This "snob" is so pretentious and self-absorbed, I doubt he's ever even seen the face of his father.

I am confused,....at the beginning of this piece the author writes about coming to the middle of his life,
.... he may not be able to read all the great literary fiction he intends to before he kicks the bucket. etc. etc.

Then he spends God-knows how long writing 5,000 words about how he does not enjoy the arguably worst
novels by a non-literary, albeit popular author. Seems like he could have squeezed in a lot more David Foster
Wallace or Zadie Smith if had just forgone this long-winded nonsense.

/also he should have read the shining
//and King haters need to give him credit for the awesomeness of the MOVIES
Carrie, Shawshank, the Shining, and Misery

FTA:

"One reason that I may have turned away from King's fiction is that the genres (horror and fantasy) he worked in didn't appeal to me."

Wow, you think so? Amazing! Next you'll be saying that a vegetarian might be tempted give a poor review to an all-you-can-eat rib joint! If you don't like the sandbox, by all means, feel free not to play in it with the other kids. While you're doing this, though, the rest of us would appreciate it if you didn't take a giant dump in it before moving on.

I'll admit, I've never read King either, but that's just how the cookie has crumbled. Never found any of his titles of interest.

The snob's final line:
King may be an adequate enough escape from life, if that's all you require from a book of fiction, but his work (or what I've read of it) is a far cry from literature, which, at its best, is, sentence by sentence, a revelation about life.

I have never read a book that is, sentence by sentence, a revelation about life. Does such a book exist? I have never read that book, nor do I ever expect to. Although I wouldn't mind writing it.

H. W. Plainview: My problem with Stephen King is that he shot John Lennon. The truth will set you free. http://www.lennonmurdertruth.com/index.asp

The guy who runs this site used to have a van (he might still,) covered in "information" about the Stephen King/government conspiracy to murder John Lennon. He'd hang around in my hometown and proselytize and pass out pamphlets. Once he hit on me and my best friend. He was 42 but insisted he looked 24. We were 14 at the time.

/cool story

pacmanner: I'll admit, I had stopped reading any King stuff for a quite a long time. I decided that I would pick up "The Cell" to get reaquainted with King again. Man, I hated that book. I recenly read "22/11/63" and I really like that one. I also just finally got around to reading "The Gunslinger".....the revised version....should I read the original before moving on to the next one?

I totally forgot about that one! We had to read that in a contemporary lit class year. That was a steaming pile of crap; I think the idea of cell phones turning people into zombies was supposed to be allegorical, but man ... it was just bad.

Dwight Allen's "The Typewriter Satyr": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,768,510 in Books
Dwight Allen's "Judge": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,996,304 in Books
Dwight Allen's "The Green Suit": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,835,750 in Books

If I'd worked for 15 years on three books and achieved those kind of sales figures, I'd hate Stephen King too.

Talondel: Capt. Sparkles: The only King novels I've ever read were Cujo for a 6th grade book report and The Shining. I've always wanted to read more but there are so freaking many I wouldn't know where to start. What would you guys suggest from his catalog for someone who's relatively new to his writing?

It depends on what genre you prefer. If you like fantasy stuff, it's hard to go wrong with The Eyes of the Dragon. If you're more into epic horror, then The Stand is probably the best place to start. You can go with either the original version or the Complete and Uncut Version. Despite what I'm sure the vast majority of other King fans would say, I prefer the longer, updated version. By contrast, if you decide to read The Dark Tower series (and you damn well should), you should absolutely go about finding the pre-revision version of The Gunslinger to start. You should also seriously consider reading only the first 5 books (and the new one that takes place between 4 and 5) and skipping 6 and 7. You also can't go wrong by starting with any of his collections of short stories.

Awesome, I'll hit up the library sometime next week and see what I can dig up. Thanks.

Man, King's stories are fun. I just read the Kennedy book and it was great. I also hope that Frank D. takes The Long Walk and makes it into a movie.

Fano: Danse Macabre went a long way toward informing my opinions about horror/scifi.

I'd put it on my "to read" list, but my mother has decided to get rid of a considerable part of her book collection. I came home with a large bag full of books yesterday, and will probably come home with even more the next time I visit. My book budget is now at zero (cuz I'm getting them for free).

Capt. Sparkles: The only King novels I've ever read were Cujo for a 6th grade book report and The Shining. I've always wanted to read more but there are so freaking many I wouldn't know where to start. What would you guys suggest from his catalog for someone who's relatively new to his writing?

Probably cant go wrong if you start at the beginning, "Carrie", and just go in order of publication. Obvious exceptionsto this like The Gunslinger series excluded.

All his early stuff is great. Be sure to hit the all the short stories collections and The Stand on your way.

I think Firestarter was the first book of his I read, followed by Carrie, The Stand, and 'Salem's Lot. All in one summer when I was a kid. I was and still am a loyal reader.

I guess it doesn't really matter what order, but his later stuff almost always ties in/alludes to his earlier work so having them under your belt makes the stories a little more enjoyable. It did for me anyway.

