Stephen King: Trash, or Literature?

In physics you look to great physicists to say who the other great physicists are. Just because Isaac Asimov (at one time) was a best selling, popular physics author doesn't make him a great physicist - in fact, he isn't a physicist at all!

So, surely, it is the expert academics who get to say what is great literature. Who else would you have doing it - Xlktl from literature forum, or a vote from McDonald's customers? Stephen King has only won one prize that is sometimes mistaken for a worthwhile literary award:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/15/bo...phen-king.html

But, overall, he is not at all admired by the literary establishment, so how can he be said to write literature? You might argue that, as King is a modern author, the jury is still out - but the sounds from the jury room don't sound too good for the accused. He might be walking that green mile pretty soon...

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

In physics you look to great physicists to say who the other great physicists are. Just because Isaac Asimov (at one time) was a best selling, popular physics author doesn't make him a great physicist - in fact, he isn't a physicist at all!

So, surely, it is the expert academics who get to say what is great literature. Who else would you have doing it - Xlktl from literature forum, or a vote from McDonald's customers? Stephen King has only won one prize that is sometimes mistaken for a worthwhile literary award:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/15/bo...phen-king.html

But, overall, he is not at all admired by the literary establishment, so how can he be said to write literature? You might argue that, as King is a modern author, the jury is still out - but the sounds from the jury room don't sound too good for the accused. He might be walking that green mile pretty soon...

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When you say literary establishment who do you mean? Critics, Academics? Sorry to break it to you but look at the winners of the Nobel Prize - half of the names most literary students don't know - Academics are a good source for further understandinmnet of canonical texts but on predicting what is great and trash contemporary art? Their odds are 50-50 - I mean if you think King has a bad rap, wait till you see what was the academic consensus in regards to Impressionism, or Symbolism - Heck Fitzgerald spent most of his life knows as the equivalent of a one time best-selling trashy writer for kids.

I say all this without ever having read a word of King. Maybe I will like him, maybe I would think he is trash, but I am not foolish enough to think my opinion will be the same as that of my children.

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Originally Posted by Ragnar Freund

The comparison of a physical science to literature is a standard false argument used by those who try to "scientificate" the humanities. Great physicists make falsifiable predictions that later withstand experimental tests. No equivalent procedure exists in literature.

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I was not trying to "scientificate" the humanities. I did not suggest that literature professors should make falsifiable predictions that withstand experimental tests. You are arguing with a straw man, not with me.

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Originally Posted by Ragnar Freund

Surely you should try to be consistent even when you use false analogies. According to that analogy, it is great authors, not literary critics, who should judge what great literature is. Why do you defer to academics?
But, how would you know who the great authors are unless you have other great authors to tell you that? An infinite regress ensues.

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The only literary critics worth considering *are* great authors - at least of literary criticism. They may also be great authors in other respects.

Trust can stop the infinite feedback - you may trust the academic consensus that Dickens is a great author and King is not - and then have a much enhanced reading life by reading more Dickens and less King (that was my experience... which is why I tend to trust the gatekeepers of literature... they usually know what they are talking about.)

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Originally Posted by Alexander III

When you say literary establishment who do you mean? Critics, Academics? Sorry to break it to you but look at the winners of the Nobel Prize - half of the names most literary students don't know - Academics are a good source for further understandinmnet of canonical texts but on predicting what is great and trash contemporary art? Their odds are 50-50 - I mean if you think King has a bad rap, wait till you see what was the academic consensus in regards to Impressionism, or Symbolism - Heck Fitzgerald spent most of his life knows as the equivalent of a one time best-selling trashy writer for kids.

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The Nobel prize is only one signifier of literary greatness, you need many more, before something like a consensus is reached. And there is consenus over many authors - those usually to be found in the "classics" section of the book store.

