Duma Key Partial Review

I suppose I have to get to this one sooner or later. I've read or listened to Stephen King's Duma Key about three times. I remember getting the book from a book shop before my folks and I went on a vacation. The book still stands in my collection with the cover half ripped off. It's a paperback and one of the first books of King's that I read once I was old enough. My parents recently told me that the reason they didn't let me read King is because I tend to scare myself. Maybe scare isn't the right word-haunt. That's a better word. Given my autism I tend to focus on dark ideas and King is full of them. I found the key to horror is to balance it with humor. After dwelling in the dark I try to find some comedy to make me laugh again. 

Anyway, onto the book. Duma Key is about a man who survived a terrible work accident, loses his old life and moves onto his new life in Florida on Duma Key. Our protagonist Edgar Freemantel makes friends with Wireman, a caretaker for the elderly woman who owns the homes on the Key. Within the story is this theme of recovery likely reflecting King's own recovery from the car that ran him over. Edgar loses an arm and his head is knocked around like jello in a dish. His wife divorces him during recovery which seems like a horrible thing to do to a man who nearly lost his wife, yet King works on it trying to make you sympathize with Edgar's wife. It's a method that didn't work for me, the wife always seemed bitchy, for lack of a better word. King did the same thing with The Shining with Jack Torrence. The wife can't seem to let go of a grief and constantly holds that event over the husbands' head. Wendy can't forgive Jack for hurting Danny, Pamela can't forgive Edgar for trying to throttle her in a fit of rage. That's what it always comes down to: rage and unforgiveness. I'd say something like "ya'll need Jesus" but I wonder if there are things that are too far gone. King makes it seem like there are such scenarios where damage can be so severe that the marriage can't be saved. Why am I always on the man's side? I don't know, I've always identified with the male characters even when the protagonist is a woman. There's this side character my fellow writer made named Rigby who steals articles from the protagonist but I found myself following Rigby more closely than the woman. Maybe I'm just too attatched to my manhood, now that's a joke.

Back to the story, there's this theme of healing and finding a new life. It's something I never considered before because after a huge event I suppose you do become a new person. I don't know why but I always saw Edgar as a larger man while I saw Wireman as a black man. The book doesn't indicate either of these things but that's just what my mind saw. On Duma Key, Wireman becomes a painter and gains some fame. His paintings seem to have a type of psychic power to them thanks to the influence of Perse, the villain. I'll get to Perse in a moment but this is another theme similar to The Shining. There's this spiritual connection to evil that King's characters seem to have or obtain. Danny doesn't understand his powers yet it lets him connect with the ghosts of the hotel. In the same way, Edgar doesn't understand how his paintings seem to affect people but there's this psychic connection between him and his phantom limb. It's amazingly subtle how King weaves in this possibility with the impossible. It's like telling a lie, you tell a little truth and slowly mix in the false. Edgar's missing arm itches and he often scratches it only to catch his ribs instead. We can believe that, it's understandable for someone with missing limbs to have phantom pains. But King slowly takes it a step further. As we start to believe in the Edgar's phantom pain, we believe that he's connecting to something deeper. It's like watching a hero discover their powers. The slow build up to a character realizing their power. It's believable, that's the key. Believable. It's like King is saying "you'll believe me that Edgar is missing an arm, maybe you'll believe this too. Then we go a little farther and you'll believe this as well." The powers culminate with paintings coming to life and affecting people such as Edgar able to strangle a child killer by painting the man's face without the mouth. 

There's something else here too: Edgar's naivete. You see, Edgar, like many artists, follows his muse instead of thinking about what is going on behind the painting. He gives power to his work. The itch in his missing arm won't go away unless he paints something. But Edgar doesn't understand what is going on here on Duma Key. He doesn't know about the strange things that happened her years ago or why the plants grow wildly in certain areas of the key. The villain takes advantage of Edgar's lack of knowledge and uses him to kill and affect people with his paintings. We follow Edgar through this kind of self-discovery as he comes to terms with his accident and the talent he discovers with his art. As he becomes more used to himself being an artist, we go along with Edgar in this change. It's almost like we change with Edgar over the years. That's another theme of King is that it's better to not know, and yet we must confront the monster. Sometimes it's better to let things be burried. The whole story will never be known and yet we have to know to free ourselves. Stephen King talks about writing himself out of something, almost like therapy after his accident. Maybe that's what he's trying to do here. It's hard for me to explain all this but King draws us in with the character's discovery of the horror. If they knew about the horror, the monster, it wouldn't be scary. It's like a villain in a play that slowly reveals itself over time.

Then we come to Perse, who's the cause and, in my opinion, almost the weak point of the story. Perse is short for Persephone, an Eldritch goddess who has infected the key. She's nothing but a statue no bigger than my hand. An effigy of some goddess and yet she has so much power. Not power like the ability to control people, but the ability to influence them. But that's also where the weakness comes in. What is her goal? Why does she do this? Where did she come from? Sometimes it's better to remain a mystery but King has never been good on what his villains want. Or at least it seems that way to me. Instead, his villains just do things for evil's sake. If I had to guess, I would say Persephone is "lending" out her power and she becomes stronger through influence. As Edgar's paintings become more powerful, she becomes more powerful. It's like how a god needs praise to live. Fearing god is a type of worship. But there's no explanation as to what Perse wants. Maybe I missed it. There's a line that sent chills down my spine where Edgar tries to figure out where Perse came from and the only thing he can think of is "In those days dark gods were worshiped." I'm paraphrasing but it's something like that. But that's the only hint we get about Perse. It's similar to Lovecraft's technique of being vague about his god's origins. The more you explain the more terror you take away.

Despite this "flaw" I still enjoyed the book. So much so that it influence my tooth story. So I think it's safe to say it's a good story even if it has its flaws. No book is perfect and King is aware of that. It seems that is a lesson I need to learn as well.