Stephen King: Trash, or Literature?

[jon1jt]

(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.

Interesting post, JBI. I just checked out Wiki and about 90% of King's work is classified under horror. How's about the title, Pop Supernatural Junk?

Nora Roberts, and John Grisham

I hope on their death beds they regret every book they pawned off on the public.

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.

What will be left: pigeon doo.

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.

Thank you for raising the question. What is the moral responsibility of writers to their readers? Tom Clancy's writing has a moral basis. Even though I have zero interest in Clancy's books, reading small portions of them I have come across some mesmerizing prose and analysis about military technology and the government. It's the low bar set by writers like King, et al, whose ideas do little more than tickle mediocrity with their entertainment feathers and who are responsible for contributing to the birthing of a whole generation of little shi tface writers with MFA tassels looped around their middle fingers in golden Magna cum Laude peddling novel after imbecilic novel, which they know to be garbage, and justify on the ground Darkshadow does:

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."

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.

When you say things like this---that you have no moral responsibility to your readers---I don't see you as an inspiring writer. I don't see you as half a writer. You, Grisham, King, Roberts, are all vaudeville---and your snake oil is the idea of writing as a form of entertainment. Drink some and you're a writer too.

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.

You mean to tell me that after all the years I've spent studying fiction, that all I've been doing is reading imaginary stories??

Look, when Daniel Pearl got his head chopped off, what if moments before the sword came down somebody had whispered into his ear that what he had been chasing all those years into dark musty caves with stick men shadows was only a perspective of the truth and not the truth itself? Similarly the fiction writer that his characters, setting, conflict, narrative, are just stories? No breath. No tongue, no blood. Fiction as temporary psychosis between the eyes with the occasional nosebleed.

As the journalist travels by foot so does the good fiction writer, and sometimes they leap over intersecting paths, and what the fiction writer doesn't travel in miles he's travelled inside his bones---because if the story is not an imaginative story as I believe it to be, but an imaginary story as you have it---then you'll have to convince me and every writer on the face of the earth that imaginary stories have no basis in suffering and growing up and love and invincible human power that mimics the self. Listen harder for the whistling in the lighted window, a grandeur of the surf.


**


Moral fiction goes beyond merely reflecting reality. Reflected reality is only what's been done, whereas moral fiction grapples with the could-haves and what-next---with what's possible in ourselves, in our communities, and the world. And text is organic and reading hermeneutical in that sense, with language bringing together a heterogenous set of sense perceptions that are culturally and socially transformative. But if fiction writing is only about entertaining, cheap forms or otherwise, the writer absolves himself of that self-reflective as well as collective responsibility. I reject that.

Moral writing, which every real fiction writer strives toward, is a quest for beauty, truth, and the Good. I expect someone to come down on me that such a standard is too abstract or devoid of meaning to be a standard at all. So then, I offer here one simple way that we could determine the value of a given novel. Select any three books in the western literary canon---"the greatest works of artistic merit"---and place your selection with them side by side. For example:


Homer's Iliad

King's Carrie

Plato's Republic

Joyce's Finnigan's Wake


Now ask yourself: "Does it deserve to be among such great books at this time?" Screw the professors, the university database, the feminist whine. This is as good as it gets.

[Drkshadow03]

Thank you for raising the question. What is the moral responsibility of writers to their readers? Tom Clancy's writing has a moral basis. Even though I have zero interest in Clancy's books, reading small portions of them I have come across some mesmerizing prose and analysis about military technology and the government. It's the low bar set by writers like King, et al, whose ideas do little more than tickle mediocrity with their entertainment feathers and who are responsible for contributing to the birthing of a whole generation of little shi tface writers with MFA tassels looped around their middle fingers in golden Magna cum Laude peddling novel after imbecilic novel, which they know to be garbage, and justify on the ground Darkshadow does:

Most of the people who graduate from MFA programs are writing pretty straight forward New Yorker-style "literary" fiction, which bears the influence of Hemingway and Faulkner more than it does Stephen King. In fact, genre fiction and writers like Stephen King are generally frowned upon in MFAs. So I am not actually sure what your point is here, unless you have some personal experiences you want to share?

