The Epistemology of Evil Twins: The Dark Half by Stephen King

                                         

Only Stephen King could write a book with the somewhat silly premise of an author's pseudonym coming to life .... and make me believe it so engrossingly. 1989's The Dark Half isn't one of King's "A List" novels (it's not up there with The Stand, IT, or The Shining), but I think it's underrated.

This is also one of King's most epistemological novels (along with The Dead Zone), so let's call it... the epistemology of evil twins! (Epistemology, or theory of knowledge, is the part of philosophy that studies knowledge: what it is, how you get it, whether you have as much of it as you think, etc.).


Just as Stephen King had Richard Bachman, so does Thad Beaumont have George Stark. And just as someone figured out that Bachman was King, so someone is on the verge of spilling the beans that Stark is Beaumont when Beaumont decides to get in front of the story and reveal it himself. And then the murders start (hopefully this is where the real-life King-Bachman and fictional Beaumont-Stark stories part).

As in many Stephen King novels ('Salem's Lot is a key example), you get the horror theme of rational 20th century people have to accept Weird Stuff. This represents the philosophical theme of absurdity (à la Albert Camus) in horror fiction. There's also some interesting metaphysics of how this could happen (as a Dark Tower fan, I was rooting for Stark being a "walk in" who is a "twinner" from another version of Earth on another level of the Tower, but a delightfully gory scene of brain surgery at the beginning of the novel makes that unlikely).

The Dark Half also makes for great epistemology.

You see, the local Sheriff doesn't quite believe Beaumont and his wife Liz that his pseudonym is actually an evil twin on a murderous rampage to stay alive after having emerged from the fake grave they made for him as a photo op for People magazine. I mean, I wouldn't believe them, either. I can't blame the Sheriff (Alan Pangborn, also in Needful Things as part of the Castle Rock cluster of Stephen King's related universe).

There's a handy epistemological guideline called conservatism (which has nothing to do with politics). That is, if something goes against other things we know (namely, that pseudonyms have no physical way of coming to life and going on murderous rampages), then we have reason to doubt it and look for some other explanation that does fit with other things we know. A famous example of this is David Hume's "On Miracles," where he argues that the evidence against a miracle (our evidence for the laws of nature) is always greater than the evidence for a miracle (which is usually the testimony of one or more people).

Likewise, Sheriff Pangborn has plenty of reason not to believe Thad and Liz. And I was with him. It could be a deranged fan carefully planting fake evidence. I mean, that's unlikely, but it's a hell of a lot more likely than Thad and Liz's story. I won't spoil anything, but it's possible Pangborn could even seek a different explanation after everything that happens (I can't remember if it comes up in Needful Things).

So why are Thad and Liz so sure they're right? Thad continually thinks to himself (maybe convincing himself?) that he knows it. He constantly tells himself, "I'm the knower." But he can't explain how he knows it. 

Maybe he's what epistemologists call an externalist, meaning that knowledge does not require any sort of direct access to one's reasons/justifications. There are plenty of versions of externalism, but it's common to think that knowledge just requires the knower being in the right causal relation to what they know. And since Thad is intimately tied up with George, maybe he is in such a position, even if internalists would deny that he really knows. (Another example is when you get the right answer on a quiz, but can't remember how you knew that. Did you really "know" it?)

So how about Liz? Her evidence is a bit more direct, and she does explain it. She could tell that Thad was somehow different when he was writing George Stark novels: a bit rougher and meaner. Whether she should make the jump from that to "his pseudonym came alive" is maybe another matter I'll leave to the reader. But it makes for a fun novel.

Aside from all the fun epistemology, it's just an engrossing novel in the way that most of King's novels are. It really only starts to drag a little toward the end, unlike some of King's doorstopper tomes; but like those tomes, it's always interesting. 

I love the gory stuff and the idea that Stark is deteriorating (a nice bit on the relationship between creativity and reality... another big connection to what King would later write in the Dark Tower books). It's also interesting to see King work through his reasons for creating and killing Richard Bachman on the page (for the record, I usually don't like the Bachman books as much, so I think King did the right thing).

This book has almost everything I love about Stephen King: it's eminently readable and entertaining, but it also makes you think. And how do I know that? Like Thad Beaumont, maybe I just do.

See my Goodreads review.