The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
JC
The countdown is on -- Stephen King's latest book, THE GIRL WHO LOVED
TOM GORDON, will hit stores in just a few short weeks. This
"surprise" novel, inspired by King's love of baseball and the Boston
Red Sox, even caught our author off-guard. "If books were babies, I'd
call THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON the result of an unplanned
pregnancy," King admits.
More than a story on America's favorite pastime, or on Red Sox relief
pitcher Tom Gordon, this thrilling new adventure is about survival.
Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland wanders off the path during a six-mile
hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, and
finds herself terrified and alone. With only her Walkman to keep her
company, Trisha finds comfort tuning in to broadcasts of the Boston
Red Sox games, with her hero, Tom Gordon.
A classic story that engages our emotions at the most primal level,
THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON explores our deep dread of the unknown
and the extent to which faith can conquer it.
And now you can read an excerpt of the book before anyone else does.
At the end of this message, we've included the first chapter, "The
Pregame." It's King at his best, and this initial glimpse will leave
you wanting more -- as if King would have it any other way! But don't
worry, you won't have to wait too long...the book will be in stores
April 6.
In the meantime, check out our Stephen King bulletin board at
http://www.simonsays.com/bbs/king1bbs/secure/bbs.cgi to meet other
King fans and spread your King knowledge!
Stay tuned for more details...
SimonSays
* * *
Pregame
The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.
Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old. At ten
o'clock on a morning in early June she was sitting in the back seat of
her mother's Dodge Caravan, wearing her blue Red Sox batting practice
jersey (the one with 36 GORDON on the back) and playing with Mona, her
doll. At ten thirty she was lost in the woods. By eleven she was
trying not to be terrified, trying not to let herself think, This is
serious, this is very serious. Trying not to think that sometimes when
people got lost in the woods they got seriously hurt. Sometimes they
died.
All because I needed to pee, she thought...except she hadn't needed to
pee all that badly, and in any case she could have asked Mom and Pete
to wait up the trail a minute while she went behind a tree. They were
fighting again, gosh what a surprise that was, and that was why she
had dropped behind a little bit, and without saying anything. That was
why she had stepped off the trail and behind a high stand of bushes.
She needed a breather, simple as that. She was tired of listening to
them argue, tired of trying to sound bright and cheerful, close to
screaming at her mother, Let him go, then! If he wants to go back to
Malden and live with Dad so much, why don't you just let him? I'd
drive him myself if I had a license, just to get some peace and quiet
around here! And what then? What would her mother say then? What kind
of look would come over her face? And Pete. He was older, almost
fourteen, and not stupid, so why didn't he know better? Why couldn't
he just give it a rest? Cut the crap was what she wanted to say to him
(to both of them, really), just cut the crap.
The divorce had happened a year ago, and their mother had gotten
custody. Pete had protested the move from suburban Boston to southern
Maine bitterly and at length. Part of it really was wanting to be with
Dad, and that was the lever he always used on Mom (he understood with
some unerring instinct that it was the one he could plant the deepest
and pull on the hardest), but Trisha knew it wasn't the only reason,
or even the biggest one. The real reason Pete wanted out was that he
hated Sanford Middle School.
In Malden he'd had it pretty well whipped. He'd run the computer club
like it was his own private kingdom; he'd had friends -- nerds, yeah,
but they went around in a group and the bad kids didn't pick on them.
At Sanford Middle there was no computer club and he'd only made a
single friend, Eddie Rayburn. Then in January Eddie moved away, also
the victim of a parental breakup. That made Pete a loner, anyone's
game. Worse, a lot of kids laughed at him. He had picked up a nickname
which he hated: Pete's CompuWorld.
On most of the weekends when she and Pete didn't go down to Malden to
be with their father, their mother took them on outings. She was
grimly dedicated to these, and although Trisha wished with all her
heart that Mom would stop -- it was on the outings that the worst
fights happened -- she knew that wasn't going to happen. Quilla
Andersen (she had taken back her maiden name and you could bet Pete
hated that, too) had the courage of her convictions. Once, while
staying at the Malden house with Dad, Trisha had heard their father
talking to his own Dad on the phone. "If Quilla had been at Little Big
Horn, the Indians would have lost," he said, and although Trisha
didn't like it when Dad said stuff like that about Mom -- it seemed
babyish as well as disloyal -- she couldn't deny that there was a
nugget of truth in that particular observation.
Over the last six months, as things grew steadily worse between Mom
and Pete, she had taken them to the auto museum in Wiscasset, to the
Shaker Village in Gray, to The New England Plant-A-Torium in North
Wyndham, to Six-Gun City in Randolph, New Hampshire, on a canoe trip
down the Saco River, and on a skiing trip to Sugarloaf (where Trisha
had sprained her ankle, an injury over which her mother and father had
later had a screaming fight; what fun divorce was, what really good
fun).
Sometimes, if he really liked a place, Pete would give his mouth a
rest. He had pronounced Six-Gun City "for babies," but Mom had allowed
him to spend most of the visit in the room where the electronic games
were, and Pete had gone home not exactly happy but at least silent. On
the other hand, if Pete didn't like one of the places their Mom picked
(his least favorite by far had been the Plant-A-Torium; returning to
Sanford that day he had been in an especially boogery frame of mind),
he was generous in sharing his opinion. "Go along to get along" wasn't
in his nature. Nor was it in their mother's, Trisha supposed. She
herself thought it was an excellent philosophy, but of course everyone
took one look at her and pronounced her her father's child. Sometimes
that bothered her, but mostly she liked it.
Trisha didn't care where they went on Saturdays, and would have been
perfectly happy with a steady diet of amusement parks and mini-golf
courses just because they minimized the increasingly horrible
arguments. But Mom wanted the trips to be instructive, too -- hence
the Plant-A-Torium and Shaker Village. On top of his other problems,
Pete resented having education rammed down his throat on Saturdays,
when he would rather have been up in his room, playing Sanitarium or
Riven on his Mac. Once or twice he had shared his opinion ("This
sucks!" pretty well summed it up) so generously that Mom had sent him
back to the car and told him to sit there and "compose himself" until
she and Trisha came back.
Trisha wanted to tell Mom she was wrong to treat him like he was a
kindergartener who needed a time-out -- that someday they'd come back
to the van and find it empty, Pete having decided to hitchhike back to
Massachusetts -- but of course she said nothing. The Saturday outings
themselves were wrong, but Mom would never accept that. By the end of
some of them Quilla Andersen looked at least five years older than
when they had set out, with deep lines grooved down the sides of her
mouth and one hand constantly rubbing her temple, as if she had a
headache...but she would still never stop. Trisha knew it. Maybe if
her mother had been at Little Big Horn the Indians still would have
won, but the body-count would have been considerably higher.
This week's outing was to an unincorporated township in the western
part of the state. The Appalachian Trail wound through the area on its
way to New Hampshire. Sitting at the kitchen table the night before,
Mom had shown them photos from a brochure. Most of the pictures showed
happy hikers either striding along a forest trail or standing at
scenic lookouts, shading their eyes and peering across great wooded
valleys at the time-eroded but still formidable peaks of the central
White Mountains.
Pete sat at the table, looking cataclysmically bored, refusing to give
the brochure more than a glance. For her part, Mom had refused to
notice his ostentatious lack of interest. Trisha, as was increasingly
her habit, became brightly enthusiastic. These days she often sounded
to herself like a contestant on a TV game show, all but peeing in her
pants at the thought of winning a set of waterless cookware. And how
did she feel to herself these days? Like glue holding together two
pieces of something that was broken. Weak glue.
Quilla had closed the brochure and turned it over. On the back was a
map. She tapped a snaky blue line. "This is Route 68," she said.
"We'll park the car here, in this parking lot." She tapped a little
blue square. Now she traced one finger along a snaky red line. "This
is the Appalachian Trail between Route 68 and Route 302 in North
Conway, New Hampshire. It's only six miles, and rated Moderate.
Well...this one little section in the middle is marked
Moderate-to-Difficult, but not to the point where we'd need climbing
gear or anything."
She tapped another blue square. Pete was leaning his head on one hand,
looking the other way. The heel of his palm had pulled the left side
of his mouth up into a sneer. He had started getting pimples this year
and a fresh crop gleamed on his forehead. Trisha loved him, but
sometimes -- last night at the kitchen table, as Mom explained their
route, for example -- she hated him, too. She wanted to tell him to
stop being a chicken, because that was what it came down to when you
cut to the chase, as their Dad said. Pete wanted to run back to Malden
with his little teenage tail between his legs because he was a
chicken. He didn't care about Mom, didn't care about Trisha, didn't
even care if being with Dad would be good for him in the long run.
What Pete cared about was not having anyone to eat lunch with on the
gym bleachers. What Pete cared about was that when he walked into
homeroom after the first bell someone always yelled, "Hey CompuWorld!
Howya doon, homo-boy?"
"This is the parking lot where we come out," Mom had said, either not
noticing that Pete wasn't looking at the map or pretending not to. "A
van shows up there around three. It'll take us back around to our car.
Two hours later we're home again, and I'll haul you guys to a movie if
we're not too tired. How does that sound?"
Pete had said nothing last night, but he'd had plenty to say this
morning, starting with the ride up from Sanford. He didn't want to do
this, it was ultimately stupid, plus he'd heard it was going to rain
later on, why did they have to spend a whole Saturday walking in the
woods during the worst time of the year for bugs, what if Trisha got
poison ivy (as if he cared), and on and on and on.
Yatata-yatata-yatata. He even had the gall to say he should be home
studying for his final exams. Pete had never studied on Saturday in
his life, as far as Trisha knew. At first Mom didn't respond, but
finally he began getting under her skin. Given enough time, he always
did. By the time they got to the little dirt parking area on Route 68,
her knuckles were white on the steering wheel and she was speaking in
clipped tones which Trisha recognized all too well. Mom was leaving
Condition Yellow behind and going to Condition Red. It was looking
like a very long six-mile walk through the western Maine woods, all in
all.
At first Trisha had tried to divert them, exclaiming over barns and
grazing horses and picturesque graveyards in her best
oh-wow-it's-waterless-cookware voice, but they ignored her and after
awhile she had simply sat in the back seat with Mona on her lap (her
Dad liked to call Mona Moanie Balogna) and her knapsack beside her,
listening to them argue and wondering if she herself might cry, or
actually go crazy. Could your family fighting all the time drive you
crazy? Maybe when her mother started rubbing her temples with the tips
of her fingers, it wasn't because she had a headache but because she
was trying to keep her brains from undergoing spontaneous combustion
or explosive decompression, or something.
To escape them, Trisha opened the door to her favorite fantasy. She
took off her Red Sox cap and looked at the signature written across
the brim in broad black felt-tip strokes; this helped get her in the
mood. It was Tom Gordon's signature. Pete liked Mo Vaughn, and their
Mom was partial to Nomar Garciaparra, but Tom Gordon was Trisha's and
her Dad's favorite Red Sox player. Tom Gordon was the Red Sox closer;
he came on in the eighth or ninth inning when the game was close but
the Sox were still on top. Her Dad admired Gordon because he never
seemed to lose his nerve -- "Flash has got icewater in his veins,"
Larry McFarland liked to say -- and Trisha always said the same thing,
sometimes adding that she liked Gordon because he had the guts to
throw a curve on three-and-oh (this was something her father had read
to her in a Boston Globe column). Only to Moanie Balogna and (once) to
her girlfriend, Pepsi Robichaud, had she said more. She told Pepsi she
thought Tom Gordon was "pretty good-looking." To Mona she threw
caution entirely to the winds, saying that Number 36 was the
handsomest man alive, and if he ever touched her hand she'd faint. If
he ever kissed her, even on the cheek, she thought she'd probably die.
Now, as her mother and her brother fought in the front seat -- about
the outing, about Sanford Middle School, about their dislocated life
-- Trisha looked at the signed cap her Dad had somehow gotten her in
March, just before the season started, and thought this:
I'm in Sanford Park, just walking across the playground to Pepsi's
house on an ordinary day. And there's this guy standing at the hotdog
wagon. He's wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt and he's got a gold
chain around his neck -- he's got his back to me but I can see the
chain winking in the sun. Then he turns around and I see...oh I can't
believe it but it's true, it's really him, it's Tom Gordon, why he's
in Sanford is a mystery but it's him, all right, and oh God his eyes,
just like when he's looking in for the sign with men on base, those
eyes, and he smiles and says he's a little lost, he wonders if I know
a town called North Berwick, how to get there, and oh God, oh my God
I'm shaking, I won't be able to say a word, I'll open my mouth and
nothing will come out but a little dry squeak, what Dad calls a
mousefart, only when I try I can speak, I sound almost normal, and I
say...
I say, he says, then I say and then he says: thinking about how they
might talk while the fighting in the front seat of the Caravan drew
steadily farther away. (Sometimes, Trisha had decided, silence was
life's greatest blessing.) She was still looking fixedly at the
signature on the visor of her baseball cap when Mom turned into the
parking area, still far away (Trish is off in her own world was how
her father put it), unaware that there were teeth hidden in the
ordinary texture of things and she would soon know it. She was in
Sanford, not in TR-90. She was in the town park, not at an entry-point
to the Appalachian Trail. She was with Tom Gordon, Number 36, and he
was offering to buy her a hotdog in exhange for directions to North
Berwick.
Oh, bliss.
Copyright © 1999 by Stephen King
======================================
But thats my opinion, I may be wrong.
-dennis miller
======================================
Robert Whelan
First of all, this "surprise" novel is not a good sign. What was the
result the last time we had a "surprise" extra novel? The last
"surprise" was "The Regulators", tacked on to the release of
"Desperation." Why this stepped up pace of release? Because King's
sales have fallen off, so his publishers, whoever they are, must
make up the difference by releasing more. Of course, it's going to
be a vicious cycle. The more they release, the faster they release,
the more the quality will decline, and the more King's sales will
drop; the more King's sales drop, the more King material will
be released, of less and less quality...to who knows what abysmal
depths. I'm sure that many of us, after seeing "Rose Madder" and
"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
This excerpt seems to give us nothing but more of the same. Poorly
edited, poorly characterized, sentimental garbage. Why must King
"foreshadow" the key element of the girl getting lost? Why not
try to imagine it as it happens, instead of foreshadowing it and
then plugging in all the background material about the divorce,
and it's affect on her brother? Why not layer the background
material into the main story, in selected flashbacks? This
opening chapter reads like rough notes for an outline of
elements King wants to include in the story. How much do you
want to bet that a lot of this background material is repeated,
redundantly, during the course of the novel?
And King's misogyny seems to be shining through here...a bad mommy
gets divorced, which hurts her kids, and the little girl is "lost in the
woods" as a parallel for the trauma of Divorce. This opening chapter
paints the mother as a selfish person who doesn't really care about her
children's welfare. Already the message is being pounded into our
heads. Divorce is Bad. Little Girls Need Their Daddies. Mommies
who don't understand how much little girls need their daddies are
BAD. "Tom Gordon" in this excerpt, and likely redundantly repeated
throughout the novel, is a daddy substitute for this apparently
ditzy and shallow little girl.
Below I'm quoting the entire exerpt with my comments.
Pregame
The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.
Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old. At ten
o'clock on a morning in early June she was sitting in the back seat of
her mother's Dodge Caravan, wearing her blue Red Sox batting practice
jersey (the one with 36 GORDON on the back) and playing with Mona, her
doll. At ten thirty she was lost in the woods. By eleven she was
trying not to be terrified, trying not to let herself think, This is
serious, this is very serious. Trying not to think that sometimes when
people got lost in the woods they got seriously hurt. Sometimes they
died.
Why is the foreshadowing necessary? Why can't this be "pregame" material
be eliminated or just layered into the novel where it is relevant? Why
not an opening passage that describes the trip to the camping ground,
with relevent background applied to highlight certain portions of the
conversation?
All because I needed to pee, she thought...except she hadn't needed to
pee all that badly, and in any case she could have asked Mom and Pete
to wait up the trail a minute while she went behind a tree. They were
fighting again, gosh what a surprise that was, and that was why she
had dropped behind a little bit, and without saying anything. That was
why she had stepped off the trail and behind a high stand of bushes.
She needed a breather, simple as that. She was tired of listening to
them argue, tired of trying to sound bright and cheerful, close to
screaming at her mother, Let him go, then! If he wants to go back to
Malden and live with Dad so much, why don't you just let him? I'd
drive him myself if I had a license, just to get some peace and quiet
around here! And what then? What would her mother say then? What kind
of look would come over her face? And Pete. He was older, almost
fourteen, and not stupid, so why didn't he know better? Why couldn't
he just give it a rest? Cut the crap was what she wanted to say to him
(to both of them, really), just cut the crap.
