Sleepless
Sleepless (original title: Insomnia) is the title of a novel by the American author Stephen King . The US and German first editions appeared in 1994.
The plot takes place in the fictional city of Derry in the US state of Maine , as in King's works Es and Duddits .
action
Ralph Roberts, a widowed 70-year-old, lives in Derry City with Bill McGovern. Roberts has suffered from insomnia since his wife Carolyn died of a brain tumor. One day Roberts witnessed an argument between his neighbor Ed Deepneau and a truck driver, during which his neighbor freaked out and accused the driver of transporting dead embryos under the tarpaulin of his truck . In fact, there are only a few barrels of fertilizer there.
Two months later, Helen Deepneau, Ed's wife, seriously wounded, walks with her little daughter Natalie across the parking lot of the supermarket where Ralph is shopping. She was beaten up by Ed after he learned that his wife had signed a petition on behalf of feminist Susan Day, who advocates women's rights to abortion . Helen is first taken to the hospital and then admitted to a women's rights group; she is finally safe while Ed publicly joins an anti-abortion group. Their protests in front of the abortion clinic escalate from time to time and finally end in violent clashes.
During this time, Ralph saw two small, bald beings for the first time. You enter his neighbor's house and carry a pair of scissors with you. Ralph is certain that his neighbor died at the hands of the two beings. Later he notices a third being, but this one seems to despise humans and enjoy killing.
He also discovers the world of auras , he sees colors around people and objects that have different colors, and notices that all people have something like a balloon string in their aura that extends into the sky; in some, however, the aura is black and the balloon cord no longer exists. He soon finds out that these people do not have much longer to live and that the balloon cords must be something like umbilical cords, without which people cannot survive.
Totally confused and doubtful of himself, Ralph confides in his friend Bill; However, he only believes that Ralph needs help from a doctor and is mentally ill. The two fight, and Ralph meets Lois Chasse in the park. She tells him that she can also see auras and is suffering from insomnia. Ralph sees her in a completely different light now.
One day, Helen Deepneau and her daughter Natalie and one of her friends, Gretchen Tilbury, visit Ralph. They thank him again for helping Helen back then and warn him about Ed Deepneau and his men; they give him pepper spray, which he puts aside and forgets again.
While trying to read something in the library in Derry, he is attacked with a knife by Charlie Pickering, one of Ed Deepneau's friends. Pickering stabs his knife in Ralph's side, but Ralph notices that he is carrying Helen and Gretchen's pepper spray in his coat pocket and uses it to defend himself.
Ralph and Lois want to visit the hospital and meet the two bald doctors there for the first time; Ralph calls them, after the Moiren , Lachesis and Klotho , because the two show Ralph and Lois part of their work, they end a patient's life by cutting the balloon cord of his aura with their scissors.
Clotho and Lachesis ascend to another level with the two of them to explain to them what they were intended for: The third doctor, Atropos , the chance, intends to kill thousands of people, on the orders of a powerful creature, the Scarlet King .
The accident is said to happen on the day Susan Day would give her speech at the community center. Ed Deepneau wants to steer an airplane loaded with explosives into the building of the civic center. There, however, a young boy would be present, whose survival would have to be ensured, as he still had an important role to play. The two have to stop Ed and stop Atropos.
After Ralph and Lois got their other questions answered more badly than right, they immediately drive to the house where Helen, Gretchen and other feminists live to find out where Ed is. When they get there, they see a couple of Ed Deepneau's men attacked and set fire to the house; the women are locked down in the basement. Ralph goes again to another level of reality and can save her.
The two first go to Atropos' dwelling, perhaps to find a solution to their task there. You can see that Atropos kept a souvenir of everyone he deliberately killed . This is how they discover Bill McGovern's hat (they later learn that Bill died of a heart attack while they were in the hospital) and Lois' earrings. They are about to leave when Atropos returns and notices them. He and Ralph fight a bloody fight in which Ralph learns that Atropos wants to kill Natalie Deepneau. He agrees on an exchange with Klotho and Lachesis: his life for Natalies.
Ralph can stop Ed and kill the Scarlet King, the chosen child is saved. He and Lois get married that same year and are happy together. Soon they forget everything that has happened, sleep helps them until Ralph hears the ticking of the death clock again, which he had heard before his first wife died. He remembers Klotho, Lachesis, Atropos and the exchange to which he has committed himself.
On that particular day, Ralph was run over by a car, but Natalie was kept alive.
Links with other works
- Ralph Roberts finds a small sneaker in a warehouse; it belongs to Gage Creed, the unfortunate baby from the cuddly toy cemetery .
- Librarian Mike Hanlon, who wants to advise Ralph on his sleep problems, is one of the main characters on Es .
- Ben Hanscom, architect of the community center where the showdown takes place, is also known to readers from Es .
- Ralph remembers the death of the homosexual Adrian Mellon, who was caught first by a group of thugs and then by the monster ES.
- It is pharmacist Joe Wyzer who will find Mike Noonan's wife dead in Sara . Finally, Mike Noonan will report on an encounter with Ralph Roberts and his death.
- Like many of his works, Schlaflos also contains several references to King's, according to his own statements, most important work, the epic horror saga The Dark Tower : The Scarlet King as the personification of evil appeared here for the first time and was later to play a central role.
- Patrick Danville plays an important role in the conclusion of the saga, the novel The Tower .
literature
- Stephen King: Schlaflos , Heyne, 1994, ISBN 978-3-453-08011-9
- Marcel Feige: The large encyclopedia about Stephen King , Imprint Verlag, 1999, ISBN 3-89602-228-8
Web links
- Coverpage
- Detailed table of contents in KingWiki!