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July 30, 2016 4:26 AM Subscribe
Cookie Jar, a short story by Stephen King
I'll finish this later, for the same reasons and with the same reservations as Scattercat. I suppose it's a cliché, but King is usually such a good storyteller that it's easy to forgive the fact that he is, just as usually, not a particularly good writer. The key point in assessing the balance between these things is that storytelling is a much rarer and more valuable skill than good prose style.
posted by howfar at 5:35 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by howfar at 5:35 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Actually, "Honey, it don't do windows" is the response to "Is there anything it doesn't do" after Dale confirms the iPhone can record. Which is actually a pretty sharp crack about the difference between general purpose operating systems and the walled garden of iOS, and hints that King knows you can get phablets now that do run Windows 8/10.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:13 AM on July 30, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:13 AM on July 30, 2016 [17 favorites]
Great story. Easy swift read. A brief glimmer of the King fantastic, served as a few bite-sized cookies.
There's an obvious subtext. Grandfather speaking of demons long banished. The myopia of petulant youth. A road unwritten. That we must take responsibility for our choices, with only the guidance of old stories and how things were before.
The cognitive dissonance of society's unsung intelligencia, watching patterns align and feeling gut-wrenching recognition as the fantastic becomes reality.
This rings as an intergenerational warning from King, lest we forget how things were before.
posted by nickrussell at 6:18 AM on July 30, 2016 [10 favorites]
There's an obvious subtext. Grandfather speaking of demons long banished. The myopia of petulant youth. A road unwritten. That we must take responsibility for our choices, with only the guidance of old stories and how things were before.
The cognitive dissonance of society's unsung intelligencia, watching patterns align and feeling gut-wrenching recognition as the fantastic becomes reality.
This rings as an intergenerational warning from King, lest we forget how things were before.
posted by nickrussell at 6:18 AM on July 30, 2016 [10 favorites]
I doubt King means it to be such a Doctorowian statement re:Apple and general purpose computers. It's a pretty sure bet that he's merely recycling the age-old concept relating to hired help/assistants/maids/etc. re: whether or not they do (clean) the windows.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:18 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 6:18 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
The "Honey, it don't do windows" line is a subtle cue for [SPOILER], but then, given that this is Stephen King we're talking about, you have to come to expect something off the bat in his tales.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:19 AM on July 30, 2016
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:19 AM on July 30, 2016
Okay, now we know why this story is free on the web: It doesn't have an ending. It doesn't even explain how or why the [big dangerous miracle] manifests in our world as the [charmingly small miracle]. There is no motivation or expectated result of the only deliberate act taken by either of the main characters. It's a fast, pleasant read that leaves you wondering just what the point was. At least it isn't 4,000 pages long.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:44 AM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:44 AM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
It does have an ending. It's perhaps more of a Harlan Ellison style finish, but King's known to go toward that direction on a number of occasions.
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:11 AM on July 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:11 AM on July 30, 2016 [5 favorites]
That was fun. He's a master.
To whoever said King was a "great storyteller, but not a great writer," I respond that the stuff he does well is mostly invisible. He's got a handful of tricks you can see coming a mile off once you've read a few of his stories, but that's just on the surface.
I encourage you to pull a page at random from any other successful genre author, and a page of King, and think hard about where and why it caught your interest, why it is you really want to read the next page after it. It's not an easy thing to do.
That being said, you can get definitely get too much of it. Like cookies.
posted by panglos at 7:12 AM on July 30, 2016
To whoever said King was a "great storyteller, but not a great writer," I respond that the stuff he does well is mostly invisible. He's got a handful of tricks you can see coming a mile off once you've read a few of his stories, but that's just on the surface.
I encourage you to pull a page at random from any other successful genre author, and a page of King, and think hard about where and why it caught your interest, why it is you really want to read the next page after it. It's not an easy thing to do.
That being said, you can get definitely get too much of it. Like cookies.
posted by panglos at 7:12 AM on July 30, 2016
At work, but will definitely bookmark this for later.