When you say things like this---that you have no moral responsibility to your readers---I don't see you as an inspiring writer. I don't see you as half a writer. You, Grisham, King, Roberts, are all vaudeville---and your snake oil is the idea of writing as a form of entertainment. Drink some and you're a writer too.

Heh. I meant aspiring, my bad. As far as you personally not seeing me as a "real" writer, exactly who are you that I should care?

Writing for me is a mix between a hobby/career/passion. Of course I have something I feel is important to communicate to my audience beyond merely entertaining them, but I still feel it is my goal first and foremost to make my point in an entertaining fashion. If I simply wanted to get a moral truth or point across I could write a philosophical treatise or some kind of essay. Fiction isn't for edification and entertainment; it is edification through entertainment.

what the fiction writer doesn't travel in miles he's travelled inside his bones---because if the story is not an imaginative story as I believe it to be, but an imaginary story as you have it---then you'll have to convince me and every writer on the face of the earth that imaginary stories have no basis in suffering and growing up and love and invincible human power that mimics the self.

Uhm, pretty sure I covered that fiction has a basis in "suffering and growing up and love and invincible human power" when I said fiction is a reflection of reality (mimesis). It doesn't change the fact that fiction still uses an imaginary story to convey such things. Next . . .

Moral fiction goes beyond merely reflecting reality. Reflected reality is only what's been done, whereas moral fiction grapples with the could-haves and what-next---with what's possible in ourselves, in our communities, and the world.

Isn't that Science Fiction?

As for the rest of your essay, my thoughts ranged from: "When did I step back into Grad School and into a theory class?" to "Okay, you're entitled to your opinion."

Great, it's nice to hear your theory of fiction. Other than that I am not really sure how to react to your post or what you actually want from me as an interlocutor. If you want to know my own theory of fiction, on reading, and what I believe the study of literature actually entails you can find them in a number of other threads on this forum or re-read my previous post more carefully. If you'd like to gouge my tastes or what it is I get out of the books I read besides entertainment you're more than welcome to click on the link to my blog.

[bluevictim]

Thank you for raising the question. What is the moral responsibility of writers to their readers? Tom Clancy's writing has a moral basis. Even though I have zero interest in Clancy's books, reading small portions of them I have come across some mesmerizing prose and analysis about military technology and the government.
...
Moral fiction goes beyond merely reflecting reality. Reflected reality is only what's been done, whereas moral fiction grapples with the could-haves and what-next---with what's possible in ourselves, in our communities, and the world. And text is organic and reading hermeneutical in that sense, with language bringing together a heterogenous set of sense perceptions that are culturally and socially transformative. But if fiction writing is only about entertaining, cheap forms or otherwise, the writer absolves himself of that self-reflective as well as collective responsibility. I reject that.

Thanks for the response, and for expanding on what you believe to be an author's moral responsibility. I see that my guess was wrong, and your idea of morally responsible writing does not preclude authors like Tom Clancy. I'm still interested in knowing why what you described is an author's moral responsibility. Based on your insistence that an author failing your standard should be ashamed on his deathbed, I conclude that you're claiming this idea of an author's moral responsibility to be not just your own opinion, but some kind of universal idea that everyone should accept. You've made a distinction between "moral fiction" and "entertainment". Why must every writer produce what you call "moral fiction" and eschew "entertainment"? In fact, I can't help but wonder if what you dismiss as entertainment is inspiration to someone else. It's not clear to me that the features of moral fiction that you speak of -- grappling with the could-haves, cultural influence, self-reflection -- are not facets of that phenomenon we call "entertainment".

So then, I offer here one simple way that we could determine the value of a given novel. Select any three books in the western literary canon---"the greatest works of artistic merit"---and place your selection with them side by side. For example:


Homer's Iliad

King's Carrie

Plato's Republic

Joyce's Finnigan's Wake


Now ask yourself: "Does it deserve to be among such great books at this time?" Screw the professors, the university database, the feminist whine. This is as good as it gets.

Surely you don't mean to imply that any writer whose work doesn't measure up to Homer's Iliad and Plato's Republic must consider himself a failure on his deathbed?

[Zee.]

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.

What's your opinion on The Green Mile?