/I'm pretty sure I've read everything he's published.

gwowen: Dwight Allen's "The Typewriter Satyr": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,768,510 in Books
Dwight Allen's "Judge": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,996,304 in Books
Dwight Allen's "The Green Suit": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,835,750 in Books

If I'd worked for 15 years on three books and achieved those kind of sales figures, I'd hate Stephen King too.

Because sales dictate quality, right? Pardon me, I'm on my way to pick up the greatest food item ever created, the Big Mac.

Personally, I've always felt that I could have stopped with everything through "Dead Zone" + the Bachman books and been just fine with it. He totally lost me with the "Firestarter","Cujo", "Christine" and "Pet Semetary" run and the couple I've started after that time period I've rarely finished.

EyeballKid: gwowen: Dwight Allen's "The Typewriter Satyr": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,768,510 in Books
Dwight Allen's "Judge": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,996,304 in Books
Dwight Allen's "The Green Suit": Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,835,750 in Books

If I'd worked for 15 years on three books and achieved those kind of sales figures, I'd hate Stephen King too.

Because sales dictate quality, right? Pardon me, I'm on my way to pick up the greatest food item ever created, the Big Mac.

Who said anything about quality?

Even though it was a dumb movie, my twin sister says that 1408 was one of the scariest Stephen King stories she's ever read. Just to creep out those who read it or listened to it on audio tape;
/This is 9, 9, 9...

pacmanner


I'll admit, I had stopped reading any King stuff for a quite a long time. I decided that I would pick up "The Cell" to get reaquainted with King again. Man, I hated that book. I recenly read "22/11/63" and I really like that one. I also just finally got around to reading "The Gunslinger".....the revised version....should I read the original before moving on to the next one?

Read the original, and only read books 1-4. 5-7 (and the 'revised version' are equivalent to the starwars prequels and "special editions")

And then Chuck and Nadine and Clem and Otis and the two toe-headed boys and the retarded guy and the old geezer who was the font of wisdom talked for about 130 pages and then something blew up.

I think there's something to be said for just surrendering yourself to the story and letting it take you where it will. My daughter is currently reading a book called How to Read Like a College Professor. The few pages I read of it sound like a steaming pile of crap, just like this article. Not every story has to be an allegory, nor tell a different tale between the lines. All the best stories start with the author saying to their self, "I wonder what would happen if..." And the story unfolds from there. Only the most pretentious and/ or boring authors have to worry about "the story within the story." The best ones just let the story flow through them, damn the critics. And they're usually rewarded with success. Critics never made anybody successful, except for their selves, and usually, just in their own minds.

Madbassist1: OnlyM3: Read the original, and only read books 1-4. 5-7 (and the 'revised version' are equivalent to the starwars prequels and "special editions")

Like it or hate it, it would be asinine to read 1-4 and then not complete the story. I happen to like 5-7. King is devastatingly honest with the reader and himself about why he does what he does, how he goes about it, how much he rips off other authors, etc. His accident obviously had a profound effect on him and it shows. I found it to be refreshing. The climax (NOT the Epilogue) sucked badly, but he's kinda known for that, isn't he?

The problem I have with the last three books is how much the characters and the tone of the story change. Roland was an interesting anti-hero; he's the perfect embodiment of "ends justify the means." You like him, but you also fear him a little because of what you know of his character (the original first book talks about him being a matricide and killing some of his own compatriots. In the later books, these were revealed to be unfortunate accidents, thus making Roland "blameless" and changing the tone of the character). Also, the bar matron, who was killed in cold blood in the original Gunslinger, was killed out of mercy in the revised edition. The tone of the story changes from "bad vs bad" to "redemption of bad" to "there's nothing to be redeemed anyway."

This undercut a lot of the drama in books 5-7 because it goes from the reader being fearful of Roland having to knowingly sacrifice his compatriots to the less interesting fear of them dying at all. Remember, the main drama in the Gunslinger wasn't that Jake died, it was that Roland LET him die.

I could go through a laundry list of poor decisions King made, but two stand out. First, as Roland is alone, and finally approaches the Tower, his last "challenge" before he gets there is that he has dinner with a guy and almost chokes to death laughing. He's saved by a handwritten note from the author. I can't even begin to describe how badly this falls flat and pales to the action and imagination of books 1-3.

Second (and worse yet), King spent some 20 years establishing Randall Flagg, the Walkin' Dude, as the ultimate villain of his story universe. He crosses over in multiple stories and has a complex, interesting history. So what does King do? He sacrifices this villain in a lame attempt to get a cut-rate ripoff of the villain from Excalibur over. I almost quit reading at this point, but finished out of a sense of obligation to how much I loved the first three books.

Overall, the series just tanks as King acknowledges in the story that it is a story. I get that King was making a point about writing and the nature of storytelling. I just think that the surrealism of including other story elements (like lightsabers and snitches) and breaking the 4th wall completely undercuts the threats that the characters face.