David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "kidnapping"
Asymmetry
The first thing a reader might want to know about this novel is why it's entitled ASYMMETRY.
The book consists of two novellas and a short story: FOLLY; MADNESS and EZRA BLAZER'S DESERT ISLAND DISCS.
If you agree that “asymmetry” means unbalanced, the first one is rather easy to figure out. A young woman, Alice, is having an affair with a famous, older author. Their combined age is 97; she's 27 towards the end of that section. She notices he's looking “decrepit” and that he takes a lot of pills. I was immediately reminded of the J.D. Salinger, Joyce Maynard affair. Anyway, it's a folly. She works as an assistant editor at a publishing house, but she doesn't know who Camus was, pronouncing his name, “K-mus”. He asks her at one point if she doesn't has any higher ambitions. She can't answer that.
The second one, MURDER takes a hundred and eighty degrees flip. It's about an Iraqi-American PhD candidate born in America who gets stuck at the airport trying to get into England to briefly connect with a journalist friend, take a flight to Turkey, then go on to be with his family in Iraq. He's refused entry, despite the fact that he once held an internship there as an undergraduate in medicine. The obvious title reference is to the kidnapping of his uncle; his family pays most of the ransom, but all they get in return is his dead body. There's lots of talk about how the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Once the Americans defeated Saddam, the regular population turned against the Americans. Here's where the asymmetry comes in. Americans make New Year's Eve resolutions; the Iraqis can't relate; they don't know if they'll wake up in the morning.
The final section moves back to Ezra Blazer; he's doing an interview on PBS radio. One of the questions the interviewer asks is what he'd take with him if he were stranded on a Desert Island. The book he picks is ULYSSES, the strange, esoteric book by James Joyce, about a day in the life of a Dubliner. Ezra regrets never writing a book about Pittsburg where he was born. He also makes a pass at the lady interviewer who is married with two kids. The only similarity I could see with the first episode is that he refers to himself as “decrepit”. The whole interview centers, first off on Blazer's favorite music which is almost all classical, rather like Ulysses in that you need notes in order to know who or what he's talking about. I read the “topics and questions for discussion” at the end. Alice in Wonderland was mentioned as a possible connection between all three sections. Alice went down a rabbit hole with Ezra and Amar went down a rabbit hole with his family in Iraq, but otherwise I barely remembered the references.
The book consists of two novellas and a short story: FOLLY; MADNESS and EZRA BLAZER'S DESERT ISLAND DISCS.
If you agree that “asymmetry” means unbalanced, the first one is rather easy to figure out. A young woman, Alice, is having an affair with a famous, older author. Their combined age is 97; she's 27 towards the end of that section. She notices he's looking “decrepit” and that he takes a lot of pills. I was immediately reminded of the J.D. Salinger, Joyce Maynard affair. Anyway, it's a folly. She works as an assistant editor at a publishing house, but she doesn't know who Camus was, pronouncing his name, “K-mus”. He asks her at one point if she doesn't has any higher ambitions. She can't answer that.
The second one, MURDER takes a hundred and eighty degrees flip. It's about an Iraqi-American PhD candidate born in America who gets stuck at the airport trying to get into England to briefly connect with a journalist friend, take a flight to Turkey, then go on to be with his family in Iraq. He's refused entry, despite the fact that he once held an internship there as an undergraduate in medicine. The obvious title reference is to the kidnapping of his uncle; his family pays most of the ransom, but all they get in return is his dead body. There's lots of talk about how the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Once the Americans defeated Saddam, the regular population turned against the Americans. Here's where the asymmetry comes in. Americans make New Year's Eve resolutions; the Iraqis can't relate; they don't know if they'll wake up in the morning.
