Hearts In Atlantis | Stephen King | Was there ever a time when it was really in our hands?

Hearts In Atlantis | Stephen King | Great Right Up to the End...Must Read for Dark Tower Fans

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Hearts In Atlantis

	Hearts In Atlantis Stephen King Pocket, 2000 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 570 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Was there ever a time when it was really in our hands?

I was skeptical when I picked up this book. I don't know much about the Vietnam War and what I do know isn't anything good. I'm still fairly young to know what the times were like and the reasons.

Then I started reading this book. I was immediately drawn into Carol, Bobby and Sully-John's world... only to be completely confused by the introduction of a new character and what at first appeared to be a different storyline. I have to admit, I was put out by it, I wanted to know what happened to them, not about this new guy. So I trudged along in the new story and from then on I was hooked once again.

I feel like I am missing some of the history of what took place but it saddened me to read about what happened to these people, what they had to "live" through. It makes no sense to me.

But I think King sums it up best when he writes: " ...That's us, brother, we like to watch. Movies, video games, live car-chase footage, fistfights on The Jerry Springer Show, Mark McGwire, World Federation Wrestling, impeachment hearings, we don't care, we just like to watch. But there was a time...don't laugh, but there was time when it was really all in our hands. Do you know that?"

Those words ring so true more than ever. We live in a society where people think they have control but in reality are no more than puppets whose strings are determined by the environments that the media has created. We have no control over anything, when the truth is told. We are always fighting for the idea that we can control something. We are allowed to think that we've won but the truth is that it's just that, a thought.

This book is very thought provoking, very insightful to what it was like or could have been like. It takes you to many worlds over and connects in a way that can only be revealed full circle. It's an amazing read and even more so an amazing experience.

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Great Right Up to the End...Must Read for Dark Tower Fans

Hearts in Atlantis is actually four separate stories that blend into a sort of interactive novel. This was okay, as far as it worked, but in the end might be the biggest flaw.

Part one, read by William Hurt, is "Low Men in Yellow Coats." This is King at his finest. A young boy, baseball - buddies - bullies and young love. Awakenings on many levels, including the jump from Rick Brant and The Hardy Boys to The Lord of the Flies, a work that comes back again and again to haunt the reader as King uses first one, then another scenario to show you the pig-hunting wild boys that surround us all. Also the question recurs - who will save the crew?

There is just enough of the otherworldly in Low Men in Yellow Coats to twist things so that htey don't really fit our reality, and just enough reality to the characters that you can cry with them, laugh with them, and share their dreams. Low Men ends on a down note, as so much modern horror seems to, not really answering any questions for the characters, or the reader, but then - you have the hope of parts II and III.

Part II, the title piece, is "Hearts in Atlantis." This is also wonderful writing. Kids caught in their first year at university, caught in the cusp of high-school and adulthood, the war in Vietnam looming all around them and the reality of scholarships dependent on grades haunting them day and night. Hearts in Atlantis is the story of a generation, its rise and its fall, and of addiction - the addiction of a game, in this case, but a study in obsession that goes well beyond the occasional beer, or the stack of magazines with Pamela Anderson in the corner. The kind that eats at you day and night, leaving you wanting to quit, even as you grin and call out for more.

One character from "Low Men" comes back to us in this second part of this book, Carol, who was the love interest of the young hero of part one. Here is where it sort of starts to crumble, for me. This story would be wonderful if it weren't for the attempt to link it back to the first story. I don't see how the connection furthers the tale, really - it is more as if it were forced, making this a book-length work when it is really a series of novellas. The college, the "game" and the way King draws back in the Lord of the Flies - the at first we were joking, and then, we weren't mentality - and the coming of age - all of this is the kind of writing that leaves you aching - sometimes with memories, other times with the desire to reach people in that same way - and at times, to BE those characters.

Then there is part three. "Blind Willie" has an interesting concept, to be sure. A man who is three men. A man who is so caught up in "penance" for an act of cruelty and violence he participated in as a child ( which you will have read about in part one ) that he has created an elaborate web of identities and ritual to try to cleanse it from his soul. A web he can't even see for the insanity it is, and, when you are reading, you see it as - if not normal - possible. That is King's gift. The problem with this, again, is that it is tied to the first story - even more tightly than Hearts in Atlantis is - but it is incomplete, there are huge gaps, and without the first story - it does not stand alone. Thus, Blind Willie is good reading, but not - to me - memorable. Not in the way the first two parts are.

Part four is the conclusion. This is almost a sequel to Low Men in Yellow coats, characters meeting their ends - whether they be happy, sad, together or apart - the wrapping up of threads spun by the first three stories. Unfortunately, that is all they seem, in the end. It is as if King took these three stories, read them and sat down to write conclusion that would just tie everything up and let it go. Again, no truly happy endings for anyone. Again, really, no resolution of conflict, except for one character who checks out for good.

