His work has always entertained me, from a young age at that. I started reading King when I was in middle school and as it is with all pop lit, it sparked the flame of wonder and interest in reading which I think is a great thing. So he's not totally useless..
I AM THE BOY
THAT CAN ENJOY
INVISIBILITY.
Maybe. I predict while Horror exists as a separate genre, and a specific fandom exists around that genre, Stephen King isn't going anywhere.Originally Posted by jon1jt
King will die knowing that, in spite of all his wealth and pop fame, that he took advantage of the public. And yet in years to come nobody will remember a single word he wrote, or even his name, because his life's work went into the black hole of history---onto that ash heap of chameleon turd.
It's better to die once a nobody having pursued a substantial end than to have lived one hundred lives a hack.
"You understand well enough what slavery is, but freedom you have never experienced, so you do not know if it tastes sweet or bitter. If you ever did come to experience it, you would advise us to fight for it not with spears only, but with axes too." - Herodotus
https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/ - my book blog!
Feed the Hungry!
I will dispute that. I think horror, as a genre will evolve. Certainly Mad Shadows is a better psychological horror than It and about 1/5th the length. Gothicism in general is a prevalent style in Canadian fiction, especially French Canadian, and there are very many accessible Horror texts, which are not pop, and which are great reads. Kamouraska, for instance, is a better psychological horror text. Whereas Lovecraft perhaps will exist in the future, King I don't think will. He isn't as central to the genre, and I doubt will age well. But that is all just a guess - chances are, I'll be the only one here reading French Canadian Gothic fiction, when all those names have faded. Who can tell?
In terms of horror existing as a separate genre, that is bound to die. All separate genre eventually mix into a mainstream genre, before being broken up into new genre. The Historical Romance, or the country novel, for instance, have faded, as have the popular Gothic romances, morality tales, and even, I would argue, the original concept of Science Fiction (though perhaps you can argue differently, given that you are more qualified than me on the subject).
The marketing power of King will ultimately die with his death. After that, there will be no real advertisement of his works, as scholars don't particularly support him, and the next generation will certainly not, if what I sense about new trends in criticism is true. The only possibility of him surviving really, is to be adopted by those who would advertise his books, either publishing firms, or academic critics. The papers that advertise and critique popular novels will only really support new novels, so the only hope he has, outside of academic circles, is a sustained influence on future writers. Is that possible? Gene Wolfe, I can see as maybe fulfilling that, Lovecraft certainly, Zelazny, hopefully, Le Guin, definitely, but King? I'm not to sure.
Last edited by JBI; 03-22-2009 at 01:18 PM.
Oh, I don't know. There are a cadre of scholars working in academia who respect King. People are still writing criticism about his books in the form of peer-reviewed articles, popular articles, dissertations, and book after all these years at rates similar to Lovecraft, LeGuin, and Zelazny. I know, I checked MLA database, and the amount of articles they have indexed for each of those authors are all similar in numbers. So there are people writing positively about King who rank him highly.
Add on the fact that he has won quite a few prestigious literary awards outside and within the genre, has had a few his works included in the only "list" of top Horror novel thus far written (thus making it a standard for new readers looking to get into horror), and I think there is ample evidence that King may in fact survive for some time. But I could be wrong.
Last edited by Drkshadow03; 03-22-2009 at 09:12 PM.
"You understand well enough what slavery is, but freedom you have never experienced, so you do not know if it tastes sweet or bitter. If you ever did come to experience it, you would advise us to fight for it not with spears only, but with axes too." - Herodotus
https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/ - my book blog!
Feed the Hungry!
You make it sound like King somehow scammed the public or something. As far as I can tell, his only crime is that he writes books that people want to buy. Why shouldn't he be proud of that on his death bed?
Optima dies ... prima fugit
Trash. And I can't stand how he dumbs down his characters to get a story going.
^Its because he is just forcing more s**t out of his brain to collect his next paycheck.
Everyone knows what's in room 101.
Everything becomes irrelevant, when the sky tears open.
"Hey Kevin." "What?" "Theres a ditch there." "Sh*t!"
In terms of literary vision, he is the human manifestation of what Coleridge called fancy, a mediocre rehasher of others' ideas.
Stephen King... oh, Stephen King...
I read one story I enjoyed, that being the short story 'The Langoliers'. I mainly enjoyed just... the idea of it, as it played off of some personal fears. However, his writing style is terrible, his ideas are... well, not at all horrific, or original. There are a few little things of his that I like though, such as the brackets of a characters thoughts vs. what they are actually saying.
Naked except for a cigarette, you let your mind drift and forget your disbelief. Feel the chill down your back and the flutter of wings through dandelion fields, and forget the pull of gravity in a night without stars.
I lack eloquence and commitment to my arguments. They are half baked, and I will begin passionately, and then abandon them.
That's the same as saying that that it was okay that not a single US journalist or prime time anchor publicly spoke against the US decision to invade Iraq. I hope Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw are not proud of that on their death beds.
