Yep, it was a very good story. I loved the suspense in it and the end was confusing at first but great!Quote:
Originally Posted by jayson
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Yep, it was a very good story. I loved the suspense in it and the end was confusing at first but great!Quote:
Originally Posted by jayson
The only Stephen King book that I have read was the Shining and it was great. The atmosphere was built up exceedingly well and it was terrifying at bits. I know that by many he is not considered a good writer but I beg to differ.
Stephen King has a gift for characterization, and while his books are while very appreciated by the reading community, underappreciated in my opinion by the intellectuals.
Stephen King is my favorite author of all time. The thing that makes him great is his characterization. His books are about characters, amazingly drawn, going through their life, and then about half-way through something horrorific happenings. Or at least his best book, Salem's Lot.
Stephen King is the greatest author of pure characterization ever. If he made a book that was entirely characters going through their life, it would be an very good experience. But what he does is add horror to it, so it has so many facets and appeals that it notches it to an awesome experience.
The reason why stephen king is so awesome is and has always been is his characterization. His books (or at least the great ones) are first and foremost about developing the characters to death (in a good way).
If an author can write that well, his books (or at least his top books) should be considered literature the same Tolkien and Fitzgerald are.
What do you think?
Sure, I think he is a great writer. Remember, many authors who are famous now were scarcely read in their time.
I wonder why:lol: Some of their work, seems to be garbage or not that great stuff that was overrated by intellectuals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kurtz
I think that a discussion about him has already been done before, but I am too lazy to search. :D
Anyway, I have personally no grudge against him. He is a good writer, but certainly not my favourite. I didn't like Rose Madder much but when I read The Long Walk, I was really impressed by the book---the horror in it---the plot---the character sketching, it was indeed very good.
Yes, Stephen King writes, and all written material is literature.
Err. You don't mean rotten material is literature, right? :p Yes, all written material is literature, so Stephen King comes in it. That's another thing what kind of literature---good---or----bad. Here, people have different opinions about this guy.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
I meant literature in the "college proffesors recognize it" sense.
I've read some of his books such as "Thing", "Mist" and "Psychic" and i enjoyed all of those books. But i don't think he's an artist. Because things he told are just weird/paranormal stories and they are not universal. I think we should firstly clarify what's art.
I dont think most literature professors would recogize Stephen King as literature worthy of study.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jtolj
I like King, hes a good storyteller.
There is a great deal of disagreement among college professors. I had one professor who wrote two detective novels that were published. He included some popular fiction in his courses. Remember that Shakespeare wrote his time's equivilent of B movies. With that said, some of King's novels are garbage, but others are pretty good. He is a pretty good writer, and he employs traditional themes and plot devices in some of his novels. I doubt that his writing will become part of the canon, but there's some real trash that is in the canon, so I may be wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jtolj
King is a decent writer with a good imagination. Tolkein was a decent writer with an absolutely unearthly imagination. Fitzgerald was a genius. Salem's Lot and The Great Gatsby are in completely different leagues, in my humble opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jtolj
You consider Stephen King "scarcely read"? Are we talking about the same man? Stephen King has sold more books than Gutenberg.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kurtz
Yes. Of course it's literature. Bizarre yes? Not really about real life situations and people but about his own strange and powerful imagination.Lots of good writers have followed the same line.He should write more succinctly at times buthe is a storyteller and he once made me stay up all night to finish reading 'Moon'. He has probably got a very good estimation of his own position in any great literature list. There is room in our reading for a whole range of stuff and room on our bookshelves for King and Grisham.
I'm wondering if the idea here is: Is Stephen King considered literature NOW. At this time I believe he is POPULAR with the MASSES but not REGARDED as literature. I belive King may survive the test of time. I also believe I won't be here if it happens so I'm enjoying but not losing sleep over it. Truth is my son is THE King collector in the family--I'm still casually working on Rafafel Sabatini who still doesn't rate as literature-- thanks to Errol Flynn no doubt. Growing up with rather strict parents (who did never did understand why I thought Edgar Rice Burroughs was a GOD) (and Doc Savage was a prophet--The Shadow came much later) I would show them the classics I would read (Shakespeare, Dickens etc and hide the POPULAR stuff like Burroughs, Fu Manchu books. I still remember having to explain my copy of Haggard's She because Ursula Andress was on the cover due to that wretched film version and Mom never belived me for a second.
NO. A great writer; not literature.
five hundred years will prove that Joyce, fitzgerald, capote and possibly mailer were the literature of 20th century english.