There is also a small flurry of tie-ins to the Dark Tower series that are meaningless out of that context - tie-ins that, rather than strengthening the work - lessen it.

Overall, I enjoyed this performance of Hearts in Atlantis. William Hurt is expressive, reads well, and has the perfect voice for a story with kids as protagonists...he still seems to understand, much in the way King does when he writes. The performance of Hearts in Atlantis and Blind Willie by King himself are good, as they always are. His is a voice that lends itself to reading - that understands the spoken form of the art. Once you hear him read his own work, you can't help but hear that voice when you read more on your own, and it changes everything.

If you like audio books, you will like this one. It is entertaining, and, though a bit disappointing in the end, well worth the journey.

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Amazing narration

I always wanted to read a book full of vivid descriptions, lively characters. A book that talks rather than author telling some boring plot.

This is my first book by stephen king. Although, I am not going to read other books by him just because this is good, this one is good and more than worth of every minute spent on it.

The book aims to introspect the inner struggle of guilty conscience poeple struggle all life. Mostly by looking at heroes made by thier own self-convictions. Book is a compilation of six stories, five of them completely independent of each other, referring to other stories at some places to other stories in an unimportant manner. The last story is just a wrap-up.

They go in this sequence,

1. The story of the Self made hero who is centerpoint.
2. The story of completely un-related guy that starts exploring self-deprivation. The compulsive nature of addictions, marvelously told.This also lays builds alot for following stories
3. Wrap-up of this unrelated story
4. Introspection of a guy who could not be bad or good. Who is aimless, senseless. It reminded me of the guy in Fountainhead, who tries to compete howard roark and whose life goes totally miserble
5. Introspection of a crazy guy. This is the cheerful lot u find very often in your life. This guys life goes upside down artly because of his own crazyness and partly due to vietnam
6. Wrap up of hero showing up telling us he is just another ordinary guy.

Overall it was a good read. Even though stephen king did a good job on self introspecting, it somehow lacked the conviction it had in the first two stories. But, it still is worth a read, a collection item if you ignore the later short stories

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Not the best book written about the sixites, but not bad in its own little way

Hearts in Atlantis has been one of the most difficult books I have ever reviewed. I just keep wondering what the exact purpose of it is, why did King write it? The story is a shade different from anything King has ever written. It isn't horror, suspense, or fantasy, but rather a true to life story about how different people have been affected by the sixties and Vietnam. The book is basically a composition of five different stories. I think King brings them together alright in the end, but during the ride we are often puzzled.

The first story, and the best, is about a young Bobby Garfield and his coming of age through a magical friend named Ted he meets. Bobby is eleven years old. His mother is a harsh, prideful woman who does not trust others easily. Bobby has a girlfriend named Carol and a friend named Sully. Bobby's mom rents out her house to people coming into town. One of these people is named Ted. Ted is an interesting older man who thinks that people are out to get him. He even gives Bobby signs to watch out for in case these "men" somehow find Ted and send him back to wherever he came from. At the core of this story is Bobby's relationship with Ted, his feelings of anger towards his mother, his friendship with Carol, and his confusion over his deceased father. This is the best story of the lot, full of clear dialogue. Only near the end does it falter and bring in unneeded elements of fantasy which downplay the theme of coming of age that it is supposed to portray.

The second story is about a bunch of college boys. The main character who tells the story is Pete. This is an entertaining, if crude and overlong, adaptation of what it might have been like to be in college in the late 60's during the Vietnam era. Pete is addicted to the card game of hearts, which is affecting his school work, but so are all of his friends. Large tournaments are created and we are introduced to a host of different characters, all of which have a unique voice. Pete falls in love with Carol, the same little girl in the first story. Now she has grown up and will soon become an activist against the war. I am not sure what the point of this story is other than to show characters in the 60's as they might have been.

The third, and weakest, story of the lot is "Blind Willie", which is about a man named William who is married and served in the Vietnam War. In his childhood days, he stole Bobby's (story 1) favorite baseball mitt and served the war with Bobby's childhood friend Sully and even saved his life. Now, Willie mysteriously goes blind in the afternoons, only to regain his sight in the evening. He pretends to be a vagabond and preys off the goodwill of others to make his living. This story felt out of place here and the novel would have worked without it.

The fourth story is about Sully. This might be the most consistent of the five stories. It is by far the saddest. It tells the story of Sully, Bobby's childhood friend, who has had devastating after the war scars, due to his time spent in Vietnam. One in particular is an old, dead Vietnamese woman that he saw one of his fellow soldiers savagely murder during the war. Sully sees her everywhere. Of course he is hallucinating, but the hallucinations feel very real. Sully also hallucinates about the world crumbling around him. At times he can be normal, but most of the time the war has left him scarred beyond repair.