He can be hit or miss. There do seem to be more hits than misses though. At least that's how I feel about his shorter fiction works. I'm usually a big fan of his short stories. One of my favourite short stories of all time is from the Skeleton Crew collection: The Raft. Still gives me chills just to think about it. I realize that collection is from a much earlier time in his writing career but even his more recent works still find a way to creep me out, Mile 81 in particular.
posted by Fizz at 7:40 AM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
He can be hit or miss. There do seem to be more hits than misses though. At least that's how I feel about his shorter fiction works. I'm usually a big fan of his short stories. One of my favourite short stories of all time is from the Skeleton Crew collection: The Raft. Still gives me chills just to think about it. I realize that collection is from a much earlier time in his writing career but even his more recent works still find a way to creep me out, Mile 81 in particular.
posted by Fizz at 7:40 AM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
An ending is something which concludes the story, making it unnecessary to wonder what happens next. Good nukes Evil in Las Vegas is an ending. Coming back to burn down 'Salem's Lot is an ending. Flying off in the Tommyknockers' saucer is an ending. The Mangler ripping itself from its foundation is an ending. Christine seems to have one ending when Christine is cubed, but in an epilogue we get a quite diffeerent one, his unending fury. It happens just past the last page but we know exactly what the ending of Pet Sematary is. In It the writer uses the last of the magic to save his wife. Those are endings.
This story doesn't have an ending. It actually feels like the prologue to a much longer story which might explore what Dale does with his gift, but as it ends neither Rhett nor we have any idea what will happen next; this is presented as kind of a metaphor about how things move between generations, but it's not an ending.
If the maguffin was broken, or Rhett decided not to pass it on and let it be lost, or Rhett passes it on with an understanding that what he is doing is evil or dangerous but he has some reason for that, those would be endings. I think the problem with this story is that Stephen King doesn't know how it ends, or even exactly why the [charmingly small miracle] masks the [large dangerous miracle]. He just described the image of these miracles being revealed, and didn't know what to do with them. Like I said, at least he didn't spend 4,000 pages failing to figure it out.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:49 AM on July 30, 2016
This story doesn't have an ending. It actually feels like the prologue to a much longer story which might explore what Dale does with his gift, but as it ends neither Rhett nor we have any idea what will happen next; this is presented as kind of a metaphor about how things move between generations, but it's not an ending.
If the maguffin was broken, or Rhett decided not to pass it on and let it be lost, or Rhett passes it on with an understanding that what he is doing is evil or dangerous but he has some reason for that, those would be endings. I think the problem with this story is that Stephen King doesn't know how it ends, or even exactly why the [charmingly small miracle] masks the [large dangerous miracle]. He just described the image of these miracles being revealed, and didn't know what to do with them. Like I said, at least he didn't spend 4,000 pages failing to figure it out.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:49 AM on July 30, 2016
the stuff he does well is mostly invisible
King nails the vernacular. His characters talk and think like real people. He likes to downplay the fact that he is formally trained and obviously capable of highbrow; he was teaching college English when the sale of Carrie changed his career. But he uses his skills, including writing devices that were never seen in popular novels before King started doing them, to portray the realistic patterns of ordinary thought and speech. His style is very distinctive and suited to the lowbrow stories he prefers to tell, but he executes it so well because he knows exactly what he's doing.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:53 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
King nails the vernacular. His characters talk and think like real people. He likes to downplay the fact that he is formally trained and obviously capable of highbrow; he was teaching college English when the sale of Carrie changed his career. But he uses his skills, including writing devices that were never seen in popular novels before King started doing them, to portray the realistic patterns of ordinary thought and speech. His style is very distinctive and suited to the lowbrow stories he prefers to tell, but he executes it so well because he knows exactly what he's doing.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:53 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
An ending is something which concludes the story, making it unnecessary to wonder what happens next
this is the worst definition of 'ending' i have ever heard
posted by beerperson at 8:02 AM on July 30, 2016 [26 favorites]
this is the worst definition of 'ending' i have ever heard
posted by beerperson at 8:02 AM on July 30, 2016 [26 favorites]
An ending is something which concludes the story, making it unnecessary to wonder what happened next.
Yes. And this story had an ending. The fact that you didn't understand the ending, or that it wasn't tied up into a neat bow, doesn't mean it didn't have an ending.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:04 AM on July 30, 2016
Yes. And this story had an ending. The fact that you didn't understand the ending, or that it wasn't tied up into a neat bow, doesn't mean it didn't have an ending.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:04 AM on July 30, 2016
Yes, the story has an ending. It's not the ending you want, but none of us gets the ending we want, which is by-God what the story's about.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:30 AM on July 30, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 8:30 AM on July 30, 2016 [6 favorites]
I thought maybe it was going to end with a homicidal racist/misogynist who's plotting a big violent climax and shows up for said climax in a disguise consisting of a shaved head and wheelchair. Because that's what happened in THE LAST TWO Stephen King books I read.
posted by chococat at 8:41 AM on July 30, 2016
posted by chococat at 8:41 AM on July 30, 2016
I thought maybe it was going to end with a homicidal racist/misogynist who's plotting a big violent climax and shows up for said climax in a disguise consisting of a shaved head and wheelchair. Because that's what happened in THE LAST TWO Stephen King books I read.
Really?
