The Basic Works of Aristotle by Richard McKeon
Aristotle focus in “The Basic Works of Aristotle” is that “all men suppose what is called wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things.” These causes and principles are the subject matters referred to as “first philosophy.” Considered to be one of the first true scientists, he created an early version of the scientific method to observe and draw conclusions. The approach begins with reviewing the opinions of others and even the history of thought.
He drew distinctions between things that are “better known to us” and things that are “better known in themselves,”. He said we start with what is best known to us and then move to things better known in themselves.
Aristotle’s said “the study of being qua “is frequently and easily misunderstood, because it seems to suggest that there is a single subject matter—being qua being. The subject matter of “being” included within it three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a way the subject matter is studied (qua being).
Much of Aristotle’s teachings were preserved by Arabic mathematicians and canonized by Christian scholars. His works have shaped Western thought, science, and religion for nearly two thousand years. Richard McKeon’s The Basic Works of Aristotle is the one-volume source for understanding this scholar.
The books approach is especially useful in comparing him to Plato. Plato's world was one of changeless things assigned for lofty contemplation and for Aristotle, as we are told in the introduction, it was a world for empirical investigation. Aristotle had a fascination with living things.
The contents list a Preface, Introduction, Bibliography, Organon (logical treatises), Physica, DeCaelo, De Generatione, Parva Naturalia, Historia Animalium, De Partibus, De Generatione, Metaphysica, Ethica Nicomachea, Politica, Rhetorica, and De Poetica.
In the preface it tells us that this book is an aid to understanding the man and his thoughts. A study of an ancient writer. The re-discovery and assemblage of useful items of information and knowledge and inquiry into truths whose specifications do not change with time. “The Basic Works of Aristotle by Richard McKeon” is a must-have book to understand and have a useful reference for understanding this important scholar.
Quotes
“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ”
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”
“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
“The more you know, the more you know you don't know.”
Rattlesnake Lawyer by Jonathan Miller
See the latest books by this author at Rattlesnakelaw.com
"Watch for Rattlesnakes" reads the sign at the first rest stop within New Mexico's "Fighting 14th district. Young attorney Dan Shepherd has been fired from his mothers prestigious Washington law fir, and now must must make it among the rattlesnakes.
Rattlesnake Lawyer is best described as a Southwestern Novel, set in Southern New Mexico, it captures the geography and the small town setting very well. The Hispanic influence is the norm here and this one-time big city lawyer is the one that is out of place.
The justice system in this small town doesn’t work well but Miller brought some interesting twists to the plot. Young independent Attorney Dan Shepherd is in new town trying to get started with his legal work and finds it hard to make ends meet. The first case that comes his way, however, is anything but promising.
Shepherd is assigned the task of defending a memorable character, Jesus Villalobos, who is accused of a murder. Though his family and friends have nothing bad to say about Jesus, the State seems determined to send him to the gallows. What follows is Dan's quest to secure justice for his client and the bond that forms between the lawyer and his unusual client leads to an exciting courtroom drama.
Jonathan Miller was a new author back in 2004 when this his first book came out, and he is a practicing attorney. His expertise in law and courtroom procedure serves him well in Rattlesnake Lawyer and the novel reads like a well-prepared brief. A good book worth reading.
Buy this book, use buy button below and purchase from Amazon
Laughing Gas, by P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse was referred to by an English journalist as “the most influential novelist of our age” and a master of “the Great English Joke”. This meant the teasing of all people who take themselves too seriously.
Wodehouse said, “I had just begun to write this story, when a literary pal of mine who had had a sticky night out with the P.E.N Club blew in to borrow bicarbonate of soda, and I thought it would be as well to have him vet what I’d done, in case I might have foozled my tee-shot.” He tells him he can read some of the story and is told, “If you must” and he replies: “Right ho”.
