While this is still King's generation (he's still alive and writing, so to speak), I don't think he'll ever truly be considered capital "L" literature. We'll leave that for the future generations of academics.
After all, professors in the future have to eat too!
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
haha thats tru
big al and others should learn 2 take the high road...
its really quite nice, good 4 biking... jk
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ZoeyJuly
~Yes We Can~
steven king is one of the most fantastic writers of our times
dickens was a popular writer in his time and i am pretty sure some day some kid is gonna get depsessed coz he has an essay due in on steven king.
the characterisation in his books is flawless, as is the dialouge.
the subjects he deals with in the books are vast, he is gennerally termed a horror writer but he is so much more.
take IT on the surface sur it a horror story about a clown whup de dooo
the real magic for me lies in the description of the kids playing in summer
the comeradery one feels with those kinds of friends
the drifting away after school
and the way you never really feel like that again
universal you bet you *** it is
just finished blaze and its worth the cash, slightly sparse, and noirish .
the main character kidnaps a baby but you cant help rooting for him
I don't mind Stephen King from what I've read of him. He definately writes page turners, and I'm the first to admitting to being a snob about authors. Would I go out and buy a Stephen King book? No. But if its put in front of me I probably would. Its pulp, no arguement about that, but as JBI said one of the better bad authors.
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Stephen King can occasionally write well, like the title chapter of Hearts in Atlantis, but I don't understand why people are saying his dialogue is wonderful. He insists on making his character use phrases that no one in the history of the world has ever said. "Bite my bag" as a comeback in Dreamcatcher comes to mind, as does the phrase "lay chilly" (meaning be cool) from the short story Gramma.
These made me wince while reading, and I still remember them years after reading the books, but not in a good way. So I have to disagree of the genius with dialogue thing.
Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
Comparing King to Mozart??
And do you mean to say that Mozart's works never attained the status of great music??
Et l'unique cordeau des trompettes marines
Apollinaire, Le chantre
Yes but it traces a parallel between King and Mozart, and this I find a much doubtful and inappropriate comparison...
Et l'unique cordeau des trompettes marines
Apollinaire, Le chantre
King attains competence as a storyteller. But in no way, shape or form has he ever broken into the plane of Art or Literature.
Comparing the best composer of all time (perhaps only rivaled by Beethoven) to a sub-par author is actually quite humorous. In terms of dialogue, he is, as he is with everything else, O.K. In terms of dialogue style, I think the best the world has seen is probably Terentino (his movies have amazing dialogue) and Hemmingway (especially his short stories).
Are you suggesting that Tarantino is more literary than King?
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
I love Stephen King! I really don't like a lot of his new stuff, but his old stuff is some of the best writing out there.
I particularly like Christine and IT. Carrie is pretty good too. I think King writes best when he's writing about children.
You did compare Mozart to King. You said Mozart, one of the most prolific and greatest composers, known for being able to write out full symphonies without revising, known for writing complete masterpieces almost over-night, and meanwhile creating some of the most enduring and inspirational music ever written, is a comparison at how natural King writes dialog. I admit, King doesn't revise his books, but that really comes from being over-confident, money hungry, and lazy, as apposed to being perfect the first time. King's dialog is not the best, nor is it even top 100. The fact that he spits so much of it out is where the comparison to Mozart ends.
His dialog is rubbish. For dialog to be good, one has to both balance revelation through dialog, as seen in the works of Shakespeare, and Ibsen, in addition to believable sound (I.E. people actually would say that, and do talk like that). I don't think King is good at that, nor much else.
Regardless of this nitpick, the fact remains that even King's early work has begun to period-piece-afy before our eyes.
I'll start by adding I have not read all the posts in this thread. I read the first couple and the last couple.
I agree with JBI that comparing King to Mozart is ridiculous.
As far as King's merits, well I think from the little I read that people are making certain assumptions about "time." It's true that to a certain degree time chooses what stays and what goes, mostly time demonstrates what literature has staying power.
However, we've since entered a literary period that has broken into specific genres ("story types/fields" might be more appropriate if you subscribe to the group who don't like using the word "genre" because of its other meanings).
This is exactly the point that makes this argument a tad more complex. Not only is there a Canon of Great Literature as typically understood, but I think for lack of a better term there is also sub-Canons of particular genres. So horror fiction for example has its own "makeshift" Canon. Literally there are stories that would be recognizable within that field by the fans of that type of fiction as better and more important than others, relating to quality, originality, and influence. King was extremely influential and quite a few of his stories are fairly original whatever you might think of the writing itself. I suspect while the horror field exists and there are fans of horror fiction, Stephen King fiction isn't disappearing.
Evidence in favor of my view. Well, there are plenty of New York Times Bestsellers or whatever Bestsellers publishing in the Seventies popular in their day who most of us have never heard of. If I raised the name most of us would probably scratch our heads and ask, "who?"
Notice we are still talking about Stephen King. Most people know who Stephen King is, while they'll probably have no clue who those other writers happen to be. The response then might be to suggest that is because King is still publishing, thus people are reading his latest offering and he remains in the limelight. But this doesn't explain why people still purchasing Carrie, one of his first novels published in the 1970s in a way that people generally do NOT buy Bestsellers Thriller novels from the 1970s (they instead by the latest thriller by the next big thing).
This isn't to say Stephen King is the equivalent of a James Joyce or a William Faulkner. What I am suggesting however with the points I raised is that there is something to King's popularity and that his older books haven't disappeared into the nether that is worth thinking about, that I think corresponds to the nature of the horror genre itself and this idea of sub-Canons.
Not to mention King has written a few stories particularly in the short story realm to show he does have talent beyond what he typically displays.
Last edited by Drkshadow03; 04-23-2008 at 02:41 PM.
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Hmm, I'm skeptical about the thought on sub-canons. Sooner or later I think all genres will just become one, as they seem to be starting to do now.
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