I remember that from Mr. Mercedes. What's the other book?
posted by kbanas at 9:01 AM on July 30, 2016
Really?
I remember that from Mr. Mercedes. What's the other book?
posted by kbanas at 9:01 AM on July 30, 2016
Rose Madder, which read a few weeks before Mr. Mercedes.
There were a bunch of King books in the free library room at my parents' condo and I grabbed a few for some summertime junk food reading.
I liked the JFK assassination one, but I've found myself groaning at some of the writing in most of them.
posted by chococat at 9:11 AM on July 30, 2016
There were a bunch of King books in the free library room at my parents' condo and I grabbed a few for some summertime junk food reading.
I liked the JFK assassination one, but I've found myself groaning at some of the writing in most of them.
posted by chococat at 9:11 AM on July 30, 2016
Rose Madder, which read a few weeks before Mr. Mercedes.
Huh. Well, if he manages to repeat himself a little bit in two books published 20 years apart, I can't get too upset.
I don't remember much about Rose Madder - just that it's about a painting that's also a portal. I went back and re-read the Wikipedia entry to freshen up - it does mention a disguise, but not a wheelchair. Then again, they obviously don't cover every last detail.
posted by kbanas at 10:39 AM on July 30, 2016
Huh. Well, if he manages to repeat himself a little bit in two books published 20 years apart, I can't get too upset.
I don't remember much about Rose Madder - just that it's about a painting that's also a portal. I went back and re-read the Wikipedia entry to freshen up - it does mention a disguise, but not a wheelchair. Then again, they obviously don't cover every last detail.
posted by kbanas at 10:39 AM on July 30, 2016
Show me a child whose response to "Does that thing record, too?" is "Honey, it don't do windows," and I will show you the inside of Stephen King's head, which hasn't actually changed since about 1992 or so.
Actually, "Honey, it don't do windows" is the response to "Is there anything it doesn't do" after Dale confirms the iPhone can record. Which is actually a pretty sharp crack about the difference between general purpose operating systems and the walled garden of iOS, and hints that King knows you can get phablets now that do run Windows 8/10.
Also, my GF's 17-year-old has actually started talking exactly like this recently, and calling every living creature Honey, so yeah, King might have more insight into the youths than you think.
posted by Huck500 at 10:52 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Actually, "Honey, it don't do windows" is the response to "Is there anything it doesn't do" after Dale confirms the iPhone can record. Which is actually a pretty sharp crack about the difference between general purpose operating systems and the walled garden of iOS, and hints that King knows you can get phablets now that do run Windows 8/10.
Also, my GF's 17-year-old has actually started talking exactly like this recently, and calling every living creature Honey, so yeah, King might have more insight into the youths than you think.
posted by Huck500 at 10:52 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
there's no place like Dome
posted by infinitewindow at 11:01 AM on July 30, 2016
posted by infinitewindow at 11:01 AM on July 30, 2016
This came across to me as a brief variation on "From a Buick 8" which I liked very much.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:50 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 11:50 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
a brief variation on "From a Buick 8"
King seems to have developed a mini-obsession with portals between our world and other worlds that make our world look like a vacation paradise by comparison.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
King seems to have developed a mini-obsession with portals between our world and other worlds that make our world look like a vacation paradise by comparison.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
What was life like back then? The homeliest gadgets--radio, TV, cookie jars--brought temptation within reach, right there, into the house. We looked. And looked. And looked into them, and maybe saw more than was good for us. You can put those gadgets down, maybe even go internet-free for a couple of days...but what's being transmitted doesn't end. That evil is still out there, and it is the problem, not the container. Once you know--after that--do you curse the messenger, or fight the darkness? The vessels pass, but some things don't change.
Yep. Feels like that other universe is speaking to King again...
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Yep. Feels like that other universe is speaking to King again...
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
An ending is something which concludes the story, making it unnecessary to wonder what happens next
this is the worst definition of 'ending' i have ever heard
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. It's not that the ending tells you exactly what will happen next, it's that it makes it unnecessary to wonder. The OP is not a story with a conclusion; it is the beginning of a story King hasn't bothered to tell. As I said upthread there were ways King could have actually concluded the story in the length of the OP, but he chose not to do that, probably because he felt those conclusions were too cheap and easy. But like every fantasy book which ends with "continued in part 3" or leaves the most important plot elements open-ended so that you will buy the sequel, this is a story that doesn't have an ending.