The story starts with Reggie and Joey sitting I the dentist office. Reggie is the Third Earl of Havershot, he started at the bottom and worked his way up to Third Earl, also an accomplished boxer. He has been asked by his family to go to Hollywood and save his cousin Eggy, the family black sheep, who is planning to marry a Hollywood bimbo. On the way he meets a famous movie star and his long-lost love, April June, but he is surprised to learn that she is the one his cousin Eggy plans to marry.
Reggie, in the dentist office, finds himself sitting next to Joey Cooley, a 10-year-old child film star and they are both under laughing gas anesthetic and somehow, they find that their identities are swapped, and each is in the others body.
Trouble follows. Young Joey has lots of resentment for his manages and even for his co-star, April June. Joey with his new 6-foot body plans to give his past tormentors a punch in the snout. Reggie now in the body of a child wants to warn those that may be punched.
Eventually Wodehouse finds a way out for Reggie and Joey. Reggie as his mature self gets an opportunity to approach Ann Bannister. He is at first hesitant because he knows his true face looks like a gorilla.
This is a small comic novel, 286 pages, first published in the United Kingdom in 1936 and then in the United States. The story is set in Hollywood in the early 1930s. This story is a satire on Hollywood full of facades, and the story is a farce.
Quotes
‘Haven’t you ever heard of Sister Lora Luella Stott?’ ‘No. Who is she?’ ‘She is the woman who is leading California out of the swamp of alcohol.’.............................‘Good God!’ I could tell by Eggy’s voice that he was interested. ‘Is there a swamp of alcohol in these parts? What an amazing country America is. Talk about every modern convenience. Do you mean you can simply go there and lap?’ Laughing Gas (1936)
“And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”
“It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.”
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir Review
Kao Kalia Yang tells us in her book, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir Review, about the Hmong people, who beginning in the 18-century migrated south from China, first to Laos, and then Vietnam. They became allies to America helping with the Vietnam war even before it was on the radar for most Americans. When the war ended they fled the country across the Mekong River into Thailand where they waited years before they were able to come to the United States.
Yang tells us about her Grandmother and what really is a love story of sacrifice for her Mother and Father. Once they arrive in America her parents and all their extended family live for each other, but especially to help their children benefit from being Americans. She tells us that the Hmong are in the end Americans first and Hmong in heritage.
Yang was born in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand in 1980. Her grandmother had wanted to stay in the camp, to make it easier for her spirit to find its way back to her birthplace when she died, but it wasn’t possible. The Hmong left the jungles of Thailand to fly to America and then they settled in Minnesota and California. Like many immigrant groups before, the adults worked two jobs, so the children could get an education. The Hmong were different, having come from a non-Christian background, and a rain forest and jungle culture with no homeland to return to. People in America didn’t know anything about them, and when their kids studied the Vietnam War at school, their lessons never mentioned that the Hmong had been fighting for the Americans in that war.
Yang story of family and the death of her grandmother is touching. The Hmong’s sacrifices truly qualify them as pioneers and their story ought to be required reading for the insight into the strength of their family values and how they have grown through their hardships. This book is important, and America needs to know this story.
More On Hmong
As many as 20,000 Hmong soldiers died during the Vietnam War. Hmong civilians, who numbered about 300,000 before the war, perished by the tens of thousands.
From 1959 to 1973, the CIA trained Hmong tribesmen to fight against Communist insurgencies in Laos.
At the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s about 130,000 Hmong made their way to United States. Another 50,000 to 100,000 stayed in Thailand. About 400,000 remained in Laos.
Candide, by Voltaire
Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer who embraced the ideals of a free and liberal society, along with freedom of religion and free commerce. His book, Candide, was a satire, funny, well done and relevant to the times but Voltaire’s purpose was to use wit to make his points.
He made fun of the teachings of the Church, but he was pushing for religious freedom. He had strong opinions and Candide was a tool to presenting his thoughts. The book is one of the most significant works of Western Canon due to its portrayal of the human condition.
