Graydon’s Comments (group member since Jul 13, 2015)

Graydon’s comments from the The Read-a-Thon-ers group.

Okay, I've made a new rule, and McCammon best start living by it. That rule is, no introducing new and lovable characters if you're just going to kill them off. I just finished this part, finished off with Rusty's funeral scene. I'm in tears. I can't handle this. And Killer? I...why? WHY? I swear, if he kills Josh, it's going to have to be the last page, because the second he does, I'm putting the book down. Same with Swan. Page 651, Josh says he'd defend Swan until his final breath, and that better not be foreshadowing. I'll be pissed.

As sad as Rusty's death was, it was such a beautiful scene. I mean, the death itself was gruesome and horrific, but the impact that scene had was so lovely. Talk about a plan backfiring. The man with the fire, who I'm completely convinced is the Devil, at least representative of him, tried to burn Mule alive, and killed Rusty, and instead of destroying all hope, he ended up making the town stronger. The town united over saving Mule, which paved the way for them to unite over burying Rusty. People started helping each other and talking to each other again. And because of this, they found that field of corn faster than they otherwise might have. Pretty sure the Devil just saved Mary's Rest--let's hope Mcklin and Roland don't turn up to destroy it. Bastards.

So of course I have a few Biblical connections. I don't know if this is necessarily supposed to be a religious story, or if McCammon wanted it to be a story about hope and couldn't think of anything more hopeful than religion, but I'm finding a lot of parallels regardless.

Towards the beginning of this group of chapters, the Devil-man is relishing how easy it is to convince people to do wicked things--kill, consume their dead, eat their own fingers, etc. etc. Ew to everything. And this put me in mind of the serpent in the very beginning of the Bible. The serpent, of course, is famous for talking Eve into eating an apple off of the very same apple tree God forbid her from eating from. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What do you know but Swan revives an apple tree, the last apple tree, but a few chapters later? And Sly immediately knows that GOOD has come to conquer EVIL.

The are a few minor allusions to the Bible--The Mark of CAIN, JOB'S mask, Bible verses scattered throughout the pages. But the above is the most obvious. I'm thinking maybe, because Josh described the feeling under Job's mask as his face moving, changing, I'm thinking that perhaps there "inside faces" that Leona mentioned to soothe Swan all those years ago may be turning around to the outside. The Job's mask might just be a protective cover while their faces change. In the story of Job, I'm pretty sure Satan curses Job with leprosy, but Job stays true to God and repents all sin, and God rewards him with more than what he ever had before, so I'm thinking this might be the Swan Song take on the story?

-_- If McCammon could stop introducing characters, making us fall in love with them, and then killing them or taking them away somehow, that'd be great. I mean...was Leona dying really necessary? Do Artie and Sister really need to part ways? I how much do you want to bet that Rusty's next? I'm going to be so mad.

Also, that scene in the K-Mart, with the criminally insane psyche ward patients? Oh, my God, how scary was that? So glad I read that in the morning and not right before bed. Although I kind of was freaked that night, because people like that are, of course, really out there. And one of the things I've always been most afraid of is the nasty things people can and do do to one another. Part of why I can't watch slasher films.

This section solidified my belief that the man with the fire in his hand is representative of, if not actually, the Devil. When Swan was looking in that mirror and spotted him there, she was looking over her left shoulder, the classic orientation of the Devil--the whole reason when you spill salt, you throw it over your left shoulder, to ward off the Devil. His determination, too, to destroy humanity and all hope and beauty is, in my opinion, a hallmark demon desire.

Also, I apologize for the essay-ish-ness.

I was a little bothered at first by the clumsy treatment of Sister's mental instability--it's not exactly something you just snap out of like that, is it? But I'm sensing a lot of moral/religious themes, and I'm wondering if Sister's miraculous healing might be some sort of divine intervention.

As soon as the man in the theater stole Sister's crucifix and set it aflame with his palm, I wondered if he might represent the Devil, and later when, while reading Swan's cards, Leona flipped over the card of The Devil, a man with a scarlet eye set in his forehead, that belief was solidified in my mind. After all, the man with the flaming hand did, in fact, sprout an eye somewhere in his forehead on at least one occasion.