It's not that it's not the ending I want, it's that it's not an ending. I have been WTF at stories without endings since I was roughly mumble years old when books by the pound and the series format began to get really popular so I have some experience with this. I suppose you get used to thinking that a partial half-assed ending that leaves all the real questions unaddressed is as good as any, but it isn't. Go read anything King wrote before It for a good comparison.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:07 PM on July 30, 2016
this is the worst definition of 'ending' i have ever heard
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. It's not that the ending tells you exactly what will happen next, it's that it makes it unnecessary to wonder. The OP is not a story with a conclusion; it is the beginning of a story King hasn't bothered to tell. As I said upthread there were ways King could have actually concluded the story in the length of the OP, but he chose not to do that, probably because he felt those conclusions were too cheap and easy. But like every fantasy book which ends with "continued in part 3" or leaves the most important plot elements open-ended so that you will buy the sequel, this is a story that doesn't have an ending.
It's not that it's not the ending I want, it's that it's not an ending. I have been WTF at stories without endings since I was roughly mumble years old when books by the pound and the series format began to get really popular so I have some experience with this. I suppose you get used to thinking that a partial half-assed ending that leaves all the real questions unaddressed is as good as any, but it isn't. Go read anything King wrote before It for a good comparison.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:07 PM on July 30, 2016
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. It's not that the ending tells you exactly what will happen next, it's that it makes it unnecessary to wonder. ... I suppose you get used to thinking that a partial half-assed ending that leaves all the real questions unaddressed is as good as any, but it isn't.
No, that's still a terrible definition of "ending". There is absolutely nothing wrong with ambiguous endings, and they are often better - more interesting, more memorable - than clear-cut "unnecessary to wonder" endings.
posted by me & my monkey at 12:14 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
No, that's still a terrible definition of "ending". There is absolutely nothing wrong with ambiguous endings, and they are often better - more interesting, more memorable - than clear-cut "unnecessary to wonder" endings.
posted by me & my monkey at 12:14 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
you can get definitely get too much of it. Like cookies.
I know this is an English sentence, but I don't understand it.
posted by maxsparber at 12:17 PM on July 30, 2016
I know this is an English sentence, but I don't understand it.
posted by maxsparber at 12:17 PM on July 30, 2016
Who took the cookies from the cookie jar? Mother took the cookies from the cookie jar (Who me?) Yes, you. (Couldn't be!) Then who?
The ending is that there is no ending: It's the bottle imp, the monkey's paw, someone always and ever taking cookies from the cookie jar, round robin, despite warnings of the terrible price. I am satisfied with the way this tale finishes. And doesn't.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:44 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
The ending is that there is no ending: It's the bottle imp, the monkey's paw, someone always and ever taking cookies from the cookie jar, round robin, despite warnings of the terrible price. I am satisfied with the way this tale finishes. And doesn't.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:44 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Also, now that I think of it, King didn't explain or even hint that there was an explanation of how the mother managed to draw her map without hiring the occasional dump truck to haul away cookies. It's really like half of a possibly very good story. I'd kind of like to read the other half.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:03 PM on July 30, 2016
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:03 PM on July 30, 2016
Upon further reflection--this story also works for me as a political cautionary tale. Are we to mindlessly consume all the things (horse races! demagogic tweets!) that come at us from the radio, TV, and smartphone? Or do we try to get to the bottom of it, and fight, even if our individual actions can never be enough to win the war against dark and ugly forces? Even if no individual vote matters, and we're on our own, after the passing of the last soldiers of the Good War?
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:06 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:06 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
[SPOILERS]
Okay, what we have here is a story that started with the simple high concept, "what if you had a cookie jar that never ran out." King has done this before. Some of his better stories started out this way. So far, though, this isn't one of them.
So we have this cookie jar that never runs out, obviously there is some turn or twist. What's the downside? King makes it a portal to one of his dystopic alternate realities, similar to about a dozen other stories he's written. But he does a lazy half-assed job of it. Most glaringly, he doesn't explain why the portal fills up with cookies when we haven't dumped it out to look at Otherwhere. There are some obvious hooks there to hang a sentence or two that would make the story more coherent; maybe the cookies appear to shield us from the death fog. Although it would be nice to know why stone pellets don't do even better. Again, King just didn't bother. Look Stephen, I can grok the jar of infinite cookies, but if you want to ALSO be a portal to a wacky alternate universe you have to give me SOME reason why these two functions are related. This too is part of storytelling.
You can have a satisfying ambiguous ending. You can, for example, have what looks like an Adam and Eve reboot of the universe that might actually be a put-on job by the Big Computer doing amateur psychotherapy. I can get down with a story like that. You don't know which possibility is actual, but it's not like the characters also might have evolved into birds. There is actually some direction. But this story is completely open-ended; King doesn't know how the cookie jar works, he doesn't know why it makes cookies, he doesn't know exactly how dangerous it really is, he doesn't know what Dale will do with it, and he doesn't seem to care. This isn't an "ambiguous ending." This is an unfinished story.
