On my 4th time reading Duma, and I just realized...

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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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It's always fascinated me how we create someone in our heads based on info provided us by only one of our senses. For instance, I tend to picture what a radio personality looks like until that idealized "person" is as real as anyone to my mind. Why you, mrblonde, pictured Elizabeth Eastlake as you did is anyone's guess. In literature we have our eyes to interpret what the author describes, but our own interpretations inevitably differ from the author's and from each other. So, casting for movies is always a thankless job, and radio personalities always disappoint in person.
...I'm a radio personality...how disappointing was I?....:eyebrow:
 

Autumn13

Active Member
Feb 14, 2012
43
101
Elizabeth Eastlake isn't black.

For some reason I always assumed she was black while reading this. I caught the "black help" line this time around.

It doesn't change the (amazing) story any for me, but I was a bit surprised.

I guess I had Abby in my head while reading :)

I wonder that you thought that. Remember Edgar and Wireman discussing the newspaper coverage of the young "child prodigy" and wondering, if she had been "black", would she have been called a "pickininny" or ignored altogether.
Remember Nan Melda?
Edgar makes a point of wondering if the "ole massa" (John Eastlake) was having an affair with the "help" and that might be why Nan Melda had those silver bracelets.What I thought was interesting is when Edgar remembers Illy bringing home a picture of a brown balloon head saying she had drawn a picture of him.
 

César Hernández-Meraz

Wants to be Nick, ends up as Larry
May 19, 2015
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I wonder that you thought that. Remember Edgar and Wireman discussing the newspaper coverage of the young "child prodigy" and wondering, if she had been "black", would she have been called a "pickininny" or ignored altogether.

He mentioned it would have been like this:
Smart white girl = prodigy.
Smart black girl = freak, to be paraded in a circus or carnival.
 
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Autumn13

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Feb 14, 2012
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I found the quote: page 400 Hardcover Edition (first Edgar speaking then Wireman at the hospital the night Elizabeth died.)

I tapped CHILD PRODIGY "Look, they even had the right fancy term for it. Do you suppose if she'd been poor and black, they would have called her PICKININNY FREAK and stuck her in a sideshow somewhere? Because I sort of do"
"If she'd been poor and black, she never would have made the paper at all. Or fallen out of a pony-trap to begin with."
 

Sliced Bread

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Jan 6, 2011
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From Scotland, live in Ireland
I "cast" every book I read in my head, and I'm usually disappointed with the actual casting if/when they do make the movie. The only recent casting I LOVED was "Savages." I though they nailed that one.

for Duma I have the following in my head:

Edgar: Gil Grissom
Wireman: Bruce Campbell

I'm sure there are better choices, but that is who I see when I read.

I don't really know why but every Stephen King book I read I picture the main character as the guy who played the adult Bill Denborough in IT.

Anyway I just finished this book for the first time and wow! What a fantastic book. Straight up there as one of my favourite ever King novels. I feel like his writing style has changed a lot in recent years. With his earlier predominantly horror books, creepy as all hell but it felt at times like his hand was struggling to keep up with the pace of the ideas coming out of his imagination, if that makes sense. His later books are slower paced and are much more layered, characters have more depth and more time is spent emphasising relationships between characters etc. Edgar's connection to his family and friends in this story really drew me in and stirred up emotions. A lot of really likeable characters in the book too, and the chemistry between the three men was very fun. That said, it was also one of the very few books that I've been genuinely scared while reading. There was some tense stuff going on in there!

Apologies for getting a bit effusive with the praise there (though if I can't do it here, where can I do it?!) but I really loved this book...
 

raperm

Active Member
Aug 22, 2016
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I just finished this for the first time, and loved it. It was probably the most relevant book of King's that I've read to me personally, because of Edgar's relationship with Ilse. My own daughter is just slightly older (21) and we have a very close relationship too. The part of the book where she died actually hurt to read.

But I gotta throw in with Sunlight Gardner on this; I can't for the life of me figure out where people were getting that she was black. From the start, she was described by Edgar as the "Bride of the Godfather". And given her upbringing as a member of a rich family in Florida with a black nanny, it seemed pretty damn clear that she and her family where lilly white. I think papa Eastlake was even descirbed in one of the photos as looking "pale". And to top it off, when Wireman and Edgar are looking into her background as an artist, Edgar even ASKS what the papers would have said about her if she'd been black; too which Wireman responds, they wouldn't have said anything.

I get "casting" in the mind, but this one I just don't understand given the details of the story.

But, for fantasy casting?

Edgar: Scott Bakula

Wireman: Jeff Bridges (kept picturing "the Dude" the whole time).

Pam: Patricia Heaton; she does bitchy wife really well, and has surprisingly good dramatic range when she has those roles.

Ms. Eastlake: Sian Phillips

Jack Cantori: David Lambert
 
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sam sampson

New Member
Sep 21, 2016
3
8
57
Elizabeth Eastlake isn't black.

For some reason I always assumed she was black while reading this. I caught the "black help" line this time around.

It doesn't change the (amazing) story any for me, but I was a bit surprised.

I guess I had Abby in my head while reading :)
I never thought Wireman was spanish....I still don't not with that last name. Seems most people think he was. I thought he just "saw himself" spanish because he was in love with a mexican woman
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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DumaKeyTennisBall.jpg
 

Bardo

Well-Known Member
Nov 19, 2011
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san diego
Elizabeth Eastlake isn't black.
For some reason I pictured Henry, from Black House as Black.
Mixed up with Speedy I guess,

Wireman I see as the bearded Indian Jones sidekick,
Do not recall the name
 

rudiroo

Well-Known Member
May 20, 2008
474
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London, England
Duma Key was published 2 weeks after my grandmother died and it helped me escape the misery. thanks stephen
I hear you.
My father z'l died seven years ago - a steady diet of SK, Doctor Who (David Tennant incarnation) and Being Human (UK version) Being Human UK.jpg
stopped me from succumbing to a broken heart.
When reality is unbearable, fiction (especially the dark variety) may save us.

We read SK/read zombie fiction/check-in for the flight to the furthest reaches of our imagination, because we're not afraid of the darkness.
And thank goodness for that.