Elevation

Stephen King’s latest novella, Elevation, is one hundred forty-six pages in the hardcover version. With more free time, I could have probably finished it in one sitting, but I read it during a few lunch breaks. The main character is a man with an unusual medical condition, which he sees as an opportunity, not a problem, and decides to use this condition to nudge his neighbors to the angels of their better nature.
I enjoyed Elevation because it wasn’t a big time commitment, and it is one of King’s feel good, not scary, works, but it does feel rushed and at times implausible in the way that everything comes together. If it had leaned a little more in the horror direction, it would feel like a retread of Thinner so I think that was a solid decision to go in another direction. I was invested in the main character’s plight, but wanted more than a few casual references to his wife and their relationship. Even though it wasn’t strictly necessary, I’m greedy, and I can tell a lot about a person based on how the most important relationship of their life went. For this reason, I think that the cat was an essential part of the story because it tells you which partner should be trusted more, and that the protagonist’s intentions were honorable.
King seems to be really invested in a happy ending for our country, and it feels like this novel is his contribution to the effort, a way of bridging the divide. Even though he does not make a false equivalency between the groups on either side of the spectrum, it occasionally feels as if he does. One side is right to be aggrieved, and one is wrong. Basically the idea is if the wronged ones didn’t have such a chip on their shoulder and could admit when they are wrong, they could make a connection with the nice people that would be on their side, the people that King probably belongs in, and everything would be better. To be fair, even he can’t imagine a scenario in which the worst one can be a part of his better community, just pushed to the margins, excused or ignored. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to recognize the problem with that scenario: you can’t tell which ones are nice and which ones aren’t, and since even he concedes that the majority of the town leans heavily towards the mean, that is a lot of crap to wade through and free emotional labor that must be borne by one person. The burden should be on the nice people to distinguish themselves.
On one hand, you want to encourage people to see a problem then work to fix it as the main character chooses, but it also feels weird to suddenly and arbitrary to be someone’s project then imagine that just by acting like a decent human being, there will be some eternal connection. It creates a nagging question of would you like me if I were not a member of your oppressed group of the season. You write about what you know, but I did feel some sort of way about the whole endeavor and centering the person who just woke up. I probably wouldn’t be thrilled if King tried to write for a character from the protected group. I’m not knocking it because I’m clearly not the intended audience, and the targeted reader needs all the help that they can get so if Elevation does the trick, hallelujah, but still…..
Maybe when I was younger, I was less critical because I had less experience, but King’s dialogue in his later works makes the characters sound indistinguishable and is too folksy and cutesy. It sounds dated. Also his switching between first and last names for a couple of characters made it incredibly difficult to tell them apart without dialogue. The eleventh hour introduction of the wife of one character felt convenient and like an afterthought, not a properly fleshed out human being, though she is referenced throughout the book.
Elevation seems to be another entry in which King is wrestling with his mortality and trying to accept it graciously. While I appreciate the underlying sentiment of the denouement (I will fly to Switzerland the minute that the doctor delivers bad news, and there is no hope for recovery), if you know even a little bit about science, it seems like an extraordinarily bad idea. Also I kept thinking about practical issues such as the ensuing investigation, the estate being in limbo, etc. Is someone going to get accused of murder?
I also felt slightly cheated because in the middle of Elevation, the main character briefly feels normal, and it made me think that we were going to get answers about the mystery behind his medical condition. It is possible that all the answers were revealed right there, but I missed it. At any rate, if the answer is what I think that it is, then it doesn’t make sense with the ending; however I don’t think that I got it. If you think that you understand how it works, please let me know!
Elevation isn’t one of King’s best works, but it isn’t one of his worst. It is a light way to pass the time with some imagery that may stick with you longer than others. It is well intentioned, but a little clunky for the work that it is trying to accomplish. It would be nice if King could find the Goldilocks length, not too small, not too big, but just right.