I suspect that the real sequence of events went something like this: King thinks of the always-full cookie jar as his plot hook. Sets up the major characters to reveal it. Gets chugging, decides it's a portal to Otherwhere and gives Mom her map. Ultimately he has to reveal what the jar is and how the map isn't a figment of Mom's imagination, but he does so in a very obvious way that does not really suggest how any of it started, how Mom drew her map without building a skyscraper of cookies, why cookies at all, and not even speculating as to how Dale will take this gift from an ancestor. You can do ambiguous without being lazy. This was lazy. And unfortunately, particularly post-IT, it's not King's only example.
[/SPOILERS/]
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:29 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Okay, what we have here is a story that started with the simple high concept, "what if you had a cookie jar that never ran out." King has done this before. Some of his better stories started out this way. So far, though, this isn't one of them.
So we have this cookie jar that never runs out, obviously there is some turn or twist. What's the downside? King makes it a portal to one of his dystopic alternate realities, similar to about a dozen other stories he's written. But he does a lazy half-assed job of it. Most glaringly, he doesn't explain why the portal fills up with cookies when we haven't dumped it out to look at Otherwhere. There are some obvious hooks there to hang a sentence or two that would make the story more coherent; maybe the cookies appear to shield us from the death fog. Although it would be nice to know why stone pellets don't do even better. Again, King just didn't bother. Look Stephen, I can grok the jar of infinite cookies, but if you want to ALSO be a portal to a wacky alternate universe you have to give me SOME reason why these two functions are related. This too is part of storytelling.
You can have a satisfying ambiguous ending. You can, for example, have what looks like an Adam and Eve reboot of the universe that might actually be a put-on job by the Big Computer doing amateur psychotherapy. I can get down with a story like that. You don't know which possibility is actual, but it's not like the characters also might have evolved into birds. There is actually some direction. But this story is completely open-ended; King doesn't know how the cookie jar works, he doesn't know why it makes cookies, he doesn't know exactly how dangerous it really is, he doesn't know what Dale will do with it, and he doesn't seem to care. This isn't an "ambiguous ending." This is an unfinished story.
I suspect that the real sequence of events went something like this: King thinks of the always-full cookie jar as his plot hook. Sets up the major characters to reveal it. Gets chugging, decides it's a portal to Otherwhere and gives Mom her map. Ultimately he has to reveal what the jar is and how the map isn't a figment of Mom's imagination, but he does so in a very obvious way that does not really suggest how any of it started, how Mom drew her map without building a skyscraper of cookies, why cookies at all, and not even speculating as to how Dale will take this gift from an ancestor. You can do ambiguous without being lazy. This was lazy. And unfortunately, particularly post-IT, it's not King's only example.
[/SPOILERS/]
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:29 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't think you understand what I'm getting at. It's not that the ending tells you exactly what will happen next, it's that it makes it unnecessary to wonder. ... I suppose you get used to thinking that a partial half-assed ending that leaves all the real questions unaddressed is as good as any, but it isn't.
What's there to wonder about?
Great-granddad tells kid that there's a magic cookie jar that refills itself, and also lets you see an alternate universe in the bottom. Kid gets excited. So great-granddad also tells kid that his mom having access to the magic portal drove her crazy. Great-granddad tells kid the cookie jar still exists, but warns him not to use it. Kid leaves - and great-granddad knows in the back of his mind that the kid is gonna go use the cookie jar anyway because the kid is a kid and kids think they are indestructible.
Bringer Tom's critiques, now, make a lot more sense. But I don't understand why you have any reason to wonder 'gee, is that kid going to check out the cookie jar?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:38 PM on July 30, 2016
What's there to wonder about?
Great-granddad tells kid that there's a magic cookie jar that refills itself, and also lets you see an alternate universe in the bottom. Kid gets excited. So great-granddad also tells kid that his mom having access to the magic portal drove her crazy. Great-granddad tells kid the cookie jar still exists, but warns him not to use it. Kid leaves - and great-granddad knows in the back of his mind that the kid is gonna go use the cookie jar anyway because the kid is a kid and kids think they are indestructible.
Bringer Tom's critiques, now, make a lot more sense. But I don't understand why you have any reason to wonder 'gee, is that kid going to check out the cookie jar?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:38 PM on July 30, 2016
Granted, Empress C., we know Dale will dump out the cookie jar. But we don't have any direction as to why his great grandpa gave it to him, or as to what he in particular might do with it. We know what his great grandma did with it, which was go insane, but out here in the peanut gallery we're kind of hoping either it's a tale about how you can't escape destiny, or about how Dale might escape destiny, but it's really a tale of how grandpa SK doesn't seem to know himself exactly why the cookie jar makes cookies.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:49 PM on July 30, 2016
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:49 PM on July 30, 2016
Bringer - I was strictly addressing the notion that there was "no end".
