Positively coruscating!Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
Even more impressive.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
Of course they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
Nobody has to force me.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
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Positively coruscating!Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
Even more impressive.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
Of course they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
Nobody has to force me.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
While it has crossed my mind (some of you will suppose this to be a very short journey) that you are a fellow satirist and that I am your target, I will assume for the time being that you are sincere. I should warn you, however, that if you are, you are putting yourself in danger of being the object of considerable scorn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Schoolmeister
PS ‘first among us’?
A gentleman sir, is always sincere. And threats, veiled or otherwise, are beneath those such as us. Come let us be direct. I support you sir and wholeheartedly appreciate your threads that I have read so far. I do hope that I can respond to them on a day when it doesn't seem everyone but myself is out to chastise you for some perceived wrong, of which I can find no evidence other than their baseness. I toast you as first among us as I believe that I have a fairly good grasp of literature but sir, you have obviously surpassed me in your knowledge and I merely wished to congratulate you for your love of the written word, which I respect.
Ever Your Humble Servant
The judgements towards these authors, I believe, are based on their works and not purely on the authors. So, when I have read 1 or 2 of Steele's works and I found them "unworthy", of course, I wouldn't want to waste my time to read the 3rd one, and I'd come up in to a conclusion that reading Steele's is one of the best ways to waste my time. And think, there are many unknown classics writers, whose names and works are probably known only by literature professors. We all know popularity and quality don't always relate to each other. But of course, it's good to see people value somethings based on their onw experiences not purely rely on others.
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Positively coruscating!
What! You don't think that was positively yawn-inducing (not to mention completely out of topic)? Ooops... I forgot you wrote it.Quote:
Even more impressive.
I have this tiny tiny thing aganst lierature snobs its just plain stupid. I belive there has to be somthing good in anything that is published ok so often I cant find it and Ive waded hrough more junk reads than you can shake a stick at but if I werent open to reading anything that passes through my hands Id have missed some lovley jewels Ive picked up along the way. And come to it some of the Classics were shunned and poo-poo-ed when they were first published but are considered great today Austen and Keats being 2 who come to mind just now.
:D
That is a truly great phrase. I will steal it for future use.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
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Originally Posted by EAP
viewing the world through monocles of jaded cynicism.
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Originally Posted by PeterL
Peter, You're right. That is great, EAP. I too will have to steal it.
Admittedly, I am new to the classics, but I have to agree with the post in this thread that said that the classics are the books that read us. Its really hard to judge which books should be called classics, so I think its ridiculous when people seem to put down anything written before 1000 AD as worth reading. To some extent, I think a work's value as a classic is subjective. For instance, when I was in the 4th grade I read a book called "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson that completely altered my mind. It was the first book that I had ever read in which a main character had died - a character that I had become attached to, fallen in love with, and worried about throughout the book. I actually suffered emotionally after finishing the story and began (unconsciously) to ask myself questions about the world around me and about myself, and until I answered those questions I continued to suffer. This book forced me to ask these questions - it presented a truth I had hitherto not come to terms with but which was irrevocably a part of my psyche, and made me acknowledge it. Perhaps this isn't the best explanation, but this is my definition of a classic - a work that awakens in us some truth, be it emotional or intellectual, that we can realize through a combination of the facts presented in the work itself, and our own experiences and minds. For this to occur, the work cannot be so archaic that it has little relevance outside its own time period, but it still needs to be specific enough to push our intellectual and emotional buttons. This is also why not everybody agrees on which books should be called classics - the lists that we have are based either on an individual's or group's response to the works they've read, or the works that have had the widest range of impact throughout history.
Excuse me if I'm being rude, but I was looking at your writing style and have a question. You're not from the 19th century by any chance are you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Schoolmeister
If so, it's not surprising that unnameable has surpassed you in his reading, as half of what he has read, won't have been written yet where you are!