Now, why does King fill in all this background material, after telling
us that the little girl is lost? It sounds like digressive notes on
material he WANTS to include, in a story that he hasn't written yet.
The little girl is thinking BACK on how she got into this situation,
a situation that terrifies her, and what she is remembering are her
own, angry, contemptuous thoughts for her family at the time? All this
material makes sense if you are going to tell the story linearly,
but not shoved into the thoughts of a girl who has just become lost,
and is focused on her situation as LOST. Yes, I know that King is
doing what he always does, paralleling his "terror" with real life
situations that he wants to make moral statements about, but it's
really clumsy to jam them so closely together this way. Would a
lost little girl really dwell on how much she wanted to tell her
little brother to "just cut the crap"? It would have been more
effective for King to show this sequence of events, so we would
understand WHY she dropped back, instead of this clumsy flashback
method.
The divorce had happened a year ago, and their mother had gotten
custody. Pete had protested the move from suburban Boston to southern
Maine bitterly and at length. Part of it really was wanting to be with
Dad, and that was the lever he always used on Mom (he understood with
some unerring instinct that it was the one he could plant the deepest
and pull on the hardest), but Trisha knew it wasn't the only reason,
or even the biggest one. The real reason Pete wanted out was that he
hated Sanford Middle School.
Does King really think it improves suspense to tease us with her getting
lost and then bore us with this hasty and perfunctory attempt to create
a background for this girl?
In Malden he'd had it pretty well whipped. He'd run the computer club
like it was his own private kingdom; he'd had friends -- nerds, yeah,
but they went around in a group and the bad kids didn't pick on them.
At Sanford Middle there was no computer club and he'd only made a
single friend, Eddie Rayburn. Then in January Eddie moved away, also
the victim of a parental breakup. That made Pete a loner, anyone's
game. Worse, a lot of kids laughed at him. He had picked up a nickname
which he hated: Pete's CompuWorld.
"Pete's Compuworld"? That's the best nickname bratty kids can come up
with? It's a really poor imagining of a cruel nickname. Real kids
would reject it as lame the very first time it was tried. It
certainly would not be adopted. How about "Robot Boy" or "Nerd King"?
King isn't putting any effort into this.
On most of the weekends when she and Pete didn't go down to Malden to
be with their father, their mother took them on outings. She was
grimly dedicated to these, and although Trisha wished with all her
heart that Mom would stop -- it was on the outings that the worst
fights happened -- she knew that wasn't going to happen. Quilla
Andersen (she had taken back her maiden name and you could bet Pete
hated that, too) had the courage of her convictions. Once, while
staying at the Malden house with Dad, Trisha had heard their father
talking to his own Dad on the phone. "If Quilla had been at Little Big
Horn, the Indians would have lost," he said, and although Trisha
didn't like it when Dad said stuff like that about Mom -- it seemed
babyish as well as disloyal -- she couldn't deny that there was a
nugget of truth in that particular observation.
Already we see the misogyny. Though their relationship with their father
is not overtly described as good, we've already seen that the girl's
brother uses the excuse that he "wants to be with Dad" though the girl
thinks its really due to the fact that this isn't as nice a school,
implying that the mother's moving was bad for her brother. Also, even
though King tries to be fair by suggesting that Trisha doesn't LIKE
it when her Dad says bad things about her mom, we are only getting
to know her mome through her Dad's negative comments, which Trisha
validates by admitting the "nugget of truth" to his comment, which
seems to paint her as a tough grim bitch. Pete is blamed for hating
her for "taking back her maiden name" but I'll bet you he's just
being used as a mouth puppet for King's hatred of women who abandon
their holy vows to honor and obey.
Over the last six months, as things grew steadily worse between Mom
and Pete, she had taken them to the auto museum in Wiscasset, to the
Shaker Village in Gray, to The New England Plant-A-Torium in North
Wyndham, to Six-Gun City in Randolph, New Hampshire, on a canoe trip
down the Saco River, and on a skiing trip to Sugarloaf (where Trisha
had sprained her ankle, an injury over which her mother and father had
later had a screaming fight; what fun divorce was, what really good
fun).
More parethetical, distracting inserts, within this long digressive
filling in of background, while we wait to get back to Trisha, lost
in the woods. And more annoying references to how bad divorce is.
Sometimes, if he really liked a place, Pete would give his mouth a
rest. He had pronounced Six-Gun City "for babies," but Mom had allowed
him to spend most of the visit in the room where the electronic games
were, and Pete had gone home not exactly happy but at least silent. On
the other hand, if Pete didn't like one of the places their Mom picked
(his least favorite by far had been the Plant-A-Torium; returning to
Sanford that day he had been in an especially boogery frame of mind),
he was generous in sharing his opinion. "Go along to get along" wasn't
in his nature. Nor was it in their mother's, Trisha supposed. She
herself thought it was an excellent philosophy, but of course everyone
took one look at her and pronounced her her father's child. Sometimes
that bothered her, but mostly she liked it.
Here again we see King's annoyingly cloying "Father and Daughter as
Buddies, vs. the evil Mommy" that we saw in the "uncut" Stand, and
in a sense, in Bag of Bones. Shouldn't King get some therapy to
resolve his own issues with his own domineering mother, instead of
creating fantasies in which he has relationships with adoring and
affectionate women too young to be threatening? All I know is that
this adoring-daughter fantasy of his is a poor way to characterize
a little girl, as it speaks of King's wish fulfilment, rather than
true insight into the mind of another. Is King not getting along
with his own daughter? Is this sort of pukey sentimentality his
way of trying to return to their previous, non-adult relationship?
Trisha didn't care where they went on Saturdays, and would have been
perfectly happy with a steady diet of amusement parks and mini-golf
courses just because they minimized the increasingly horrible
arguments. But Mom wanted the trips to be instructive, too -- hence
the Plant-A-Torium and Shaker Village. On top of his other problems,
Pete resented having education rammed down his throat on Saturdays,
when he would rather have been up in his room, playing Sanitarium or
Riven on his Mac. Once or twice he had shared his opinion ("This
sucks!" pretty well summed it up) so generously that Mom had sent him
back to the car and told him to sit there and "compose himself" until
she and Trisha came back.
Yup. Mom is definitely being painted as a nasty, domineering harpy.
Apparently it was all her fault that the divorce occurred.
Trisha wanted to tell Mom she was wrong to treat him like he was a
kindergartener who needed a time-out -- that someday they'd come back
to the van and find it empty, Pete having decided to hitchhike back to
Massachusetts -- but of course she said nothing. The Saturday outings
themselves were wrong, but Mom would never accept that. By the end of
some of them Quilla Andersen looked at least five years older than
when they had set out, with deep lines grooved down the sides of her
mouth and one hand constantly rubbing her temple, as if she had a
headache...but she would still never stop. Trisha knew it. Maybe if
her mother had been at Little Big Horn the Indians still would have
won, but the body-count would have been considerably higher.
We still don't know how old Trisha is, or how old her brother is, so
it's hard to know whether Trisha's thoughts, and superior ideas on
how to treat her brother, are natural for her age. But obviously
Trisha is being used as a mouth puppet for King's opinions on evil
women who take kids away from their Daddies.
This week's outing was to an unincorporated township in the western
part of the state. The Appalachian Trail wound through the area on its
way to New Hampshire. Sitting at the kitchen table the night before,
Mom had shown them photos from a brochure. Most of the pictures showed
happy hikers either striding along a forest trail or standing at
scenic lookouts, shading their eyes and peering across great wooded
valleys at the time-eroded but still formidable peaks of the central
White Mountains.
An unincorporated township? I hope this isn't a reference to the "T.R."
of Bag of Bones. I'm tired of King's tie-ins to other novels. They now
seem gimmicky.
Pete sat at the table, looking cataclysmically bored, refusing to give
the brochure more than a glance. For her part, Mom had refused to
notice his ostentatious lack of interest. Trisha, as was increasingly
her habit, became brightly enthusiastic. These days she often sounded
to herself like a contestant on a TV game show, all but peeing in her
pants at the thought of winning a set of waterless cookware. And how
did she feel to herself these days? Like glue holding together two
pieces of something that was broken. Weak glue.
Poor Trisha. A sad little victim of divorce, without her Daddy. No family
can survive properly without a Daddy. Yeah, King, we get it.
Quilla had closed the brochure and turned it over. On the back was a
map. She tapped a snaky blue line. "This is Route 68," she said.
"We'll park the car here, in this parking lot." She tapped a little
blue square. Now she traced one finger along a snaky red line. "This
is the Appalachian Trail between Route 68 and Route 302 in North
Conway, New Hampshire. It's only six miles, and rated Moderate.
Well...this one little section in the middle is marked
Moderate-to-Difficult, but not to the point where we'd need climbing
gear or anything."
What was King doing, looking at a map at the time, and plugging this
material about route 68 in as dialogue, in lieu of actually imagining
Quilla as a real woman, with a real personality?
She tapped another blue square. Pete was leaning his head on one hand,
looking the other way. The heel of his palm had pulled the left side
of his mouth up into a sneer. He had started getting pimples this year
and a fresh crop gleamed on his forehead. Trisha loved him, but
sometimes -- last night at the kitchen table, as Mom explained their
route, for example -- she hated him, too. She wanted to tell him to
stop being a chicken, because that was what it came down to when you
cut to the chase, as their Dad said. Pete wanted to run back to Malden
with his little teenage tail between his legs because he was a
chicken. He didn't care about Mom, didn't care about Trisha, didn't
even care if being with Dad would be good for him in the long run.
What Pete cared about was not having anyone to eat lunch with on the
gym bleachers. What Pete cared about was that when he walked into
homeroom after the first bell someone always yelled, "Hey CompuWorld!
Howya doon, homo-boy?"
King seems to be giving Quilla some benefit of the doubt in Trisha's
anger at Pete, who isn't concerned about whether being with Dad is
good for him in the long run. But still, Dad's wisdom is being quoted
"when you cut to the chase." in the same passage, whereas all Quilla
is given is dull information about the difficulty of trails.
"This is the parking lot where we come out," Mom had said, either not
noticing that Pete wasn't looking at the map or pretending not to.
"A van shows up there around three. It'll take us back around to our
car. Two hours later we're home again, and I'll haul you guys to a
movie if we're not too tired. How does that sound?"
How does it sound? It sounds like King is padding his novel with boring
dialogue.
More references to Dad! Dad liked to call her doll "Mona Moanie
Balogna(ney). Wasn't Dad a nice, funny, easygoing guy? If so, why
were they divorced? Why aren't we getting any insight into the
trauma of the divorce itself? Earlier there was a reference to her
mom yelling at Dad for some reason, but it seemed to be totally
Quilla's fault.
To escape them, Trisha opened the door to her favorite fantasy. She
took off her Red Sox cap and looked at the signature written across
the brim in broad black felt-tip strokes; this helped get her in the
mood. It was Tom Gordon's signature. Pete liked Mo Vaughn, and their
Mom was partial to Nomar Garciaparra, but Tom Gordon was Trisha's and
her Dad's favorite Red Sox player. Tom Gordon was the Red Sox closer;
he came on in the eighth or ninth inning when the game was close but
the Sox were still on top. Her Dad admired Gordon because he never
seemed to lose his nerve -- "Flash has got icewater in his veins,"
Larry McFarland liked to say -- and Trisha always said the same thing,
sometimes adding that she liked Gordon because he had the guts to
throw a curve on three-and-oh (this was something her father had read
to her in a Boston Globe column). Only to Moanie Balogna and (once) to
her girlfriend, Pepsi Robichaud, had she said more. She told Pepsi she
thought Tom Gordon was "pretty good-looking." To Mona she threw
caution entirely to the winds, saying that Number 36 was the
handsomest man alive, and if he ever touched her hand she'd faint. If
he ever kissed her, even on the cheek, she thought she'd probably die.
Right. To escape her fighting Mom and Brother she retreats to a Daddy
fantasy involving Tom Gordon. How precious. How cute. How insistent that
women can't survive unless they have a good strong man as part of their
life.
Now, as her mother and her brother fought in the front seat -- about
the outing, about Sanford Middle School, about their dislocated life
-- Trisha looked at the signed cap her Dad had somehow gotten her in
March, just before the season started, and thought this:
"Now"? Wait, I thought we were in flashback, that "Now" was when Trisha
was already lost. I guess King forgot what his own setup was, or
never went back and wrote out the false start, when later he decided
to start the story linearly.
I'm in Sanford Park, just walking across the playground to Pepsi's
house on an ordinary day. And there's this guy standing at the hotdog
wagon. He's wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt and he's got a gold
chain around his neck -- he's got his back to me but I can see the
chain winking in the sun. Then he turns around and I see...oh I can't
believe it but it's true, it's really him, it's Tom Gordon, why he's
in Sanford is a mystery but it's him, all right, and oh God his eyes,
just like when he's looking in for the sign with men on base, those
eyes, and he smiles and says he's a little lost, he wonders if I know
a town called North Berwick, how to get there, and oh God, oh my God
I'm shaking, I won't be able to say a word, I'll open my mouth and
nothing will come out but a little dry squeak, what Dad calls a
mousefart, only when I try I can speak, I sound almost normal, and I
say...
I'm sorry, but would a real fan actually imagine being unable to speak
in the presence of her idol? What she's imagining might be her actual
reaction in his presence, but I doubt it would be her imagining of
the event. This is King's imagining of how a fan might react to an
idol, misplaced in the imagining of that fan. Plus, it paints Trisha
as a mindless ditz, which is King's favorite type. And of course, her
imaginings include distracting references to the beloved, absent Daddy,
and his comments on the "mousefart" noises that she imagines she would
be making. Wonderful. King places the God/Narrator desire to paint
Trisha as a cute, ditzy little girl, by making Trisha imagine herself
that way.
I say, he says, then I say and then he says: thinking about how they
might talk while the fighting in the front seat of the Caravan drew
steadily farther away. (Sometimes, Trisha had decided, silence was
life's greatest blessing.) She was still looking fixedly at the
signature on the visor of her baseball cap when Mom turned into the
parking area, still far away (Trish is off in her own world was how
her father put it), unaware that there were teeth hidden in the
ordinary texture of things and she would soon know it. She was in
Sanford, not in TR-90. She was in the town park, not at an entry-point
to the Appalachian Trail. She was with Tom Gordon, Number 36, and he
was offering to buy her a hotdog in exhange for directions to North
Berwick.
Oh, bliss.
The parentheses above are another annoying aspect of King's writing now
that has apparently seen no amendation by an editor's pen. Why does
Trisha have to think about "silence being life's greatest blessing"
in the middle of a fantasy that is shutting away the arguments of
her mom and brother? If the fantasy is really involving her, why
is she dropping out of it to comment on the fact that it is, in
fact, involving her? Ridiculous.
Trisha seems like an annoying airhead. Wonderful. Little Girls of the
World, take note. This is what King thinks should be your Ideal.
Robert W.
Kim Hammers
Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>This excerpt seems to give us nothing but more of the same. Poorly
>edited, poorly characterized, sentimental garbage
Mr. Whelan -
In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says he
enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
Kim
Rob Lancaster
Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>
>
>
>result the last time we had a "surprise" extra novel? The last
>"surprise" was "The Regulators", tacked on to the release of
>"Desperation." Why this stepped up pace of release? Because King's
>sales have fallen off, so his publishers, whoever they are, must
>make up the difference by releasing more. Of course, it's going to
>be a vicious cycle. The more they release, the faster they release,
>the more the quality will decline, and the more King's sales will
>drop; the more King's sales drop, the more King material will
>be released, of less and less quality...to who knows what abysmal
>depths. I'm sure that many of us, after seeing "Rose Madder" and
>"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
>
very close together, and IMO these are all excellent works (OK, I know lots
of people here will disagree about Tommyknockers). I will continue to judge
them on reading them rather than the frequency they are published with.
Rob.
Robert Whelan
>
> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>
> >This excerpt seems to give us nothing but more of the same. Poorly
> >edited, poorly characterized, sentimental garbage
>
>
>
> Mr. Whelan -
>
> In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
> comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
> disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says he
> enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
> Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
> you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
> living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
Dear Kim
Thanks for your advice. It would have been nice, however, if you had
added something to the discussion other than what I'll sum up as
"If you don't like King, go away."
I continue to try to read King because he once had a "standard of
excellence" of a sort, of his own. It's his own standard that he
is no longer living up to, not mine. I keep trying him in the hope
that a spark of what used to be great will return.
Do you have a problem with this, Kim?
Robert.