Stephen King seems to me, to be a writer who possesses a very twisted, chaotic, brilliant imagination. That's what he'll be remembered for.

I'd like to add, in this third little post of mine, that some people seem to have forgotten the joy of reading a novel for the simple sake of enjoying the story. The idea of reading heavy books day in an day out makes me feel a little sick. That being said, I find it really disturbing that novels that don't have, as it has been quoted many times in this thread "literary merit", are considered trash. They aren't trash. If I want a good thriller/horror i'm going to be running to the pile labeled what many of you consider "trash". I don't find novels that are of great "literary merit" of the horror/thriller genre, disturbing or interesting at all. The fact that so many literary works that couldn't make a baby shake, get labeled "terrifying" and "disturbing" is ridiculous.

[jon1jt]

Limes!

Thanks for the response, and for expanding on what you believe to be an author's moral responsibility. I see that my guess was wrong, and your idea of morally responsible writing does not preclude authors like Tom Clancy. I'm still interested in knowing why what you described is an author's moral responsibility.

As far as moral responsibility, maybe try to think of it this way, as silly as it may seem: Writers do more than just write on pages that that get printed and bound and sent to the four corners. Writers quite literally put words in their readers’ bodies, a process which is physiological, and why that kind of writing is moral. Moral, not as a religious sense of duty, but moral as care.

Based on your insistence that an author failing your standard should be ashamed on his deathbed, I conclude that you're claiming this idea of an author's moral responsibility to be not just your own opinion, but some kind of universal idea that everyone should accept.

Yes and no. While art is a process that grows up ex nihilo, even the writers who remain true to their craft still have the capacity to shape and steer those emergent thoughts or impressions. Stephen King is like the Ancient Greece sophist concerned only with the intention of the message whereas the moral writer is concerned with both intention and content. In King’s case, he never once strays from the archetypes that work for him. Even in his On Writing he made sure to stay inside the entertainment-value frame, indulging in cheap witticisms and anecdotes that the reviewers in lockstep met with high praise, calling the book, ‘fun and practical,' which was just another way of saying it offered nothing new or insightful.

You've made a distinction between "moral fiction" and "entertainment". Why must every writer produce what you call "moral fiction" and eschew "entertainment"?

I don’t think the entertainment value of a book has to be sacrificed at all. In fact, moral fiction, when done the right way, can instruct as much as entertain. One can’t help reading the last page of John Gardner’s Grendel without feeling the rush to go out and pick up a copy of Beowolf. The first time I finished The Iliad I picked up and started The Odyssey. Stephen King doesn’t do that for me. He doesn’t do that for me because his kind of fiction is so transparent that once I stuck my tongue clear through one of his novels and watched the letters slide off the pages onto the floor and into my cat's water dish. The cat used her paw to fish some out and started up a game of scrabble with the cat next door. The first word she spelled was "Brad." It concerns me.

[Drkshadow03]

Limajean,

I agree with what you said about King's imagination. I would, however, point out that I think King does far more in his fiction than you give him credit. Carrie is one of the best novels about bullying, teasing, and harassment I have ever read, capturing perfectly the modern high school atmosphere. Certain imagery like the opening with the girls throwing tampons at Carrie and shouting at her when she has her first menstruation stick in your mind as the epitome of cruelty. The "horror" element of a deranged telekenetic matches well with the "reality" of the story. She suffers years of mental abuse, and she responds with abnormal mental powers that allows her to become the ultimate homocidal mass murderer.

IT is about a demonic clown that eats children. Of course as the story progresses we find out the clown is actually the town itself. The children protagonists all have family issues or abusive parents. The town literally swallows up its children. The metaphor speaks for itself. The horror elements in King's novel always match up with the screwed up reality the characters experience.

As one critic who has argued for King's Canonicity notes the people who occupy King's novels are always far scarier, far more malevolent, and more horrific than the supernatural elements.

I personally think King should be read in the American Gothic Horror tradition as a modern Poe. I agree with JBI that there is something distinctly American about his writing, and that thematically his writing is essentially about the darkness in the heart of America.

