Hearts in Atlantis

“Hearts in Atlantis” includes the following parts of the story:

• “ Low Men in Yellow Coats ”
• "Hearts in Atlantis" ( born Hearts in Atlantis )
• Blind Willie
• “Why are we in Vietnam?”
• "Shadows of night descend from the sky" ( English Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling )

These parts are interconnected by some common characters and describe successive events, and each subsequent volume is smaller than the previous ones. Before each story there is a kind of epigraph taken out over the name. “Blind Willie” in the first edition was published in 1997 as a separate work in the collection of Six Stories ( English Six Stories ), released in a limited edition, and was significantly revised to be included in “Hearts in Atlantis” ^[6] .

Low people in yellow cloaks

A boy named Bobby Garfield, who lives with his mother after the death of his father, meets a new tenant - Ted Brotigen . This old man really likes Bobby, but not his mother Liz. Ted hires Bobby for a strange job - to hunt down strangers in yellow cloaks that he says track him down. Ted also has some parapsychological abilities. Bobby thinks his new friend is a little crazy, but does not consider it dangerous. He does not say anything to his mother, and so suspecting Brotigen is unclear of what sins (Liz is especially afraid that the neighbor may turn out to be a pedophile , although he does not say this directly to his son). Ted gives Bobby the book “ Lord of the Flies ” by W. Golding , and this novel becomes the best book for a boy in his life.

Head Liz Garfield invites her to a seminar. She, a stingy and greedy woman, feels a catch, but agrees to go there. She has to leave her son with Brotigen, as Bobby's best friend, John Sullivan, went to summer camp, and his family could not accept the boy. Ted, although he feels the pursuit, remains for Bobby's sake. While mother on departure, Bobby's girlfriend, Carol Gerber, was beaten by hooligan boys from a parish school, with one of whom, Willie Shearman, she was even friendly. Bobby finds her with a dislocated shoulder and takes her (even relates when she faints) to Ted. He sets her shoulder at home, for which he has to cut her blouse.

Liz, meanwhile, is returning from a “workshop” that turned out to be an orgy. She is beaten and raped, and when she sees that a half-naked girl sits on the lap of a suspicious old woman, she completely loses control of herself. A terrible scene follows. As a result, Liz decides to turn in Brotigen to the people who are looking for him. Bobby is trying to protect his friend, and in general, he wants to escape with him from his mother, whom he thinks he hates. But, although he loves Ted very much when he is caught by “low people” who are not people at all (but servants of the Crimson Lord ), Bobby refuses to go to prison with him in another world for fear. Ted bargains freedom for his young friend, and they break up forever. Ted is taken away to further destroy the Rays , and Bobby returns to his mother.

Having lost Ted, Bobby rolls downhill - becomes a bully, gets into correctional facilities for teenagers. But one day he receives a letter from Ted - without words, only rose petals, and this is a sign that Ted has freed himself. Bobby decides to stop, make peace with his mother and fix what he can.

Hearts in Atlantis

The story comes from Pete Riley, who studied at the University of Maine in the " hippie era . " He talks about his friendship with Skip Kirk, who later became a famous artist, and with Nat Hoppenstand, a diligent student. Pete and Skip almost got kicked out of the university due to academic underperformance as a result of their addiction to the Worms game, which covered their entire hostel. Riley continued to play it, although he understood the harmfulness of this occupation, but he could not do anything with his habit. He also wanted to besiege an unpleasant guy - Ronnie Mailfanta. Mailfanta, unlike Pete and his friends, was kicked out, and he ended up in Vietnam.

Pete talks about his first love for Carol Gerber, a student at the same university, an activist against the Vietnam War. Although Carol had some feelings for Pete, she decided to leave the university for family reasons, having left Pete forever after a night spent together in his car (Carol became his first woman). Subsequently, the activities of organizations to which Carol joined, approached the terrorist . A significant role in the life of Riley was played by another activist of this movement, a disabled person, Stokeley Jones, nicknamed Rvi-Rvi. Pete and his friends protected him from the machinations of the elder David Dushborn, who had the right views, feeling guilty before Jones because they laughed at his misfortune before.

The symbol of those years was the “nuclear disarmament” sign that Pete first saw on Stokeley Jones's jacket, and then painted on his own. Riley compares the entire era of his youth with Atlantis , which hid in the depths of the sea and will never return.