The story is intended to satirize the idea of optimism. The approach was developed in the events of a trip which allowed the author to interchange the tragedy and the comedy within the various situations that occurred. This was a unique approach but provided a way to look at good and evil, as well as the role of God and Government in people’s lives. The satirical approach allowed him cover to focus on criticism.
A simple story, a young man leaves his home because he has been caught kissing the wrong person. Sill optimistic he joins the army. He is flogged and later almost burned alive. He continues to believe that he is indeed living in the "best of all possible worlds", as he was taught growing up, and sets out to see the world. Nothing goes well with one tragedy after another. Funny but sad. Then, after what seems to be an endless ordeal, he returns and settles for life in a garden. Even so, still optimistic perhaps, he says that "we must cultivate our garden".
Voltaire’s book, and his story, challenge the idea that "all is for the best" in a world where it is often assumed that things "work out for the best".
Quotes
“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”
“Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.”
“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Ivan Denisovich Shukov was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1943 and he later escaped and returned to his own troops. He admitted that the Germans has captured him, and that became his crime. He was assumed to be a spy. He was forced to confess to being a spy to avoid being shot, but then went to a soviet prison.
The others in the prison also seem to have little logical reason for being there. One mans crime was being a Baptist. Many were there for being spies. Survival meant stealing, lying, and anything it took to stay alive. In prison they were not able to call the guards comrade but had to call them “Citizen”, removing their hats five steps before approaching them, and keeping it off until they had past two steps beyond. An inmate said that survial was "by the law of the taiga," or as we would put it, the law of the jungle.
Ivan says of the time "How can you expect a man who's warm, to understand a man who's cold?" The goal is to live through just one more day. On this "one day" Ivan is lucky when he was awakened by the sound of a hammer clanging against a steel rail, Ivan thinks he is sick guard pretends to take him to the punishment cells, but he only wants Ivan to mop the floor of the guardroom.
He did not have to work in the 20 below zero wind, and even got to stand in a warm place, while his guards discussed the wall his gang would have to make. He tricked the lunch staff and got an extra bowl of mush. He worked on building a wall and mistakenly put a long steel shaft in his pocket and he thought for sure he would be caught with it at the days, end when he remembered it was there, but then he was successful in getting the metal blade through the check station without being caught. He gets an extra meal ticket at dinner standing in line for a wealthy prisoner.
The day ends with Ivan sharing his story and talking about God with the Baptist prisoner. The is the end of the book.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded the prize to Alexksandr Solzheitsyn in 1970,
"Solzhenitsyn's One Day: The book that shook the USSR". BBC. Moscow. -Steve Rosenberg Nov. 19th 2012 / Vitaly Korotich declared: "The Soviet Union was destroyed by information - and this wave started from Solzhenitsyn's One Day.
.
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
see article on Stephen King as a literary influence click here
Salem’s Lot is small town America. The pace is slower, it seems quiet, but feelings are deep and just under the surface. The townspeople still take care of their own. Stephen King has created this world for us and we find ourselves a part of it, anxious to read the master story teller’s tale.
The novel, Salem’s Lot, was Stephen King’s second novel published in 1975. King in two separate interviews, said this book was one of his favorites. It is set in in Maine, of course, with a cast of interesting characters. We know King is not afraid to kill off his good guys and girls, so we start to care about, and root for them, when they must fight to stay alive.
Marsten House sits on a hill above the town, a cemetery is just down the hill, and no one has lived in the house for years. The house has been recently purchased by Kurt Barlow an Austrian immigrant and his partner Richard Straker. Ben Mears, a writer, remembers the terror he felt in this house as a boy ,when he arrives back after 25 years, as a successful writer and planning to write about this house.