Reading anything that hasn't been around at least a century, i.e. something that hasn't had much of a chance to reach a critical consensus, should be looked at as a sacrifice you make to the gods of literature, a sacrifice performed to keep literature 'alive' - but it's a sacrifice because you are chancing a trashy experience (reading Stephen King, say) when you could be having a great one (reading Walter Scott, say)

At least read widely in modern authors - King has enough money...

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

In physics you look to great physicists to say who the other great physicists are. Just because Isaac Asimov (at one time) was a best selling, popular physics author doesn't make him a great physicist - in fact, he isn't a physicist at all!

So, surely, it is the expert academics who get to say what is great literature. Who else would you have doing it - Xlktl from literature forum, or a vote from McDonald's customers? Stephen King has only won one prize that is sometimes mistaken for a worthwhile literary award:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/15/bo...phen-king.html

But, overall, he is not at all admired by the literary establishment, so how can he be said to write literature? You might argue that, as King is a modern author, the jury is still out - but the sounds from the jury room don't sound too good for the accused. He might be walking that green mile pretty soon...

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You're making stuff up again.

Stephen King has won and been nominated for lots of awards.

And basically only Bloom seems to dislike King. Hardly a jury of critics.

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W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Such posts will lead to thread closure as well as earning those involved infraction points.

~

Excellent quote by Twain and I also agree with Drkshadow03.

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Originally Posted by Ragnar Freund

So, Asimov wrote about physics, but he was not a physicist. Bloom writes about literature, but he is not a poet or fiction writer. Should we look to Asimov to determine who great physicists were? Should we look to Bloom to determine who great poets and novelists were? Why or why not in each case?

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Bloom is a Professor of Literature at one the world's leading universities, and one of the world's most admired critics. Even so, he's only one of many who should be taken into consideration - along with many critics who are also considered to be great fiction writers.

Bloom has written fiction, but the book didn't do too well! Who knows, it could be considered a great novel a hundred years from now.

Bloom might best be compared to a physicist like Oppenheimer - someone heavily involved with physics, doing 'reasonable' creative work, but better at teaching, at having a broad overview of the field, at being a great gatekeeper. If you argue Oppenhimer's work on black holes was seminal, then Dennis Sciama is perhaps a better example...

Asimov had a great deal to do with pointing out great physics and physicists to me in my youth, but as a student of physics I would also have looked to people like Feynman, Oppenheimer, and Einstein as having the most to say about who the great physicists are. Surely in any field you have to look to the experts, the real experts, as to what is best in that field. Who else is there?

Of course you have to think for yourself! But shouldn't you, mostly, be guided by experts?

Bloom does write for mass appeal, but do did Feynman. They are both cases of leading experts extending their reach to help 'the mass' appreciate their subjects. Some hiring and promotion decisions in some universities are certainly influenced by political and ideological considerations, and by connections.

The consensus I describe reflects a consensus between leading writers, critics, journalists, and academics extending beyond the highly political landscape of modern academia. That's why I say - nothing can be determined for a hundred year at least.

The political landscape, trendy journalism, trendy award givers: all of these conspire to raise authors to an acclaim they do not deserve. Journalists praise their writer friends, academics praise the guy they went to school with... You need time... a lot of it... to get away from all that garbage.

That's a good quote from Twain, but it's more an argument for a 'proper' consensus, rather than against looking at consensus as always wrong. There is a consensus that Twain is a great writer - that looks like a proper consensus...

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

You're making stuff up again.

Stephen King has won and been nominated for lots of awards.

And basically only Bloom seems to dislike King. Hardly a jury of critics.

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These are not *literary* awards. They are mostly genre award. Others are very specific and reflect some kind of mass appeal which take insufficient account of absolute literary value:

"The Alex Awards are given to 10 adult books that are appealing to young adults." Should great literature be determined by what appeals to the average teenager?

"Canadian Booksellers Association Awards" - booksellers like authors who make them loadsa money.

To just start the race for being considered as literature, surely King needs be winning things like the Booker, Orange, Pulitzer, and Nobel prizes.