[JBI]

You must admit though, he is probably not the best at displaying it though - I think the obvious darkness of America author today would probably be McCarthy, but even then. I think the problem is that King likes to jump on sensationalist plots, rather than focus on less plot. And, as a writer myself, that goes against my aesthetic. Anybody can manufacture plots (and he has the worst endings, so I guess he can only half-manufacture them). As a Canadian reader (a very Canadian one, yes, I am aware that is somewhat of an oxymoron) I don't see particularly how he can possibly relate to me, or my tradition. Toni Morrison, for instance, used to create very strong portraits of the darkness of America, and I think those, notably Beloved and Song of Solomon, really capture something, but King? I'm not too sure.

Really though, I think a lot of my rejections of novels mostly seem to be rooted in the tradition I really belong to. Firstly, I grew up reading mostly female authors, and got started off, at around 9-10 reading predominantly Young Adult, female bildungsromans. After that, I moved on, when I was ending high school, to focus more on Canadian authors, as I felt that the American ones overrepresented, and clashing with my political sensibilities. A large amount of the contemporary Canadian players in fiction, also happen to be poets (many of them poets before novelists), Ondaatje, Atwood, Kroetsch, Carson, Hebert, etc. In that sense, I think my aesthetic has been molded somewhat to appreciate works of prose that have poetic elements, rather than conventional prose elements. So that, for instance, my favorite novel is Eugene Onegin, and my favorite American novelist is, like most people, Faulkner, who seems more influenced by poetry than most prose writers, and actually started as a poet.

King seems pure prose though, to the point where he relies purely on prose convention, and nothing else - I wouldn't be surprised if he only reads prose, and is really incapable of thinking metaphorically. The narrative tradition only goes so far, I think, and quite honestly, we have come to the point where, unless it is really manipulated and formed by other ideas, the contemporary novel cannot particularly flourish. The realist trend seems to have run out of steam, and quite honestly, one can see why.

King can, I would argue, only really manipulate one genre at a time, and seems rooted in rather mainstream, conventional genres. I personally like to see a bit more working of new, or different elements and traditions within my work.

It is interesting though - I think, as a genre, fantasy, and horror, really have been suffering from lack of attention to particularly good, innovative authors. The phrase "good old fashion prose" seems to be an excuse for mediocrity, yet gets used to justify the praising of works which in themselves aren't particularly bad, but are by no means worth much attention, or any real sort of critical admiration.

Good old fashion essentially means old fashion, and rubbish. If one does not move forward, they no longer are particularly important to the tradition. I don't think King moves forward - I think all his novels generally have the same traits, all of which were convention somewhat before his day.

The only real difference I think with him and other authors, is his sales, and that, if I were to attribute it to something, comes because he focuses on the American experience, without a) being too difficult, and b) criticizing it too much, the way someone like Dellilo does. Lets be honest, there is nothing particularly innovative in his work. Nothing that someone else could not have written. But he has found the perfect place - on one hand, he fits the American diagram perfectly, so his sales flourish, on the other hand, he is so successful that the critics of popular fiction support him, as he is somehow seen as "populist", attacking the "elitist" assumptions of academic critics. In essence, people get Ph. D.s in Stephen King, and eventually end up in a 500 person line to try and get a tenure-tracked position, or leave the field.

It's interesting to note though, that there really is no effort by academics to see the emergence of a fantastical genre in itself, with good authors. There are great authors who use fantastical elements, but I think the purer a genre becomes, the more it suffers. Autobiography of Red certainly has fantastic elements, but ultimately it fits better as a modern day bildungsroman than anything else. One could, presumably, write a thesis on Terry Goodkind, and his captivation of the racist, jingoist, radical Americanist, colonial imagination of today's (predominantly male) adolescent readership. But I'm unsure if that would go well, quite simply because I don't think anyone but adolescent male jingoist Americans (with a touch of misogyny thrown in) care anything about him. King on the other hand is such an American convention already, that there may be people interested in his work.

It's all the same anyway - these books will soon be unread, and this scholarship ignored. If someone is so uncreative as to work mostly on King, they probably will just end up standing in line with the others, hoping for an opening in Academic institutions. In truth, how far can a scholar of a text so mediocre, but so contemporary go? Academia is one of the most competitive fields, and contemporary American literature probably the most competitive in America, and I think, ultimately, the scholar of Chinese-American, or First-Nations American authors will probably have an easier time getting in - quite simply, because there is less competition.


