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gone.
That explains nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ragnar Freund
Clearer, but not crystal.Quote:
What’s the "magical" method? If the statement can, theoretically at least, be shown to be true or false, then it’s a statement of fact. The statement “Poe wrote Hamlet” can be shown to be false, therefore it is a statement of fact. The statement “ice cream tastes better than cake” cannot be shown to be true or false, therefore it is a statement of opinion. Are we clear now?
That's what the quote means, but that doesn't make it true, as it is the statement made by one person. I wasn't questioning the quote, I was questioning what it stated. Frankly, if you don't think Poe was trying to evoke an emotional response with his writing (practically the whole of it could be used as an example), then you're missing the point of his writing.Quote:
Yes, that’s exactly what it means. Read the quote again – the whole thing.
I don't think there's any reason to stop . . . I'm pretty sure Scher was just giving us a reminder, as these things seem to have a tendency to escalate. I can be civil, and I extend the invitation to you, also.Quote:
I extended a genuine invitation to you to bring to the table instances in which Poe and Hawthorne were using “cheap scare tactics”, in your words. I thought it would make for an interesting discussion, as opposed to the nonsensical arguments about university rankings that polluted this thread. You failed to bring one, although you claim there are many. I read The Shining thirteen years ago, and was able to point two such instances from memory. Since there’s some sort of an “infraction points” threat for personal arguments, I’ll stop here.
First, I put "cheap scare tactics" in quotes for a reason--to denote a certain flippancy in the statement.
I didn't want to point out any of these instances because, having not read any Poe or Hawthorne lately, I can't really elucidate on them since I don't have the specifics in mind. Three of Poe's stories come to mind, though (and I'll stick to Poe, here)--"The Black Cat," "The Fall of House Usher," and "The Masque of the Red Death." Each story seems to me to have the main goal of, well, "scaring" isn't exactly the correct word for each of these cases, but making the reader feel a sense of abject uneasiness, especially in the case of "The Black Cat." He's going for the emotional response when we get the gruesome scene of the the narrator killing the cat, the corpses in "The House of Usher," and the revealing in "The Masque." Now, I freely admit all are deeper and done with more nuance that what King does, but their main goal is the same--to "scare" the reader.
gone.
If the discussion has not degenerated into some butthurt fanboy debate,
I would, in all politeness, ask those who claim Mr King's books are worth our time:
Why? :seeya:
What exactly do Mr King's novels have that an educated reader cannot find in any other horror novel?
None of his works that I have read was particularly original or deep.
- Not that this would be an issue for me; some books are campy, and there's great delight in it.
(I casually salute my favorite fantasy writer of all time, Angus Wells. ;) )
But what exactly is that book of Mr King that is apparently such a revelation?
Because, frankly, if I look at just the movies, too, none of them managed to best John Carpenter's style either.
So, educate me!
Why read Marlowe when you can just read Shakespeare?Quote:
Originally Posted by LeNoirFaineant
Personally, I like King's "voice." Even when the material's not good, I'm entertained by his writing style. I also like the fact that he'll spend a hundred pages filling in the background of a character who died just to show what that death meant to the people around her (I think that happened in It). Basically, he's got enough going on in the background that his locations and side characters, as well as the main characters, seem real.Quote:
Originally Posted by LeNoirFaineant
I couldn't agree more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calidore
I love the Dark Tower series. It's a rich, complex tapestry of characters and their development. His female characters are more relatable and well written than any sex & the city type clucking hens. His stories are imaginative. Sometimes the imagined scenarios involve the lowest forms of life, but the most interesting literary characters are usually very flawed. His grammar is excellent. His voice is just fun. If a reader can't connect with a King book, I don't know how they can connect with any lit.
Whoa, take 'er easy there, Pilgrim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Lovecraft's corpse just sneezed.
But seriously, which book by King am I missing that is so earthshakingly good?
I really tried to get into his stuff a bit, but the only one that I found more than average was "Jerusalem's Lot",
and that was such a blatant ripoff that I am frankly surprised he got it published without reprimands.
That's a rather low point of comparison. How do his female characters compare to those of Austen, George Eliot, or Iris Murdoch?Quote:
Originally Posted by Varenne Rodin
Well any toddler is imaginative, and sometimes I'm wondering if King is channelling his toddler self too much. Imagine a living car! (Wow!) "Grammar is excellent" should be a given for anything that gets published (unless it's experimental...) You can write awfully bad stuff with excellent grammar, so this really isn't a good point in defence of King.Quote:
Originally Posted by Varenne Rodin
Many people who dislike King connect with Dickens, Shakespeare, etc, etc... So although you can't imagine it, they certainly *do* connect with "some" lit.
