Hearts in Atlantis

Rating:
Summary: Definitely shows a maturing King...but....
Review: "Hearts in Atlantis" is a work that definitely shows a maturing King. Then again, once could see King was maturing, ever since works like "The Green Mile" onwards. From that book onwards, even from a few books back, King showed himself less concerned with relying on gore and scares, and portraying more character-driven plots, in more humane situations. Granted, that "Low Men in Yellow Coats" seems to be a King paying a visit to the old familiar grounds he had trodden on years before. But that was it. This book is a homage to the 60's. While it works, on one level, as this homage, this tribute, it is not something you would associate with King having written.

King has been first and foremost a horror writer, "America's literary boogeyman" as the Press referred to him at one time. Sure, as he got older, he ventured into newer, more mature directions, but there was always the element that made him famous, present in his works.

Hearts in Atlantis, except the first story (that incidentally is more than half the book's length) is a complete departure from the style we all know King for. I am not too sure I liked what I read. If King continues on this very same path maybe I'll think twice (for the very first time in my life) before buying another book of his.

I am terribly sorry, but this book just didn't cut it. Maybe because I wasn't around in the 60's, this book didn't have the meaning it should have, I guess. It just lacked in King's usual, traditional elements. Sure, it had memorable characters, done in a way that only King could...making you either care for them, or despise them. Then again, it ended and did so leaving me dissatisfied. Several questions hung in the air, unresolved. Was it King's intention to do so, or just sloppy editing?

I am a writer, myself, and I pride myself in always tying up the loose ends in my stories so my readers never stay wondering. I hope he'd do the same...

Sorry Steve.

Rating:
Summary: There's HEART in Atlantis
Review: THIS is the Stephen King I've been waiting for! Mr. King, unquestionably an extremely talented and prolific writer, had begun to oversaturate the horror market with too many books that were sounding all the same. He lifted himself out of that rut with BAG OF BONES, and now has surpassed himself with the wonderful HEARTS IN ATLANTIS. Five separate, yet interconnecting stories tied together by the underlying themes of the 60's and the Viet Nam war, HEARTS is King at his very best. An obviously autobiographical work, HEARTS is engaging, full of humor, heartfelt introspection and a poignancy all too rare in his earlier novels. If, like me, you'd been burned out by King, read this book...you will NOT be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars
Review: The book was written in a way that was different. It was the first king book i have read and it left me confused every time i stopped reading. It took me to a time long before i was born and to a place i have never been. It was hard to understand the extreme drama it shows about the Vietnam era. I was not in that era but when reading this book it obviously shows that the author wanted to tell about the time and place that he lived and how it affected so many people in so many ways. Just about everything in the book speaks the truth of the time but the plot and characters are mainly fictitious.

Any other information you want about the book can be found in the editorial reviews.

Rating:
Summary: The Hearts in Vietnam
Review: King uses great imagery in this very moving story. You can defanitely see how King felt the sixties were for him. I exspecially liked the connection the story draws to the "Dark tower series". This novel is defanitely worth reading even for those who dislike the King.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best, but...
Review: I've been a "Constant Reader" since seventh grade with It, and I've read almost everything written by the "master of Horror". I've only a few times been disappointed in the middle. This was one of those times. I finished "Hearts in Atlantis" and wanted to stop. Let me explain, because I didn't and consequently loved "Blind Willie".

With "Low Men in Yellow Coats", the story was SO exactly Stephen King-like, so exactly what I expected him to write, in such the exact style, that it wasn't hard for me to transport myself into Harwich, Maine, in 1960. The problem is that this style is so much like other work, what with the thoughts floating in and out, the references to songs and movies, the "knowing" that the central character inevitably has, all come from other books, and this could have been just a chapter in almost any other novel, with just the names and places changed. [For example, see Insomnia, Rose Madder, Bag of Bones for examples of the style that plagues King.] What was hard for me was the almost annoying references to the Dark Tower series and the Regulators. Fifty pages in, I thought, "I've heard of the low men before...where?" Then I realized, they're the regulators that the little kid drew in the Bachman book. If you don't belive me, go read it for yourself. Not exactly the same, but King's just recycling, doing his part for the environment. No big whoop. The low men weren't as annoying as the Dark Tower references, because it seems as if King is so completely obsessed with the Tower that he can't write anything without putting reference in somewhere (Insomnia, Rose Madder, etc.).