This could be interesting this Friday, to those who can get BBC2 at 11pm GMT:

"In this Book Review Show, Kirsty Wark is joined by Germaine Greer, John Carey and Susan Hitch to discuss the latest novel from Umberto Eco, a previously unpublished work by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Stephen King's latest sci-fi blockbuster. Kirsty also travels to New York to meet author Joan Didion."

That looks like a good jury of critics, and some serious competition for King! John Carey is generally highly supportive of literature that has mass appeal. So if any serious critic is likely to admire King, then it's him - note, though, he doesn't include King in his excellent book, "Pure Pleasure -a Guide to the 20th Century's Most Enjoyable Books".

gone.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

These are not *literary* awards. They are mostly genre award. Others are very specific and reflect some kind of mass appeal which take insufficient account of absolute literary value:

"The Alex Awards are given to 10 adult books that are appealing to young adults." Should great literature be determined by what appeals to the average teenager?

"Canadian Booksellers Association Awards" - booksellers like authors who make them loadsa money.

To just start the race for being considered as literature, surely King needs be winning things like the Booker, Orange, Pulitzer, and Nobel prizes.

This could be interesting this Friday, to those who can get BBC2 at 11pm GMT:

"In this Book Review Show, Kirsty Wark is joined by Germaine Greer, John Carey and Susan Hitch to discuss the latest novel from Umberto Eco, a previously unpublished work by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Stephen King's latest sci-fi blockbuster. Kirsty also travels to New York to meet author Joan Didion."

That looks like a good jury of critics, and some serious competition for King! John Carey is generally highly supportive of literature that has mass appeal. So if any serious critic is likely to admire King, then it's him - note, though, he doesn't include King in his excellent book, "Pure Pleasure -a Guide to the 20th Century's Most Enjoyable Books".

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Genres awards are a type of literary award. Particularly good one is the World Fantasy, for which King has had novels and short stories nominated multiple times, but has only won twice, plus a lifetime achievement award. But even so, he had a short story that won the O Henry award, which mostly certainly is NOT a genre award.

He also won the National Book Foundation Award, which is NOT a genre award, and is given for literary merit, in addition to service.

He has won two major national awards and countless major genre awards. He now has multiple positive essays and dissertations written about his works by professors and graduating students from Ph. D. programs. He frequently publishes in mainstream literary magazines like The New Yorker. He was even invited to be an editor of the prestigious Best American Short Stories Anthology series.

Ultimately, though, this is all silly criteria. The amount of awards an author has won and some short British book review show with a couple of critics won't decide anything. The real deciding factors will be whether some professors continue to teach King's work, whether his work continues to be included on school reading lists, and if he continues to be read after he's dead by the public.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

Ultimately, though, this is all silly criteria. The amount of awards an author has won and some short British book review show with a couple of critics won't decide anything. The real deciding factors will be whether some professors continue to teach King's work, whether his work continues to be included on school reading lists, and if he continues to be read after he's dead by the public.

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I don't know if professors teaching his oeuvre will be the criteria in this case. I think he's definitely important to any survey of the horror genre, but then so is H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, or M.R. James and how often are they taught in higher education? When I look back on his stuff I definitely see some merit, especially in his early work. But after the seventies his creative output seems to have fallen off. I'd hold out more hope for The Shining, Salem's Lot, and The Stand becoming canonized than for some of his later more recent work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7ZaZz4CoU

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

I don't know if professors teaching his oeuvre will be the criteria in this case. I think he's definitely important to any survey of the horror genre, but then so is H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, or M.R. James and how often are they taught in higher education? When I look back on his stuff I definitely see some merit, especially in his early work. But after the seventies his creative output seems to have fallen off. I'd hold out more hope for The Shining, Salem's Lot, and The Stand becoming canonized than for some of his later more recent work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7ZaZz4CoU

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True enough. I've always said his earlier work is his better work.

Stephen King's creative process, post 1970s.