Robert Whelan
> On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Kim Hammers wrote:
Kim,
Honestly, there's this big excerpt to the novel posted. Why don't you
read it and make some comments of your own, about the excerpt?
Robert.
Robert Whelan
>
> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
> >
> >
> >
> >First of all, this "surprise" novel is not a good sign. What was the
> >result the last time we had a "surprise" extra novel? The last
> >"surprise" was "The Regulators", tacked on to the release of
> >"Desperation." Why this stepped up pace of release? Because King's
> >sales have fallen off, so his publishers, whoever they are, must
> >make up the difference by releasing more. Of course, it's going to
> >be a vicious cycle. The more they release, the faster they release,
> >the more the quality will decline, and the more King's sales will
> >drop; the more King's sales drop, the more King material will
> >be released, of less and less quality...to who knows what abysmal
> >depths. I'm sure that many of us, after seeing "Rose Madder" and
> >"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
> >
> IIRC, IT, Eyes of the Dragon, Tommyknockers and Misery all came out
> very close together, and IMO these are all excellent works (OK, I know lots
> of people here will disagree about Tommyknockers). I will continue to judge
> them on reading them rather than the frequency they are published with.
IT was okay, parts of it. EOTD was horrible. Tommyknockers was horrible.
This leaves only half of IT, and MISERY as the quality output for that
period (if you are accurate in placing them close together.)
Have you read the Tom Gordon excerpt, Rob? What do you think of it?
Robert
Richard Edwards
> This leaves only half of IT, and MISERY as the quality output for that
> period (if you are accurate in placing them close together.)
This assumes that your opinions are not utter shit, which they are.
Just thought you'd like to know.
Later,
Richard
Peckinpah
the Shining, The Stand, Dead Zone,Pet Sematry, Salems's Lot, Dalk Half, is
abesent in 'rushed books' and only glimpsed in parts, eg. the opening of 'IT'
but then it turned totally wank.
This 'snippit' looks like a Dolores, Geralds, Madder - Style I am afraid to
report.
SaM
One step, and the second gets you where you're going.....
Robert R McCammon
Kim Hammers
Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>
>>
>> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Mr. Whelan -
>>
>> In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
>> comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
>> disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says
he
>> enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
>> Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
>> you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
>> living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
>
>
>Dear Kim
>
> Thanks for your advice. It would have been nice, however, if you had
>added something to the discussion other than what I'll sum up as
>"If you don't like King, go away."
>
>I continue to try to read King because he once had a "standard of
>excellence" of a sort, of his own. It's his own standard that he
>is no longer living up to, not mine. I keep trying him in the hope
>that a spark of what used to be great will return.
>
>Do you have a problem with this, Kim?
>
>Robert.
Mr. Whelan -
I am sorry if you feel I added nothing to the discussion. Honestly, I didn't
think that at the point I wrote you there WAS a discussion. All I saw up to
that point was your critical synopsis of a preface to the new King book,
with your inimitable style of telling everyone why it was a terrible piece
of work.
I certainly did not mean to intimate to you that I felt "If you don't like
King, you should go away." I did, in fact, seriously want to know why you
continued to read the books of an author you seemingly have nothing but
criticism for, and who you continuously drag through the coals with
disparaging comments. I certainly would not be so presumptuous as to tell
you to "go away". This is, after all, not "alt.only people who agree with
Kim".
Your last paragraph was certainly the most informative to me. I respect the
fact that you feel King has not lived up to his earlier works. I, too, have
felt a slight twinge of disappointment in some of his recent attempts, and
yet, like you, have continued to read in the hopes that he will again be
"inspired" to write something that will compel me to peek under my bed or
into my closet before going to sleep at night. (Or better yet, being afraid
to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.)
I only wrote to ask you the question I did, because you come across as being
so thoroughly disgusted that it is hard to recognize that you EVER enjoyed
King, and instead of comparing and contrasting the things you don't like in
the newer works with things you DID like in the older ones; it seems as
though you just compare and contrast with a set of standards that are
internal and unrealizable or unattainable by anyone.
I am truly sorry if I offended you in any way - I was merely curious.
Kim
Covenant
(Eeeexcellent.........)
; ' )
Covenant.
Kim Hammers wrote in message <7d0lr0$1l...@enews1.newsguy.com>...
>Mr. Whelan -
>
>In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
>comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
>disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says he
>enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
>Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
>you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
>living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
>
>Kim
>
>
Robert Whelan
> Robert Whelan wrote:
>
> > This leaves only half of IT, and MISERY as the quality output for that
> > period (if you are accurate in placing them close together.)
>
> This assumes that your opinions are not utter shit, which they are.
>
> Just thought you'd like to know.
IT was half bad because King can't do adults, and didn't do adults well
in that story. Eyes of the Dragon was bad because King gave up on
writing it well, or only rewrote the beginning. I remember both
times I tried EOTD, being enthralled up to a point, and then finding
the writing degrade and become incredibly sloppy, and rambling.
So how woud you rank all four novels? You would rank EOTD and
TOMMYKNOCKERS over IT and MISERY?
Robert
Robert Whelan
>
> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
> >On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Kim Hammers wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
> >>
> >> >This excerpt seems to give us nothing but more of the same. Poorly
> >> >edited, poorly characterized, sentimental garbage
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Mr. Whelan -
> >>
> >> In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
> >> comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
> >> disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says
> he
> >> enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
> >> Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
> >> you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
> >> living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
> >
> >
> >Dear Kim
> >
> > Thanks for your advice. It would have been nice, however, if you had
> >added something to the discussion other than what I'll sum up as
> >"If you don't like King, go away."
> >
> >I continue to try to read King because he once had a "standard of
> >excellence" of a sort, of his own. It's his own standard that he
> >is no longer living up to, not mine. I keep trying him in the hope
> >that a spark of what used to be great will return.
> >
> >Do you have a problem with this, Kim?
> >
> >Robert.
>
>
> Mr. Whelan -
>
> I am sorry if you feel I added nothing to the discussion. Honestly, I didn't
> think that at the point I wrote you there WAS a discussion. All I saw up to
> that point was your critical synopsis of a preface to the new King book,
> with your inimitable style of telling everyone why it was a terrible piece
> of work.
Sorry Kim...I was being a bit snotty.
<snip>
> Your last paragraph was certainly the most informative to me. I respect the
> fact that you feel King has not lived up to his earlier works. I, too, have
> felt a slight twinge of disappointment in some of his recent attempts, and
> yet, like you, have continued to read in the hopes that he will again be
> "inspired" to write something that will compel me to peek under my bed or
> into my closet before going to sleep at night. (Or better yet, being afraid
> to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.)
This is pretty much the way I feel.
> I only wrote to ask you the question I did, because you come across as being
> so thoroughly disgusted that it is hard to recognize that you EVER enjoyed
> King, and instead of comparing and contrasting the things you don't like in
> the newer works with things you DID like in the older ones; it seems as
> though you just compare and contrast with a set of standards that are
> internal and unrealizable or unattainable by anyone.
I've been over a year on Usenet, and on this group, and because I've been
here I've been reading a lot of his books that normally I just dropped
because I didn't think they were good enough. I actually was doing a
massive thread (The Stand: Edited vs. Unedited) that contrasted the
old Stand with the new Stand, and it forced me to focus on how
tolerant of crap the new King has become. I guess my disgust comes
from being such a fan previously.
Robert.
Rob Lancaster
Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>>
>> Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>> >
>
>
I'd
wait until the book came out here. I have gone back and had a look now,
however.
IMO, the excerpt is not long enough to judge from, however, if I went into a
bookshop and browsed this bit, then I would definitely take it over to the
checkout.
A few comments on your notes. I actually like the way the Pregame section
appears,
it is a brief but impactful opening, and is the sort of thing that drags me
straight into
the story. ( The "for want of a nail...." opening to Tommyknockers suggests
momentous
events to come, and "the terror, which would not end for...." in IT is also
a grabber.)
Totally agree with you on "Petes Compuworld", utterly lame.
As far as King siding with the father goes, I think he is trying to put
across that they
(most particularly Trisha, Pete seems more selfish) are torn between the 2.
The kids
are going to get on better with the father because they only see him on a
few occasions,
the visits come across as something special, to look forward to, and the
father will
naturally structure his time with them around what they want, rather than
the mother who
is with them all the time and has to structure her time around such things
as shopping
for them and working to keep them.
Again, the reference to her father and Mona moanie.. is just an association
she makes
as she has hold of the doll, and the fact that the basis of the row between
her mother and
brother is based around her father.
IIRC from what I have seen posted here, she is 10, and I agree that some of
her observations
seen more "adult" than you might expect of a 10 year old ( and certainly
more so than I can
remember having at that age). This seems common among kids in most of Kings
works. (Charlie
in Firestarter and Danny in The Shining spring to mind, although Dannys
abilities would seem to
explain this to a degree, although he was only 5)
"Maybe if her mother had been at Little Big Horn the Indians still would
have
won, but the body-count would have been considerably higher."
I liked this, made me LOL.
Agree with your comment about the bit in parenthesis in the last paragraph.
The "Trish is in
her own world" one, not the silence one. The own world bit is jarring to my
flow of reading, and
irritated me.
On the whole, I liked it as an opening (King nearly always does good
openings) and would want
to read on. I haven't ever got the impression of mysogeny from Kings work,
and don't see it here.
I look forward to reading the whole thing. (although as a british reader,
excessive baseball
references may confuse me :)
Rob.
Wag
Wag
Kim Hammers wrote in message <7d0lr0$1l...@enews1.newsguy.com>...
>
>Robert Whelan wrote in message ...
>
>>This excerpt seems to give us nothing but more of the same. Poorly
>>edited, poorly characterized, sentimental garbage
>
>
>
>Mr. Whelan -
>
>In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
>comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
>disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says he
>enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
>Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
>you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
>living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
>
>Kim
>
>
Paul Poroshin
> >"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
> >
WHAT? these are, in my opinion, 2 of king's best novels of the 90s!
especially RM! doesnt anyone agree?
Robert Whelan
> I'm sure that many of us, after seeing "Rose Madder" and
> > >"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
> > >
>
> WHAT? these are, in my opinion, 2 of king's best novels of the 90s!
> especially RM! doesnt anyone agree?
Just curious, are you familiar with his work prior to the 90's?
Did you start reading his 90's novels first? Do you prefer his
90's novels to his 80's and 70's novels?
A lot of folks who like his earlier stuff find his 90's novels to
be uniformly bad. RM is easily the worst.
mst
>comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
>disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says
>he enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
Just to defend Mr. Whelan a bit here, I HAVE personal correspondence from
him that shows he DID genuinely appreciate King's earlier works, and has
thought about them intelligently and analytically. His disdain for the more
recent publications has been sharply worded, but is, for the most part,
justified given the drop in quality.
Perhaps if we had more ON-TOPIC threads in this newsgroup that address the
CONTENT of King's works, including the older books, we would hear more
positive comments from Mr. Whelan and other fans who are disappointed with
the latest offerings...myself included.
The number of OT posts on absk is mushrooming...and you know what
saprophytes feed on...
--
Teri
++++
"Well, since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable
to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."
Tock the Watchdog
mst
I read the GWLTG excerpt and found it tedious, as a matter of fact. King's
preaching at us again, instead of letting the story unfold naturally, he's
directing our perceptions, not trusting us to pick up the message on our
own. It's interesting to me that all of the characters as depicted in this
first chapter are essentially caricatures, not fully developed or given any
voice (no dialogue, no voice...duh) in which we can hear them speak for
themselves. Even Trisha, our ostensible heroine, is given a
(self-described) false, artificially cheerful voice...how does he expect us
to care about this girl when even SHE thinks of herself as fake and
weak-willed? So far, I don't like any of the people I've met, and that's
what needs to happen if I'm going to care whether or not they make it to the
end of the book in one piece. Make me care, Steve...is that too much to
ask?
As far as the divorce message is concerned, it's clear where he's going with
it, and it's not even interesting. Yeah, we all know divorce is bad, but
since we have no idea what the situation was BEFORE the divorce, we're
really in no position to judge this particular case. Let's see how the
details of THAT part of the story pan out...but from the bit we've already
seen, it's probably going to be painted in HUGE OBVIOUS strokes that leave
no room for ambiguity or subtlety. King used to be able to walk a finer
line between good and bad, his villains used to be human, at least, and his
heroes had painfully human flaws. Now we get perfect angels threatened by
demonic villains, and it leaves me cold...there's no connection to MY life
because my reality isn't painted in black and white.
Covenant
mst wrote in message ...
>Kim Hammers wrote in message <7d0lr0$1l...@enews1.newsguy.com>...
>>In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
>>comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
>>disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says
>>he enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
>
>
>Just to defend Mr. Whelan a bit here, I HAVE personal correspondence from
>him that shows he DID genuinely appreciate King's earlier works, and has
>thought about them intelligently and analytically. His disdain for the
more
>recent publications has been sharply worded, but is, for the most part,
>justified given the drop in quality.
>
>Perhaps if we had more ON-TOPIC threads in this newsgroup that address the
>CONTENT of King's works, including the older books, we would hear more
>positive comments from Mr. Whelan and other fans who are disappointed with
>the latest offerings...myself included.
Then why not START one of those threads yourself? (I'm afraid just
constantly posting that BoB is a second rate porn novel doesn't seem to be
intelligent critique to me...)
Hmmm???
I'm ready for it........
Covenant.
A Man With Far Too Much Time On His Hands Who Considers The OT Posts The
Thing That Gives This NG It's Soul And Stops It Being *Just Another NG*
stevie
someone else wrote:
>>I'm sure that many of us, after seeing "Rose Madder" and
>>"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
> WHAT? these are, in my opinion, 2 of king's best novels of the 90s!
> especially RM! doesnt anyone agree?
Lots of folks agree. RM is my favourite King novel of all, and I found
BofB to be a wonderful read, a great story, and a terrific change of
pace.
But then, I have always been one to embrace artists who grow and evolve
in their artistry, choosing not to stagnate and regurgitate.
I think that many of those who dump on latter day King, are in fact
those who regret that King is one of those artists ... he moves on and
takes those who choose to follow with him.
Stevie
stevie
>Just to defend Mr. Whelan a bit here, I HAVE personal correspondence
>from him that shows he DID genuinely appreciate King's earlier works,
>and has thought about them intelligently and analytically. His disdain
>for the more recent publications has been sharply worded, but is, for
>the most part, justified given the drop in quality.
>Perhaps if we had more ON-TOPIC threads in this newsgroup that address
>the CONTENT of King's works, including the older books, we would hear
>more positive comments from Mr. Whelan and other fans who are
>disappointed with the latest offerings...myself included.
You obvisouly haven't been around her long, or you would know that RW,
aka Fuzzy Bunny, aka One of the Fascists, aka ... is obsessive in both
his likes and dislikes, and entirely egocentric in his view of
literature. He believes he knows the mind of the author, and he believes
that anyone who holds and opinion contrary to his own is wrong, and in
need of being shown the error of their ways.
He is, in short, that bane of at least two ngs.
> The number of OT posts on absk is mushrooming...and you know what
> saprophytes feed on...
If you want more On Topic, start some and contribute to those that do
arise ... it is the only way to make a difference in the direction you
claim to want.
So, on that note, why do you think King has declined, rather than simply
changed?
I think that more of King's best work is "latter-day" King. Gerald's
Game, Rose Madder, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, the third and fourth DT
volumes, Bag of Bones, these are all among the better third of King's
output, and the only "early" books that compare are Salem's Lot, Dead
Zone and Pet Sematary.
Well, that's my view anyway, YM, of course, MV.
That's a statement, btw, that you are never likely to encounter from the
keyboard of RW, who you choose to defend, apparently because you have
similar tastes to his own.
Stevie
Xavier
Kim Hammers <ki...@gls3c.com> wrote in message
news:7d0lr0$1l...@enews1.newsguy.com...
>
> Mr. Whelan -
>
> In all seriousness, why do you continue to read Stephen King? All of the
> comments I have seen from you, on any King book, have been either
> disparaging first person accounts or argumentative with someone who says
he
> enjoyed a certain element of a certain novel.
> Perhaps you should investigate a new author, one that would at least give
> you some enjoyment for the time you invest in their work, if King is not
> living up to your standards of quality and excellence.
>
> Kim
>
No doubt....and to put it a little less eloquently...I dont think I can
stand deleting through all this redundant drivel again like I had to do with
BOB. Robert, if you don't like it, leave it well enough alone. Why do you
continue to read it if you are so terribly against everything it stands for?