The problem is that this reference ruined Hearts for me, because since I've been conditioned by recent books to expect a DT reference, I spent the whole of Hearts looking for it, and I couldn't just enjoy the story. Unfortunately, I hadn't separated the stories, especially since the characters continued, and logically I expected similar themes to come popping through, like Pete waking in the middle of the night with "All things serve the Beam" on his lips as a half-remembered dream, or Carol sleepily mumbling "The Good Man is coming" after their shotgun-seat interlude. I was hoping for a DT-free set of novellas, and when I didn't get it I was tainted. I was soiled by the expectations that King had ingrained in my mind, and I wasn't able to start Blind Willie until three or four days later, after I had a chance to clear my mind and go into it with no expectations. And what I got was excellent.

Please, write me an e-mail at "[e-mail]" to continue this discussion further. Maybe we can talk about how King has already written the story of the Tower in "The Talisman" with Peter Straub, but, hey, do your part to help Mother Nature, reduce, reuse, recycle. You've got an example in Stephen King.

Rating:
Summary: One of King's Best (I'm Glad I Gave Him Another Chance)
Review: The first King book I ever read was "Christine," which I finished cover-to-cover during a week's vacation to Maine when I was 12. It scared me to death. Thereafter, I was a King fanatic, reading every King title I could get my hands on up to and through high school (my favorite being the "Shining" and the "Gunslinger"). At some point, however, I grew tired of King's writing style and completely abandoned his books, except for the "Dark Tower" series. I even gave up on that eventually, putting down the "Waste Lands" halfway through because I thought the series was becoming something far different and much less interesting than what King had masterfully started in the "Gunslinger."

Then along came "Hearts in Atlantis," which I noticed was garnering a lot of positive attention in the press, as well as on this site. Coincidentially, just before I was about to head back to Maine for a vacation, a friend of mine mentioned he enjoyed reading it. I figured, what the heck, why not give King another try?

I'm glad I did, it was well worth the effort. King has come a long way from "Christine," or even the "Gunslinger," which I'm sure comes as no suprise to his fans that have stuck with him through the years. King's reputation for being a superficial, crowd-pleaser-type of author who's writing doesn't justify his income -- if still maintained -- is completely unwarranted; "Hearts in Atlantis" alone has more depth, style and substance than all of John Grisham's novels combined.

"Hearts in Atlantis" is really five interconnecting stories which span the Summer of 1960 to the present day, with Vietnam (and other relevant events from the 60's) serving as an ominous backdrop. The best story is "Low Men in Yellow Coats," a coming-of-age story set in Harwich, Connecticut that introduces the characters (as children) who appear in the remaining four stories. The story has a supernatural element, involving the titular "low men," that really (for me, anyway) captures the essence of "growing up," i.e., the loss of innocence. Bobby Garfield (the main character), a relatively innocent eleven -year-old boy, loses his innocence by the end of the story when he realizes that monsters really do exist, and that greater nightmares than any child could possibly imagine are lying in wait for you as an adult.

Perhaps for the characters in "Low Men," that nightmare is the Vietnam war. In the remaining four stories, Vietnam becomes an increasingly important factor in the characters' lives. "Hearts in Atlantis" centers around a group of slacking college students wrapped up in a dorm-wide card game for money, who all run the risk of flunking out of school and getting drafted. At the same time, the story details the narrator's doomed romantic relationship with a girl who gets swept up in the anti-war movement. "Why We're In Vietnam" and "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling" examines the lingering effects of Vietnam on its' survivors.

The remaining story (and third in sequence in the novel) is "Blind Willie," which follows a day in the life of a Vietnam veteran who's just trying to earn a living. This story was my least favorite because it seemed forced and out of place, and because it reminded me of King's earlier work (which comes as no suprise as the author himself notes that it's actually a remake of a short story he wrote and published several years ago). That said, the story is short enough and darkly clever enough for me not to quibble about it any further.

And, for anyone who thinks King can't satisfactorily end a novel, "Heavenly Shades" cleverly ties all five stories together, and ends the novel on a very mature note (no pun intended, you'll understand after reading the book).

All in all, "Hearts in Atlantis" is a great read, and I look forward to what King will serve up next.