I don't know - I confess, fantasy, and to a much lesser extent, horror fiction is a particular interest of mine, from a theoretical perspective. It is almost impossible to read most genre books, but even so, I am very interested in the concept, in the way I am interested in Maesterlink's Pelleas e Melisande. The genre itself, has tons of potential, as it seems the romantic variant of magical-realism, which would rely more on negative capability, and metaphor, and generally, the fairtalesque, than on symbolic realism. Ultimately though, I don't think readers would be interested in it anymore. Certainly though, if someone were to craft a decent verse-novel in it (or prose-poem-novel, how ironic) they could do very interesting things. But alas, realist stylistics, without any sense of realism.

Back to King though, I don't particularly think him worthy of my time, in the sense that I feel his "imaginative" creations as those pertaining to the aesthetic of middle-class-centric-male-America, something which I am not part of, and which I personally am a) afraid of, and b) somewhat repulsed by. I don't see King as really standing for much more - I think he is rooted in the 1970s, and that he can't break into a 21st century perspective, or a multi-cultural, or even a female perspective. I consider him on par with mass-media outlets, in his focus, and quite frankly, that's probably why he sells so well.

[Ryan002]

What's really alarming is that King is often slammed because he refuses to correct, or sometimes even discuss, his political views. I think a lot of people tend to forget , firstly, that writers are not somehow bound to political principles. They are neither religious leaders nor politicians. King is not Montaigne or Swift, nor has he aspired to be. Secondly, I recall T.S. Eliot's suggestion that a writer should not be read into his text. King may not have any agenda beyond what so many readers seem to want to associate with him. I suspect that much of the stereotyping, sexism, etc. that many readers see come from their own interpretation rather the source.

King is unpretentious, his critics often are not. The only honest criticism I can find regarding King is from Harold Bloom. Even then, Bloom's dislike is largely due to personal taste in prose style, and I don't think Bloom attempts to conceal this.

As for the people who lash out simply because King is a commercial writer, well all I have to say is that they had better come down from that Ivory Tower and have a look around. As far as comemrcial writers go, King isn't all that bad. In fact, he's a virtual Homer next to Mr. Midnight, Sweet Valley High and the Sophie Kinsella nonsense that is spreading like a plague amongst the new generation. In case these people haven't noticed, the high modernist project *failed*. Laypersons generally do not walk around with James Joyce or Virginia Woolfe tucked under their arm, and *never will*. If the end purpose of the modernist project was to make a universal literature, than King has come farther than either of those two (not that I discount their contributions).

[JBI]

You prepetuate the myth I mentioned earlier. Margaret Atwood is a best selling novelist, who is perhaps the most recognizable of Canadian authors. I don't dispute her place as a somewhat canonical figure (though some of her books are rather repetitive, and I think she peaked early on). Alice Munro too is a bestselling author, and quite simply perhaps the first major commercially successful Canadian writer working only in short stories.


Either way, I think I'm as vocal a critic of Bloom as King - both are mediocre mass-market American creations, with American agendas. If we take your view, then whoever sells the most copies would be deemed the most powerful, and important author, and by that reckoning, I think The Davinci Code wins as the greatest example of fiction in the past 10 years.

Yeah right.

I trust you've read academic criticism outside of Bloom however (though many on these boards, it would seem, have not, and take his word for granted). If so, you would note the variance in perspective amongst critics of all different fields.

The notion of the ivory tower seems if anything, to not hurt academia, but to hurt the reader, as it acts as a justification for the ignoring of any form of critical inquiry into textual composition and stylistics.

Either way though, I'm not a novel reader, and don't pretend to be. My specialty is, most definitely, in poetry, and my interests lie in contemporary Canadian verse (most English). Name one poet since Tennyson/Browning who has been a major economic success in the English world, from writing poetry alone. Certainly one can name novelists, but even if you take the most achieved poets, they usually have a day job. Eliot had to edit books for publication, and write journalism and introductions in order to stay afloat. Are you suggesting that poetry should be ignored, because it isn't a commercial success?


