What Makes Me Believe In Domes

This weekend, I was a murderer, a pacemaker-clad police chief, a self-mutilating priest, an evil car salesman, a soon-to-be-dead girl, a soldier, a widower, a drugged-up lesbian, a father, a woodchuck, and a republican. Stephen King's Under the Dome took me on a whirlwind adventure through the lives (and final moments) of the residents of Chester's Mill, Maine.

I think, by far, my favorite rhetorical technique King has used throughout the book is his point of view--each character (no matter of importance or life span) was allotted his or her own narrative style, tricking the reader into believing the event relayed to them first-hand instead of the typical third-person POV King uses. The "true" Christians were given a protective bubble, free of curse words; the sweet little old lady who was sent flying through her windshield was described with the same kindly simplicity as if she were instead knitting a sweater. The intensity of a headache pounds on every syllable, and the beauty of love caresses every letter. King's storytelling is so personal, so real, it makes believable the random barrier popping up one afternoon, massacring a third of the town's population who just so happened to be on or near the city limit.

I won't say much about the actual plot in case anybody wants to read it, but I will commend King (as if he were worried about my literary criticism) on his successful duty of dispelling disbelief.