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One day while working in her back wood in the town of Haven, Maine, Roberta Anderson stumbles on a thin peice of metal jutting out of the ground. Curious, she bends down to get a closer look; her dog, Peter, doesn't like it and whines when near it. In an effort to figure out what the thing is, Bobbi begins to scoop out the dirt around it, and in doing so, seals her fate. This is where The Tommyknockers begins.
A long, rambling novel, The Tommyknockers attempts a coherant and exciting story while working in the constructs of a Message. Near the beginning of the novel, the character Jim Gardener ("Gard" -- one of King's more obvious symbolic names), Bobbi's friend and former lover, speaks drunkenly at the beginning of the novel about the dangers of nuclear energy. King uses this motif -- a society of people playing around with powers it can't comprehend -- and applies it to his tale of a spaceship buried in the ground in the northern Maine woods. The device is clever: as more of the spaceship is uncovered, the more people are able to create gadgets that help them in their everyday life (a hovering lawnmower, or an unexhaustable energy source.) But, as Gard comes to realize, the power that gives the folk of Haven their abilities to build has neglected to give them the ability to comprehend what they're building. They are tinkerers, not understanders.
Gard soon realizes that the unseen power of the ship is actually more detrimental than it at first seems: not only are the Haven folk changing mentally, they are changing physically. More frequent mentraul flows, loss of teeth and hair, the sallowing of skin: all these are what becomes known as part of "The Becoming." They are also the symptoms of radiation poisoning, a dark metaphor not lost on Gard.
This is all a very interesting setup. The allegory isn't cloyingly obvious, many of the characters are interesting, the plotline is fascinating. Then where does The Tommyknockers go wrong? Page count. Critics have often decried King for not being well enough edited, and in most cases, the accusation is unfair. Here it is justified: what could have been a tightly plotted, well-written novel instead is a good book buried in layers of pages. King gives into excess (taking a 30-page break from the action to explain why the town is named Haven is one example) and, at times, downright silliness (many King characters have odd names, but it's difficult to take people named "Bent" and "Jingles" seriously, especially if there are chapters named after them.)
Ultimately, The Tommyknockers remains readable and interesting, but unfortunately stands as a bloated shadow to what it could have been.
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Here's the deal: I actually like The Tommyknockers. I love King when he's being issue-oriented, especially when he's veiling it in layers of subtext and allegory (more Stand than Gerald's Game). I remembering reading it at my Grandparents' house when I was fifteen or sixteen, and being very into certain parts of the book (one of King's most chilling images ever is Gard's discovery of the tractor modification.) But the problems mentioned above are the problems I still have with the book. I've always poo-poohed the notion that King's books are "too long" ... but I have to make the exception in this case. The Tommyknockers IS too long, and too weighed down by pages of dense exposition that isn't integral to the plot.
Another "me" bit of Tommyknockers trivia. I began it about three years before I finished it. When I was a Freshman at Taunton High, and just getting heavily into Stephen King, I became friends with the head librarian. I remember taking Tommyknockers out of the library and reading it in the library while other kids played with the LOGO stuff on the computers nearby. (1991, kids.) I remember that year with great fondness (even though I failed math), and I remember the joy that came from reading everything I coould get my hands on; especially King. But, for some reason, I never finished this book. Many, many years later, then living in Braintree, I picked the book up again and really enjoyed it.
I really am enjoying these trips down memory lane...
Also coming soon (but, as a teaser, know that the four-hour miniseries was the worst miniseries adaptation of a King work. Oh boy, was it bad.)
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