Why do you continue to read it if you can't even deal with the way it's
edited? And why oh why must you continue to rant and rave in tirade after
tirade here? We know your opinion on anything that comes out of King's
mouth or pen and I for one am tired of listening to it.
--
Carrie
Xav...@Outline.Org
"Sometimes nothing's colder than the sun, on a bad day...
........sometimes nothing warms you...like the rain "
stevie
> stevie wrote in message <36F6ED...@rogerswave.com>...
> >You obvisouly haven't been around her long, or you would know that RW,
> >aka Fuzzy Bunny, aka One of the Fascists, aka ... is obsessive in both
> >his likes and dislikes, and entirely egocentric in his view of
> >literature.
>He may have come across that way here, but in my correspondence with
>him, he has made mostly astute and relevant comments on the works, as
>well as some genuinely affectionate reflections on his prior experience
>reading SK. I can tell he USED to adore King's work, as I did, and is
>sorely disappointed with the recent offerings...as I am.
Exactly. You agree with RW's perspective, and therefore he is civil, and
pertinent in his private e-mails with you. RW's problem in this forum
arises when someone _disagrees_ with him. He cannot accept the notion of
differing, yet equally valid, points of view, and he heads for the ditch
of obsessive rudeness really very quickly, when anyone dares to express
a pov different from his own.
Witness his diatribes and rants against anyone who dares say they liked
Bag of Bones, or Rose Madder, or The Regulators. It really is offensive.
Or for the flip side, go check out his "in favour of" rants on The
Shining. It's all there in its putrescent infamy on deja news.
>I can see that Robert has pissed people off in the past, but since *I*
>haven't been subject to that, I don't see that it would be logical of
>me to join in yelling at him.
No, it wouldn't be, but it doesn't mean you need to defend him as a
generally cogent and sensible poster to the group, based on your private
e-conversations with him. Quite simply, he does not behave well in this
forum.
>And it seems that he is TRYING to avoid flamewars in this thread, given
>his apology to Kim, so why provoke him?
RW is infamous for ranting on at the drop of a feather, only to come
back with some half assed apology or posted reminder to himself, not to
take his frustrations out on the ng. Then before too long, he is back at
it again. It gets pretty tired and meaningless after a few iterations.
>>So, on that note, why do you think King has declined, rather than
>>simply changed?
>As a lifelong student of literature, I firmly believe that truly GREAT
>books are character-driven as opposed to plot-driven.
That's fine, but it is just an opinion, and not an objective evaluation
of literature. Well worth arguing, but hardly literary-critical fact.
>King's characters used to be vividly drawn, full of life and so
>believable that you could imagine them breathing beside you as you read.
Many, including myself, find his characters at least as good, if not
better, in his more recent work. Ralph in Insomnia, Jessie in Gerald's
Game, Dolores in DC, are all superb and richly drawn characters, the
equal of anything from King's earlier work.
> That talent has been sadly absent from his works of the last ten years
> or so, and he has moved onto more stereotypical, broadly drawn
> characters...more like caricatures, really.
Yep, I can see why you have no problem with RW.
>The plots have not improved, either, relying too heavily on randomly
>appearing supernatural phenomenon instead of human-related horrors that
>have some connection to real-life issues.
That's odd, I would have said that King has, if anything, moved away
from the supernatural and dealt far more with the real-life issues in
his more recent work. Random supernatural phenomena? Try The Shining.
>To me, it's a lot more frightening to consider the evil deeds that
>PEOPLE have committed and the possibly horrific results than to imagine
>being targeted by some otherworldly monster whose origins are poorly
>explained.
Exactly why Rose Madder, Gerald's Game, Insomnia and Dolores Claiborne
are so damned good.
>>That's a statement, btw, that you are never likely to encounter from
>>the keyboard of RW, who you choose to defend, apparently because you
>>have similar tastes to his own.
> Well it would certainly sound hollow if I tried to defend someone whose
> tastes I DIDN'T share, wouldn't it? What was your point?
No, not at all, and the fact that you can't see that, kind of makes my
point. The problems inherent in RW's behaviour on this ng, have nothing
to do with his pov on the works of King, and everything to do with his
inability to recognize differing yet equally valid perspectives from his
own.
You don't have to agree with someone to defend their modus operandi in
discussion, nor do you have to disagree with them in matters of opinion,
to denounce poor behaviour.
Stevie
--
Just tell good stories.
Norman Jewison
at the '99 Oscars.
PCB
I find his latest works, BoB, RM, GG, D/R are all good reads. This is
my opinion, of course. I really enjoyed BoB, but thought that the door
was left open for a continuation. I noticed in the "pregame" of TGWLTG
that the TR came up again that was in BoB. I think its the same place
that SK was referring too. It sure sounded familiar.
I think that in RM that SK just decided to address the issue of abuse,
since, unfortunately seems to be more commonplace these days then it
once was, and mix it up with a little of the supernatural. No, I don't
think abuse is more commonplace today then it was some time ago, but
now its more talked about. I am glad that more people report abuse and
get out of abusive relationships then they once did, but then that is
off the subject.
I thought that GG was a good book too. SK just used a more "today"
horror then a supernatural one. I think GG was horror just because
that could actually happen to anyone and not just a character in a
book.
I like SK's old stuff...Salem's Lot is one of my favorties.
I don't see anything wrong with SK venturing down new literary
avenues. Everyone changes. I for one, will continue to read and enjoy
SK. I may not like every single book that he puts out, but then, "You
can't please all the people all the time," you know?
I will return to lurking now. Thanks for reading.
PCB
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
ste...@hcslink.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3119
"All the world is a stage and we are merely players" If that is the
case, I want a rewrite on my role!
stevie
>It's a terribly condescending attitude to have towards the people who
>made him what he is.
The notion that readers "made" SK "what he is", is either nonsensical or
arrogant. King is a writer. He made himself, by recognizing his talent,
and working his butt off, day in, day out, year in, year out, writing.
We, the readers, _get_ from King. Those who continue to read him, when
they feel they are getting nothing, are banging their heads against the
wall, and seem to me to be in it for the whinge value.
Stevie
Kim Hammers
PCB wrote in message <36f6b234...@news.newsguy.com>...
>
>I think that in RM that SK just decided to address the issue of abuse,
>since, unfortunately seems to be more commonplace these days then it
>once was, and mix it up with a little of the supernatural. No, I don't
>think abuse is more commonplace today then it was some time ago, but
>now its more talked about. I am glad that more people report abuse and
>get out of abusive relationships then they once did, but then that is
>off the subject.
Hi -
I think you are correct here, and maybe that was the point of writing this
book. If you consider that SK's "audience" were young adults when Carrie
came out, and that SK, himself, was that much younger, then the horrors that
they are addressing in their lives are "growing up" right along with them.
Perhaps the horrors being faced by this audience is no longer being made fun
of at the prom, but having the boy you went to the prom with coming home and
beating you up night after night, physically and/or mentally.
I think that our collective fears change over time, and I think that King
tries to define these fears through his "horror novels". The horror of the
vampire in the basement (Salem's Lot) may give way to the fear of your child
dying, and how you would deal with that (as in Pet Semetary). I think that
the reason some of his excursions into the realms of these fears work, and
others don't, is his perspective.
Notice that the fear of a child dying is a universal fear. It cuts across
class, race, and gender. King was able to effectively deal with this issue,
because he was able to relate to it.
The horror of a spouse who abuses you, sexually or physically, as in Rose
Madder and Gerald's Game weren't that effective efforts. I think this is,
again, because of point of view. King cannot truly understand the fear of
leaving an abusive spouse when you have no money and no way to support
yourself, anymore than he could understand a woman's point of view in being
sexually abused, or abandoned, as in Gerald's Game.
Maybe that is why the later efforts have not been up to the quality that is
demanded by the audience. I think that King had much more universal fears,
and was able to express them to an audience that he could relate to, while
he was poor, sitting in a trailer, worrying about feeding his family. I
think that his fame and wealth has defeated anything he could ever be truly
afraid of.
Kim - Just my Opinion, you are not compelled in any way to agree.
Douglas Spirit
mst wrote:
<snipped>
> >So, on that note, why do you think King has declined, rather than simply
> >changed?
>
> As a lifelong student of literature, I firmly believe that truly GREAT books
> are character-driven as opposed to plot-driven. King's characters used to
> be vividly drawn, full of life and so believable that you could imagine them
> breathing beside you as you read. That talent has been sadly absent from
> his works of the last ten years or so, and he has moved onto more
> stereotypical, broadly drawn characters...more like caricatures, really.
I don't know. I still love most of his characters. I can see some of what
you are talking about here, but truly Geralds Game was one long Characterization
don't you think? Truly Kings great accomplishments have been in his characters,
but I hardly feel that even all of his old stuff has these great characters.
Consider Carrie, its a lot like what you are saying of his latest stuff. Eyes
of the Dragon to an extent, even Pet Semetary a little bit.
> The plots have not improved, either, relying too heavily on randomly
> appearing supernatural phenomenon instead of human-related horrors that have
> some connection to real-life issues.
Again I don't really see that this has changed all that much at all. I
point once again to Gerald's Game, and Deloris Claiborne. And I will point back
to almost everyone of his other books for examples of "randomly appearing
supernatural phenomenon instead of human-related horrors." His short stories
don't rely to heavely on the supernatural but I will say with firm conviction
that Most of his early works do.
> To me, it's a lot more frightening to consider the evil deeds that PEOPLE
> have committed and the possibly horrific results than to imagine being
> targeted by some otherworldly monster whose origins are poorly explained.
I agree, and this is another reason I love the Stand, but then there is
Flagg isn't there? Most of his novels contain this otherworldly Monster you are
not fond of. It can't be simplified by saying "early works" "later works." Bag
of Bones was about that human side you like so much, with the ghost thrown in,
just like anything King writes.
> >I think that more of King's best work is "latter-day" King.
> <snipped>
> >Well, that's my view anyway, YM, of course, MV.
>
> That is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Would you like to expand
> on WHY you feel this way as I have expanded on MY opinion above?
I know I am not the original poster to whom you refer here, but I would
like to know more about why you don't like his later stuff. So far your reasons
have included elements from his early works as well.
<snipped a last little bit>
What is your favorite book by King? I know I dread this question because I
like so many (including early and latter works...LOL), but I was just wondering
if you had one single or a couple that you really liked. And then of course why
you liked them, to make this a funner thread.
Thanks,
Dow. (who personally loves the balance between OT and on topic in this
group)
mst
doesn't seem to be the kind of stuff that people on this ng are interested
in. That doesn't bother me, I only skim this place anyway, and unless
something REALLY grabs me, I can ignore it.
If the majority of the folks on absk LIKE OT posts, that's their deal...but
to bash those who WOULD like to raise the topic of literary merit goes
against the very principle that absk is supposed to support.
Like I said before, Robert CAN be harsh, and I suppose it's understandable
that that has angered people in the past. But to dismiss his pov altogether
doesn't serve our purpose either...that is, assuming the purpose of this ng
IS, at its heart, to discuss the works of Stephen King.
mst
>You obvisouly haven't been around her long, or you would know that RW,
>aka Fuzzy Bunny, aka One of the Fascists, aka ... is obsessive in both
>his likes and dislikes, and entirely egocentric in his view of
>literature.
He may have come across that way here, but in my correspondence with him, he
has made mostly astute and relevant comments on the works, as well as some
genuinely affectionate reflections on his prior experience reading SK. I
can tell he USED to adore King's work, as I did, and is sorely disappointed
with the recent offerings...as I am.
I can see that Robert has pissed people off in the past, but since *I*
haven't been subject to that, I don't see that it would be logical of me to
join in yelling at him. And it seems that he is TRYING to avoid flamewars
in this thread, given his apology to Kim, so why provoke him?
>If you want more On Topic, start some and contribute to those that do
>arise ... it is the only way to make a difference in the direction you
>claim to want.
I have, as I addressed in my response to Covenant's post.
>So, on that note, why do you think King has declined, rather than simply
>changed?
As a lifelong student of literature, I firmly believe that truly GREAT books
are character-driven as opposed to plot-driven. King's characters used to
be vividly drawn, full of life and so believable that you could imagine them
breathing beside you as you read. That talent has been sadly absent from
his works of the last ten years or so, and he has moved onto more
stereotypical, broadly drawn characters...more like caricatures, really.
The plots have not improved, either, relying too heavily on randomly
appearing supernatural phenomenon instead of human-related horrors that have
some connection to real-life issues.
To me, it's a lot more frightening to consider the evil deeds that PEOPLE
have committed and the possibly horrific results than to imagine being
targeted by some otherworldly monster whose origins are poorly explained.
>I think that more of King's best work is "latter-day" King.
<snipped>
>Well, that's my view anyway, YM, of course, MV.
That is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Would you like to expand
on WHY you feel this way as I have expanded on MY opinion above?
>That's a statement, btw, that you are never likely to encounter from the
>keyboard of RW, who you choose to defend, apparently because you have
>similar tastes to his own.
Well it would certainly sound hollow if I tried to defend someone whose
tastes I DIDN'T share, wouldn't it? What was your point?
--
mst
>I really feel that I have to agree with Robert, that the King-Quality seen
in
>the Shining, The Stand, Dead Zone,Pet Sematry, Salems's Lot, Dalk Half, is
>abesent in 'rushed books' and only glimpsed in parts, eg. the opening of
'IT'
>but then it turned totally wank.
You're a brave soul to agree with Robert. In the name of solidarity, I
guess I would have to agree with YOU.
And, in the interest of maintaining a critical, analytical dialogue, here
are some questions for all of us to consider...
Do you think that the drop in quality IS related to the speed in which they
are published? I'm looking at my SK collection, shelved in order of
publication, and it's pretty damned obvious that the books keep growing and
growing and growing as time goes on. If this means that the editors are
getting lazy, not bothering to ask SK to rewrite, cut and trim his work,
does it mean that the earlier works were originally longer than they turned
out? We KNOW that was the case with the Stand, but what other books appear
to have had serious surgery done prepub? Are there pieces "missing" from
some of the earlier works that may have enhanced our enjoyment of them?
>This 'snippit' looks like a Dolores, Geralds, Madder - Style I am afraid to
>report.
As an English teacher, one of the first things I address in my writing
workshop is the concept of "show not tell." King's just TELLING us the
story here, not showing us anything, not letting us pick up on subtle clues
to the characters' motivation and development, not thinking we're smart
enough to arrive at the conclusion he's aiming for on our own.
It's a terribly condescending attitude to have towards the people who made
him what he is.
--
TRENA1
I think one of the reasons I could never finish GG is that it's too real. As
for the rest, BoB was a great read.
Some folks may view this differently, but I read purely for pleasure. I don't
generally dissect everything in the book. And when the pleasure I get from
King stops, I'll stop reading his books. Life's too short to spend time on
things you don't like.
Trena
"Seems to me if you talk about these things too much, the magic gets lost.
Some things in life just . . . are."
mst
>Notice that the fear of a child dying is a universal fear. It cuts across
>class, race, and gender. King was able to effectively deal with this issue,
>because he was able to relate to it.
Yes, I agree completely. This is why the ending of SOTC worked as the rest
of the story did not...only when Ralphie is truly lost does the utter horror
of the situation sink in. As long as the series offered the slightest
chance that Mike would win his son BACK, it ran the risk of being pap.
>The horror of a spouse who abuses you, sexually or physically, as in Rose
>Madder and Gerald's Game weren't that effective efforts. I think this is,
>again, because of point of view. King cannot truly understand the fear of
>leaving an abusive spouse when you have no money and no way to support
>yourself, anymore than he could understand a woman's point of view in being
>sexually abused, or abandoned, as in Gerald's Game.
Again, I think you've nailed it. King's portrayal of women has always been
questionable...he seems to feel a great deal of ambiguity about strong
women. On the one hand, he respects their power...on the other, he resents
it, and maybe fears it. Although he's created many sympathetic strong
women, there's always this current of bitchiness or hardness that runs
through them which keeps them from being truly *likeable* characters (Larry
Underwood's mother is the example that comes to mind). I'm sure this is
related to King's own mother and his feelings for HER...stories like "The
Woman in the Room" and "Gramma" say a LOT about that relationship, I think.
Quilla Andersen seems to be the latest in a long-running series of grim and
humorless mothers.
Let's face it, King's women have NEVER been terribly realistic, but they
USED to at least be sympathetic. Lately, they haven't even been THAT.
>Maybe that is why the later efforts have not been up to the quality that is
>demanded by the audience. I think that King had much more universal fears,
>and was able to express them to an audience that he could relate to, while
>he was poor, sitting in a trailer, worrying about feeding his family. I
>think that his fame and wealth has defeated anything he could ever be truly
>afraid of.