You, however, made several good points about the middle that I hadn't considered, and thank you for that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
You, however, made several good points about the middle that I hadn't considered, and thank you for that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
On hearing that this story had an open or ambiguous ending I read it eagerly, hoping that Dale's iPhone would end up turning over and over on the waves like an otter. Or perhaps that one of the characters would decide that, yes, she might just take up that invitation to stay on a certain Greek island, and that it would be the most psychologically chilling ending imaginable. But alas, no.
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:09 PM on July 30, 2016
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:09 PM on July 30, 2016
This really did feel like setup with no punchline to me. I was disappointed and frustrated when it came to a close.
Stephen King is famously bad at endings, but he usually manages to overcome this problem in his short stories. His short stories usually do have punchlines. But this had the structure of one of his novels... it just kinda petered out. The novels have enough adventure and creepiness that the weak endings don't really matter, but this story was so short that there wasn't enough suspense or well-developed weirdness to justify the ride.
posted by painquale at 3:22 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Stephen King is famously bad at endings, but he usually manages to overcome this problem in his short stories. His short stories usually do have punchlines. But this had the structure of one of his novels... it just kinda petered out. The novels have enough adventure and creepiness that the weak endings don't really matter, but this story was so short that there wasn't enough suspense or well-developed weirdness to justify the ride.
posted by painquale at 3:22 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
To me, the cookie jar isn't the point. The story is really about the mother. How she was dealing with this thing, which destroyed her life and drove her insane, and those closest to her were unaware of this, so they thought her mental instability was the source of her problems and the map and its stories only symptoms. She had the strength of character to remove herself from the family to protect them, and managed despite the situation to find ways to enrich her kids' lives. Yet she chose to hang on to the cookie jar when discarding it might have solved the problem. There's a lot no one will ever know about her struggles with it (for example, did she ever try to break it?). It's appropriate because one theme going on here is how little we really know about the people we love.
Only after she was dead did her son find out the truth. And he never told anyone, until he was at the end of his life, and told his very young great-grandson. Rhett never knew what to do with this knowledge, so he just passed it along to the young boy. So now the boy goes forward into life knowing this thing. Maybe he will figure out what to do with it (the knowledge, and also the cookie jar itself.)
I'm not interested at all in how the cookie jar works. To me it's only a device. But that's me, like how when I read AskMeFi, I only read the Human Relations category.
posted by Puddle Jumper at 3:30 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
The cookie jar only dumped out two huge amounts of cookies -- each after long periods of disuse (or at least long periods between emptying). If the mother emptied it every day, it only had one cookie jar worth of cookies in it.
I mean, duh.
posted by Etrigan at 3:38 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
I mean, duh.
posted by Etrigan at 3:38 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Which also leads to the horrifying realization that, in "helping" her empty the jar once or twice a week, the boys really were helping to drive her mad.
posted by Etrigan at 3:39 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 3:39 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
This reminds me of the guy I knew who thought All the President's Men was a bad movie because you don't get to read the article they wrote
posted by beerperson at 3:56 PM on July 30, 2016
posted by beerperson at 3:56 PM on July 30, 2016
Around the middle of the story is this dark, harsh observation:
“He might have been one of the great ones,” Rhett told Dale. “Probably not, most kids never fulfill their potential, but we’ll never know.”
Speaking of intergenerational warnings from King.
posted by doctornemo at 4:06 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
“He might have been one of the great ones,” Rhett told Dale. “Probably not, most kids never fulfill their potential, but we’ll never know.”
Speaking of intergenerational warnings from King.
posted by doctornemo at 4:06 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
King doesn't know how the cookie jar works, he doesn't know why it makes cookies, he doesn't know exactly how dangerous it really is, he doesn't know what Dale will do with it, and he doesn't seem to care. This isn't an "ambiguous ending." This is an unfinished story.
Like Puddle Jumper wrote, it's not about the cookie jar, or the other universe. It's about this universe, and how we handle our own knowledge of atrocious and dangerous things, and how we learn to live with that knowledge - or don't. The narrator would rather talk to his grandson about the horrible but remote world at the end of the cookie jar than his own experiences liberating Nazi death camps. Why is that?
posted by me & my monkey at 4:20 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
Like Puddle Jumper wrote, it's not about the cookie jar, or the other universe. It's about this universe, and how we handle our own knowledge of atrocious and dangerous things, and how we learn to live with that knowledge - or don't. The narrator would rather talk to his grandson about the horrible but remote world at the end of the cookie jar than his own experiences liberating Nazi death camps. Why is that?
posted by me & my monkey at 4:20 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]
He might have been one of the great ones
King has been very open about how he created Richard Bachmann precisely to see whether it was his skill or just dumb luck that made him what he is. That experiment failed due to, as King aptly called it, terminal cancer of the pseudonym.