That King is better than most commercial writers isn't the point. The point is, he isn't better than many writers, and he uses the strength of his publisher, and name, in order to penetrate Canadian, and international bookstores. The myth of the elitism in the ivory tower, in this case, makes him immune from criticism, because if one criticizes him, instantly they are labeled "elitist" or a snob. Yet at the same time, ironically, the King came down from up high to dub Stephanie Meyer as a mediocre author - is he an elitist now?

And by the way, everyone discusses the politics within T. S. Eliot's poetry. If King doesn't speak about his politics, or political stances, his novels certainly do. We know very little about Eliot than what is within his poetry (to date there has never been an authorized biography of him), yet we know much from his poetry. It is the same with King.

[Drkshadow03]

JBI,

If you're looking to expand your knowledge on theories of the fantastic you might want to check out the Critical list my friend put up on this blog where he is keeping track of his reading list for his Ph. D. You also might want to read some of the posts, which he is using to keep track of the various critical works.

As far as whether you can get a job while writing positively about Stephen King in the competitive American academic market, as usual their is an objective way to check that. Tracking the authors of Pro-King criticism as found in MLA:

- Susan Love Brown (associate professor of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University and women studies: Gender and culture)

- J. Madison Davis (University of Oklohoma Gaylord College English department and award-winning mystery writer)

- Heidi Strengell who has written not one, but 3 works on King including a dissertation on his Multiverse (University of Helsinski, I think)

- Greg Smith (Assistant Professor William Woods University)

- Tony Magistrale (Professor University of Vermont)

A great many of them have managed to land tenure-track jobs. In all fairness I discluded criticism written by those I couldn't link to a specific university. However, all those I discluded did not seem to have a Ph. D in the first place. Anyone who had a Ph. D. and wrote about King had a full-time job in Academia. The real point being you still can get a full-time academic job if you write about Stephen King. Maybe not at Harvard, but still a job.

[JBI]

JBI,

If you're looking to expand your knowledge on theories of the fantastic you might want to check out the Critical list my friend put up on this blog where he is keeping track of his reading list for his Ph. D. You also might want to read some of the posts, which he is using to keep track of the various critical works.

As far as whether you can get a job while writing positively about Stephen King in the competitive American academic market, as usual their is an objective way to check that. Tracking the authors of Pro-King criticism as found in MLA:

- Susan Love Brown (associate professor of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University and women studies: Gender and culture)

- J. Madison Davis (University of Oklohoma Gaylord College English department and award-winning mystery writer)

- Heidi Strengell who has written not one, but 3 works on King including a dissertation on his Multiverse (University of Helsinski, I think)

- Greg Smith (Assistant Professor William Woods University)

- Tony Magistrale (Professor University of Vermont)

A great many of them have managed to land tenure-track jobs. In all fairness I discluded criticism written by those I couldn't link to a specific university. However, all those I discluded did not seem to have a Ph. D in the first place. Anyone who had a Ph. D. and wrote about King had a full-time job in Academia. The real point being you still can get a full-time academic job if you write about Stephen King. Maybe not at Harvard, but still a job.

I don't know - I'd need to cross reference their criticism to their positions at the university - obviously many of the works on King are negative, or critical, and take issue with his work. I was just noting the overpopulation of theses written on King in general, as apposed to other writers. Of course, some go on to become professors, and many texts are written by professors, but it is interesting to note exactly where Ph. D.s are being written, and who goes on from there.

For instance, it's been a common myth that Comparative Literary Ph.D.s have harder times entering Academia, but I think that has been proven the opposite. It also is suggested that the further back in time your specialist, or removal from the mainstream, the easier it is to enter academia. I think specialists in Women writers from the Restoration until the French Revolution received a lot of new Ph. D.s and professorhips for a period in the 80s and 90s, and certainly post-colonial critics emerged quickly in the 80s, landing degrees and positions, but I'm unsure how open the market is.

It's rather curious actually, and yes, of course writing on King goes outside of the field, as you demonstrated, into Anthropology, which isn't English, or Literary Studies, and is perhaps more fitting. But beyond that though, it's curious as to what is written about what and for whom - The University of Toronto Archives 650 Literature periodicals, so I think there is room for King somewhere, but I doubt the Ivory Tower as it is called will welcome a King Specialist and give him a lecturing position, in the same way they would welcome a Milton Specialist.

