Head. Alice was only a name on the page that reacted to scenes
around her. Tom almost made reality with the cat scene, a slice of
humanity. The Phoners were like an army. The enemy of all was The
Raggedy Man, and yet although I could fathom his motives for doing what
he did, I couldn't understand how anyone with a Flock Mentality could
make such decisions. Perhaps I missed something in the 300+ pages I
read, but I doubt it.
Clay and his trip to find his wife and son
(mainly son) is the main focus of this book. He doesn't own a cell
phone and so the pulse which occurs at 303pm, while he is waiting
inline for an ice cream -- behind two kids and a woman in a suit --
doesn't take him out, and within moments the world changes. Explosions
are everywhere, the smell of death is in the air and several hints
about the pulse are given.
Then, Clay meets Tom. After an
incident with a crazied man, he and Tom go to the Atlantic Avenue Inn.
This is where they meet up with Alice. A high school girl, who
naturally at first doesn't trust them and runs away. She returns with a
zombie on her tail.
During the trip across the country, they encounter many others like them. And we learn that the zombies are changing, mutating.
In
the three-some's travels they stay at a boarding school where they meet
the Head and young Jordan. Who has a theory. A very convincing theory
at that and the thing is, he could be very, very right. It is also at
the place we learn that the Phoners sleep at night, like downloading
information from a central location and spreading in a flock mentality
style through every Phoner.
It is here that we meet The Raggedy
Man, whom appears to be the voice of the Flock, and the power he has
over our minds. He can reqad them and he can play with them.
The
story is action packed and lot less descriptive than King's usually
work. His characters are not alive. A lot of reviewers said the book is
bloody and violent, perhaps King's most graphic book to date. Has no one read The Dark Half? That is one hell of a book. But in The Cell, King just doesn't pull it off. There wasn't enough X and there was too much Y in this slight plot that had possibilities but ultimately bombed.
It would make a good movie though...If they cut the levitation. That is what killed the book for me.
Subject: The cell by Stephen King 
4th February 2007, 8:10 am