King's take on it in the essay that I read ~20 years ago was, probably dumb luck. I think that informs his fiction in some ways.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:22 PM on July 30, 2016
King has been very open about how he created Richard Bachmann precisely to see whether it was his skill or just dumb luck that made him what he is. That experiment failed due to, as King aptly called it, terminal cancer of the pseudonym.
King's take on it in the essay that I read ~20 years ago was, probably dumb luck. I think that informs his fiction in some ways.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:22 PM on July 30, 2016
Bringer Tom, I think the story works well when you take it as an allegory. There's a cookie jar, it produces an endless supply of warm tasty cookies, and you can just keep taking the cookies and everything is fine. Or you can dump the cookies out and see that beneath them there's this awful wasteland filled with pain and desolation that you can't reach ... although maybe it will one day reach you.
It's like that story in the Christian scriptures about the rich kid who was told to sell all that he had and give it to The Poor. Wealth, even the Aldersons' level of wealth is a literal obstruction to seeing what's really going on. But even when you sell everything you have so you can give cookies to The Poor, what happens then? They eat them, which is nice, but you haven't solved poverty. And you're still not The Poor because you are the beneficiary of the magic cookie jar, so you're not going to go hungry and in fact you can forget The Poor again as soon as the jar fills up.
So the Aldersons have a nice American life, they're metaphorically grabbing the warm tasty cookies and eating them. But Rhett has seen the darkness and desolation - he's seen what things are like under Red and Black rule. Everybody around him just keeps eating the cookies but more keep reappearing, so everybody ignores what's underneath them. The only way to even know what's going on is to dump all the cookies out and make this enormous mess - in our terms that would be going crazy - and then you're just better informed; you don't necessarily have a way of fixing things.
This is why the story works for me. It's a horror story, in that it's about horror. But it's also an allegory about our lives and the horror that we know is out there, and our decisions to ignore it. Because what are we going to do, anyway, other than make this huge awkward situation and still not be able to deal with things? And our kids need our care and attention; we don't have a right to ignore them just so we can obsess over what's going on in Syria or Darfur or wherever. Even Rhett's mom knew that. The cookie jar, we're living in it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:24 PM on July 30, 2016 [17 favorites]
It's like that story in the Christian scriptures about the rich kid who was told to sell all that he had and give it to The Poor. Wealth, even the Aldersons' level of wealth is a literal obstruction to seeing what's really going on. But even when you sell everything you have so you can give cookies to The Poor, what happens then? They eat them, which is nice, but you haven't solved poverty. And you're still not The Poor because you are the beneficiary of the magic cookie jar, so you're not going to go hungry and in fact you can forget The Poor again as soon as the jar fills up.
So the Aldersons have a nice American life, they're metaphorically grabbing the warm tasty cookies and eating them. But Rhett has seen the darkness and desolation - he's seen what things are like under Red and Black rule. Everybody around him just keeps eating the cookies but more keep reappearing, so everybody ignores what's underneath them. The only way to even know what's going on is to dump all the cookies out and make this enormous mess - in our terms that would be going crazy - and then you're just better informed; you don't necessarily have a way of fixing things.
This is why the story works for me. It's a horror story, in that it's about horror. But it's also an allegory about our lives and the horror that we know is out there, and our decisions to ignore it. Because what are we going to do, anyway, other than make this huge awkward situation and still not be able to deal with things? And our kids need our care and attention; we don't have a right to ignore them just so we can obsess over what's going on in Syria or Darfur or wherever. Even Rhett's mom knew that. The cookie jar, we're living in it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:24 PM on July 30, 2016 [17 favorites]
The narrator would rather talk to his grandson about the horrible but remote world at the end of the cookie jar than his own experiences liberating Nazi death camps. Why is that?
This is a very good point and it's one King has played with before. But the thing is you can't put a device like the cookie jar into your story and then not even pretend to know how it works or why it's there, even if it does serve as a weird window into the history and humanity of your characters. You can tell a story about liberating Auschwitz without the cookie jar. If you put the cookie jar in, what is the reason? And we really don't have one.
