{"id":6424,"date":"2018-11-01T16:33:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T22:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?p=6424"},"modified":"2018-11-01T16:33:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T22:33:51","slug":"elevation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?p=6424","title":{"rendered":"Elevation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Elevation<\/a> is an unusual Stephen King book, by multiple measures. First, it’s tiny. Barely over a hundred pages, and it’s a small factor book on top of that. I’m not saying he only writes doorstops, but this is just barely north of novella-sized, almost certainly shorter than, say, The Mist.<\/p>\n

Second, it’s… I started to say it’s overtly political, but that’s not true. To be overtly political in this climate, you have to go a lot farther, and I’m not sure you can do it in written fiction, period. His politics have been pretty clear to me for a number of years anyway (and thank goodness I don’t hate them, because man, that would be a blow), but as far as I can remember this is the first time I’ve seen them bleed into his work, and in such an obvious manner.<\/p>\n

Third, it’s definitely not horror (which okay is not super unusual for King, and especially lately, but it’s still what he’s known for). There is a central mystery which is well outside normal experience, but it is the least interesting part of the story. The meaty parts are about what it means to be a good neighbor[1], and about the rot at the heart of Smalltown, USA (both conscious and unconscious) and whether it can change, and about the things we leave behind.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I liked it. Not a bad way to spend a lunch break.<\/p>\n

[1] I’ve never tried to be a good neighbor. Don’t misunderstand me, I want to not be a bad neighbor, and have definitely tried to do that<\/em>. But I never really cared about who lived near me, much past junior high. Maybe if I were less suburban and more rural, I would feel differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elevation is an unusual Stephen King book, by multiple measures. First, it’s tiny. Barely over a hundred pages, and it’s a small factor book on top of that. I’m not saying he only writes doorstops, but this is just barely north of novella-sized, almost certainly shorter than, say, The Mist. Second, it’s… I started to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1226,708],"class_list":["post-6424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words","tag-fiction","tag-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6424"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6430,"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions\/6430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}