The final section moves back to Ezra Blazer; he's doing an interview on PBS radio. One of the questions the interviewer asks is what he'd take with him if he were stranded on a Desert Island. The book he picks is ULYSSES, the strange, esoteric book by James Joyce, about a day in the life of a Dubliner. Ezra regrets never writing a book about Pittsburg where he was born. He also makes a pass at the lady interviewer who is married with two kids. The only similarity I could see with the first episode is that he refers to himself as “decrepit”. The whole interview centers, first off on Blazer's favorite music which is almost all classical, rather like Ulysses in that you need notes in order to know who or what he's talking about. I read the “topics and questions for discussion” at the end. Alice in Wonderland was mentioned as a possible connection between all three sections. Alice went down a rabbit hole with Ezra and Amar went down a rabbit hole with his family in Iraq, but otherwise I barely remembered the references.
The Doll Factory
Perhaps the best thing about the DOLL FACTORY by Elizabeth MacNeal is the setting, 1850 Victorian England. It has that Jack the Ripper environment where nobody seems to be in charge of keeping the city, or at least this part of the city clean. Also poor abandoned children who live anyway they can are referred to as urchins.
The title refers to a shop owned by a woman her two employees refer to as Mrs. Satan. Iris and Rose are twins. Iris has a mild hunchback, but Rose who was once a beauty, has smallpox scars that have disfigured her. Iris has no idea how beautiful she is. She's a prisoner here in this doll shop with no future that she can see. It's her job to pain the dolls; her sister adds ornamentals to the tiny doll dresses brought to them by one of the street urchins.
This is where we meet my favorite character, street urchin, Albie. He apparently sews the little doll dresses himself. He love Iris because she gives him more money than the dresses are worth. He has a couple of sidelines; he sells “curiosities” to any shop owner, Silas. One is conjoined puppies that Silas will skin, stuff and disarticulate, showing the skeletal remains of one of the dogs. He will submit the results to one of the first world fairs that is currently being built in London. Three of his curiosities are accepted. Albie also steals small items from well off women. Iris catches him stealing a rather nice scarf. But he won't steal the really valuable stuff like suitcases he could snatch at the train station. He has a code. He also has a sister who's a prostitute. Albie only his one tooth and he'd like to buy dentures, but he'll never be able to save four pounds to buy them. When he does luck out, he thinks of his prostitute sister first and tries to rescue her from her unfortunate profession.
Iris also lucks out. She's chosen as a model by Louis Frost a rising young painter who's willing to pay her a shilling an hour to sit for him. She also wants to be a painter herself and only takes his offer when he promises to teach her. Modeling is only a touch above prostitute and her parents abandon her. Ruth also feels abandoned and won't answer Iris's letters.
Now for the plot. It's about Silas and his habit of kidnapping and sometimes murdering young women who have rejected him. He's so crazy he blocks out the murders. Then he meets Iris and he's immediately obsessed with her; he watches her all the time, at the expense of his occupation. He knows she's fallen in love with Louis and is jealous. Then there's a tiff between Louis and Iris and she runs away. Silas has been planning for months on how he'll take her, despite Albie's efforts to warn her.
Albie is trying to save her when MacNeal takes the easy way out and makes Iris situation even more deplorable. She keeps adding to the suspense. Will Iris escape Silas's basement? Sometimes he pouts and doesn't feed her. He even forgets the possibility that a beauty like Iris might have to use the bathroom. So then then the story becomes about determination and the will to survive. It is modernistic in that Iris must save herself. Twice others come looking for her or one of the other missing girls, but Silas is able to talk his way out of it, avoiding a search which would have revealed Iris in the basement. So how does she do it. It will keep you turning pages and leave you wanting an epilogue when the story comes to a screeching halt.
The title refers to a shop owned by a woman her two employees refer to as Mrs. Satan. Iris and Rose are twins. Iris has a mild hunchback, but Rose who was once a beauty, has smallpox scars that have disfigured her. Iris has no idea how beautiful she is. She's a prisoner here in this doll shop with no future that she can see. It's her job to pain the dolls; her sister adds ornamentals to the tiny doll dresses brought to them by one of the street urchins.