Blind Willie

Willie Shirman, who once participated in the beating of little Carol Gerber as a child, and then fought in Vietnam, where he saved the life of John Sullivan, his former foe, imposed penance on himself. He decided to beg as a Vietnam veteran who allegedly lost his sight, and then give money to charity. Especially at Christmas they serve him a lot, but a policeman collecting “tribute” from the poor in that area suspects that Willie is not blind at all.

Why are we in Vietnam

Veteran John Sullivan arrives at the funeral of one of his colleagues. He recalls the Vietnam War, the way a soldier from his unit, Ronnie Maylphant, brutally killed an old woman from a small Vietnamese village. Sullivan calls her “Mamasan,” and since then her vision has haunted him. When he goes from a funeral and gets into a traffic jam, it suddenly seems to him that all sorts of objects begin to fall from the sky. His ghostly companion for the first time tries to hug him and says that he wants to save him. This turns out to be dying delirium - John dies of a heart attack in this congestion.

Shadows of night descend from the sky

Aged Bobby Garfield arrives in his hometown for the funeral of childhood friend John Sullivan and meets there a woman whom Carol Gerber recognizes. She changed her name, now she is Denise Shunover, and has changed a lot, but she is alive.

• Bobby Garfield ( born Bobby Garfield ) - the protagonist of the first and last part, a boy raised by a single mother . Acquainted with the new tenant Ted Brotigenom, made friends with him, but because of this, he almost got captured by supernatural beings . Having lost his adult friend, he rolled downhill, but managed to improve. To the events of the last part - a completely respectable elderly man, married and with children.
• Ted Brautigan ( born Ted Brautigan ) - the protagonist of the first part, an old man with paranormal abilities. It also appears in the last book of the Dark Tower series.
• Carol Gerber ( Eng. Carol Gerber ) - the main character of the first, second and last parts. Bobby's childhood friend, his first love. She became the first girlfriend of Sall John, then went to study at the University of Maine, where she met Pete Riley. They began a romantic relationship, but Carol left. Having contacted an anti-government organization, she became known as the Red Carol terrorist. Then she disappeared, was considered dead, took a different name and became a teacher of mathematics.
• John Sullivan , nicknamed Sull-John ( Eng. John "Sully" Sullivan ) - the protagonist of the fourth part (first appeared in the first), childhood friend Bobby and Carol, her first boyfriend. He fought in Vietnam with Mailfant, was injured and some mental problems. He died of a heart attack after the funeral of a former colleague.
• Pete Riley ( English Peter Riley ) - the protagonist of the second part, a guy who fell in love with Carol Gerber at the university.
• Willie Shearman ( born Willie Shearman ) - the protagonist of the third part (first appeared in the first), a boy from a parish school who participated in the beating of Carol in childhood and did not forgive himself this to gray hair.
• Ronnie Malenfant is a minor character in the second and fourth parts, a fellow practitioner of Pete Riley, an unpleasant and ugly guy who fought with Sullivan in Vietnam and brutally murdered an unarmed Vietnamese old woman.

Hearts in Atlantis includes several significant references to books, films and songs. Including the cycle "Dark Tower" of King himself.

Books

• Bobby's favorite book is the novel of W. Golding " Lord of the Flies ", presented to him by Ted Brotigen. The problem of latent violence, hidden in civilized people, especially children, raised in Golding’s novel plays a significant role in Hearts in Atlantis (this topic is one of the key in King’s work, as he himself notes in his memoirs, “How to Write Books” ^{[ 7]} ). The aggressive boys who beat Carol, or the men who abused Bobby's mother, appear to him like some kind of hunter led by Jack Meridue from Lord of the Flies. When Bobby himself becomes "bad" and first comes across a policeman, he first calls himself Ralph (a positive character of Golding), but then he gets better and calls himself Jack Meridy (negative character).
• The name of Ted is probably a reference to the influential American writer of the generation of beatniks and hippies - Richard Brotigan .
• Bobby reads Clifford Saymak ’s novel “The Ring Around the Sun ” and is inspired by the idea of ​​a spinning top with which you can navigate parallel worlds. First, he reveals the vision of other existing worlds that he explains to himself in terms of the novel by Saimak.
• The title of the story “For What We Are in Vietnam” is an allusion to the novel Why Are We in Vietnam? Norman Mailer .