The fifth and final story is not really a story but rather a bridge that connects the beginning tale and gives us a feeling of closure. Bobby, now a carpenter, married with three children, returns home to attend the funeral of one of his friends. He hopes to see the girlfriend Carol, who is believed dead, but might still be living. Bobby also tried to make some sense about why he is drawn back home after all this time.

Although Hearts in Atlantis doesn't seem to have any real powerful meaning behind it, it is written with the usual reality and skill King puts into most of his novels. I definitely wasn't blown away by anything here, but it felt like an entertaining read. Hearts in Atlantis can be uneven, overlong, and even pretentious at times, but at least King brings it together nicely in the end. Just stick with it through the times where you wonder where it is all supposed to go and what it is supposed to mean. Although I didn't like the fantasy element in the first story, I think King does a good job of explaining what it all means in the final section.

This is by no means King's greatest work, but he has written some real bombs as well. At least this isn't one of them. Overall, a forgettable book, but marginally recommended because of the interesting characters and dialogue that are presented here. They feel as real as any King has drawn up....too bad the story couldn't match the same quality. If you are looking for great stories about the Vietnam War and the Sixties, however, this isn't the place to go....but it's a not a bad little piece of escapism.

Grade: B-

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Stephen King's version of Lord of the Flies. Alright but not the real thing

Hearts in Atlantis is a series of interconnected novellas and short stories all focusing on a small group of similar characters and spanning from 1960 to 1999. King successfully weaves these characters into the various stories, but still fars short in some areas.

The first story is "Low Men in Yellow Coats," which is the longest and by far the most poignant of the collection. The story deals with Bobby Garfield and his widdowed mother, Liz, who live in an apartment building in Conneticuit. Bobby and his mother don't get along well, but Bobby still has a rather happy childhood palling around with his best friends, "Sully" John Sullivan and Carol Gerber. But Bobby's childhood is beginning to change when an old sourjourner by the name of Ted Brautigan moves into the upstairs apartment. Ted becomes the father that Bobby never knew and teaches him about literature--particulary William Golding's Lord of the Flies. But Ted is prone to blackouts and asks Bobby to look out for "low men in yellow coats" who are after Ted (supposively they have to do with the Dark Tower series, but I haven't read any of those). Although Ted is Bobby's friend, he causes Bobby to see the dark side of human nature, an idea that catalyzes the end of Bobby's childhood. This story is the basis from which all of the other stories stem and has the best characterization and plot.

The second story "Hearts in Atlantis" is told by Pete Riley, a student at the University of Maine that is in danger of flunking out on account of his addiction to the card game hearts. Carol Gerber reappears as a love interest for Pete and becomes an aspiring activist. This story presents portents of the activist movements of the "hippies" to protest the war. Overall, I found this story a bit mawkish because it had too much card playing in it and never really drove the nail in about the whole "hippie" movement.

The next two stories are shorter and rather inchoate. The third story, "Blind Willie" is undoubtly the weakest in the book. It deals with Willie Shearman, who made a minor appearance in "Low Men..." and his life after serving in Vietnam. Apparently, Willie is inveigling money by dressing up as a washed out Vet and panhandling. Needless to say, I didn't get the point. The fourth story "Why Were in Vietnam" deals with "Sully" John Sullivan and his flashback to Vietnam. Although I did like parts of this story, ultimately I felt that King's descriptions of Vietnam were feigned and only put into the book because he could not write a book about the 60s without mentioning it.

The final story, "Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling," deals with Bobby again, is short, and wraps up the book quite well.

The overall theme of Hearts in Atlantis, is the loss of childhood innocence which is experienced by all of the main characters in one way or another. To illustrate this theme, King alludes to Goldings' Lord of the Flies frequently throughout the stories. For example, Bobby has a dream where the characters from the novel are hunting his mother, and one of Sully's flashbacks deals with a soldier saying that he was going to mount a Vietminese woman's head on a stick. King has said that he wished that he had written written Lord of the Flies, and this is his version of it. But in this version, the boys from the island have grown up and the jungle is Vietnam. King does do a good job of incorporating that novel into his own work, but he does it to such a degree that anyone who has not read Lord of the Flies will be lost, and Hearts in Atlantis will ruin the ending of that book.

Overall, King steps out of his horror-comfort zone for this book. It is good, but not great. It is a little too similar to It in its themes, but not as well crafted. And the metaphor of America as Atlantis sinking from the weigh of the sixities didn't really seem to stick with me. It seems that King has written a book that some literary critics may be interested in analysing, but may be a bit insipid for his horror fan-base. Pick this book up if you like Lord of the Flies and other such themes or are one of those people who want to read everything that King has written. Sorry, but no matter how hard you try, you cannot re-write Lord of the Flies. But Hearts in Atlantis is not a bad attempt.

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