This is where we meet my favorite character, street urchin, Albie. He apparently sews the little doll dresses himself. He love Iris because she gives him more money than the dresses are worth. He has a couple of sidelines; he sells “curiosities” to any shop owner, Silas. One is conjoined puppies that Silas will skin, stuff and disarticulate, showing the skeletal remains of one of the dogs. He will submit the results to one of the first world fairs that is currently being built in London. Three of his curiosities are accepted. Albie also steals small items from well off women. Iris catches him stealing a rather nice scarf. But he won't steal the really valuable stuff like suitcases he could snatch at the train station. He has a code. He also has a sister who's a prostitute. Albie only his one tooth and he'd like to buy dentures, but he'll never be able to save four pounds to buy them. When he does luck out, he thinks of his prostitute sister first and tries to rescue her from her unfortunate profession.
Iris also lucks out. She's chosen as a model by Louis Frost a rising young painter who's willing to pay her a shilling an hour to sit for him. She also wants to be a painter herself and only takes his offer when he promises to teach her. Modeling is only a touch above prostitute and her parents abandon her. Ruth also feels abandoned and won't answer Iris's letters.
Now for the plot. It's about Silas and his habit of kidnapping and sometimes murdering young women who have rejected him. He's so crazy he blocks out the murders. Then he meets Iris and he's immediately obsessed with her; he watches her all the time, at the expense of his occupation. He knows she's fallen in love with Louis and is jealous. Then there's a tiff between Louis and Iris and she runs away. Silas has been planning for months on how he'll take her, despite Albie's efforts to warn her.
Albie is trying to save her when MacNeal takes the easy way out and makes Iris situation even more deplorable. She keeps adding to the suspense. Will Iris escape Silas's basement? Sometimes he pouts and doesn't feed her. He even forgets the possibility that a beauty like Iris might have to use the bathroom. So then then the story becomes about determination and the will to survive. It is modernistic in that Iris must save herself. Twice others come looking for her or one of the other missing girls, but Silas is able to talk his way out of it, avoiding a search which would have revealed Iris in the basement. So how does she do it. It will keep you turning pages and leave you wanting an epilogue when the story comes to a screeching halt.
The Institute
THE INSTITUTE is about children who are tested for telepathy and telekinesis at birth and late kidnapped by these crazies who think they can prevent nuclear war by using the collective minds of the kids to off potential monsters.
The book starts a little cumbersomely with a guy in South Carolina who takes a job as a kind of night watchman also called a Night Knocker. Later on that connects to the main story about the kids who've been kidnapped, but not until late in the story. I didn't even recognize him until I read the term “night knocker”.
One of the kids, Luke Ellis, is only twelve years old but he's got a scholarship in two different schools, MIT for engineering and Emerson for English Literature. But THE INSTITUTE wants him because he's got minimal telekinesis. That proves to be a mistake.
There are two parts to The Institute, the front half and the back half. Once you get to the Back Half they start showing the kids movies that enhance their extra sensory abilities, but it also turns them into zombies, or Gorks as the kids call them. The Back Half is called Gorky Park, after the book.
Luke establishes a relationship with a black girl named Kalisha, a rebel named Nick, who fights back, and Avery, a ten-year-old with strong telepathic powers. He also finds an actual human being among the staff, a maid named Maureen. He helps her pay off her husband's credit card debts. Bill collectors have been hounding her, despite the fact they're separated. She helps him escape. Once he escapes, the book picks up speed with a lot more suspense. Turns out The Institute has spies everywhere called stringers who help trace Luke's escape route.
One thing I've always liked about King's books is that he grabs you right away. I've never been thrilled with the horror genre, but he'll get you anyway. My favorites are those that are more realistic like MISERY and the three recent mysteries. This one is somewhere in between. He doesn't go overboard with the extra sensory stuff until we get to the Back Half where the kids are beyond help.
The book starts a little cumbersomely with a guy in South Carolina who takes a job as a kind of night watchman also called a Night Knocker. Later on that connects to the main story about the kids who've been kidnapped, but not until late in the story. I didn't even recognize him until I read the term “night knocker”.
One of the kids, Luke Ellis, is only twelve years old but he's got a scholarship in two different schools, MIT for engineering and Emerson for English Literature. But THE INSTITUTE wants him because he's got minimal telekinesis. That proves to be a mistake.