Authors have a MORAL responsibility to educate and inspire their readership, not feed them junk all the time. Burger King, McDonalds, and Kentucky Fried Chicken do enough of that anyway.
And since when have the particular interest of a bunch of scholars demonstrated anything meaningful about a writer besides whose little a ss they're kissing at any given moment? It's trendy to write about King, like it was trendy for many colleges to offer Madonna Studies when she was the flavor of the month. C'mon. I love how you MLS guys go to your database for questions that are better answered with common sense.
Last edited by jon1jt; 03-22-2009 at 11:22 PM.
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, 'The night is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'
From Mariana by Tennyson
Where's the politics there? Though I agree with you, that in a way King doesn't really have any grounding in contemporary politics within his novel, necessary to make them immediately relevant, I do think that that isn't necessarily a problem.
In prose most certainly you need a tinge of political flare - it seems all great novelists have had such an insight.
Certainly though, the lack of female insight within his texts is a problem. And certainly, he is the status quo, mainstream American fiction writer, who doesn't address minorities much, or anything outside of his mainstream focalization, but I'm not sure if that is excuse enough to dismiss him.
He doesn't though, I will argue, have the creative inspirational capability to, to borrow Abrams metaphor, light a lamp on the world. I don't think he has the capacity to make one feel a sense of emotional overpowering, the way some of Munro's stories make me feel. He certainly doesn't have an innovation of technique, as exemplified in innovators like Munro again, and Marie-Claire Blais, or even mainstreamish figures like Philip Roth (who seems to bridge the Judeo-American style of Yiddish culture into the 21st century).
Character too seems weak. He most certainly isn't Zola, or Dickens in that regard (two authors just as popular in their life times as he is now).
To me though, coming from an ex-centric (to use Linda Hutcheon's term) Canadian position, he seems the epitome of the American consciousness at the current moment. And that sort of fuzzy lack of drive, that come with the mechanization of a culture after Vietnam.
On the other hand, he does get people reading, which is worth something. Perhaps they may go on to read books that will later in life help them realize King's mediocrity. I started off, strangely enough, when I was 10-11 reading Young Female Adult novels by a Canadian sci-fi author called Monica Hughes, and I moved on, so perhaps there is that (though, I moved on mostly by chance, stumbling upon a copy of Onegin, and giving it a try). There is that.
But my problem with him, I think, is that he really pushes people out of the way. So much shelf room is given to his books, yet so little to great authors, generally all ex-centrics. It seems there really hasn't been a mainstream acceptance of ex-centric authors, even within a society that preaches pluralism. Grisham, Roberts, Clancy, Brown, King, etc. all seem to be immensely popular, yet all happen to be mainstream American creations, and Mainstream American in appearance.
That being said, it isn't fair to bash him on those grounds. One should just leave him at mediocre, and say that he doesn't address real issues in his work, unless they are sensationalistically portrayed, and without much ground. Certainly he is not an academic, or innovative writer, and certainly he is more business oriented, I would argue, than craft oriented, though I think he imagines himself a great author.
The thing that bugs me the most though, is New York Times' insistence on printing his reviews of other mediocre novelists, from J. K. Rowling to Twilight. But, I guess they don't really review books to begin with, so what's the real harm.
That's an interesting perspective. Your view on the moral responsibility of authors seems a bit idiosyncratic, and I'm not sure I know what you mean by educating and inspiring the readership. It seems to me that the devotion of his fan base is evidence that he does inspire his readership, but obviously you mean something else by "inspire". As for education, I don't really find any other writer of fiction that is significantly more educational. I'm guessing that you don't mean to make writers like Tom Clancy (whose books can be quite educational about military technology) a model of fulfilling the moral responsibilities of authors, so I would guess you have something more specific in mind when you say "educate" as well. I'd be interested to know what exactly you mean by "educate and inspire" and why you think it is the author's moral responsibility.
Optima dies ... prima fugit
Again, this is an emotional appeal to play on people's opinions about a political issue and a poor analogy. There is no logical connection between the moral duties of an author and the moral duties of a journalist. One writes imaginary stories that are supposed to reflect reality, the other is supposed to accurately report on events happening in reality.
Not necessarily. As an inspiring writer myself I feel no moral responsibility to educate and inspire my readership, although it depends what you mean by that. However, I don't see my work as Dead Poet's Society lite. No one is going to finish reading one of my stories, jump on their desk, and start declaring, "Oh, captain. My Captain."Authors have a MORAL responsibility to educate and inspire their readership, not feed them junk all the time. Burger King, McDonalds, and Kentucky Fried Chicken do enough of that anyway.
Now I'm certainly saying stuff about the world in my stories, but my primary purpose is still to entertain my reader and to hopefully make a few bucks for my time and effort.
I'm not only an MLS. I also have an English degree and a history background. And I clean windows!And since when have the particular interest of a bunch of scholars demonstrated anything meaningful about a writer besides whose little a ss they're kissing at any given moment? It's trendy to write about King, like it was trendy for many colleges to offer Madonna Studies when she was the flavor of the month. C'mon. I love how you MLS guys go to your database for questions that are better answered with common sense.