I think a lot of people dismiss him as not being literature simply because he writes about paranormal events...similar reasoning to the people who refuse to call fantasy literature. Everyone has different personal opinions about what should be considered literature, and mine is fairly inclusive. King uses characterization, setting, has great plots in my opinion...to me, he is literature, whether or not I like him or his books.
Someone was talking to me today about a woman she dislikes who is always correcting her grammar. I told her that as an English major, I've come to realize that as long as you are getting your message across and are understood, then you are using the language effectively, and there is no need to correct it in casual conversation. Maybe that makes me look like one of those all-inclusive enthusiasts who will call any sound music, any splatter of paint art, and any book literature...but that's not the case. I have my parameters, and those of others may differ...
I have read only one of King's novels: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and it's one of the most boring novels I have ever read. I don't know, maybe I should read some of the more popular ones, so perhaps I could understand better why everybody likes his books so much :/.
At least Green Mile was brilliant as a film.
Certainly! King's the leading contemporary American gothic writer of our times! Try reading "IT" sometime.
Tolkien's writings are not mostly imagination. He was an English Language Professor and interested in linguistic. His themes and imaginary creatures etc. mostly based on different cultures and myths. For example even there's creature "Troll" is originally Swedish myth, i also recognized Celtic influences on names. Even name of Tom Bombadil has probly taken from Turkish (this is a completely original theory but i think it's really possible) because he was interested in linguistic and "Dil" means tongue in Turkish, so "Bombadil" means Bomb-Tongue (if we remember Bombadil's ability to control the nature with his words, this theory seems more logical). So i don't think he had absolutely unearthly imagination, but he had absolutely wide knowledge of folk literature and different folk myth, also i think LOTR is not just a novel probly a myth. Because style of novel really similar to myths.Quote:
Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9
Last word about King; please think his subjects and stories, they are probly means anything for a man who comes from different culture. Weird things going on in a little American town. Characters are absolutely similar to each other in every novel, classic American town-folk. When you finish the novel, you feel really satisfied and enjoyed, but did it change you? Did you feel anything different about your thoughts and feelings? No? Then he's not an artist. Art shows us a something different about universe-human relations. It changes us, can King do this? If your answer is no, then he's not an artist, just a good story-teller.
I really enjoy reading Stephen King, especially when I've read too much heavy literature and need a break. I'm not sure if he's an artist, but The Stand does illuminate human nature. He shows you how different people react differently when the world appears to be ending, and you learn why the people reacted as they did through the back story of their life. It does require some thought and entrepretation. It's not spelled out for you, but it does illuminate human nature, the way people are, and why they are that way. It is his only novel I have read that I felt had depth to it though (and I've read quite a few). I think he is a very good writer, and it's not about his stories. It's the way in which he draws you into the stories (I personally prefer his short stories to his novels, except The Stand). The way he speaks to the reader. For the most part his stories are fluff, but they speak to me and draw me in in a way no modern writer in his genre does.
Courtny
Why can't art just be a fantastic story?Quote:
Originally Posted by Turk
Story telling is definitely an art form because it is always important how a story is told. Take the same story line, give it to different people to actually tell the story and you will find that some will be brilliant, exciting, nerve warckingly thrilling and some will be boring, tedious and repetitive. Art is not only about contents but also about style and it is the style that can make a content appealing, even contents that have no particular merits themselves or don't seem very fascinating (like the smell of cookies, and look what Proust made of it). For me, King IS an artist. I have found childhood fears rarely better described and told than in his books. Hearts in Atlantis really recreates the feeling of a certain generation so much so that it all came back to me, unwanted, unasked for, just like that. I also like his way to deal with accents and speech mannerisms, it reminds me of Nestroy and his attempt to characterise people by their way of speaking. Telling a story well should always be appreciated, even by intellectuals. And anyway, a true intellectual should be beyond snobbishness, should be confident enough not to seek cover behind high brow words, topics or interpretations.
Of course it can be, Kafka, Tolkien, Capote, Marquez and many other writers uses fantastic elements in their stories but if the story doesn't have any universal meaning or something to tell us about human, that's just a pulp story. Think King stories such as Red Rose Mansion or It, what's universal or art in those stories? Something weird going on in a mansion and people dying, so what? Or "It" There's an unearthly creature killing people, so what? Is this art?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jtolj
I said reading King is fun, but if every enjoyable thing would be art life would be full of art. There's certain limits of art and King is definately out of those limits.
As someone who has never created anything in her life, I'm hesitant to define art. I personally don't feel comfortable putting limitations on it, and saying this is art or this isn't art. In the broadest terms I think art is everywhere and in everything. My personal tastes run narrower than that though. Just because you look at a creation and are unimpressed by it, doesn't mean it's not art. Just because you observe a work (read it, listen to it, look at it), and you don't feel that magical feeling you feel when you're moved by something, doesn't mean it's not art.