There are two parts to The Institute, the front half and the back half. Once you get to the Back Half they start showing the kids movies that enhance their extra sensory abilities, but it also turns them into zombies, or Gorks as the kids call them. The Back Half is called Gorky Park, after the book.
Luke establishes a relationship with a black girl named Kalisha, a rebel named Nick, who fights back, and Avery, a ten-year-old with strong telepathic powers. He also finds an actual human being among the staff, a maid named Maureen. He helps her pay off her husband's credit card debts. Bill collectors have been hounding her, despite the fact they're separated. She helps him escape. Once he escapes, the book picks up speed with a lot more suspense. Turns out The Institute has spies everywhere called stringers who help trace Luke's escape route.
One thing I've always liked about King's books is that he grabs you right away. I've never been thrilled with the horror genre, but he'll get you anyway. My favorites are those that are more realistic like MISERY and the three recent mysteries. This one is somewhere in between. He doesn't go overboard with the extra sensory stuff until we get to the Back Half where the kids are beyond help.
How Quickly She Disappears
Elizabeth's sister disappears when she was a young girl. They were twins, and Elizabeth senses that Jacqueline is still alive.
She has an opportunity to find her when an airline pilot named Alfred Seidel enters her life. He's a substitute mail pilot serving the interior of Alaska, where Elizabeth and her husband John have moved for his job as a teacher. Elizabeth stays home to homeschool her daughter Marjorie who reminds her a lot of Jacqueline.
Then the story gets a bit hard to believe. Seidel says he has problems with his plane and asks if he can stay at Elizabeth's house. There is no hotel or motel in the small of Tanacross, a mostly Athabaskan town and she and John have an extra bedroom. There's nothing wrong with Seidel's plane, but when Mack, a friend of Elizabeth and John's, sniffs out the real reason he's there, Seidel murders him and is imprisoned.
He wants to see Elizabeth and hints that he knows where Jacqueline is. She's still alive. You won't believe what he has to say, but he keeps stringing her along until of all things, she agrees to let him talk to Marjorie, who's been acting up because her mother is spending too much time obsessing over Jacqueline, alone for twenty minutes. You know this can't be good. He's a murderer after all.
The book did have me on pins and needles toward the end when Elizabeth gets closer to finding out about Jacqueline, so close that she carries a gun.
If you can get past the coincidences (Alfred lived in Elizabeth's town in Pennsylvania, and she had no idea who he was despite the fact that he's been stalking her for years), you'll enjoy this book, but if you're constantly saying, “Wait a minute!” you won't. I ignored the little voice inside my head that was muttering those words.
She has an opportunity to find her when an airline pilot named Alfred Seidel enters her life. He's a substitute mail pilot serving the interior of Alaska, where Elizabeth and her husband John have moved for his job as a teacher. Elizabeth stays home to homeschool her daughter Marjorie who reminds her a lot of Jacqueline.
Then the story gets a bit hard to believe. Seidel says he has problems with his plane and asks if he can stay at Elizabeth's house. There is no hotel or motel in the small of Tanacross, a mostly Athabaskan town and she and John have an extra bedroom. There's nothing wrong with Seidel's plane, but when Mack, a friend of Elizabeth and John's, sniffs out the real reason he's there, Seidel murders him and is imprisoned.
He wants to see Elizabeth and hints that he knows where Jacqueline is. She's still alive. You won't believe what he has to say, but he keeps stringing her along until of all things, she agrees to let him talk to Marjorie, who's been acting up because her mother is spending too much time obsessing over Jacqueline, alone for twenty minutes. You know this can't be good. He's a murderer after all.
The book did have me on pins and needles toward the end when Elizabeth gets closer to finding out about Jacqueline, so close that she carries a gun.
If you can get past the coincidences (Alfred lived in Elizabeth's town in Pennsylvania, and she had no idea who he was despite the fact that he's been stalking her for years), you'll enjoy this book, but if you're constantly saying, “Wait a minute!” you won't. I ignored the little voice inside my head that was muttering those words.