EAP,
Steven King is not a great writer. He himself admits it. He owns to being too lazy and avaricious to write the great novel that he would love to produce. Read the last volume of the Dark Tower where he satirises himself quite wickedly. I'm sure that he would be the first to throw his hands up in horror at the thought of being ranked above Dostoevsky.
What Steven King is though is an incredible writing technician. He has the gift for making the reader keep on turning pages long past bedtime. I have read most of his books over the years and enjoyed them. But they are not classics, not in the way that "Crime & Punishment" is. They raise important issues but do not delve deeply into them and offer insights, preferring instead to passs on to the next cliffhanger, the next shock, the next plot twist. In short, his books require much less of the reader, they carry you along, they don't require you to paddle.
Peter Straub, on the other hand, is a very fine writer indeed. Although, he can (and does) write penny-dreadfull horror tales in much the same style as King, he has also produced some much depper and more complex work - check out his collection of short stories, "Houses Without Doors" or any of his books of poetry. Even in his more mainstream works, he asks more of the reader than King. Nothing is ever obvious in a Straub novel, you need to dig things out.
Jeffery Archer, on the other hand, is utterly worthless - a liar, plagiarist and convicted perjuror, who churns out more **** than the average cattle ranch. Anyone that would rank his drivel alongside Steven King & Peter Straub, let alone Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, has no opinion worth hearing. And yes, I have read one of his books - I was young - we all have guilty secrets in our past.
Xamonas Chegwe,
Regarding Stephen King:
I'll, respectfully, have to disagree with both you and Mr. King here. He did produce his magnum opus, it just wasn't in the form of a single novel. :pQuote:
He owns to being too lazy and avaricious to write the great novel that he would love to produce. Read the last volume of the Dark Tower where he satirises himself quite wickedly. I'm sure that he would be the first to throw his hands up in horror at the thought of being ranked above Dostoevsky.
In the paragraph above, there seems to be to be an implicit assumption (further solidified in the comments about Straub) that a book has to require a great deal of dictionary thumping and puzzle deciphering on the reader's part to be deemed meritworthy.Quote:
What Steven King is though is an incredible writing technician. He has the gift for making the reader keep on turning pages long past bedtime. I have read most of his books over the years and enjoyed them. But they are not classics, not in the way that "Crime & Punishment" is. They raise important issues but do not delve deeply into them and offer insights, preferring instead to passs on to the next cliffhanger, the next shock, the next plot twist. [b]In short, his books require much less of the reader, they carry you along, they don't require you to paddle.[b]
I found 'Crime and Punishment' to be a boring book. Whatever extra insights it offered were probably lost in the tedium induced by the droning prose and the effort to forcibly involve myself into something my mind was finding exceedingly unstimulating. As a text-book it might offer a worthwhile prognosis into human psyche but as entertainment, it failed on all accounts.
Herein, I think, lies the main bone of contention. A novel has to have a net positive impact on me to consider it good. What is the use of trying to read for entertainment when my desired objective itself is lacking? In 'It', 'Hearts In Atlantis' and 'Dark Tower Saga' in particular, not only does Stephen King manages to weave a gripping tale but also touch upon many fundamental issues which drive our day to day interactions.
I italicize touch because an author doesn't need to write a whole book discussing the merits of, and issues pertaining to, say, friendship and the power of love. (two of the underlying themes in the Dark Tower saga)
Take the relationship between Jake and Roland for example; an issue which ultimately determines the fate of Gunslinger's quest. During it, you run the whole gamut of human emotions, ranging from distate turning into indifference, of disappointment, a growing sense of shame battling with dogged determination, fondness evolving, over the course of time, into something more - something that throws Roland into his past and another set of similarly harrowing emotional experiences. And all of this is 'shown', instead of 'told'.
'Writing Technician' or 'writer' - the difference is merely a matter of semantics - and as I mentioned earlier, depends completely on the parameters we employ to define words such as writer, author, hack, pretentious ***....etc.