>
>Kim - Just my Opinion, you are not compelled in any way to agree.
But I DO. And I know we're not alone. Just today, one of my students saw
an article about SK and his new publishing contract on my desk. We had a
good long conversation about our frustration with his newer work and how his
emphasis on sales figures has hurt his literary merit. (The man is
competing against Tom CLANCY, for bleep's sake...talk about a comedown) We
agreed that Dead Zone was one of the most incredible reads we've ever
experienced. She's only 17, so it's certainly not a matter of age that
separates the adoring fans from those who reserve their praise for the
stronger pieces.
mst
>The notion that readers "made" SK "what he is", is either nonsensical or
>arrogant. King is a writer. He made himself, by recognizing his talent,
>and working his butt off, day in, day out, year in, year out, writing.
Many other talented writers work their butts off and never connect with a
large enough audience to become successful enough to make a living at it,
never mind live high on the hog. King is a phenomenon, and his success
really is about the sheer VOLUME of his readership more than anything
else...he's said so himself, he IS the McDonalds of popular fiction.
All that's fine and well, and he deserves every cent...but let's not forget
that it takes two to tango. If his readership didn't RESPOND to him, he
wouldn't be cruising around on a vintage Harley, or living in a massive
Victorian mansion on the good side of town. We, his readers, LOVED him for
years...and now that his sales are slipping, does he step back to consider
what MADE him the household name he is? No, he resorts to focus groups and
a publisher switch to increase his sales...that's what I find condescending.
He's not seeing his audience as real people the way he used to...maybe it's
as simple as he's out of touch with us regular folks.
I don't know what you guys get from him, but I don't think it's the same
thing fans of his older work got from him. If you like it, that's fine, but
let his older fans mourn their losses in peace, all right? If you don't
want us to denigrate YOUR opinions, it's only fair to give us the room to
vent our frustration. OUR dissenting opinions are just as valuable and
relevant to this ng, even if they are not in unanimous support of the title
subject.
>We, the readers, _get_ from King. Those who continue to read him, when
>they feel they are getting nothing, are banging their heads against the
>wall, and seem to me to be in it for the whinge value.
From what I can tell of frustrated King readers, we keep reading out of HOPE
more than anything else...we search through the ever-thickening volumes,
looking for the handful of phrases, descriptions, scenes that captured the
essence of King's talent as we remember it. I was almost sucked into the
first part of Desperation...it was like holding my breath, wondering if he'd
really captured that sense of horrific realism with the psychotic cop. Then
the inexplicable supernatural swooped in and nixed it...popped that lead
balloon of disbelief, so to speak. The cop was a lot scarier when he was
mortal...Tak and his animal friends were ineffectual and pointless compared
to the realistic horror of running across a crazy man with a badge and a gun
out in the middle of nowhere.
mst
>That's fine, but it is just an opinion, and not an objective evaluation
>of literature. Well worth arguing, but hardly literary-critical fact.
Literary studies are rarely factual, but a certain commitment to one's own
opinon is necessary if one wishes to be a consistent critic. One of the
great PLEASURES in literary criticism lies in the debate between dissenting
opinions...it's not about right or wrong so much as who can make a better
argument based on textual evidence and linguistic aptitude. Is it so bad to
disagree over a book? I'd much rather have a friend with whom I shared
political/social views than one with whom I shared literary taste.
>Many, including myself, find his characters at least as good, if not
>better, in his more recent work. Ralph in Insomnia, Jessie in Gerald's
>Game, Dolores in DC, are all superb and richly drawn characters, the
>equal of anything from King's earlier work.
Ralph, I will admit, was a fairly well-rounded character. But his
supporting cast was not given the same depth and care in development. I
disagree about Jessie and Dolores because they fit the "battered woman"
syndrome too neatly...classic Daddy-complex-leads-to-abusive-relationship.
Pat, zero subtlety, zero depth. I KNOW women in abusive
relationships...it's not quite so easy to nail the cause of their low
self-esteem in real life.
Take Johnny Smith, on the other hand. Here was a classic All-American hero,
a charming, lovable guy with his whole life ahead of him, robbed of his nice
sweet normality and given this horrible dark gift. What does he DO with it?
On the one hand, he helps a lot of people out, from the woman whose house
was on fire to the kids in the lightning struck roadhouse...but on the other
hand he's seduced by the power of his gift, he goes out SEEKING politicians
and their dirty handshakes. That's ambiguous...we don't really understand
why Johnny's doing this, why he doesn't just stick to the good stuff,
helping out his friends and neighbors...until he shakes Greg Stillson's
hand. THEN everything clicks. That moment is pure magic, the words are
simple, clear, but hold SO much more in their depths. He doesn't have to
bash us over the head with his message because it's SINGING to us.
Can you see why I miss that?
>That's odd, I would have said that King has, if anything, moved away
>from the supernatural and dealt far more with the real-life issues in
>his more recent work. Random supernatural phenomena? Try The Shining.
The supernatural in the Shining was not RANDOM. It was clearly drawn from
the evil of men, the gangsters who stayed in the presidential suite, the
philandering husbands and their trollops, the weakness within Jack
Torrance's soul. The evil of the Overlook USED men's dark secrets against
them, it didn't fabricate silly monsters out of thin air.
I don't mind the supernatural, per se...but in the more recent works, it
comes out of nowhere, with no purpose other than to broadcast "THE HORROR OF
IT ALL." PRIME example being Tak in Desperation. What IS it about a hole
in the ground that's supposed to scare me? Maybe it goes straight to hell,
but so what? That presupposes that hell even exists. If I don't believe in
it, he's lost me before the game's even begun.
>Exactly why Rose Madder, Gerald's Game, Insomnia and Dolores Claiborne
>are so damned good.
You're going to have to elaborate on these. I'll concede a bit on Dolores
Claiborne, purely on style...it was a bold experiment to have the entire
novel in the first person. I admired the nerve it took to try that, it was
quite a departure from his usual novelistic form.
The others were simply not well executed, ESPECIALLY Rose Madder, which I
take is one of your favorites. I'd like to hear your reasoning, out of
curiosity, and perhaps it'll open my eyes to some qualities I'd missed. But
overall, I just never understood why Rose stayed with Norman for all those
years, nor why one drop of blood would trigger her escape. I don't think
most women behave so erratically and without reason...if King does, you can
see why I would argue that he doesn't really understand women's experiences.
>No, not at all, and the fact that you can't see that, kind of makes my
>point. The problems inherent in RW's behaviour on this ng, have nothing
>to do with his pov on the works of King, and everything to do with his
>inability to recognize differing yet equally valid perspectives from his
>own.
Like I've said before, it's clear that Robert's pissed some people off, and
I don't know a thing about it, so I'm not going to butt in after the fact.
*I* merely came to his defense when he was accused of not appreciating King
at all, because I knew THAT wasn't true. If he's been harsh, it's not
something I approve of, but I can't say anything about THAT because I didn't
see it.
>You don't have to agree with someone to defend their modus operandi in
>discussion, nor do you have to disagree with them in matters of opinion,
>to denounce poor behaviour.
I haven't actually witnessed any terribly bad behavior on anyone's part in
this ng. Some of the OT threads are a bit irritating in their wandering
pointlessness, but like I keep saying...to each his own. If people like
scrolling down five screens to get to a little two-line response, that's
their business.
The flames on absk are really minor compared to the ones I've seen on other
groups. I generally avoid flamewars because they are SUCH a waste of time,
but sometimes they're amusing to watch...kind of like Jerry Springer. If
you want to witness some MEANNESS, check out k12.chat.teachers or
school.teachers...them folks be vicious.
mst
> I don't know. I still love most of his characters. I can see some of
what
>you are talking about here, but truly Geralds Game was one long
>Characterization don't you think?
Perhaps we're thinking of characterization in different ways. What I mean
is creating a *believable* multi-faceted human being, with a history and
personality that suits his/her behavior, which (and this is the key) ALSO
reflects elements of actual human experience in a realistic manner. While
King hasn't really stopped doing the first part of that definition, he HAS
seriously slipped on the latter. Maybe he's just not interacting with
regular, everyday folks as he used to. Even if he's leading a fairly normal
life, going to the store, gassing up the car, etc...the simple fact of his
celebrity and his security is going to make his interactions with other
people vastly different than they would be for the majority of "just folks."
>Consider Carrie, its a lot like what you are saying of his latest stuff.
Carrie was rather weak, but as it was a first novel it's understandable that
it would be. I also think it suffered from having a female protagonist and
heavily female cast. King doesn't really seem to "get" women...I'm not sure
how to explain that at this point, give me some time to think on it. But
Carrie still works on a very primal level because it deals with such a
SIMPLE aspect of femininity (and one that MALES are sharply aware of, and
fantasize about), female rivalry. It's a bit rough, but it has its charms.
And the supernatural elements were NOT random, rather they were given
pseudo-scientific rationales. Poor ones, to be sure, but he at least made
the attempt to link the weirdness to reality. He doesn't do that anymore.
> Again I don't really see that this has changed all that much at all.
I
>point once again to Gerald's Game, and Deloris Claiborne. And I will point
>back to almost everyone of his other books for examples of "randomly
>appearing supernatural phenomenon instead of human-related horrors."
As I said in a previous post, it's not the fact of the supernatural that I'm
opposed to, but that it is no longer connected to any realistic anchor from
which the reader can build that bridge of belief.
>It can't be simplified by saying "early works" "later works."
There were definitely poorer quality pieces in the early works, I don't
argue with THAT at all. But I DO believe the ratio of good:mediocre (I
still don't have the heart to call it BAD, even after all the
dissappointments...TRULY bad writing belongs in the realm of Crichton and
Grisham) has seriously degraded. You know what I found REALLY sad? Four
Past Midnight...compared to Different Seasons, it's hard to believe the same
guy wrote them. The Library Police? PLEASE. Oversimplified plot and
characters...cashing in on the recovered memory of abuse fad that hit us
right about then.
>Bag of Bones was about that human side you like so much, with the ghost
>thrown in, just like anything King writes.
I'm sorry, but Bag of Bones is a bad middle aged fantasy, and it's hard not
to believe that King kills Maddie out of some perverted sense of guilt. The
plot is held together with little more than cheesy K-name connections, and
gratuitous scenes of child-murder without any real teeth in them. You've
got to LOVE a character before you can mourn his passing. If it's just
another paper man, what is there to mourn?
I WILL say, however, that the Midland scenes from DT4 are some of the most
beautifully written that King has EVER done...past, present and alternate
universe combined. It's just too bad that the frame story of Roland, Eddie,
Susanna, Jake and Oy were SO tediously peppered with inane dialogue,
irritating interior monologues and pointless pop culture connections.
> What is your favorite book by King?
The Stand (original), Dead Zone, Danse Macabre...in that order, I think.
>And then of course why you liked them, to make this a funner thread.
You know how a good book takes you into its world and makes you a part of
the author's fiction? I used to imagine having whole conversations with
Nick Andros, or Johnny Smith...they LIVED in my mind, long after they were
killed on the page. I wept for their goodness, their purity, their selfless
sacrifice for the sake of others. They set the moral example by which I
have lived. Not one of King's recent characters have come close to
capturing that essence.
Danse Macabre took me closer to the SK I used to love. I wanted to get a
sense of his motivations, his inspiration and what he WANTED out of his
writing. He wrote it at his peak, I believe, when he was seriously engaged
in both his work AND his life. It rang so true and fit so neatly into the
fabric of the real world, that I honestly considered it my bible of
sorts...it EXPLAINED things to me. I carried my copy of DM around with me
ALL throughout high school and used it extensively as a model of lit crit
analysis in college. In fact, it was one of my strongest critical
influences when it was time to write my own papers.
So you see...I AM a devoted fan, but I'm not unquestionably accepting of
everything King writes.
Dow Fairbanks
mst <ter...@homey.com> wrote in article
<PnGJ2.22424$FZ5....@news.rdc1.sfba.home.com>...
> Kim Hammers wrote in message <7d73fh$t...@enews4.newsguy.com>...
<snipped>
> >The horror of a spouse who abuses you, sexually or physically, as in
Rose
> >Madder and Gerald's Game weren't that effective efforts. I think this
is,
> >again, because of point of view. King cannot truly understand the fear
of
> >leaving an abusive spouse when you have no money and no way to support
> >yourself, anymore than he could understand a woman's point of view in
being
> >sexually abused, or abandoned, as in Gerald's Game.
>
> Again, I think you've nailed it. King's portrayal of women has always
been
> questionable...he seems to feel a great deal of ambiguity about strong
> women. On the one hand, he respects their power...on the other, he
resents
> it, and maybe fears it. Although he's created many sympathetic strong
> women, there's always this current of bitchiness or hardness that runs
> through them which keeps them from being truly *likeable* characters
(Larry
> Underwood's mother is the example that comes to mind).
I don't know about you, and I am admittedly male, but I liked Larry's Mom.
I liked Mother Abbigail, I loved Charlene McGee, I liked the young Bev
(not so much the older one, cause she didn't have that hardness you speak
of...at least not as much as she had when she was a kid), I like Fran,
Robberta, and Susanah Dean. So obviously I don't see what you are talking
about as far as non-loveable female characters. I also enjoyed Geralds
Game. I didn't think he had a hard time hitting on the horror of being
chained to a bed...maybe he didn't write exactly how you would have handled
abuse, but then everyone is different (unless you want to claim that
everyone's experiance and coping process are the same).
It could just be because I am not a woman that I don't see what you are
talking about but I know there are plenty of powerful, loveable women in
his books, and I don't recognize the "fear" he has of them that you talk
of. You want questionable portrayal of women...Read Dean Koontz.
<snipped some Pop-psycology stuff about King and his Mom>
> Let's face it, King's women have NEVER been terribly realistic, but they
> USED to at least be sympathetic. Lately, they haven't even been THAT.
Again, could be cause I am Male, but most of Kings women have seemed
realistic to me. I always have to ask myself if those women who
continually go back to abusive relationships are real. The answer is of
course yes. Just because they don't act the way whe think they should
doesn't make them less real. Okay so now I am babbling but I do have a
point here somewhere. What did you think of Charlene McGee? How do you
think his women should act?
> >Maybe that is why the later efforts have not been up to the quality that
is
> >demanded by the audience. I think that King had much more universal
fears,
> >and was able to express them to an audience that he could relate to,
while
> >he was poor, sitting in a trailer, worrying about feeding his family. I
> >think that his fame and wealth has defeated anything he could ever be
truly
> >afraid of.
> >
> >Kim - Just my Opinion, you are not compelled in any way to agree.
>
>
> But I DO. And I know we're not alone. Just today, one of my students
saw
> an article about SK and his new publishing contract on my desk. We had a
> good long conversation about our frustration with his newer work and how
his
> emphasis on sales figures has hurt his literary merit. (The man is
> competing against Tom CLANCY, for bleep's sake...talk about a comedown)
We
> agreed that Dead Zone was one of the most incredible reads we've ever
> experienced. She's only 17, so it's certainly not a matter of age that
> separates the adoring fans from those who reserve their praise for the
> stronger pieces.
I agree too. Writing books for movies is not the kind of move I like to
see in an author. And selling books out to make bad movies (since I am a
Film major and think I can make "good" movies...lol) just pisses me off.
Dow.
TD1SF
>Just curious, are you familiar with his work prior to the 90's?
>Did you start reading his 90's novels first? Do you prefer his
>90's novels to his 80's and 70's novels?
I am an "original fan." I first read SK when I was 14 and read "Carrie." I
wasn't all that impressed. I mean, it was okay, and pretty "risque," but
nothing to lose sleep over. I thought the same about 'Salem's Lot. Yeah,
yeah, vampires, pillaging, blah, blah.
But, then I was 18 and read The Stand. Oh My! Granted, I was working, just
moved away from home (way, way away) and it took more discipline to read this
book than any of the Nancy Drew previously in my repertoire.
I was thoroughly amazed at the depth and then some of the characters and
stories. I'd have to go back and reread what had happened to whom because it
was such a matrix of plots and characters (which my short attention span found
desperately challenging, let me tell ya).
But, OMG, what a story. By the time they got to their pilgramige, each of them,
I was hooked. I couldn't believe that a writer (an author) could reach in and
yank at my imagination, my unknown. That was way cool, and way unforgettable.
The 80's were good for me. Dead Zone, Cujo, and Pet Semetary were so hot and
inspiring to the cogs in my brain that I couldn't wait for the next. Just to
have my imagination and vision so charged by an external force is truly
greatness, in my definition. That is what writing is all about. Influencing
others to imagine what they could not if left to their own.
