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.
"And the worms, they will climb
The rugged ladder of your spine"
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.Originally Posted by jerrybreathfire
What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it.
- Gertrude Stein
A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; th purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling which held the whole together.
- Virginia Woolf
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.
While I disagree that Stephen King is an intellectual, there's no denying his skill and expertise as a writer.
I just finished his seven-book series "The Dark Tower", and except for the final installment (book #7 - The Dark Tower), the first six books are truly works of art! In fact, I expect a large "cult" following on this series alone!
I even began searching for Dark Tower art work and other media that had nothing to do with the actual reading or "writing" of the books.
As I said, I found book seven (the final book in the series) to be a great disappointment, but all-in-all, it's some of the best reading I've done in a long while!
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official... ~ Theodore Roosevelt
I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I'd like to re-open the case on the basis of a few comments I saw in another thread.
Three major criticisms were made of Stephen King as regards his literary status:
His books are "pulp fiction".
He was influenced by other authors.
His prose is not of the required standard.
Dealing with outside influences first, I don't know of any author from the 20th century who had no literary influences. If anyone would care to name some authors which fit this bill, it may be worth discussing, but without that, it becomes a meaningless criterion and can be dismissed as criticism.
"Pulp fiction", is open to interpretation, but I would class it as a term befitting many of the books displayed in any bookshop - particularly those which sell new books. As any second-hand book retailer will tell you, the market for "pulp fiction" is small - Stephen King's second-hand market is not, despite being one of the most-published authors on the planet.
As regards King's standard and style of prose - attempting to dismiss him on that basis is ignorant, condescending claptrap. When stream-of-consciousness blathering can count as literature, King's prose certainly can. He uses a vastly larger vocabulary than most of his peers, be they literary geniuses or Jackie Collins
King is derided for many reasons, most of which boil down to one form or another of professional jealousy. I'm certain that King himself realises this as he has indicated in several of his characters' lives and experiences.
Bring on the opposition!
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
The only King I've read is "On Writing" and thought it to be a masterpiece. I really enjoyed it, though I don't plan to read much King because I don't like horror.
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
There's nothing wrong with King's prose, it's just nothing remarkable. Size of vocabulary is not a reliable measure of quality. I think Hemmingway knew about 500 words, to pick a name at random. The stream-of-conciousness blatherering comment, I must say, counts as a similar form of ignorant, condescending claptrap.
I not willing to get too worked up over King one way or another as long as he doesn't try to have anything to do with film, aside from writing the novels.
What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it.
- Gertrude Stein
A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; th purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling which held the whole together.
- Virginia Woolf
I wouldn't class it as "remarkable" either - that's a level of praise I'd reserve for few. Very, very good is good enough for most great writers.
Correct. It's just one area of many where I feel King actually stands out from the crowd. Hemingway stood out for different reasons, but I rate King no less an author than Hemingway.
Correct, it's personal opinion and therefore irrelevant.
Some of them turned out ok, notably The Shining, but that's the advantage of having Stanley Kubrick writing the screenplay and directing the film. The Green Mile is a masterpiece of both literature and film. (albeit a TV mini-series)
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
And, aside from writing the novels, Stephen King had nothing to do with either The Shining or The Green Mile. When Stephen King writes screenplays, the results are some of the worst films ever made.
What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it.
- Gertrude Stein
A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; th purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling which held the whole together.
- Virginia Woolf
I find Stephen King underwhelms me. I find far more absorbing reads. Take Michael McDowell for instance, one of THE scariest writers of the 20th century, he wrote The Amulet (love the tagline on this one "Whoever possesses it must kill and be killed"), Cold Moon Over Babylon, Gilded Needles, Katie, the Kafkaesque Toplin, and arguably the most frightening ghost story ever written The Elementals.
He also wrote a rather very original series on the Blackwater saga involving a Lousianian family and something monsterous in the waters.
King's inspirations are far more compelling IMO, Richard Matheson, there is a three volume set containing 80+ of this author's short stories that you will absolutely not be able to put down any of them even if your life depended upon it. One will take notice of the heavy influence INSTANTLY.
The Stand is one of King's most recognized works but admittedly it was influenced by another, true-er masterpiece of horror M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud.
Personally I find King too excessive to be scary. And what about those weak contrived finishes, Salem's Lot had me scratching my head and The Shining was laughable (personally, I am one of the rare people that felt Kubrick added more punch, made improvement with the pessimistic ending).
Last edited by Stieg; 03-29-2007 at 09:17 PM.
Fair comments. I [hope] think King himself would admit that a couple of his books have been pretty flat compared to his own standards.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
I actually bought that book "On Writing", and want to say that this was one very good book on the craft of writing.
Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty
~Albert Einstein
If popularity and readership is the earmarks of a literary giant than yes King is certainly a literary giant otherwise there are too many other writers in the horror and not that preceed him with great margin.
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