Regarding Jeffrey Archer:
Heh. There are very few authors I have encountered who can write with the wry detachment of Archer and still make the story immensely enjoyable. Though, to be honest, most of his novels are regurgitating, hackneyed trash - it is in short story form that he truly excells. (Though 'Kane and Abel' and 'Fourth Estate' are impressive family saga's and books you can rely upon to pull you out of reading slumps)
But yeah, overall, he certainly is several notches below both Straub and King.
Therefore, be thankful that you don't have to 'hear' my opinions, merely reading the above paragraph is sure to leave a bad taste in your mouth. :p :)
On the contrary, there is no point in my being an argumentative sod without an arguee.Quote:
Originally Posted by EAP
I like Steven King, honestly I do, the dark tower series is an incredible acheivement. But it is still light reading. It has friendship as a theme, certainly, but does it really tell us anything new about it? Or tell us something old in a unique way? I'm not sure that it does.
One of the best thing about it is the way that the writing style matures as King does (It's a shame that the last 3 books were written in a single burst after such a long delay - I would have preferred a more even spread.) When King kills Jake off in the first book, he is not meant to come back in my opinion. The whole feel of the first book is darker than almost anything else that King ever wrote - sounds a strange thing to say about a horror writer - but if you think about it, despite the body counts, most of his tales have a much more upbeat resolution and a more sympathetic central character.
By the second book though, King's writing style has settled down into the more familiar mode and Roland is softening at the edges, becoming much more human. Somehow, this jars with his letting Jake fall in book 1, so he brings him back in the third - King is Gan in this tale - he can do anything! When Jake finally dies for a second time, it's not really Rolands fault - he doesn't have to make the choice between the boy and the tower again.
I also like the "Deus ex machina" scene in the last book - the writer (real) has the writer (character) write a note and leave it where it can't possibly have been put - lovely touch - if you're going to break the rules, break em BIG!
But all of this doesn't make dark tower a great book, merely a hugely entertaining one - King will be remembered, that's certain, his phenomenal popularity guarantees it. In that respect, I would categorise him with writers such as Trollope and Agatha Christie, but not with Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Steinbeck and the like.
Steven King can tug the heart strings better than most but - in my opinion - he plays it safe, giving his audience what they want, what he knows works - rereading his books doesn't offer new insights, it's all laid out for you in easily digestible bite-sized chunks.
My favourite Steven King book is one that most never bother to read - Danse Macabre - his non-fiction treatise on the horror novel - It shows just how deeply he understands his field, it's main themes and styles - I thoroughly recommend it - especially to budding writers. Unfortunately, I have yet to read "On writing", his second - and more autobiographical - book on his craft but I intend to. Nobody knows how to write, better than Stephen King. He could do it better though. I just wonder if there's a second Richard Bachman out there, writing literary masterpieces that no-one ever reads. Maybe...
Do me a favour though. Please don't ever try and justify Jeffrey Archer to me again or I will have to kill you - be warned, I've stopped taking my tablets! :rage:
I have read 'Danse Macabre' - twice. Something I usually don't do with novels, let alone non-fiction. But King's writing style is such that he can make even literary (albeit a very popcorn one) analysis into a gripping page-turner.
I'll forever remain in debt of that book, it introduced me to writers like Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson. (King really managed to whip up my interest in Anne Siddons work. I just never have been able to get my hands on a copy though)
Regarding King's greatness: Fair enough, I can understand where you are coming from. I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree there.
Have you read all the Bachman novels? Loved Long Walk almost as much as 'It' and have been thinking about giving 'Thinner' a try.
Thinner is good - scarier than a lot of Kings "own name" work in my (overworked) opinion. Nice twist too - saw it coming - but still nice.
Ray Bradbury is well worth reading - a really original style - he shares King's ability to take you back to your childhood - the root of King's power as a writer - but Bradbury can be far more surreal, even in his non-SF stories.
Have you read "On writing"? And if so, was it as good as DM?