The 90s? Ewww. I was shunned by what my hero had turned to. Psycho-trauma?
Who needs it!?! Actually, it was Tommyknockers that turned my stomach. What a
god-awful story. I didn't even like the characters (and I have a mighty vivid
imagination!)! I couldn't find one thing interesting about it.
Needful Things and Dark Half? They were okay, but not the SK I knew and loved.
RM? I didn't like the way SK was going with this psychological stuff, but
okay, I'll give it a chance. I liked the book, but it wasn't what I called
"Stephen King."
Dolores? Oh my. Now here's one I liked. A lot of psych, a bit of weirdness.
I enjoyed this book, but it still wasn't "my SK."
Insomnia? I couldn't bring myself to read another psych book of his, I admit.
It's on my summer reading list.
So, I jumped to Green Mile. Oh My!!!! What a series. I think this will be
regarded as one of his, and others', best. It made me hunger, actually starve
for more. I'm hooked again.
So, I go back and read Desperation. Ho humm. Loved Collie and Johnny. That's
about it. Ending was so anticlimactic. Skipped Regulators (for now).
Which brings us to BoB. Now, I really enjoyed this story. I very much like
the character development of Mike Noonan. I guess it's because I feel like I'm
getting to know SK a little better. I liked the premise, I liked the TR, but
felt the story lost something that he intended to make big (e.g., owls). I
enjoyed the vividness and importance of Sara, but felt let down, again,
anticlimactic, for realizing her needs. I felt Max's needs were not well
developed and Sara's were over emphasized.
But, I'll always need more from SK. He surprises me, taunts me, and NO one has
every created such vividness in my mind in twenty-odd years. And *that's* what
keeps me coming back for more. That movie in my mind and the emotions in my
soul.
Guess it's all in the reading!
CaptTammy
TD1SF
>
>Literary studies are rarely factual, but a certain commitment to one's own
>opinon is necessary if one wishes to be a consistent critic.
Very true.
> I
>disagree about Jessie and Dolores because they fit the "battered woman"
>syndrome too neatly...classic Daddy-complex-leads-to-abusive-relationship.
>Pat, zero subtlety, zero depth. I KNOW women in abusive
>relationships...it's not quite so easy to nail the cause of their low
>self-esteem in real life.
I strongly disagree here. Dolores is far from the battered-woman complex.
That's why I found DC such a refreshing book. To me, DC was very strong; she
took shit, but don't we all? However, she knew when it crossed the line. Few
battered women (as in "complex") recognize this line (especially between them
and their children). The "complex" you speak of is one of perceived survival
by succombing and not "rocking the boat."
Dolores did none of this once the behavior extended beyond herself.
I would NOT consider her a battered woman. Being hit is not being battered.
Succombing to abuse is not being battered. She was in full awareness of what
she was allowing/doing. "Battered" women are not (in the strictest sense).
They lost themselves. It's hard to believe, but it's true.
CaptTammy
Dow Fairbanks
mst <ter...@homey.com> wrote in article
<PnGJ2.22425$FZ5....@news.rdc1.sfba.home.com>...
> stevie wrote in message <36F71C...@rogerswave.com>...
<snipped some I didn't want to touch>
> >That's odd, I would have said that King has, if anything, moved away
> >from the supernatural and dealt far more with the real-life issues in
> >his more recent work. Random supernatural phenomena? Try The Shining.
>
>
> The supernatural in the Shining was not RANDOM. It was clearly drawn
from
> the evil of men, the gangsters who stayed in the presidential suite, the
> philandering husbands and their trollops, the weakness within Jack
> Torrance's soul. The evil of the Overlook USED men's dark secrets
against
> them, it didn't fabricate silly monsters out of thin air.
>
> I don't mind the supernatural, per se...but in the more recent works, it
> comes out of nowhere, with no purpose other than to broadcast "THE HORROR
OF
> IT ALL." PRIME example being Tak in Desperation. What IS it about a
hole
> in the ground that's supposed to scare me? Maybe it goes straight to
hell,
> but so what? That presupposes that hell even exists. If I don't believe
in
> it, he's lost me before the game's even begun.
Okay so you have one example. Do you have more? I haven't read
Desperation so I can't say anything about it. But Christine? IT? Pet
Semetary? There is a little background for some of the events in some of
his novels but truly they are all fabrications aren't they? Tommyknockers
presupposes the existance of Extraterrestial life, if I don't believe, does
that make it a bad book? Name a couple King books that don't Presuppose
something. Suspension of disbelife is what makes any fiction novel
enjoyable. It would be hard to enjoy the Narnia books if we keep saying
"Lions can't talk!!"
> >Exactly why Rose Madder, Gerald's Game, Insomnia and Dolores Claiborne
> >are so damned good.
>
> You're going to have to elaborate on these. I'll concede a bit on
Dolores
> Claiborne, purely on style...it was a bold experiment to have the entire
> novel in the first person. I admired the nerve it took to try that, it
was
> quite a departure from his usual novelistic form.
>
> The others were simply not well executed, ESPECIALLY Rose Madder, which I
> take is one of your favorites. I'd like to hear your reasoning, out of
> curiosity, and perhaps it'll open my eyes to some qualities I'd missed.
But
> overall, I just never understood why Rose stayed with Norman for all
those
> years, nor why one drop of blood would trigger her escape. I don't think
> most women behave so erratically and without reason...if King does, you
can
> see why I would argue that he doesn't really understand women's
experiences.
Okay, sexist assuptions on your part aside, PEOPLE do strange things for
strange reasons. Why did some parent kill his/her child cause they wet
their pants? The person themself rarely knows. PEOPLE keep going back to
abusive situations, it happens. Why? The people themselves don't know.
Why did Luke see himself when he killed the phantom Vader in the Degaba
system? I don't know, it wasn't explained fully, i think I know what it
means, but does this example make Empire strikes back a bad movie? Simply
because it wasn't explained...because we don't know all of the motivations
or understand every last element.
In fact what makes some Novels last as long as they have is because we
don't understand everything, every motivation. Moby Dick comes to mind.
<snipped more>
Dow.
Jeff & Traci De
I'm with Dow here. Only difference being I'm wholeheartedly female. 100
percent and everything. I *don't* find King's portrayal of women to be either
unrealistic or unsympathetic. Umcomfortable, yes. Unrealistic, no.
Traci
--
"To have a child is to choose forever to walk around with your heart outside
your body"
Unknown
Dow Fairbanks
mst <ter...@homey.com> wrote in article
<I7HJ2.22437$FZ5....@news.rdc1.sfba.home.com>...
> Douglas Spirit wrote in message <36F736AA...@hotmail.com>...
> > I don't know. I still love most of his characters. I can see some
of
> what
> >you are talking about here, but truly Geralds Game was one long
> >Characterization don't you think?
>
> Perhaps we're thinking of characterization in different ways. What I
mean
> is creating a *believable* multi-faceted human being, with a history and
> personality that suits his/her behavior, which (and this is the key) ALSO
> reflects elements of actual human experience in a realistic manner.
While
> King hasn't really stopped doing the first part of that definition, he
HAS
> seriously slipped on the latter. Maybe he's just not interacting with
> regular, everyday folks as he used to. Even if he's leading a fairly
normal
> life, going to the store, gassing up the car, etc...the simple fact of
his
> celebrity and his security is going to make his interactions with other
> people vastly different than they would be for the majority of "just
folks."
I agree that his curcimstances have changed and therefore maybe some of
his perceptions. However I still don't see how the woman in Gerald's Game
reacted differently from her background. Bev in IT suffers from this a
bit, but of course she had a memory lapse. What does real human behavior
mean? We all are different. I can understand why Micheal Noonan did what
he did, just because someone else can't doesn't make it unrealistic.
> >Consider Carrie, its a lot like what you are saying of his latest stuff.
>
> Carrie was rather weak, but as it was a first novel it's understandable
that
> it would be. I also think it suffered from having a female protagonist
and
> heavily female cast. King doesn't really seem to "get" women...I'm not
sure
> how to explain that at this point, give me some time to think on it. But
> Carrie still works on a very primal level because it deals with such a
> SIMPLE aspect of femininity (and one that MALES are sharply aware of, and
> fantasize about), female rivalry. It's a bit rough, but it has its
charms.
> And the supernatural elements were NOT random, rather they were given
> pseudo-scientific rationales. Poor ones, to be sure, but he at least
made
> the attempt to link the weirdness to reality. He doesn't do that
anymore.
Sometimes I laugh more at the attempts to link things to reality than I do
at the reality of just having them there. We disagree on the women thing
obviously. but there are also other books that have weak characters.
There was only one strong character in Pet Semetary, something you have
accused him of doing in his later novels, and thus called a reason for
their not being good.
> > Again I don't really see that this has changed all that much at
all.
> I
> >point once again to Gerald's Game, and Deloris Claiborne. And I will
point
> >back to almost everyone of his other books for examples of "randomly
> >appearing supernatural phenomenon instead of human-related horrors."
>
> As I said in a previous post, it's not the fact of the supernatural that
I'm
> opposed to, but that it is no longer connected to any realistic anchor
from
> which the reader can build that bridge of belief.
Like his unresearched explanation for Carrie's abilites? When an author
starts screwing up facts, to prove his fiction it takes more away from a
book than when he just invents the problem.
> >It can't be simplified by saying "early works" "later works."
>
> There were definitely poorer quality pieces in the early works, I don't
> argue with THAT at all. But I DO believe the ratio of good:mediocre (I
> still don't have the heart to call it BAD, even after all the
> dissappointments...TRULY bad writing belongs in the realm of Crichton and
> Grisham) has seriously degraded.
Crichton? Really? He has most things you say you want to see King do.
Better resons for the existance of his problems, full histories and
background for his psuedo-science. Resonalbe human responses.
And Grisham...well now...There is someone who's early stuff outweighs his
Latter stuff...LOL. I trully think his earlier characters were fuller and
the novels more for the sake of true books than his stuff today. Today
Grisham is just writing Movies that go on the shelf before they go into the
theater, you know? Grisham is one who I feel has not evolved in his style,
but rather just fallen for the money. I can see King doing little things
here and there that seem to be moving into this direction, however I also
see a true evolution, more towards his short story style.
>You know what I found REALLY sad? Four
> Past Midnight...compared to Different Seasons, it's hard to believe the
same
> guy wrote them. The Library Police? PLEASE. Oversimplified plot and
> characters...cashing in on the recovered memory of abuse fad that hit us
> right about then.
You know, I never could finish Library Police. I try and I try and I try.
But I don't think this is a cashing in thing, we know how King gets his
ideas, and maybe this is how Library Police came along, but certainly he
didn't "cash in" with it. It may have just been a little Bachman sneaking
out. I don't know what its like to be a great author but I can see the
need for some light, quick, unthought out novels once in a while.
Enjoyed langoliers by the way, thought it was great.
> >Bag of Bones was about that human side you like so much, with the ghost
> >thrown in, just like anything King writes.
>
> I'm sorry, but Bag of Bones is a bad middle aged fantasy, and it's hard
not
> to believe that King kills Maddie out of some perverted sense of guilt.
The
> plot is held together with little more than cheesy K-name connections,
and
> gratuitous scenes of child-murder without any real teeth in them. You've
> got to LOVE a character before you can mourn his passing. If it's just
> another paper man, what is there to mourn?
Yeah that K thing bugged me, but I still found it a good book. I didn't
really think we were supposed to go teary eyed about all the children
killed though, I deffinitly didn't get that impression. Maybe you are
having difficulty because you want to love these characters when they
aren't ment to be. Of course that is just how I read it, but thats what it
seems you are trying to do. Consider IT, some of the kids were just names,
it described how they died but I didn't think I was supposed to cry over
every one. The Ironworks factory...I don't care to love everyone who was
there, but did it take away from the main story because I didn't love them?
Not at all, they were a sideline (this is a little unintelligible but I
was trying not to give stuff away).
> I WILL say, however, that the Midland scenes from DT4 are some of the
most
> beautifully written that King has EVER done...past, present and alternate
> universe combined. It's just too bad that the frame story of Roland,
Eddie,
> Susanna, Jake and Oy were SO tediously peppered with inane dialogue,
> irritating interior monologues and pointless pop culture connections.
Well I found some of it fun, I don't think we can fry Stephen King simply
because he doesn't take himself as seriously as we do. I like finding his
humor in things like this.
> > What is your favorite book by King?
>
> The Stand (original), Dead Zone, Danse Macabre...in that order, I think.
When you say the original...do you mean the unedited? Cause that would,
technically speaking, be an original. Or do you mean the edited one?
> >And then of course why you liked them, to make this a funner thread.
>
> You know how a good book takes you into its world and makes you a part of
> the author's fiction? I used to imagine having whole conversations with
> Nick Andros, or Johnny Smith...they LIVED in my mind, long after they
were
> killed on the page. I wept for their goodness, their purity, their
selfless
> sacrifice for the sake of others. They set the moral example by which I
> have lived. Not one of King's recent characters have come close to
> capturing that essence.
I know exactly what you mean. And thats part of the reason I love the DT
series. I will bet that we reread for the same reasons (assuming you
reread). I will start thinking of the characters I love, what they think
and feel and why I like them, and then think how much I miss them, and then
pick up that book. Like right now I am lonely for Sparhawk and Talen and
the characters of the Ellenium, so that is the next series I will reread.
Charlene McGee is the same way for me. My first King Character, and still
one of my favorites. Gerald's Game did that for me (of the recent), and
Rose.
> Danse Macabre took me closer to the SK I used to love. I wanted to get a
> sense of his motivations, his inspiration and what he WANTED out of his
> writing. He wrote it at his peak, I believe, when he was seriously
engaged
> in both his work AND his life. It rang so true and fit so neatly into
the
> fabric of the real world, that I honestly considered it my bible of
> sorts...it EXPLAINED things to me. I carried my copy of DM around with
me
> ALL throughout high school and used it extensively as a model of lit crit
> analysis in college. In fact, it was one of my strongest critical
> influences when it was time to write my own papers.
I always love the motivation. I liked the little reasons for the stories
at the end of Skeleton Crew. I want to know more though, Greed can't be
his only reason for writing anymore.
> So you see...I AM a devoted fan, but I'm not unquestionably accepting of
> everything King writes.
Never said you weren't. And I don't accuse or blame or criticize your
questioning. I agree with a lot you say, I don't agree with everything.
King has evolved a bit and fallen prey to the money monster a bit. Is he
the same man he was when he started? No. Are you the same person you were
when you started reading him? I will venture, No. You have the right to
reject King if you choose, no one says you have to be "unquestionably
accepting." However no one says King doesn't have the right to change
either.
Dow.
Jon Skeet
> A lot of folks who like his earlier stuff find his 90's novels to
> be uniformly bad. RM is easily the worst.
But, to balance things, there are plenty of folks who like both earlier
and later stuff. There are some early works I could take or leave
(Carrie, Firestarter, Cujo) just as there are some later works which
didn't really "do" it for me (The Green Mile - enjoyed it when reading it
for the first time, but haven't gone back to it yet). Equally, there are
ones which I love in both eras ('Salem's Lot, The Stand, Bag of Bones,
and Wizard and Glass to give four examples).
--
Jon Skeet - sk...@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/
Jon Skeet
> Literary studies are rarely factual, but a certain commitment to one's own
> opinon is necessary if one wishes to be a consistent critic. One of the
> great PLEASURES in literary criticism lies in the debate between dissenting
> opinions...it's not about right or wrong so much as who can make a better
> argument based on textual evidence and linguistic aptitude.
Ah - now that's where you appear to differ in opinion with Robert. See,
he thinks it *is* about right and wrong, and that anyone that disagrees
is necessarily wrong. To this end, he accuses anyone who disagrees with
him of either being stupid or actively *lying* about liking the book in
question. It seems that in his view, liking Bag of Bones and being
intelligent are mutually exclusive states.
Jeff & Traci De
>
> stevie wrote in message <36F71C...@rogerswave.com>...
> >That's fine, but it is just an opinion, and not an objective evaluation
> >of literature. Well worth arguing, but hardly literary-critical fact.
>
> Literary studies are rarely factual, but a certain commitment to one's own
> opinon is necessary if one wishes to be a consistent critic. One of the
> great PLEASURES in literary criticism lies in the debate between dissenting
> opinions...it's not about right or wrong so much as who can make a better
> argument based on textual evidence and linguistic aptitude. Is it so bad to
> disagree over a book? I'd much rather have a friend with whom I shared
> political/social views than one with whom I shared literary taste.
>
> >Many, including myself, find his characters at least as good, if not
> >better, in his more recent work. Ralph in Insomnia, Jessie in Gerald's
> >Game, Dolores in DC, are all superb and richly drawn characters, the
> >equal of anything from King's earlier work.
