Cultural aspects

In all stories of this book the author refers a lot to the modern culture.


First of all the language of the characters in the first story has the style of the beggining of the XX century. It's mostly the language of farmers. But at the same time the main character of "1922" is an educated farmers who likes to read books in the evening after a hard day on a field.

"He set the lamp down by the book I had been reading: Sinclair Lewis's Main Street."

"It sounds to me as if she got as tired of you fellows as she did of me and the son she gave birth to. Said good riddance to bad rubbish. A plague on both your houses. That’s Shakespeare, by the way. Romeo and Juliet. A play about love."

Just like in most of Stephen King's books the events take place in the U.S.A. and all geographical places that are mentioned are real and can be found on a map.

For example,

"April 11, 1930 Magnolia Hotel Omaha, Nebraska"

The hotel still exists and is open for the customers.

"The next one was Marjorie Duvall's North Conway Library Card, and it had an address: "17 Honey Lane, South Gansett, New Hampshire."

Using Google Street View we can get even better understanding of the place.

As the heroine of the second story is a writer, it is full of references to  books and movies.

"A mile or so after passing the Colewich sign, Tess began to hear a low, rhythmic thudding that seemed to come up from the road through her feet. Her first guess was of H.G. Wells's mutant Morlocks, tending their machinery deep in the bowels of the earth..."

"She lay limp in his arms, feeling like a girl in a horror movie, the one who's carried away by Jason or Michael or Freddy or whatever his name was after all the other ones are slaughtered." 

It has references to some famous singers too:

"I’ll sing Bonnie Tyler’s hit record. I’ll sing “It’s a Heartache.” I’m sure I know the words, I’m sure they’re in the junkheap every writer has in the back of her…"

The third story mentions a lot of events that happened in the world:

"2008, what a year! China hosted the Olympics! Chris Brown and Rihanna became nuzzle-bunnies! Banks collapsed! The stock market tanked!"

"In 2009, Chris Brown beat the hell out of his Number One Nuzzle-Bunny after the Grammy Awards..."

"In June, Michael Jackson kicked the bucket..."