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It´s not as if it wasn´t just an old Lovecraftian big ones cosmic horror consuming the flesh of mind opened, quirky, annoying (thanks for that in this case), kids but there is so much more sociocultural evolution, big history, the interconnection between childhood trauma and adult issues, banality of evil, small town horrors, and hidden depths in this epic world literature supernova overkill. But let´s look at its´ parts, vivisecting it while it´s still alive, begging, and screaming, one after the other.

Sociocultural evolution
There is much dark American history, especially racism and social and economic inequality, lurking in the backgrounds of many of the characters, both protagonists and antagonists. Discrimination, poverty, and fuel of hate, racism, and sexism with a grain of faith as disgusting topping, make many of the characters´ motivations credible and comprehensible, no matter how wrong and evil they might be. The demolition of the American dream by showing the true face of what lies behind the superficial, bigoted happy go lucky unicorn rainbow, but still no free meals for everyone included, train.

Big history
Maybe I´m exaggerating (again or as usual), reading too much into it, and it´s also close to the same as sociocultural evolution I just mentioned, but it shows retrospectives of not just generations, but centuries and links the manifestations of destruction, exploitation, and despair to the big milestones of history, from robber barons to KKK to neoliberalism. It knows that injustice and inequality are the perfect breeding grounds for deliberately uneducated, poor people that get exploited by a rich, degenerated elite (also known as world history) and that any kind of sick ideology, belief, or faith grows best on huge loads of compost or, more directly, the mental shit and garbage humans love to produce en masse. There, the plant of rape, torture, and secret cellar prison snuff chambers can grow best and produce the most disgusting fruits.

The banality and philosophy of evil is big here too, but that would go far into far too many fields, so let's stay with how King shows the dysfunctionally working systems by focusing on the most hushed up topics, strangely and telling especially the 3 big party and small talk nonos, politics, faith and the ultimate evil in the form of the almighty deity mister mammon, money, I mean economics. No matter if one begins at the stinking top with macroeconomic fringe voodoo science or with the little matchstick girl freezing to death, the result of the immense moral and ethical shallows of our society are breaching the varnish of mass hallucinated Potemkin´ everything is fine villages everywhere. It is full of manifestations of both Kings´genius and immense societal worth, because he has opened the eyes of millions of people and made them more critical and mind opened towards any kind of institutionalized, big party or small club, madness.

Childhood trauma becoming adult issues
Everything is interconnected to epigenetics and genetics and close to nobody can escape her/his/ its genetic and upbringing destiny. By jumping between the adult and the kid perspective, King draws a picture of how the haunting of a bad childhood can turn the warm pillow of being loved and protected into a demon hunted, newer ending, PTSD horror show that comes crawling into each nights´ dreams and daily associations triggered by sudden memories, words, senses, etc. That´s maybe the most important message to take from this read for oneself while the big history and sociocultural evolution topics are more meta for the masses. No matter, how much discipline, self improvement, fringe self help, yoga Buddhism dissolution of ego stuff, one puts into the development of ones´ personality, the past keeps following like a dark of white shadow, offering the support and security of healthy, happy parents in a good society or the terror and trauma of mentally unstable or ill, poor, addicted parents filled with hate and anger because of the dire circumstances of their own lives.

Small town horrors
Of course people in small towns seem friendlier, less aggressive, or even arrogant, than people living in metropolitan areas. What would the neighbors think if one would lets the poor hobo, immigrant, junkie, etc. die on the front yard, that just wouldn´t really assort well with the garden gnomes and ruin the lawns karma, not to speak of the smell. Some self made (with love) secret hobo, junkie, etc. mass graves, next to the hate crime victims´ illegal dumpings, are the real problem here, because the conservative and intolerant mentality against anything unknown and foreign leads to communities that shine happy and open minded on the outside, but are completely rotten, degenerated, and murderous in the dark, hidden reality. Especially the bigoted, fake community and ideal world illusion behind everyone hating everyone and especially new ones is what makes suburbia, small towns, and the countryside idyll so perfectly Texas chainsaw massacre style predestined. Working together to kill, eat, and repeat.

So what is it altogether? Is it the inherent evil and devilish in all intelligent species, perverting the survival of the fittest to torture of the most unfit? Would a bonobo style (oh yeah), post scarcity, fantasy love elve, alien, or future society leave no breeding grounds for the monster that feeds on human suffering? Could a better, fairer, higher evolved form of human or alien species let the immortal clown cry for all eternities, because he couldn´t provoke one insult, attack, or argument that exponentially escalates towards mass murdering? Or is the bad monkey gene (or bad dolphin, ant, crow, whatever intelligent animal one might prefer) so strong that it will always find subjects enjoying and loving to hurt, sack, and rape? Is it a manifestation of the malice of the human soul that couldn´t exist without the inbuilt madness or is it an outer influence that seduces the good people to do bad things? Heavy loads coming across this review road, also highly subjective and depending on which philosophy brainwashed the dear readers´ mind towards misanthropy or at least not eating humans. Too often, it should stay something special together with the loved ones.

Drugs, prescription drugs, and alcohol certainly played a role here too


because one can´t say how King would have written throughout the late 70s and 80s without that special, inspirational fuel juice, powder, etc. I´ve read most of his works, early, addicted, and sober and there are huge differences between the early, Bradbury and Lovecraft inspired works, his high times and the longest, sober period. Try reading his works, maybe switching between early, wasted, and clean again, and see what difference it makes. One could add a fourth, old King period, but I haven´t read enough of that works (or can remember enough about the works I´ve read) to put it in the big picture and I honestly don´t like his newer books as much as the classics, something has changed, but I can´t put my finger on what exactly happened. They are still great, but I am kind of missing the „in your face full frontal attack�, the pure horror elements, the sheer roughness and wildness, and think that the focus has switched to too much characterization with too little dynamic plot action and horror world building.

Trivial, subjective, anecdotal, drivel, notes worthless for anyone else, please don´t waste your irretrievable lifetime. You should really consider not reading that. Still there? Sigh. At least it´s not long.
I´ve first read it a long, long time ago, I don´t even know if it is 10 or 15 years (25 or 20 years old at this moment) and it rocked my world so much, it was one of the most immersive reading experiences I ever had, a world shattering, eyeopening, incredible masterpiece of one of the greatest writers of all times. I vividly remembered so many aspects, characters, settings, scenes, dialogues for a very long time, and it just didn´t get into my head how King did this. Rereading it, older, embittered, and stupider that I am now, I see all the extra lawyers of innuendos, social criticism, and especially the real red line and plot, the impact of how early years form creepy, disturbing adults. Just like me.

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