Of course though, one knows the lineups to enter Academia - they are virtually endless for contemporary American fiction, as that, it would seem, has attracted the most students and specialists, and with the decreasing size of Academia, has created a huge overpopulation of scholars.


Either way though, the blog you posted is interesting, however, the problem remains. The texts are mostly literary Magical Realist novels (more than half of which I have read). Perhaps the criticism will be more interesting, and I'll poke my head into those books when I have the chance. But what I'm really looking for, is something that approaches fantasy from a fantasy perspective, yet remains literary. Magical realism doesn't do that, and Calvino's Post-modernism always seems to have a rather ironic agenda, and political undercurrent. We'll see though - right now I'm backed up on an essay on Hugh Maclennan, but later perhaps - during exam time - I'll fit in some more reading.

[bluevictim]

As far as moral responsibility, maybe try to think of it this way, as silly as it may seem: Writers do more than just write on pages that that get printed and bound and sent to the four corners. Writers quite literally put words in their readers’ bodies, a process which is physiological, and why that kind of writing is moral.

Thanks for expanding on why you think authors have a moral responsibility to their readers. I'm afraid I'm still not entirely clear on what exactly distinguishes your idea of morally responsible writing from mere entertainment, and why (granting that authors do have a moral responsibility to their readers) it is incumbent upon authors to pursue the former.

As I said before, it seems to me that those qualities that you are looking for (eg, grappling with possibilities, cultural impact, self-reflection) are in fact different aspects of entertainment; a given work may be quite transparent and facile to one individual while being deep and profound to another. The fact that you don't find King entertaining is consistent with this -- obviously there is something that others see in King that you don't.

Assuming that there is a meaningful distinction between "inspiration" and "entertainment", why is it an author's responsibility to provide "inspiration"? Your explanation about the physiological aspect of a writer's effects only seems to imply that authors have some moral responsibility, but it doesn't seem to elucidate what that responsibility is.

Moral, not as a religious sense of duty, but moral as care.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what this means.

Yes and no. While art is a process that grows up ex nihilo, even the writers who remain true to their craft still have the capacity to shape and steer those emergent thoughts or impressions. Stephen King is like the Ancient Greece sophist concerned only with the intention of the message whereas the moral writer is concerned with both intention and content.
...

I'm sorry, I wasn't able to see the link between this answer and the quote that it was ostensibly a response to (my assumption that you are claiming that your standards of moral responsibility is not just a matter of your own taste, but something universal that every writer ought to be judged by).

The cat used her paw to fish some out and started up a game of scrabble with the cat next door. The first word she spelled was "Brad." It concerns me.

Yes, "Brad" is completely unsuitable for a game of Scrabble since proper nouns are not allowed. If the cat next door had any sense at all he would have challenged.

[jon1jt]

Heh. I meant aspiring, my bad. As far as you personally not seeing me as a "real" writer, exactly who are you that I should care?

No of course you wouldn't care, you're Dark Shadow Man. Chill my brother, you're the guy with two masters degrees and that writing workshop under your belt. So as far as I'm concerned, you're the man! And in no time you will have a wonderful job in some fancy smancy University library working so close to the stacks that at the end of a long day you'll return home smelling like books, and you'll be a better man for it. The closest I'll ever come to working in a library will be playing hackey sack in the quad. I suspect you will be going for a Ph.D soon, yes? You must be planning to do your Ph.D in Library Science, after you've secured a full-time tenure position, of course. Land the big paying university job and then let your employer pay for your education---isn't that how it works? If I had two masters degrees like you my life would be so much more fulfilling. Sigh. For starters I wouldn't be a starving poet. I'd be the man. I'd be successful. I'd be just like you. I want to be the man too dammit!

Writing for me is a mix between a hobby/career/passion. Of course I have something I feel is important to communicate to my audience beyond merely entertaining them, but I still feel it is my goal first and foremost to make my point in an entertaining fashion.

Yeah but what about art?

If I simply wanted to get a moral truth or point across I could write a philosophical treatise or some kind of essay.