Ben makes friends with Matt Burke, a high school teacher, and with Susan Norton, a young college graduate. Danny Glick has just become the town’s first vampire but his brother Mark escapes. Ben, Susan, Matt and Mark seek help from the local Catholic Priest. Holy Water, Crosses, and wooden stakes follow. Encounters with the master vampire follow. Some die of fear and many are turned into vampire followers. Mark, only a young boy, proves to be a challenge to the master vampire who at one-point spits in his face, but he loses his entire family to the vampires.
The story seems like it might be predictable, but it holds us on the edge of our seat. This may well turn out to be one of your favorite Stephen King novels, if you have not read it yet, so I have not detailed out the ending but do highly recommend the book.
Reviewing and reading a book written in 1975, considering it was made into a miniseries, may seem questionable to some? Why read this? My reason is that I never tire of the skill I find in Stephen King’s ability to tell a story.
Quotes
“The town has a sense, not of history, but of time, and the telephone poles seem to know this. If you lay your hand against one, you can feel the vibration from the wires deep within the wood, as if souls had been imprisoned in there and were struggling to get out.”
“Alone. Yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym…”
“The basis of all human fears, he thought. A closed door, slightly ajar.”
“If a fear cannot be articulated, it can’t be conquered.”
A Brief History Of Time by Stephen W. Hawkings
Stephen Hawking has sold over 10 million books of Brief History of Time translated into 35 language since it was published in 1988. The book discusses the “big bang”, black holes, string theory indicating a universe with 10 to 26 dimensions, quantum mechanics and more in a way that most readers are able to follow. The language is a pleasant surprise for the lay reader. Hawking’s approach is broader than many scientists in the questions he asks. “Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is, to ask the question why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advances of scientific theories.”
It seems clear that after the universe came to be, that finding out what happened is a focus that is still being understood.
Hawking’s asks, not just how but “why does it exist”, and then tells us in the final statement of the book that if we could answer that we would “know the mind o God.”
It also seems clear that Hawking’s is not trying to tell us what or who God is, adding: "An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!"
It is interesting how educated minds open up to consider God. Albert Einstein harbored a belief in, and reverence for, the harmony and beauty of what he called the mind of God as it was expressed in the creation of the universe and its laws.
Quotes
"There should be no boundary to human endeavor."
"Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
"I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer."
"An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job."
Miles Gone By, a literary autobiography, by William F. Buckley Jr.
"Miles Gone By" by William F. Buckley Jr. is a collection of his essays from over 50 years. He said that “it is material that he brought together with an autobiography in mind using articles, books and his newspaper columns”.
Buckley’s diverse mix of his life-loves, history that includes his youth growing up, his impressive and interesting friends, love of sailing, love of language, music and skiing, are all puzzle pieces in getting to know him better. It would be easy to overlook the uniqueness of this life by labeling the author as mostly reflecting a political point of view.
A favorite chapter was “God and Man at Yale A controversy revisited.” In 1950 this book was considered very controversial in it’s defense of individualism, religion and capitalism. He discussed the 25th anniversary edition of the book where he wrote a comprehensive introduction for the book.
The essays retell the stories that many Buckley followers know well.
In the final chapter “Thoughts on a Final Passage” he likens his life to a voyage not really knowing where it would lead in another 5 years of retirement. He said that “you are moving at racing speed, parting the buttery sea as with a scalpel, and the waters roar by, themselves exuberantly subdued by your powers to command your way through them.” (An then you retire)
1st reviewed in 2006
Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian author who is best known for his book “Things Fall Apart”, first published in 1959. This book, “Home and Exile”, published in 1998 and 10 years from his last book, came from three lectures at Harvard University. The lectures serve as a metaphor for the African story and this is illustrated by an African Proverb about Lions. We learn that “until the Lions produce their own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter.”
African literature has few writers who tell the authentic story and many who push their own dark versions of what they feel is expected. Achebe is the African’s own historian, a proverb fulfilled, and we see things very differently from his view.