There's also the matter of the card swan flipped depicting a beautiful woman surrounded in plant-life, with a lion and a lamb asleep at her feet and a crown of stars atop her head. This card is wrought with Biblical imagery. The lion and the lamb is one of the most famous images from the Bible, in which the lion and the lamb lay down together in peace--or, as Twilight so inaccurately suggests, one falls in love with the other. The original Bible passage, however, is discussing a time of peace on Earth, an end of war, and as Leona says during her reading, peace is one thing Swan desires most. Revelation 12:1 mentions the star-crowned figure: "A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head." This Bible scene alludes to war with Satan, and God's "promise of dominion" ( http://www.discoverrevelation.com/Rev... )and, as I read it in Swan Song, alludes to Swan's future leading the human race to overcoming and conquering the Devil that's destroyed their world.

I also wondered, on a slightly less in-depth note, whether the hope-inducing crown of glass and gemstones that Sister found in the gutted remains of her "magic place" might have been the remnants of the angel sculpture she'd always found solace in before. The glass crown being part of an angel would bring back the religious theme, and also perhaps explain why the glass crown seems to be trying to lead Sister (the Sister, a nun?) to Swan, an angel guiding everyone together.

I've also been stuck on the fact that, back in the gymnasium, Roland murdered his own father, and possibly his mother as well. I was shocked at the idea, but the only Biblical reference I could think of was Cane and Abel--brother killing brother. So I did my research and found Mark 13:12: "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death." I'm also anticipating Roland killing Macklin, his new father-figure, a reiteration, I suspect, of this verse.

Maybe I'm over-analyzing. Thoughts?

And on a non-Biblical-theory note: Roland a sociopath?

Oh, that's right, you said you've read it, Dustin, right? It really is easy to read. I'm afraid I feel victim to the common mistake that, because it's such a thick book, it would be hard to get through, dense and incomprehensible. Not so. And I think a big part of that is how well he writes his characters. They're all so real, which most authors of books like this whom I've come across seem to have a hard time accomplishing.

Wow, what a cast of characters! People you love, people you hate, others you're not yet entirely sure about (Roland, *cough, cough*).

I didn't expect it to be quite so violent/gruesome, and it's kind of making my skin crawl. I'm too squeamish. But I'm liking this story. It's really intense, and McCammon's writing is just so accessible, you know? I don't know about you, but I'm finding it so easy to read. Usually if I'm tired, I just can't read because the words just run together, but his writing is so easy to absorb.

I've been finding this story very disconcerting so far, though. It's really a scary book, especially given everything going on in the world today. We're on the brink of war, and I'm finding reading about a nuclear holocaust very disconcerting. It's ironic that we chose now to read this, ironic how prevalent McCammon's story is yet again. Swan Song was written during the Cold War, I believe, and was at that time an expression of the fear of that period. And now the world is full of violent attacks, and it seems war is coming once again.

What are you thinking of it so far, Greg? The characters, the story? The irony? The endless cycle humanity seems to find itself in: hate, peace, hate peace, hate, peace--when will the cycle end with hate?

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So excited for this book ^^

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So I'm looking through the contents list, these chapters seem to be a little on the shorter side. So excited to read this book.

Hello! :) So, I've just finished part one of Treasure Island, and I'm really loving it. Kind of irritated with myself for not picking it up sooner.

So, one thing I've noticed while reading this part is that there seems to be a few recurrent themes of pride, greed, and even one or two incidences of gluttony. For example, there's a lot of talk of money, and getting and keeping money, and there's a lot of incidences where a character does something rather stupid simply because they don't want to be viewed as a coward. Some I'm wondering if a Seven Deadly Sins theme might develop throughout this book. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just overthinking things?

Hope you're all enjoying it.

Happy reading! :)

And last but not least, Part 6 :)

Part 5 :)

Part 4.