Call it 'The Critique Of Hot Bullshi t'


Stephen King could also try to write fiction that won't be used for toilet paper by his readers soon as they're done with them. Oooh.


I'll get to ya BlueVboo.

[Zee.]

I really, really, really do not understand the comments made in this thread about King being a "story teller" therefore he is not an "artist".


A story teller isn't an artist?

.... is this a joke?

I'm a sketcher. Am I any Da Vinci? uh, no. But I am still an artist.

King may not be my Steinbeck, but how very narrow minded you all are to consider him anything less than an artist. His imagination is a work of art itself.

[Drkshadow03]

I don't know - I'd need to cross reference their criticism to their positions at the university - obviously many of the works on King are negative, or critical, and take issue with his work. I was just noting the overpopulation of theses written on King in general, as apposed to other writers. Of course, some go on to become professors, and many texts are written by professors, but it is interesting to note exactly where Ph. D.s are being written, and who goes on from there.

For instance, it's been a common myth that Comparative Literary Ph.D.s have harder times entering Academia, but I think that has been proven the opposite. It also is suggested that the further back in time your specialist, or removal from the mainstream, the easier it is to enter academia. I think specialists in Women writers from the Restoration until the French Revolution received a lot of new Ph. D.s and professorhips for a period in the 80s and 90s, and certainly post-colonial critics emerged quickly in the 80s, landing degrees and positions, but I'm unsure how open the market is.

It's rather curious actually, and yes, of course writing on King goes outside of the field, as you demonstrated, into Anthropology, which isn't English, or Literary Studies, and is perhaps more fitting. But beyond that though, it's curious as to what is written about what and for whom - The University of Toronto Archives 650 Literature periodicals, so I think there is room for King somewhere, but I doubt the Ivory Tower as it is called will welcome a King Specialist and give him a lecturing position, in the same way they would welcome a Milton Specialist.

Of course though, one knows the lineups to enter Academia - they are virtually endless for contemporary American fiction, as that, it would seem, has attracted the most students and specialists, and with the decreasing size of Academia, has created a huge overpopulation of scholars.


Either way though, the blog you posted is interesting, however, the problem remains. The texts are mostly literary Magical Realist novels (more than half of which I have read). Perhaps the criticism will be more interesting, and I'll poke my head into those books when I have the chance. But what I'm really looking for, is something that approaches fantasy from a fantasy perspective, yet remains literary. Magical realism doesn't do that, and Calvino's Post-modernism always seems to have a rather ironic agenda, and political undercurrent. We'll see though - right now I'm backed up on an essay on Hugh Maclennan, but later perhaps - during exam time - I'll fit in some more reading.

I think writing about King can come from different angles. Magistrale seems to have a firm intellectual grounding in American Gothicism, while some of the others looking at their scholarship seem interested in Popular fiction. While others seem interested in the idea of Genre fiction itself (horror, detective, etc.), which I suppose can be considered an off-shoot of studying Popular Fiction.

So I suspect they aren't so much King scholars, but people with experitise in American Gothicism or Popular Fiction who have written work about King because they feel he is an important writer who fits into their niche of study. Obviously these people are studying more than just King. Interestingly the only to have written multiple book-length works on King is Magistrale who happens to have the highest-ranking job of the bunch (state university as opposed to community colleges).

I'm not sure academia is decreasing. In some areas enrollment is down certainly because of the economy, but I believe the trend has been increased enrollment. The real problem seems to be that the full-time jobs are decreasing and being replaced by adjunct and part-time positions to save money. Administrators love this situation because you can pay adjuncts significantly less money and they have to teach more classes than a normal full-time professor to survive, plus if your student enrollment decreases they can simply lay you off.

It's true as you said that the further you go back in your area of focus, the less the competition for a job. Instead of fighting with 300 people for that American job, you can be one candidate of 100 for that Medievalist position. One of the reasons for this I suspect is that those areas are more specialized. You have to learn Old English, have a larger grasp of criticism, etc. It makes me glad that I've given myself other options to choose from besides academia. But good luck to you when you go out into the job market eventually JBI; if anyone deserves an academic position, I think you do, because I can tell you've put a lot of work into your studies.