The first lecture, “My Home under Imperial Fire”, tells the African story in an autobiographical account. As with many writers we can see Achebe has an overpowering urge to tell his story. We learn of his childhood, family and what influenced him and his writing.
The second lecture, “The Empire Fights Back” compares African the literature written by outsiders with those of authentic African writers. Achebe examines reactions in England to some outsider books to the reactions of the Nigerians.
The final lecture, “Today, the Balance of stories” is where Achebe questions whether these efforts are worth it.
When we finish reading “Home and Exile” we feel we have tasted the African literary experience but are left wanting to know more. The simple conclusion to the book is that Africans should write about Africans.
See Review of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe by clicking on book above or here
Quotes
“In the end I began to understand. There is such a thing as absolute power over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for themselves can arrange stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like. Just as in corrupt, totalitarian regimes, those who exercise power over others can do anything.”
“The Igbo nation in precolonial times was not quite like any nation most people are familiar with. It did not have the apparatus of centralized government but a conglomeration of hundreds of independent towns and villages each of which shared the running of its affairs among its menfolk according to title, age, occupation, etc.; and its women folk who had domestic responsibilities as well as the management of the scores of four-day and eight-day markets that bound the entire region and its neighbors in a network of daily exchange of goods and news, from far and near.”
Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet whose intense, mystical style dealt man’s existence and ways to deal with solitude and anxiety. He stressed that with "free will" the individual had to assume the responsibility for their own acts, even if they lacked a clear knowledge of what was right and wrong.
Franz Xaver Kappus was 19-year-old in the Austrian army when he started corresponding with Rilke, who in return, over the next 6 years, sent him 10 letters. The two never met, but Kappus sought out advice on the poems he had written and in his interest in a literary career.
Author and critic Stephen Mitchell’s in 1989 translated some of Rilke’s selected works and said that “Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of the romantic transformation of spiritual quest that the twentieth century has known.”
Rilke’s letters offer some real insight into creative thinking and writing as well as a surprising level of cordiality. He said: "There is nothing less apt to touch a work of art than critical words: all we end up with there is more or less felicitous misunderstandings.” He added that "Nobody can advise you and help you. There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write . . . ask yourself in your night's quietest hour: must I write? Read the lines as if they were unknown to you, and you will feel in your inmost self how very much they are yours."
The letters also offer thoughts on just living with phrases like these: "To love is also good, for love is hard. Love between one person and another: that is perhaps the hardest thing it is laid on us to do, the utmost, the ultimate trial and test, the work for which all other work is just preparation."
The book “Letters to a Young Poet” is the collection of letters that Kappus compiled and published in 1929—three years after Rilke's death from leukemia. It offers a different way to look at poetry and writing and some philosophy on life.
Quotes
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
“Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going
No feeling is final”
“To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”
“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.”
“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible"
How We Think by John Dewey
John Dewey was born in 1859 and died in 1952 and was one of the founders of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism. He wrote the book, “How We Think”, that concludes that we can be taught to think well, but not the process. He tells us that thinking is automatic, like breathing and our heartbeats.
Dewey tells us that our knowledge is what we are aware of, and that how we consider those things are beliefs. He tells us that beliefs have consequences, and that knowledge is relative to its interaction with the world.
He says that, “Genuine freedom is intellectual; it rests in the trained power of thought, in the ability to turn things over and to look at matters deliberately”. Thinking is more important than what is being thought about. “If a man’s actions are not guided by thoughtful conclusions, then they are guided by inconsiderate impulse.”
He tells us that thinking is the act of believing and offers an example: “I think that it is going to rain tomorrow’ is equivalent to saying, ‘I believe that it is going to rain tomorrow”.
Dewey tells us that the thinking process begins with a dilemma that suggests alternatives, indicating that thinking is evoked by confusion. He adds that schools do not need to teach information but should encourage stimulus that challenges external reality. The goal is to create curious and questioning minds that see wonder in science and philosophy, rather than monotony and routine in school.