I'm not sure it's fair to decide that a writer is not an artist without reading all of their work. One might understand why some people might consider King an artist if one read The Stand (about human nature in the face of disaster), Thinner (about the power of pain and revenge), Bag of Bones, Needful Things (about how people grasp at their dreams when offered to them even when they know something's wrong), or the Bachman books (he wrote some stories under the name of Bachman that are amazing). These are all novels or short stories that tell us about human nature (you have to look past the plot line and into the drawing of the characters to find it though). I think maybe you're not digging deep enough. You're reading the story, and only looking at the plot. Larry Underwood, Franny, Harold Lauder, and Stuart Redman are all characters from the Stand that seem like real people to me. When you can create characters that are so real the reader almost feels that they could reach out and touch them, when the writer draws their characters so well that the reader knows what they'll do in situations not even presented in the novel, you're an artist, it's not all about plot.
Courtny
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turk
If Stephen King wrote 'straight' books instead of horror he'd be regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th and 21st centuries by even the harshest critics. It's simply a case of genre prejudice.
The man has real literary talent and ability. You only have to read a book like Misery, where he uses extended metaphors, stream-of-consciousness and even a story within a story, to see that he knows what he's doing with technique and does it well. His characters are as well developed and sometimes better developed than a dozen other 'literary' authors. His use of dialogue and setting are flawless. The only difference is that King writes horror and has been pigeon-holed into that genre (something he's quite comfortable with). Also, he's hugely successful, which upsets some of the more snobby critics who believe that art is only for an elite and ceases to be art when it reaches the masses.
This is of course a hugely subjective matter. Some of the well-established literary greats have left me cold and unchanged and revealed nothing to me about human nature. While a book such as The Running Man for example, which is regarded by almost everyone (probably even King himself) as a pot-boiler has both entertained and moved me.
Another author who was wildly successful in his day was Charles Dickens. He was regarded as a mere story teller by contemporary critics. However, you would have to go very far indeed to meet someone who doesn't consider his work to be part of the literary cannon these days.
Zippy.
If.
Nobody said he doesn't have talent. But since he just write for money we can't call him artist. Talent is not enough to be artist, if you have it, you should use it.
I've read The Dark Tower (supposedly his 'big message' book) and I didn't find it all that good, frankly. He can write well, and he has a good imagination, but I don't think he's all that earth-shaking.
The man needs to stay out of the movies, though.
/puts on devils advocate hat -Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippy
Same could be said for Arthur Conan Doyle but there arent many who would consider him to be part of any cannon
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shannanigan
I took an introductory linguistics class and we talked about people who do correct other people in casual conversations and we decided that it is both stupid and rude. There is a time and a place (and a style) for everything. If you are writing a paper for class or a business proposal then your grammar needs to be perfect. If you are giving a speech in class or putting on a presention then you need to prepare your words beforehand. But if you are just talking or posting on a forum then you are allowed a grammar misstep or typo here and there. We also talked about how the English language has evolved over time.
And just as the English language has evolved, so too will literary criteria (I think). I think Stephen King will at least be mentioned in future literature classes. If not, they can surely fit him into a 20th century popular culture class.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turk
I think you're making a huge presumption there. Yes, he makes a lot of money, but if you read one of his autobiographical works like On Writing you'll see that money is very far down the list of his motivations. First and foremost he writes because it's what he does, it's almost 'hardwired' into his consciousness. In other words, it's for the sheer love of it.
Why does an 'artist' write? What makes them different from 'popular' writers? I think people have a specific vision of the 'artist' in their heads (swanning around with a cravat and smoking jacket; starving to death in a loft in Paris; unappreciated in their time; ) when someone doesn't fit that vision, we have a break-down of imagination.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that King is a genius or anything. Writers like Joyce, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Woolf et al are light-years ahead of him, but still, his work deserves to be called literature just as much as the work of many lesser so-called literary authors.
ZIPPY;)
It's a fair point. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has not made the literary cannon - yet. But I'd argue that, his Sherlock Holmes books at least, are hovering on the periphary. After all, there are already 'Oxford World Classics' editions of his books. Surely it can't be too much longer before he's accepted as part of the literary cannon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Woland
To go off topic for a moment, I visited my grandmother a few weeks ago during her birthday and got talking about Sherlock Holmes (it was on the TV). It turns out that Conan Doyle spent the final years of his life in a small village called Cardross where my grandmother was from. My great grandmother was a cook and used to get my gran to take Conan Doyle his dinner every day. As she was just a young girl at the time she was unaware of who he was, only that he was a 'famous writer'. I asked her what he was like and she said that 'Mr. Doyle was a very nice old man'. So there you go - my (tentative) link to literary stardom!