My reply to both LeNoir and mal4mac would be the same: If you've tried King and he doesn't work for you, fine. It's a matter of taste, which is wired in all of us. What I don't understand is the need for some to pronounce what they don't like as beneath them, rather than simply not their cup of tea.
I still think there's an unreasonable bias. Toddlers are imaginative, they obviously lack well developed story telling abilities. I was comparing King to more modern literature popular amongst females in my country, because I wanted to make the distinction that King's female characters are often intelligent or just more multi-layered than female characters found in "trash" lit. I'm sorry if that was somehow unclear.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Stephen King's characters compare very well to Austen's. Both Austen and King wrote/write the female perspective as being equally important to that of any male character, only Austen often took it to a greater extreme and made women superior. She was writing something bold in her time of living. Lots of people called it trash. Pride and Prejudice was shelved for ten years before being given any credit.
I'll amend what I said about being able to connect with King. I can understand a reader from somewhere other than America not being able to relate to him and his many references to our culture, though his books have had quite an impact on current Asian and French lit. Stephen King is no more a trash writer than Terrence Malick is a trash film maker for having made movies about the darker side of the human condition. You can say you don't like King, I have to wonder how much King you have actually read, but I still don't see how it can be deemed "not literature". If you haven't found a King character or story you can relate to, you haven't read enough King. I'm not a fan of "Eyes of the Dragon," for example, but it's completely different from all of his other stories. I thought "It" was the most like a cheesy pop culture Wes Craven horror flick. Aside from those, the stories vary so greatly, it's hard for me to wrap my head around someone lumping them all together and slapping them with a stamp of negativity. One could say that "The Dark Tower," "Insomnia," "The Talisman," and "Black House" all have similar themes, but that's because they're all continuing and branching off of the same intricate story. Without having read all of them, I don't see how a reader can proclaim authority on the matter.
King gave us The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Dead Zone. I think it's sad when he's dismissed by literary snobbery.
Again, don't misunderstand me, please:
I don't think contemporary literature can be measured fully by the, well, contemporaries.
For comparison, just check the nobel prize winners of the first half of the century,
and consider if you had read just ONE of them by your own motivation, outside of school or other research. ;)
I am just asking, which book of his should I read to get an idea what is good about him?
"The Shining"? "The Shawshank Redemption"? "The Green Mile"?
Because an author who cranks out one or two books a year surely has higher and lower points in his writing - so, my impression doesn't necessarily have to be reliable.
So, recommend me a book of his, please. :)
I will never understand the Stephen King controversy, in which he is either a modern Dickens or a literary scourge. The only thing more ridiculous than Harold Bloom railing against Stephen King is Harold Bloom railing against J. K. Rowling. I fully expect Harold Bloom to soon write a book entitled "Why Batman Comics Aren't Literature."
King's work varies from the heroically awful ("The Lawnmower Man" from Night Shift in which a guy shows up to mow the lawn and then, after having stripped naked, starts to eat the grass--no really) to the fairly decent (the half of On Writing that wasn't actually "on writing" constitutes a mildly pleasurable memoir). I think King is an obviously competent storyteller. However, his novels and his acceptance speech for the National Book Award lead me to believe he fails to understand the whole "art" part of literature. Kafka's "Metamorphosis" is more than just a page turner with believable characters.
Of course, it must be said that Stephen King approaches Harold Bloom's idiocy when he deigns to inform the public about the horrors of Stephenie Meyer. Really, Steve? Perhaps he's now working on his masterpiece of literary criticism "Why Danielle Steel Sucks." Never mind, I think he already wrote it.
I used to think that King is utter trash, but recently i bought a collection of (arguably his best) short stories, and much to my surprise i rather liked a couple of them, and parts of others. The one about the two children that played a game with the wooden ladder in the barn was particularly interesting since i did not think King grasped symbolism that profoundly. I also liked "Grey matter", although it has to be a homage to Arthur Machen's excellent "White Powder", the two stories resembling each other considerably. Finally i liked the twist in "the man who loved flowers" although it was predictable; i liked the aroma of that story.
Some others i read i did not like.