Thinking doesn’t just happen, but it is evoked by something specific. Experience is a point of reference for the imagination. The mind reflects by looking for additional evidence to compare with new experiences. Good and bad thinking in some cases can be in effected by the amount of experience or prior knowledge. With nothing to draw on the result is uncritical thinking.
Quotes
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
We only think when we are confronted with problems.
Warlight, A Novel, by Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje is known for his writing of The English Patient
It is 1945 and fourteen-year-old Nathaniel and his older sister, Rachael, are told one day that their parents are leaving for Singapore and they will be staying with two criminals who will watch over them for a year that turns out to be more than that. This is Michael Ondaatje’s new novel, “Warlight,” beginning with something that seems clear enough, but it isn’t clear at all.
The brother and sister grow up during this time with a previous household renter named Moth as their official guardian. The other adult that became part of the temporary family unit was Darter, a colorful character clearly working outside the law. A temporary girlfriend of Darter, Olive Lawrence, brings some worldly glamour with her during her time with them and then writes to Nathaniel and Rachael for months after leaving. Their mother never writes.
Nathaniel doesn’t do well in school and spends much of his time working, helping Darter in his life of crime, and with his first love, Agnes. Rachael likes school and is drawn to acting.
Someone has followed the two teenagers on several occasions, and when they are attacked and taken away, they are recused by friends of her mother who come with them back into their life. It turns out she has been on a secret mission and never did go to Singapore.
We shift into the second half of the novel where many seem to feel the novel slows into endless facts that don’t seem to connect but try to fill in all the blanks of the first half. Nathaniel seeks answers to his mother’s earlier life and what she had really been doing. Years pass, and he is recruited by British Intelligence to review wartime files. He learns of war atrocities.
The details of what his mother was doing when she left, the war and his mother’s past seem to connect. We know it connects because his mother, Rose, predicts that things will come together in her journal. For the reader it is questionable that the second half of this book really brings anything together.
The Author tells us that “No one really understands another’s life or even death,” This seems to be the real message of the book and that Nathaniel learns.
The first half of this book gave us a picture of two young people growing up without help from their parents at a difficult time, but the last half seemed to confirm that the book wasn’t about what happened in the first half. A confusing book.
The Outsider, a Novel, by Stephen King
Terry Maitland is a pillar of the community in Flint City, Oklahoma, and a very popular Little League coach. His DNA is found at the scene of a brutal murder and eyewitness identify him at the scene. He is also documented being in another town at the exact same time of the murder.
Detective Ralph Anderson feels the case against Maitland is solid, based on the local witnesses and physical evidence, and he is ready to send Maitland to death row for his crimes. His wife Jeannie helps him see why his case may have problems and that he needs to look deeper. It’s Jeannie who first sees the truth lying at the center of this seemingly unsolvable mystery, and her questions eventually help Ralph to believe in the one woman, Holly Gibney, who can help him catch a child killer.
Much of the first half of this book deals with looking close at the forensics evidence. Some of that evidence leads to another town earlier that same year where a very similar crime takes place. Holly Gibney is a very qualified investigator who lives in Ohio near the other town and Anderson hires her to help find what might connect the two crimes. King has brought Holly’s character to this plot from the Bill Hodges Mr. Mercedes trilogy, and she drives much of the movement of the plot in the last half of this book.
It becomes clear that an Outsider is involved in both murders. As brutal as the murders were, the mystery of the Outsider becomes scarier than the murders and is the strongest presence of evil in the story.
Holly Gibney’s insight brings the twist that makes the second half of this book come together with supernatural elements worthy of King. Both halves work well together.
As with many of King’s novels it becomes clear that “there were monsters in the world, and their greatest advantage was the unwillingness of rational people to believe” in them. Once the supernatural is acceptance King makes that knowledge have its own terror. The first half of the book puts all the pieces in order and lead quickly to a confrontation with evil and to conclusion.