>
> Ralph, I will admit, was a fairly well-rounded character. But his
> supporting cast was not given the same depth and care in development. I
> disagree about Jessie and Dolores because they fit the "battered woman"
> syndrome too neatly...classic Daddy-complex-leads-to-abusive-relationship.
> Pat, zero subtlety, zero depth. I KNOW women in abusive
> relationships...it's not quite so easy to nail the cause of their low
> self-esteem in real life.
Not always. But often it is that easy.
>
> Take Johnny Smith, on the other hand. Here was a classic All-American hero,
> a charming, lovable guy with his whole life ahead of him, robbed of his nice
> sweet normality and given this horrible dark gift. What does he DO with it?
> On the one hand, he helps a lot of people out, from the woman whose house
> was on fire to the kids in the lightning struck roadhouse...but on the other
> hand he's seduced by the power of his gift, he goes out SEEKING politicians
> and their dirty handshakes. That's ambiguous...we don't really understand
> why Johnny's doing this, why he doesn't just stick to the good stuff,
> helping out his friends and neighbors...until he shakes Greg Stillson's
You really didn't know? I knew. I knew from the beginning what he was
looking for in the politicians. Didn't particularly want him to, didn't know
what he'd do when he found it, but I knew what he was looking for.
> hand. THEN everything clicks. That moment is pure magic, the words are
> simple, clear, but hold SO much more in their depths. He doesn't have to
> bash us over the head with his message because it's SINGING to us.
>
> Can you see why I miss that?
>
> >That's odd, I would have said that King has, if anything, moved away
> >from the supernatural and dealt far more with the real-life issues in
> >his more recent work. Random supernatural phenomena? Try The Shining.
>
> The supernatural in the Shining was not RANDOM. It was clearly drawn from
> the evil of men, the gangsters who stayed in the presidential suite, the
> philandering husbands and their trollops, the weakness within Jack
> Torrance's soul. The evil of the Overlook USED men's dark secrets against
> them, it didn't fabricate silly monsters out of thin air.
No? Somehow a hotel being able to pull the evil out of one's soul is okay,
but generating evil at random is not?
>
> I don't mind the supernatural, per se...but in the more recent works, it
> comes out of nowhere, with no purpose other than to broadcast "THE HORROR OF
> IT ALL." PRIME example being Tak in Desperation. What IS it about a hole
> in the ground that's supposed to scare me? Maybe it goes straight to hell,
> but so what? That presupposes that hell even exists. If I don't believe in
> it, he's lost me before the game's even begun.
If that were true then if you don't believe in Vampires then toss out Salem's
Lot, and you'd better believe in telekenesis or don't bother reading Carrie...
I see your words, and I'm genuinely trying to listen. Really. But it's
really sounding silly to me. The criticism you level at the works you don't
like are equally valid against those you do like.
Yes, SK's later works are different than the earlier. No doubt about that.
The quality of them or the fright factor involved... that isn't gone, it's just
different. I think if you said that the new stuff just isn't your cuppa tea,
I'd accept that gracefully. But you level specific charges which I just don't
see backed up.
Tin...@pathway.net
>I'm not going to copy everything PCB said, but I agree.
>
>I think one of the reasons I could never finish GG is that it's too real. As
>for the rest, BoB was a great read.
>
>Some folks may view this differently, but I read purely for pleasure. I don't
>generally dissect everything in the book. And when the pleasure I get from
>King stops, I'll stop reading his books. Life's too short to spend time on
>things you don't like.
>
>
>
>Trena
I have to agree with you.
When I read for pleasure I look for pleasure and little else. The
story has to have a sort of pantameter. It has to flow, and I have to
be able to forget that I am reading.
The story itself does not have to be credible in real world terms. I
do not think Frodo was ever real, but in the context of the story of
Middle Earth, he is as real as the grass under his shaggy feet. In
that context Frodo is a credible character in a credible story.
It is as if the book were in fact a movie designed to play on the
screen in my mind. The mechanics of reading get lost. Pages are turned
but I am not aware of having turned them. Time passes too quickly.
The images that appear in my mind are just as valid as the very
different images that appear in your mind. If asked to describe Jo
from BoB to a police artist she would come out looking much like Helen
Hunt from Mad About You. But, that was just how I saw her. If you saw
her differently your image is just as good as mine. It would be
egotistical to argue it any other way.
For me Stephen King flows and in the context of a given story is
credible 99% of the time, so I read him. when he stops flowing I will
stop reading him.
Thom
Politicians like diapers should be changed often.
Mostly for the same reasons.
Robert Whelan
> ter...@homey.com wrote:
>
> > Literary studies are rarely factual, but a certain commitment to one's own
> > opinon is necessary if one wishes to be a consistent critic. One of the
> > great PLEASURES in literary criticism lies in the debate between dissenting
> > opinions...it's not about right or wrong so much as who can make a better
> > argument based on textual evidence and linguistic aptitude.
>
> Ah - now that's where you appear to differ in opinion with Robert. See,
> he thinks it *is* about right and wrong, and that anyone that disagrees
> is necessarily wrong. To this end, he accuses anyone who disagrees with
> him of either being stupid or actively *lying* about liking the book in
> question. It seems that in his view, liking Bag of Bones and being
> intelligent are mutually exclusive states.
That isn't true, Jon. As far as "lying" goes, I think a lot of fans
actively make huge allowances for less pleasing aspects of "Bag of
Bones", more so than I do. It's not "lying" so much as habituallly
accentuating the positive. One fan went so far as to ponder
whether or not she was bored, or just "savoring" the novel. I
remember her deciding that it really was boring. I've seen many
others putting "good faces" on their lack of interest in this
latest novel, and it justifies my questioning others who really
like it. I rarely blast anyone any more, once they mention
details of what they enjoyed. I mean, if they enjoy it, they
enjoy it, right? People may love Circus Peanut candy, and
who can argue? If I ask them why they think Circus Peanuts
are the "best candy in the world" and if they REALLY think
it's the best candy in the world, I don't think that's really
calling them liars. Just that their superlatives aren't
particularly meaningful...sometimes people just say things
to hear themselves say them, or overstate mild enjoyment. It
doesn't hurt to ask, and find out, that that is the case.
JSM
says...
<Snip the works>
I have seen a lot of reasons why King's work has or has not deteriorated. I
have argued in this NG earlier that his work has not changed at all. King
still writes the same way today that he did in the beginning. The difference
is not in his style, but in the editing and approach by the publishers.
To illustrate this point, I can easily use The Stand. This novel was much
better in its original release, IMO, than the unedited version. Yet the
unedited version was closer to what King himself envisioned for the story.
Could the editors actually made the story better for my taste than King is
capable of doing? Is it possible that the new stories are less editied than
the old?
From what I have seen (and I am speaking in general terms here) those who like
the 'unedited' Stand better than the 'original release' Stand appear to enjoy
the current (barely edited) work as much or more than the earlier (heavily?
edited) efforts.
As usual, there are exceptions, and there are differing levels of like and
dislike. But basically this seems to be the case, IMO of course.
Robert runs into the HATE the new, LOVE the old category. I am in the Really
Liked the old, Kinda Like the new (but am tired of long, rambling, seemingly
unconnected sidebars.) I am actually looking forward to Tom Gordon as it is a
shorter novel and may actually be better (tighter) than most of his more
recent work.
Then again, it may not.
--
John for e-mail, "mod_con" = "modcon"; "nospam.org" = "ionet.net"
Kim Hammers
Jeff & Traci De wrote in message <36F756E8...@sprintmail.com>...
> I'm with Dow here. Only difference being I'm wholeheartedly female. 100
>percent and everything. I *don't* find King's portrayal of women to be
either
>unrealistic or unsympathetic. Umcomfortable, yes. Unrealistic, no.
>
> Traci
Traci -
I agree with you as well. I don't find them unrealistic, per say, what I had
originally commented on was the way King portrays their fears, or what he
believes are their fears. And the way they would handle a situation. I think
that sometimes this can be a stretch for him. I don't fault King for this,
and I don't find that this detracts from my enjoyment at all of his works.
What I do find to be annoying, lately, is that I feel he is "out of touch"
with the audience he tries to scare, and what they will find horrifying. As
you notice in BOB, he writes effectively about writers block, and the effect
that this has on the character quite efficiently. Certainly may be a fear to
HIM, wasn't to me. At least not half as scary as the PREMISE of Gerald's
Game. As you pointed out so well, the "losing a child" plot of SOTC was used
to great advantage, again. A universal fear that even King can identify
with. But, if the old adage proves to be true, and you should "write what
you know", well, just what DOES King have to be afraid of these days that
would translate into a novel his fans would also identify with? And how does
this relate to the general decline of his recent novels in the "just one
peek under the bed before going to sleep" factor?
Kim - Just my Opinion you are not compelled to agree with it.
Jeff & Traci De
I don't know... I don't think I agree with your initial premise: he isn't as
scary & there has been a general decline. So I can't really address the whys
and wherefores of it. I'll agree they haven't been check under the bed scary,
no slithery monsters. But I have never thought most of his stuff was. Salem's
Lot, Cujo, and The Raft got me as far as water goes. Most of his stuff is, for
me, "lay awake in bed at night with dread" scary. Storm, Pet Cemetary,
Insomnia.... I'm willing to bet that Gerald's Game changed some people's sex
lives. I know it'd be a cold day in hell before somebody put handcuffs on me!
Desperation wasn't check under the bed scary, but for me it WAS "oh God how can
people go through so much pain and sacrifice and still go on" scary. It wasn't
scary that there was a pit straight to hell. It was scary that there are things
that take over your mind and persuade you to do things you wouldn't want to
do... It was scary that there is so much cruelty in the world and we just have
to go on.
So for me, it worked. And on top of that, Regulators was a rollicking good
time!
Paul Poroshin
>
> > I'm sure that many of us, after seeing "Rose Madder" and
> > > >"Bag of Bones" feel that the bottom has already been reached.
> > > >
> >
> > WHAT? these are, in my opinion, 2 of king's best novels of the 90s!
> > especially RM! doesnt anyone agree?
>
>
> Just curious, are you familiar with his work prior to the 90's?
> Did you start reading his 90's novels first? Do you prefer his
> 90's novels to his 80's and 70's novels?
>
> be uniformly bad. RM is easily the worst.
yes, in fact one of my favorites is the shining, but i loved RM just the
same.. and insomnia was great
stevie
> Douglas Spirit wrote in message <36F736AA...@hotmail.com>...
>>I don't know. I still love most of his characters. I can see some of
>>what you are talking about here, but truly Geralds Game was one long
>>Characterization don't you think?
>Perhaps we're thinking of characterization in different ways. What I
>mean is creating a *believable* multi-faceted human being, with a
>history and personality that suits his/her behavior, which (and this is
>the key) ALSO reflects elements of actual human experience in a
>realistic manner.
And how, exactly, do Jessie Burlingame and Dolores Claiborne not meet
that criteria? Is it because they do not reflect _your_ experience? I
had no trouble whatsoever seeing both of these women as eminantly
believable as per your definition.
Similarly, Ralph Roberts fits the bill, as do Mike Noonan and Mattie
from Bag of Bones.
The inhabitants of some of King's earlier novels, however, really don't
live up to this standard. With the exception of Jack, there are no such
characters in The Shining. With the exception of Louis, we really don't
get enough of anybody in Pet Sematary to say they measure up.
Firestarter? I wouldn't say so. Carrie? Nope.
>While King hasn't really stopped doing the first
>part of that definition, he HAS seriously slipped on the latter.
>Maybe he's just not interacting with regular, everyday folks as he used
>to. Even if he's leading a fairly normal life, going to the store,
>gassing up the car, etc...the simple fact of his celebrity and his
>security is going to make his interactions with other people vastly
>different than they would be for the majority of "just folks."
I'm not seeing how your perception of King's life has much to do with
the discussion here. How about some sense of how you feel the latter day
characters fail to measure up?
>King doesn't really seem to "get" women...I'm not sure
>how to explain that at this point, give me some time to think on it.
This is one of the oldest complaints going about King's writing, and I
think it is entirely mistaken. King has been writing fully developed and
believable women almost from the get go.
Susan in Salem's Lot, Sarah in Dead Zone, Frannie in The Stand. For all
its flaws, Bobby in Tommyknockers is a wonderful character.
Jessie, Rose and Dolores are all entirely believable women, set among
the horrors of real life.
>There were definitely poorer quality pieces in the early works, I don't
>argue with THAT at all. But I DO believe the ratio of good:mediocre (I
>still don't have the heart to call it BAD, even after all the
>dissappointments...TRULY bad writing belongs in the realm of Crichton
>and Grisham) has seriously degraded.
Let's see:
Top Ten : Rose Madder, Dead Zone, Gerald's Game, Salem's Lot, Dolores
Claiborne, The Regulators, Pet Sematary, Insomnia, Bag of Bones.
Bottom Ten: The Shining, Carrie, Tommyknockers, The Dark Half.
Actually, that's the limit of my "bottom" list. The rest fall in the
middle ground. If there is such a thing as "typical" King, I think it is
a good but not great book. A good read, with flaws to be found, but good
enough.
There has been greatness throughout his career to this point, beginning
with his second published novel, but for my money, the frequency has
been increasing, not decreasing. King has matured and grown as a writer
as he has matured and grown as a human being. The interests and pov of a
forty something man are not the same as the interests and pov of a
twenty something man.
I think to a large extent, you make the same mistake as RW, though you
tend to couch it far more diplomatically. You mistake matters of taste
for matters of quality.
>>Bag of Bones was about that human side you like so much, with the ghost
>>thrown in, just like anything King writes.
>I'm sorry, but Bag of Bones is a bad middle aged fantasy, and it's hard
>not to believe that King kills Maddie out of some perverted sense of
>guilt. The plot is held together with little more than cheesy K-name
>connections, and gratuitous scenes of child-murder without any real
>teeth in them. You've got to LOVE a character before you can mourn his
>passing. If it's just another paper man, what is there to mourn?
At this point, I have no idea why you continue to read Stephen King. Do
you bang your head against the wall in other domains besides reading
matter? Seriously, there is so much writing available, and never
anywhere near enough time to read all one might want to, why spend time
on a writer you feel has become pathetic?
>I WILL say, however, that the Midland scenes from DT4 are some of the
>most beautifully written that King has EVER done...past, present and
>alternate universe combined. It's just too bad that the frame story of
>Roland, Eddie, Susanna, Jake and Oy were SO tediously peppered with
>inane dialogue, irritating interior monologues and pointless pop culture
>connections.
>>What is your favorite book by King?
>The Stand (original), Dead Zone, Danse Macabre...in that order, I think.
The Stand, second to The Shining has to be King's most universally over
rated book. What about it makes you feel it is his best? It is a great
story, and it has a number of wonderful characters, but it is way, way,
way underedited (I'm talking the originally published version here) and
could have been much better told in about two thirds the number of
pages.
> >And then of course why you liked them, to make this a funner thread.
>You know how a good book takes you into its world and makes you a part
>of the author's fiction? I used to imagine having whole conversations
>with Nick Andros, or Johnny Smith...they LIVED in my mind, long after
>they were killed on the page. I wept for their goodness, their purity,
>their selfless sacrifice for the sake of others. They set the moral
>example by which I have lived. Not one of King's recent characters have
>come close to capturing that essence.
Just out of curiousity, what current _popular fiction_ writers provide
this for you?
Stevie
stevie
> stevie wrote in message <36F71C...@rogerswave.com>...
> >Many, including myself, find his characters at least as good, if not
> >better, in his more recent work. Ralph in Insomnia, Jessie in Gerald's
> >Game, Dolores in DC, are all superb and richly drawn characters, the
> >equal of anything from King's earlier work.
>Ralph, I will admit, was a fairly well-rounded character. But his
>supporting cast was not given the same depth and care in development.
And this is entirely consistent with much of King's early work. He has
often built a novel around one fully, completely realized character with
a supporting, ensemble cast of interesting characters. Dead Zone, The
Shining, Pet Sematary are all early examples of this stylistic choice.
>I disagree about Jessie and Dolores because they fit the "battered
>woman" syndrome too neatly...classic Daddy complex leads to abusive
>relationship. Pat, zero subtlety, zero depth. I KNOW women in abusive
>relationships...it's not quite so easy to nail the cause of their low
>self-esteem in real life.
I think you mistake your own experience for universal truth. I also have
a certain breadth of experience and knowledge in these areas, and I
think King nailed these women brilliantly. Jessie is, I think, wholly
believable and in no way stereotypical. And Dolores is hardly typical of
any template we might see in the pop cultural knowledge base.
