The game (novel)
The game is a novel by the American writer Stephen King . The original was published in 1992 under the title Gerald's Game by Viking Penguin, New York . The German translation by Joachim Körber was published in the same year by Wilhelm Heyne Verlag , Munich .
action
The married couple Gerald and Jessie Burlingame spend a weekend in their secluded summer home on (fictional) Lake Kashwakamak in western Maine . Married for many years and tired of their married life, the couple indulge in erotic bondage games in the complete seclusion of their summer cottage . For Jessie, initially taken with them, these games lost their appeal a long time ago, and she endured them only for the sake of her husband.
This time, however, being tied to the bed by her husband, Jessie suddenly feels abhorrent to indulging in her husband's desires, and she asks him to let go of her. However, Gerald, who believes or pretends to believe that Jessie's resistance is faked and part of the game, does not let go of her. As he presses her further, Jessie gives her husband a hard kick. Gerald then suffers a heart attack and dies seconds later.
Gerald dead next to the bed, she herself handcuffed to the massive wooden frame of the bed and in the completely deserted area around the lake with no hope that her calls for help will be heard, Jessie quickly panics and soon begins to hear the voices of former high school friends to listen. It quickly becomes clear, however, that these voices represent different aspects of Jessie's personality, and in an inner dialogue with them Jessie succeeds in the further course of the novel, the difficult relationship with Gerald or the long-suppressed sexual abuse by her father when she was twelve years old was to process.
On the first night a stray dog enters the house and makes amends on Gerald's body. Later that night, Jessie sees a deformed figure in the almost completely dark room. The figure does not respond to Jessie's questions, and because of its unreal appearance, Jessie has doubts as to whether the being is real or mere imagination. Finally she struggles to say through the figure that it is not real and consists only of "moonlight". At this moment the figure, still completely motionless, steps forward and presents her with a suitcase full of human bones and jewels, whereupon Jessie faints. When she wakes up a little later, she is alone in the room again. Still undecided whether the figure was real or a hallucination , she later gives it the name "Space Cowboy" - after a line from the Steve Miller song The Joker .
Plagued by muscle cramps and driven by panic and growing thirst, Jessie makes increasingly desperate attempts to get rid of her bonds. The next afternoon, Jessie finally succeeds in injuring herself on the shard of a broken water glass, freeing her hand, which is largely skinned and slippery by the leaking blood, from the handcuff and using the other to reach the handcuff key. Shortly afterwards, having passed out again, Jessie wakes up in the evening twilight. When she wants to leave the house, completely exhausted, she meets the strange figure with the suitcase again. Jessie manages to reach the car parked in front of the house and to escape with it.
The story cuts sharply and continues at a point in time months later. Jessie is still recovering physically and mentally from what happened. The last part of the novel consists largely of a letter from Jessie to one of her former high school friends, whose voices she heard during the lessons in the summer house. This letter reveals, among other things, that the figure of the “space cowboy” was probably not an imagination, but a real grave robber and serial killer suffering from acromegaly, who was active in the area around the Burlingames' summer home at the time.
Interesting facts / links
- After the two-person play Sie came the one-person play Das Spiel , whereupon King jokingly announced in a press conference that his next book would be called The Livingroom and would be without people. In fact, a one-girl play was released in 1999 with Das Mädchen .
- The novel is linked to Dolores ; During the solar eclipse of July 20, 1963, which was fateful for both main characters (Jessie was sexually molested by her father, Dolores killed her husband), reality blurs and they can see each other. After Das Spiel , this passage was puzzling for a long time; only the appearance of Dolores brought clarity.
- Norris Ridgewick, the sheriff who investigates the crimes of the corpse batman Joubert, was still deputy in Stark - The Dark Half and Needful Things .
- Mike Noonan has a summer home called Sara on Dark Score Lake , but he doesn't know about Jessie Burlingame.
- See also the 'Isolation' entry for you .
- Lake Kashwakamak also appears in Stephen King's novel Pulse . In this area the Normies should get a safe refuge: "Kashak = No-Fo".
- On September 29, 2017, a film adaptation entitled Das Spiel ( Gerald's Game ) was published on the streaming service Netflix .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Katrin Hemmerling: Gerald's Game is available from today on Netflix. In: robots-and-dragons.de. September 29, 2017. Retrieved September 30, 2017 .