Movies

• One of the epigraphs to the whole book is a dialogue from the series The Prisoner (“ Prisoner ”): a conversation between two secret agents. The phrase from this dialogue “We Need Information” has become very important for the relationship between Carol Gerber and Pete Riley. At her farewell gift, Pete Carol drew a kind of “Atlantis formula”: an arrow pierced heart (love) plus a pacific equal information.
• In the first story, Bobby’s impressions of watching the movie “ Village of the Damned ” are described in some detail. The boy then tries to apply the method of protection against telepathic interference shown in this film - to think about something abstract.
• Another Pete Riley from the second story was Stanley Kirk, who was nicknamed Captain Kirk - in honor of the protagonist of the series " Star Trek ."

Songs

The text mentions many songs of the 60s. ^[eight]

• In the second story, does Pete often hear the band’s 96 Tears ^[9] song (“96 Tears”) ? and the Mysterians ("? and the Mysteries"), really popular in the USA in the "hippie era": the song won first place in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966 ^[10] . The theme of the confrontation mentioned in the song becomes a metaphor for relations between the United States and Vietnam at that time: “At the UN, Secretary General U Thant urged US Ambassador Arthur Goldberg to stop, at least temporarily, the bombing of North Vietnam. <...> The Great White Father <...> said that it was impossible: we will stop when the Viet Cong stops, and until then they will shed 96 tears. At least 96. "
• The title of the story “Shadows of Night Come Down from the Sky” is an allusion to the Twilight Time (The Twilight Time) song of The Platters , in which there are words: “Heavenly shades of night are falling; it's twilight time ... ” ^[11] . The love lyrics of the song echoes the plot of the story: we are talking about the resurrection of an old feeling. This song sounds both during Carol’s love affair with Pete in his car before they parted, and when she met Bobby at the very end of the novel.

References to the Dark Tower

Almost all references to the Dark Tower cycle are contained in the first story. This is, firstly, the image of Ted Brotigen , a person with the para-abilities of a “breaker” (in the translation of the main series - “destroyer”), capable of destroying the Rays with the power of thought - super-powerful energy flows that support the worlds. Ted’s further story is told in the last book of heptalogy. Secondly, this is the image of " low people ", the servants of the Crimson Lord ( English Crimson King , in the translation of the main series - " Scarlet King "). In the last books of the main series, these creatures received a lot of attention.

Also in the story "Low Men in Yellow Cloaks" Roland and his new kit are mentioned once as "a pistol gun and his friends", and it is said that they have already reached the limits of the End World ( Eng. End-World , in the translation of the main series - Extreme world). This description corresponds to the events of the book “ Wolves of Kali ” ^[12] . The Dark Tower itself is also mentioned, at first Bobby presents it as a top, along the spirals of which worlds are located, but then understands that it is a tower, the axis of the worlds.

In addition, Ted sent Bobby a letter with rose petals. The rose in the universe of the Dark Tower is one of the "doubles" of the Tower, its symbol.

• Deutsche Phantastik Preis (2000) - best foreign novel ( German: Bester internationaler Roman ) ^[13]

• Stoker (2000) - The Best Novel (novel)
• World Fantasy (2000) - collection
• Stoker (2000) - collection
• Locus (2000) - collection
• British Fantasy (2000) - collection

The film " Hearts in Atlantis " is an adaptation of only the first story of the book ("Low People in Yellow Cloaks"), and, in part, the last, which describes the return of Bobby to his hometown. References to the Dark Tower cycle are excluded from the film adaptation.

• In the first story, Ted Brotigen tells Bobby about time, and mentions that " Boris Pasternak said that we are prisoners of time, hostages of eternity." He means the ending of the poem “Night”: “Do not sleep, do not sleep, artist, Do not indulge in sleep. You are an eternity hostage to time in captivity. ”
• Translator Irina Gurova in an interview said that she was persuaded for a long time to take up the translation of King, but then "it turned out that the book was amazing."

• Hearts in Atlantis (film)
• War in vietnam
• Lord of the Flies

• "Hearts in Atlantis" on the site "Stephen King. Royal Club »
• "Hearts in Atlantis" on the site "Fantasy Laboratory"