Rating:
Summary: Grownup King
Review: With this book, Stephen King takes a step away from the unmitigated gore that, while entertaining, can become repetitive. "Hearts in Atlantis" is simply a good story, told with sympathy, an almost nostalgic attention to detail, and his typical, down-to-earth language and humour. While reading the Dark Tower series would make the first chapter more accessible, I haven't read them and I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope we can expect more novels like this. Stephen King is obviously a gifted storyteller, even without resorting to his trademark horror genre.

Rating:
Summary: King's maturing style gives the best King ever.
Review: Born in 1970, I grew up on Stephen King. From the time I was old enough for my own "orange library card" (see the book!) I have seized and gobbled up every King I could get my hands on. I stayed up all night and scared myself silly, reading about frightening other-worldly entities.

Over the last few years, I've seen King move away from the "scary monster" genre into a style that is increasingly philosophical, almost metaphysical; increasingly these stories have a feeling of "This could happen".

"Hearts in Atlantis" is definitely one of these.

From the moment I recognized elements of the Dark Tower creeping in, to the finale that comes around full circle 40 years after the story starts, I was enthralled, lifted to new heights, and plunged back down into the underground tunnels of a runaway mine train. By the time I got to the end, I was breathless. Literally. As I closed the book and slowly put it down, exhaling, I could do nothing else but remain thoughtful. Wanting to pick it up again right away, read it again. That had never happened to me before, with anyone's work.

It took me a while to realize I'd been virtually holding my breath over the last few pages. Even when I scared myself as a child in the middle of the night, reading "Carrie" or "Salem's Lot", that had never happened to me before, either.

I think he must be very proud of this book, for in his own style he is emulating L. Ron Hubbard, a writer who influenced his career by virtue of the admiration King holds for his work. I think he is doing a wonderful job.

Rating:
Summary: King reminds me of Bill Cosby. HUH! you ask....
Review: Give Cosby's first half-dozen standup albums a listen, and you will find that the theme of childhood predominates his work. But while Cosby's stories of his own childhood make a fun time out of his urban upbringing, King reminds us what a chamber of horrors childhood can be. Those of us who shake our heads at how our kids make a big deal out of "meaningless" things forget how very real such things were to us at that age. This is what makes this book a worthy successor to "It". What we get here is a set of stories that are so related to one another that King could have claimed they were "Book I", "Book II", etc. of the same novel. The common denominator here is a girl named Carol, but the two novellas are not from her perspective--but from the perspectives of two guys involved with her at different points of her life. There's a mysterious elderly stranger who's on the run from agents of a mysterious enemy called the "Crimson King" (I find myself wondering if that's some myth separate from this story--the early progressive band King Crimson seem to derive their name from it, as well as the tile of their first album "In the Court Of the Crimson King"). There's also a semi-allusion to the movie "Storm Of the Century" where a character says the same thing at one point that "Storm's" main character keeps saying throughout the movie: "Give me what I want and I'll go away" (I still wish King had made that one into a book). But although there are mysterious demons here like in King's other books, our heroes suffer just as much at the hands of other mortals. Like three ordinary bullies beating on Carol with a baseball bat, dislocating her shoulder, for instance. Cosby's lesson is that no matter how tough your childhood was, your buddies were pretty funny. King, however, reminds us of childhood peers that we did well not to turn our backs on. Well, Nietsche put the same point about as well: "I find that I owe more to the hard times of my life than I could ever owe to the easier times."

Rating:
Summary: A long way to go for little reward
Review: Put me among the loyal lovers of King who have to admit this this effort isn't worth 600+ pages. Like most, I felt Low Men was the best of the bunch, but even that ended with major holes. Does anyone have any idea what was the deal with Bobby's mom? Surely an affair doesn't explain all of her actions. What really happened between her and Bobby's dad? I'm close to King's age and just don't remember the 60's quite the way he does. Maybe life was that different on the East coast? While I thought Hearts in Atlantis did a good job of showing how an era changed (from "what is it" to peace signs everywhere), ultimately I didn't care about these characters and was only mildly interested in what happened to Carol since the teenage version wasn't too well fleshed out. My advice is to borrow this one from the library. Stephen has enough money that he won't be hurt financially, and maybe it'll send him a wake up call that you can't slide just anything past your readers. I find myself wondering if the reviewer who suggested that King does the same thing his writer in Bag of Bones does (revive old discarded stories to publish), isn't right.