If read in context as a response to JBI, my comments all make perfect sense. He claimed that the only way King could survive is for academics to continue commenting on his work. Then he gave some names of genre authors he thinks may survive the test of time: LeGuin, Zelazny, or Lovecraft more. So it was worth pointing out that when one looks objectively at the number of scholarly works written about these authors, they are on par with the scholarly works written about King. Secondly, it was worth reminding everyone who likes to make broad comments like, "Academics reject King" that academics are not a hivemind that all agree with each other.
I wasn't just looking in those databases as some sort of librarian reflex response. What evidence do you have that King scholarship is a flavor of the week phenomenon. Most academics loathe him, but there are a cadre of academics who think he should be added to the Canon or at least should be studied in academia. According to the literature, this argument has been happening for 20 years ongoing. How is that a flavor of the week?
Besides if it isn't academics who get to decide, the average reader, or fandom, who exactly gets to decide what is sticking around?
As usual your comments are personal attacks against academics and librarians. You have no evidence for anything you claimed above. There really isn't much substance to it. Just quick little zingers: academics = brown-nosers, librarians = people who hide in their databases and lack common sense. Even as you yourself show little understanding for the reasons why I turned to the database and reported back what I did, which was explained above and is ultimately based on common sense: let's look at how much academics are in fact writing about King in relation to these other authors my interlocutor mentioned as worthy of academic attention and see if it is in fact true that academia is completely ignoring King.
"You understand well enough what slavery is, but freedom you have never experienced, so you do not know if it tastes sweet or bitter. If you ever did come to experience it, you would advise us to fight for it not with spears only, but with axes too." - Herodotus
https://consolationofreading.wordpress.com/ - my book blog!
Feed the Hungry!
It seems, from browsing bibliography, there are in fact, book length works on Stephen King.
The primary trend seems to be, that they all criticize him as popular fiction, and a large portion of them take a psychoanalytical angle to his more "horror" works. Generally, it seems most people are preoccupied with his horror books, with many titles comparing him to Mary Shelley. I, however, can't really find a critical work that really goes beyond that niche. I have read the word "double" too many times now, to know that there is some sort of onedimensionalism going on.
On another note, just from reading the titles, it seems a large majority of feminist critics are taking issue with him. Still reading in that Freudian vein though, you get interesting titles like this:
The Rape of the Constant Reader: Stephen King's Construction of the Female Reader and Violation of the Female Body in Misery
Cars Are Girls: Sexual Power and Sexual Panic in Stephen King's Christine
Stephen King's Misery: Freudian Sexual Symbolism and the Battle of the Sexes
On Stephen King's Phallus: Or, The Postmodern Gothic
Take Me for a Ride in Your Man-Eater: Gynophobia in Stephen King's Christine
The Face of Mr. Flip': Homophobia in the Horror of Stephen King
Stephen King's Dark and Terrible Mother, Annie Wilkes
Either way, none of these critics are really read critics from what I can tell (there may have been a few I missed), and, none of them seem to be making any canonical claims, or claims about his status (there is the odd one who writes a book called "The Art of Stephen King" or something). But I don't see an F. R. Leavis really championing his work, and the bulk of the criticism tries to put him in line more or less with other horror authors, despite the fact that he writes a large amount of non-horror texts. I think then, it is safe to say at least, there is somewhat a rejection of at least part of his oeuvre.
Either way, it is too early to tell - he is still with us. There was, of course, this much criticism written on Harry Potter, and on countless other big names. I don't, however, see much championing of his works, in terms of canonical thought. The bulk of these critics probably don't even believe in canons.
It will be interesting to see. One can already see an ebb in the popularity of his earlier work, and it would seem he has already become too much of a convention to grow anymore during his lifetime. I can't see him really lasting for more than 1-2 books, and even if he does, I can't see that coming at the expense of another author, given that there are so many great American writers today. I have yet to see a book title that calls him a great original - most seem to throw him in line with Shelley and Poe, which is disheartening, given that if you are so in line, you are, as I said, all fancy.
Is there an academic acceptance? Perhaps on one level - there are critics who write about popular fiction, especially American ones, and who jump upon the most popular book of the moment. The MLA Bibliography gave me hits on searches like Nora Roberts, and John Grisham, in addition to Tom Clancy, so he isn't alone (though I guess there has been more work done on him).
I don't particularly think he can really get out of an American context, and I'm not to sure he could possibly be canonized into another language or country's tradition. I stick by what I said earlier, about how he is the embodiment of the mainstream American consciousness. When that shifts however, I don't know what will be left.
It's quite sad really. The majority of adults that I know that read (which is pitifully few, unfortunately - and I'm talking outside of my university academic circles) tend to only read in the vein of Stephen King, which is unfortunate given that (if they are related to me) they have a relative who is relatively knowledgeable in the area of literature, and therefore should know better.
For some reason, however, people seem to be really put off when you tell them that what they are reading is trash. Oh well.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
