#dooling

I have been travelling around China (and Macau and Hong Kong) for the past few weeks. Here are some images from my stay in Shanghai, which coincided with the tail end of Shanghai Fashion Week. I also managed a quick swing by Columbia Circle, a HEMA supermarket, and MIFA 1862.

Sleeping Beauties

By Stephen King and Owen King

HEAR YE, HEAR YE! Let it be known that this is NOT a Stephen King book! 

Yes, he is one of the writers, but this is definitely not his typical story. If you’re looking for horror or deep character development, you’ve picked up the wrong book.

A mysterious illness has swept the planet. Women, actually all females, are falling asleep. Their bodies become wrapped in a gauzy cocoon. Heaven help the poor person who tries to unwrap them for the disturbed sleeper becomes terrifically wild and violent.

Nobody knows what is causing this illness. It’s apparent the women are still alive, but for how long? Will they ever wake up? Will they be damaged by the cocoons?

The news of “Aurora,” as the sickness is called, reaches a little Appalachian town. The women hearing about this illness try their damnedest to stay awake.

I kept falling asleep while reading this book. Not because it’s bad or boring - not by a long shot. But because the female characters were fighting sleep so hard to avoid Aurora. The descriptions of these massively sleep-deprived women made me very drowsy.

When I could stay awake enough to read the book, I really enjoyed it. I highlighted over 30 sections! “It was funny, when you thought about it; what were all those men rioting about? What did they think they could accomplish? Maura wondered if there would have been riots if it had been the other half of the human race who were falling asleep. She thought it unlikely.”

“But it was awfully easy, from there, to imagine some half-assed messiah like that batshit Kinsman What’s-His-Name who was always on the news pissing and moaning about his taxes, coming along with a brand new plan. He’d announce that it was in everyone’s best interest to go around shooting the cocooned women in their web-wrapped heads. They’re ticking bombs, he’d say. There were men out there who’d love that idea. Terry thought of all those guys who’d been having wet dreams for years about being able to use the ridiculous arsenals they’d amassed for ‘home defense,’ but would never have had the guts to pull the trigger on a person who was awake, let alone armed and pointing a gun back at them.”

“’Who makes up your motorcycle gangs? Men. Who comprises the gangs that have turned neighborhoods in Chicago and Detroit into free-fire zones? Boys. Who are the ones in power who start wars and who are the ones who - with the exception of a few female helicopter pilots and such - fight those wars? Men. Oh, and who suffers as collateral damage? Woman and children, mostly.” -BTW, this was spoken by a male character.

“There were bad women and there were bad men...But men fought more; they killed more. That was one way in which the sexes had never been equal; they were not equally as dangerous.”

“It awed her, Frank’s obliviousness to the weight of her responsibilities. Did he actually believe it made her happy, having toe remind him to pay bills, to pick up things, to keep his temper in check? She was certain that he actually did. Elaine was not blind: she saw that her husband was not a contented man. but he did not see her at all.”

Okay, back to the story. So obviously while the women are asleep, the men are completely falling apart, as is to be expected. The women’s bodies stay in our world, but their spirits or souls or something are in another world, on the other side of “the Tree.”

Oh, and there is one woman in the “real” world who is immune to Aurora. Her name is Evie Black. I’m sure you get where this is going... Tree of Good and Evil...Eve...

Anyway, the women on the “other side” eventually have to decide whether or not to return. They built a society where “there were no predators. No pedophiles...A little girl would walk home by herself, even after dark, and feel safe.”

The King men do a decent job of writing from a woman’s perspective. Stephen King has always had a talent for sympathizing with those not old, white, and male. Only a few times did I step back and think, “No, that’s not right,” 

For instance, after pretty much all the women in the little town have fallen asleep, some women are trying to stay awake. One is at work. Another is outside running. Going outside with no other women around and men starting to riot?

Otherwise, this was a really good (and long) read. It’s a pretty good outline of the regular bullshit women have to put up with, big and small. The story gets a little heavy-handed with that message sometimes. And if that message offends you, it clearly went over your head.

This was an unexpected find as my friend and I drove through the community of Dooling.