On review: As Joe in Au says and others are obviously connecting, it's a metaphor. Well yeah. But the story needs to work as a story even if you don't understand the metaphor. Otherwise it's just a stiff morality play. And classically educated King of all people should know that.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:29 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is a very good point and it's one King has played with before. But the thing is you can't put a device like the cookie jar into your story and then not even pretend to know how it works or why it's there, even if it does serve as a weird window into the history and humanity of your characters. You can tell a story about liberating Auschwitz without the cookie jar. If you put the cookie jar in, what is the reason? And we really don't have one.
On review: As Joe in Au says and others are obviously connecting, it's a metaphor. Well yeah. But the story needs to work as a story even if you don't understand the metaphor. Otherwise it's just a stiff morality play. And classically educated King of all people should know that.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:29 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Finally got back to this and finished the story. I liked it. Very much of a pace with his other stuff, though. Things from elsewhere inexplicably manifesting as other things in our world is a pretty common trope for Stephen King. The themes of shame and grief, of having to take the world without understanding, of connections and lost connections, all reminiscent of prior stories. I'm thinking in particular of "From a Buick 8," but that's also the one I reread most recently. "Forza" also put me strongly in mind of "fornit sum fornus" from "The Flexible Bullet."
Basically, this is King Classic, a retread and rehash of his usual favorites. I don't think it needs a specific metaphor, whether of class warfare or whatnot, but it works if you try a few different lenses on it, which is part of what makes quality fiction. I'd be startled if King produced something incompetent, though; he's not my favorite, but I don't think even his detractors can successfully argue that he's not an expert author at this point. He does what he does, and he does it well. It's not everyone's thing, but it's good thing.
He still can't write dialogue that sounds like actual people talking, but the lines read real nice, and that's enough. (I watched "Dreamcatcher" recently, and listening to those poor people trying to say Stephen King lines out loud without sounding like total prats was the only high point of the film.)
posted by Scattercat at 4:55 PM on July 30, 2016
Basically, this is King Classic, a retread and rehash of his usual favorites. I don't think it needs a specific metaphor, whether of class warfare or whatnot, but it works if you try a few different lenses on it, which is part of what makes quality fiction. I'd be startled if King produced something incompetent, though; he's not my favorite, but I don't think even his detractors can successfully argue that he's not an expert author at this point. He does what he does, and he does it well. It's not everyone's thing, but it's good thing.
He still can't write dialogue that sounds like actual people talking, but the lines read real nice, and that's enough. (I watched "Dreamcatcher" recently, and listening to those poor people trying to say Stephen King lines out loud without sounding like total prats was the only high point of the film.)
posted by Scattercat at 4:55 PM on July 30, 2016
Thanks, that was fun! I do think SK totally half-arsed that ending though.
In any case, I pictured Moira Alderson as Winona Ryder, so the whole thing read as Joyce Byers fan fiction to me.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:12 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
In any case, I pictured Moira Alderson as Winona Ryder, so the whole thing read as Joyce Byers fan fiction to me.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:12 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you enjoyed this, you're sure to like King's upcoming novella: The Plate of Beans.
posted by landis at 6:32 PM on July 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by landis at 6:32 PM on July 30, 2016 [3 favorites]
I've been a King fan since I was in high school, but I only realized very recently that I've always preferred his short stories to his novels. This is a good one.
posted by Hellblazer at 12:54 PM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Hellblazer at 12:54 PM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
I haven't read Stephen King since high school... Needful Things ended my obsession very permanently. This was great, though! And reminds me why I liked his books. Plus there was this added level of metaphor that seems sophisticated for King -- that the cookie jar is some kind of inherited eccentricity or mental disorder and he's just passed it to a new generation after having skipped a few. Of course I also just read two books by his son Hill, so maybe I'm primed to go back into his style?
posted by palindromeisnotapalindrome at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2016
posted by palindromeisnotapalindrome at 1:46 PM on July 31, 2016
I haven't read Stephen King since high school...
Plus there was this added level of metaphor that seems sophisticated for King
You might enjoy re-reading those stories you liked as a kid. I think the "added level of metaphor" was there -- you're just better at recognizing it now.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:52 PM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
Plus there was this added level of metaphor that seems sophisticated for King
You might enjoy re-reading those stories you liked as a kid. I think the "added level of metaphor" was there -- you're just better at recognizing it now.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:52 PM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]
Perhaps this story is King working out a particular angle that might become part of a larger project, along the lines of "Everything's Eventual"/Dark Tower series.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:29 PM on July 31, 2016
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:29 PM on July 31, 2016
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Honestly, if I didn't have faith that he's usually solidly entertaining, I'd have given up after the first page or so.
posted by Scattercat at 5:26 AM on July 30, 2016 [11 favorites]