Zippy.:)
Ah, exactly :) The language evolves according to people's tastes and usage, who's to say literature won't, as well? Stephen King has sold way too many books and become too much of a household name to not be mentioned in future literature classes or 20th century pop culture class...heck, he's mentioned all the time in my lit classes today!Quote:
Originally Posted by Shalot
I see, but as far as i read his works i can't say he's an artist. I read at least 4-5 books of him and i said it's exciting and fun. But after finished his books it didn't change me. When you finish a Dostoevski or Hemingway book you feel changed, developed and matured. But i really didn't get same feeling when i finish King books. Is his style exciting? Yeah. Is he writes good? Yeah. Is it fun to read him? Yeah. But he doesn't have any message for me. He doesn't show me anything i didn't know before about universe. That's why i can't call him artist. Btw, i like Zappa, his song "why does it hurts when i pee?" makes me always smile since he died because of prostat cancer. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippy
Quote:
Originally posted by Shannaniggan:
Someone was talking to me today about a woman she dislikes who is always correcting her grammar. I told her that as an English major, I've come to realize that as long as you are getting your message across and are understood, then you are using the language effectively, and there is no need to correct it in casual conversation. Maybe that makes me look like one of those all-inclusive enthusiasts who will call any sound music, any splatter of paint art, and any book literature...but that's not the case. I have my parameters, and those of others may differ...
I agree with you; oneīs parameters about whatīs art differ from otherīs. Thereīs a saying: "One must not discuss matters of taste" (I know it in portuguese, excuse my bad translation). Whatīs considered art to one person may not be to another, but good taste is a relative thing. People usually consider "kitsch" or "bad-taste" anything thatīs popular with the masses. Well, it usually is, but thereīs exceptions. Many authors that were popular in their time were not considered canon (some still arenīt, but some have achieved that status). But even if they were not in the Mount Olympus of Art, people enjoyed their work, they earned their living, and perhaps someone could learn something, become a better person, remember their own experiences, recognize common virtues and/or vices, just like other people would do with other art works, the canon ones. It all depends on how a work of art touches someoneīs sensibilities and needs, itīs a case-to-case relationship.
After all this babbling, I like Kingīs work. I enjoyed many of his books, they are stories well told, his characters are well constructed, and even if I donīt think theyīre the best books I ever read, I liked them a lot.:)
My favourites: Dolores Claiborne, Pet Sematary, and some short stories.
Grr I do dislike bad grammar I do! And furthermore ... and ... to elaborate should this site be encouraging students to seek help with books that they are too lazy to read? Ain't that cheating? Should we provide Philistines with handrails? Yes? Ok Yes. Nobody will ever read until there is an element of enjoyment, pleasure, achievement but ... laziness .. 'Tis a sin sure an' a terrible one.
King is a good story teller, his writing isn't as great as Faulkner's and he's no poet but I'd consider him literature. Not the best but definitely not the worst either.
As Zippy pointed out, you should read "On Writing", Turk. And all artists live on the same thing by the way, money. The great painters of Italian Renaissance, the French Romantics like Balzac who wrote plays simply because it was the easiest way to get rich, all of them do it for the money at some point.
Mark F,
I totally agree with that: all artists are professionals like all the others, and they are doing their job for money. Mozart for example was composing music for the king in order to be in the palace and to have all the avantages the nobles had. And all the nowdays very good actors are staring in the blockbasters ( the more silly ones) in order to take millions for two weeks shooting! Artists arent saint, they are regular people and they want to make money like all we want.
Evi
Ok, King is a compotent writer, but I draw the line at comparing him to Hemingway.Quote:
Originally Posted by jerrybreathfire
Yes, Stephen King is definitely literature. And a very good one at that. This guy knows what he's doing and undoubtedly a master of his "craft or sullen art". This guy also cares about the language the way Hemingay and Faulkner does. The difference is that artist sees the same landscape in different light. To criticise is human, to write divine.
Joyce? Come on. People in universities are forced to study him. But the universities are self-appointed arbiters of taste. Very few readers would place 'Ulysses' high up on a scale of wonderful books and that other tome of his 'Finnegan's Wake' is for most readers an unread or unfinished lump of a thing. His short stories are brilliant though. Mailer is a clever boomer, Fitzgerald an artist but Capote is very limited. My advice is not to pay too much attention to what the profs say. How many really good writers have uni backgrounds? Precious few.