Rationality and Irrationality

So I drew comparison between The Talisman and Alice in Wonderland in an earlier post, and that's apt in a few ways. Two heroes, themselves very rational, who are thrust into irrational worlds.

Each of those stories has three arcs that are defined by the companions they have throughout, regardless of whether they are constant companions (for Jack) or not (for Alice). Each story has the companion who leads the hero into irrationality (the White Rabbit and Speedy Parker), each story has the denizen of the irrational land who could not possibly be in a rational world (the Cheshire Cat and Wolf), and the rational companion who is so grounded in rationality that they cannot share in the irrationality that the hero has to go through (Alice's sister and Richard Sloat).

I like the bits where characters are traveling together. It doesn't do one a lot of good in adventure stories to just have a person traveling by themselves, because travel isn't inherently interesting. Everywhere Alice and Jack go there's a bad obstacle that needs to be surmounted, and a little voice whispering in their ear suggesting what the solution might be. Alice's sister got very little screentime compared to one Richard Sloat, but maybe that's for the best - the irrationality of the Territories, after all, very nearly kills poor Richard.

One of the common elements in a lot of King's works is that places are more powerful than people, usually. People can conquer places, but by entering one you become a part of it, and you must fight the system you have entered. A haunted house is much scarier than any particular thing that lives in it, if you leverage it that way. It's like places soak up the secreted evils of decades and centuries and become reflections of the people in them.

I haven't got a lot to say right now.

I'm going to start reading The Neverending Story tomorrow. I suspect that one won't take as long.