Did King write these novels when the issue was "hot". Sure. Is this
atypical of King? Not a bit.
> >That's odd, I would have said that King has, if anything, moved away
> >from the supernatural and dealt far more with the real-life issues in
> >his more recent work. Random supernatural phenomena? Try The Shining.
>The supernatural in the Shining was not RANDOM. It was clearly drawn
>from the evil of men, the gangsters who stayed in the presidential
>suite, the philandering husbands and their trollops, the weakness
>within Jack Torrance's soul. The evil of the Overlook USED men's dark
>secrets against them, it didn't fabricate silly monsters out of thin
>air.
Right, but where did it come from? How was it's origin explained? It
wasn't.
>>Exactly why Rose Madder, Gerald's Game, Insomnia and Dolores Claiborne
>>are so damned good.
>You're going to have to elaborate on these. I'll concede a bit on
>Dolores Claiborne, purely on style...it was a bold experiment to have
>the entire novel in the first person. I admired the nerve it took to
>try that, it was quite a departure from his usual novelistic form.
>The others were simply not well executed, ESPECIALLY Rose Madder, which
>I take is one of your favorites.
They didn't work for you. They did work for me. <shrug>
>I'd like to hear your reasoning, out of curiosity, and perhaps it'll
>open my eyes to some qualities I'd missed.
I have, in the past, posted at length on both RM and GG, and would point
you to deja news. Look under author: Stevie Canuck, Stevie C, or
millsaul. But I doubt that my words will sway your view of the books.
You read them, you know what you think of them and why, as do I. That we
differ makes neither of us right or wrong. We simply appreciate
different sorts of writing.
>But overall, I just never understood why Rose stayed with Norman for
>all those years,
And isn't that the absolute hallmark of the question our society most
often asks about battered women? Why did she stay? Sounds like King
nailed it.
>nor why one drop of blood would trigger her escape. I don't think
>most women behave so erratically and without reason
There is nothing about the abusive relationship which is rooted in
reason. Not on the abuser's part, and not on the victim's part. It is
all irrational. It is based in fear, and power-hunger, and hatred. Not
one of those are an area of rationality.
>...if King does, you can see why I would argue that he doesn't really
>understand women's experiences.
No, I can see why you could argue that he doesn't understand, or
reflect, _your_ perspective. That's a great big difference. It's a great
reason to not enjoy his writing. It is not a reason to declare his
writing as "poor".
Stevie
stevie
>From what I can tell of frustrated King readers, we keep reading out of
>HOPE more than anything else
I know that hope springs eternal, and all that but really, how many
times do you have to be disappointed before you give up? What's the
reinforcement, if not the opportunity to whinge and bellyache?
>...we search through the ever-thickening volumes,
This is one of the worst misperception about King's career. His "thick"
books have come sporadically, throughout his career, just like his truly
great books. The Stand, IT, Tommyknockers, Needful Things, Insomnia.
>looking for the handful of phrases, descriptions, scenes that captured
>the essence of King's talent as we remember it.
Give up already. Go spend your money and your time on someone whose work
you enjoy. Who, among current popular fiction writers do you enjoy? Or
have you actually moved away from a taste for pop fiction?
Stevie
Covenant
TRENA1 wrote in message <19990322223329...@ng-fx1.aol.com>...
>I'm not going to copy everything PCB said, but I agree.
>
>I think one of the reasons I could never finish GG is that it's too real.
As
>for the rest, BoB was a great read.
>
>Some folks may view this differently, but I read purely for pleasure. I
don't
>generally dissect everything in the book. And when the pleasure I get
from
>King stops, I'll stop reading his books. Life's too short to spend time on
>things you don't like.
Welll THAT (And PCB ) deserves an ovation !
Myself I actually felt the supernatural side *diverted* my attention in BoB.
Gerald's Game showed that King could write a genuinly frightening book
without having to refer to ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties
and things that go Bump in the night...
In BoB it really did detract from the actual *tale*.
(I know there would have to have been a bit of a major re-write of the last
quarter of the book to wholely do away with it... But I just thought it was
running quite well without it......)
Covenant.
A Man With Far Too Much Time On His Hands
Covenant
Jon Skeet wrote in message ...
>ter...@homey.com wrote:
>
>> Literary studies are rarely factual, but a certain commitment to one's
own
>> opinon is necessary if one wishes to be a consistent critic. One of the
>> great PLEASURES in literary criticism lies in the debate between
dissenting
>> opinions...it's not about right or wrong so much as who can make a better
>> argument based on textual evidence and linguistic aptitude.
>
>he thinks it *is* about right and wrong, and that anyone that disagrees
>is necessarily wrong. To this end, he accuses anyone who disagrees with
>him of either being stupid or actively *lying* about liking the book in
>question. It seems that in his view, liking Bag of Bones and being
>intelligent are mutually exclusive states.
What *I* find to be more to the point is exactly why Robert himself isn't
addressing this point at all?
Could it be he's just been toying with us all this time??
I guess I'd better throw my hat into the ring here.
IMO...
King's works have grown consistently as his talents as an author have
matured along with the audience he garnered with Carrie... (James Herbert's
books are not as simple and 'almost' tacky as The Rats.... Clive Barker has
come on in leaps and bounds since The Books Of Blood).. it is a natural
process for a writer.
To my mind King began to stumble just before The Tommyknockers. That book
was almost painful to read. It did *begin* well, but then it just plodded
along and came to a very unsatisfactory ending...
The Dark Half was also a bit difficult to read (to me), and I just didn't
see *what* the hell the sun dog was supposed to be at ALL. (Obviously ( God,
I HOPE so anyway), it was an early take for Needful things, but again... The
characters in needful things were a little bland to me. (Too many??)
It annoys me how many times he has taken the "Person with a gun and a tower"
theme and made stories on it. (Once is enough in my book). But I thought
Gerald's Game really brought King back with a vengeance. And from there
(apart from this DAMNED annoying Tak! ... I dunno WHY that annoys me so
much. It just DOES!!!), I feel he's better now than before.
But there will only ever be one Stand and one Dead Zone........
Covenant
>
>>It's a terribly condescending attitude to have towards the people who
>>made him what he is.
>
>
>The notion that readers "made" SK "what he is", is either nonsensical or
>arrogant. King is a writer. He made himself, by recognizing his talent,
>and working his butt off, day in, day out, year in, year out, writing.
If anyone made him it was Tabitha....
(She DID rescue Carrie from the trash after all........)
Covenant.
A Man With Far Too Much Time On His Hands Waiting For Someone To Post....
"More's The pity.." To The Above.....
PCB
It took me six different tries to read "The Gunslinger, DT1". I do
not care for westren stories, and it just hit me as a westren type
story. I finally got through the whole thing last year, and continued
on with the rest of the series..2, 3 and 4. I really like the whole
story now. Of course, I don't understand *everything* in the story,
but like I said, I am not one that likes to disect them. I am looking
forward to #5 though. I like Susanna Dean and her counter part...Detta
Walker. *g*
I loved Needful Things. I could identify with thinking that I "needed"
a particular item rather then just wanted it. I liked the fact that it
was a story that basically said to me...."See what you get for
"needing mere play pretties." It was a "fun" book for me. I know that
I have found myself several times buying something that I thought that
I just *had* to have, when in fact that now that I have it, it sits
and collects dust. *G*
I liked both Desperation and Regulators. Just for the fact that I
thought they were good stories and I enjoyed them.
Want to know the book that really scared me? IT. Pennywise just
touches some part of me that I would rather not talk about. I still
find that I can't go near sewer drains (not that I would want to
anyway) and I certainly can't bring myself to look down into a sink
drain, but not just because of IT. This stems from another fear and IT
just reinforced it. *g*
anyway......
PCB
PCB
<cove...@joelamb.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>TRENA1 wrote in message <19990322223329...@ng-fx1.aol.com>...
>>I'm not going to copy everything PCB said, but I agree.
>>
>>I think one of the reasons I could never finish GG is that it's too real.
I have to agree with you, Trena. I would never do the handcuff thing.
The thought of being left like that would and does terrify me. Nope,
this old girl doesn't do handcuffs and I could completely relate to
the horror of that story for that simple fact. King wrote a modern
horror that I could idnetify with because I would fear that very thing
happening if I ever thought about getting into the bondage thing.
>As
>>for the rest, BoB was a great read.
Again, I agree. I loved BoB. I still feel that *that* story is not
entirely finished.
>>
>>Some folks may view this differently, but I read purely for pleasure. I
>don't
>>generally dissect everything in the book. And when the pleasure I get
>from
>>King stops, I'll stop reading his books. Life's too short to spend time on
>>things you don't like.
I read for pleasure too. Disecting every little detail in the book is
not for me. I like to lose myself in the story and just enjoy it. Like
you said, when I can't enjoy his work anymore, then I will move on,
but for now, I do enjoy his work and I find it refreshing that he is
dealing with more "real horrors" then with the boggy man type. Don't
get me wrong, I like to read a good story about the supernatural and I
guess that is why I really liked RM. It combined the horror of abuse,
which as we all know, is all too real with a revenge type of
supernatural. You have to wonder how many abused people have wished
that someone of something would just take away their abusers! I can
speak with experience, I wished it every minute of the day and night
when I was in that situation.
>
>
>
>Welll THAT (And PCB ) deserves an ovation !
<blush> Thank you. I just wanted to throw my two cents into the mix
here.
>
>Myself I actually felt the supernatural side *diverted* my attention in BoB.
>Gerald's Game showed that King could write a genuinly frightening book
>without having to refer to ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties
>and things that go Bump in the night...
I agree, partially about BoB. Like I said, I like supernatural and
ghost stories. I think we might get to see the story continue with
BoB. I like the fact that it was a haunted love story, but I would
have liked it better, I think, if there were more on the living and
not so much the ghosts, although I think the "ghosts' " stories could
have been told in a little more detail. I would like to hear their
full stories.
<Forgive me, I started rattleing on. *g*>
>
>In BoB it really did detract from the actual *tale*.
>
>(I know there would have to have been a bit of a major re-write of the last
>quarter of the book to wholely do away with it... But I just thought it was
>running quite well without it......)
>
>Covenant.
>A Man With Far Too Much Time On His Hands
>
>
Too much time on your hands is not necessarily a bad thing. It gives
you more time to read, at least. *g*
PCB
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"All the world is a stage and we are merely actors" If that is the
case, I want a rewrite of my role!
Jennifer Hardy
<liberal snippage ensues>
> I don't know what you guys get from him, but I don't think it's the same
> thing fans of his older work got from him. If you like it, that's fine,
but
> let his older fans mourn their losses in peace, all right? If you don't
> want us to denigrate YOUR opinions, it's only fair to give us the room to
> vent our frustration. OUR dissenting opinions are just as valuable and
> relevant to this ng, even if they are not in unanimous support of the
title
> subject.
Man, this argument bugs me. Please do not assume all "older" readers share
your opinions. I've been a fan since the original publication of "Carrie"
and I'm *not* in mourning for stories past. I continue to enjoy King's
writing......his imagination, style and characterizations, including that
of women, who I believe he does "get", remain, for me, very compelling.
The argument that "older" fans think of one mind and/or have some greater
insight into the subject's work is a tired, arrogant argument that can be
seen on newsgroups innumerable and it's long been one of my greatest pet
peeves.
Cheers,
Jennifer
*********
"If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that
considered a hostage situation?" Stephen Wright
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr
"Covenant" <cove...@joelamb.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
> >Just to defend Mr. Whelan a bit here, I HAVE personal correspondence from
> >him that shows he DID genuinely appreciate King's earlier works, and has
> >thought about them intelligently and analytically. His disdain for the
> more
> >recent publications has been sharply worded, but is, for the most part,
> >justified given the drop in quality.
Mr. Whelan doesn't need your D-fenz. He reads well and knows his books.
He also sees the value of King's earlier work, probably more clearly than
most others. And, yes, as writers age their work drops off in quality.
> Then why not START one of those threads yourself? (I'm afraid just
> constantly posting that BoB is a second rate porn novel doesn't seem to be
> intelligent critique to me...)
One problem with King is his blatant exploitation of sexual themes beginning
with Gerald's Game, which is probably one of King's best books yet. King
will always exploit the cheap shot if he can, the bogeyman under the bed,
the closet door partially opened, the thin veneer of civility behind the
storefront in Needful Things, one of King's best books yet. I haven't read
Bag of Bones because I didn't know it was published yet. I plan to read it
and have read the web pages on it. It's a second rate Kinger; we've seen
it all before, elsewhere. King was at the top of his form with "IT".
Michael
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
gear...@netins.net
board for a long time! Thanks guys!
What could King fear that we could identify with?
How about the "flesh eating bacteria"? Never mind that it's actually very
difficult to catch, most of the world doesn't know that. It'd make at least a
very good short story. (Only partly kidding.)
In article <7d8g4v$1k...@enews1.newsguy.com>,
"Kim Hammers" <ki...@gls3c.com> wrote:
well, just what DOES King have to be afraid of these days that
> would translate into a novel his fans would also identify with?
>
> Kim - Just my Opinion you are not compelled to agree with it.
>
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
mst
>And, yes, as writers age their work drops off in quality.
What a frightening thought...
--
Teri
++++
"Well, since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable
to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."
Tock the Watchdog
Scott Leis
>When I read for pleasure I look for pleasure and little else. The
>story has to have a sort of pantameter. It has to flow, and I have to
>be able to forget that I am reading.
>
>The story itself does not have to be credible in real world terms. I
>do not think Frodo was ever real, but in the context of the story of
>Middle Earth, he is as real as the grass under his shaggy feet. In
>that context Frodo is a credible character in a credible story.
>
>It is as if the book were in fact a movie designed to play on the
>screen in my mind. The mechanics of reading get lost. Pages are turned
>but I am not aware of having turned them. Time passes too quickly.
_Excellent_ way of describing the feeling of a good story - you
couldn't have used a better story to demonstrate... and guess what I'm
currently rereading?
>For me Stephen King flows and in the context of a given story is
>credible 99% of the time, so I read him. when he stops flowing I will
>stop reading him.
I agree with this, although the flow of King doesn't match the flow of
Tolkien, IMO.
Shwade 2
--
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die
deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not
be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
mst
> I don't know about you, and I am admittedly male, but I liked Larry's Mom.
> I liked Mother Abbigail, I loved Charlene McGee, I liked the young Bev
>(not so much the older one, cause she didn't have that hardness you speak
>of...at least not as much as she had when she was a kid), I like Fran,
>Robberta, and Susanah Dean.
I liked Larry's Mom, too...but she certainly wasn't a loving, affectionate
woman, and there WAS an underlying subtext that her childrearing approach
contributed to Larry's character flaws.
I'm not saying that these women aren't *likeable* so much as not *loveable*
to the same degree that some of his male characters are. It's more apparent
when we only examine the novels where he has a FEMALE protagonist (Carrie,
RM, DC, GG) compared the the ones where the main character is male (Shining,
DZ, Misery). The supporting characters, or the ones from an ensemble cast,
don't HAVE to be as well developed, and so, it's less noticeable when their
motivation is questionable.
>So obviously I don't see what you are talking
>about as far as non-loveable female characters.
You don't have to see it, but that's what I see.
> It could just be because I am not a woman that I don't see what you are
>talking about but I know there are plenty of powerful, loveable women in
>his books, and I don't recognize the "fear" he has of them that you talk
>of.
This ambiguous attitude is more starkly apparent in the short stories than
the novels. In the novels where it IS an issue, his admiration/resentment
conflict comes across more in the interaction between characters than in the
internal motivation. For example, Fran and Stu...WHAT is the basis of their
irresistable attraction? Considering how losing Frannie to Stu is a key
motivation in terms of Harold's decline into evil, which is itself a key
plot point, we really don't get a clear sense of the undeniable love between
those two.
>You want questionable portrayal of women...Read Dean Koontz.
Yeesh...wouldn't try THAT again if you paid me, talk about one-dimensional
characterizations.
> I always have to ask myself if those women who
>continually go back to abusive relationships are real. The answer is of
>course yes. Just because they don't act the way whe think they should
>doesn't make them less real.
It's not about how *I* think they should act, but how well they correspond
to the behavior of real women I know...and I know a lot, from many different
cultures, of many different ages. My closest friends are, for the most
part, women, and although I've often questioned some of their actions, they
are not easily traceable to some primal trauma or defect in their
characters. There are SO many variables that you can't just say, "she's in
an abusive relationship because her father molested her as a child," or "her
dissappointment at not being able to bear children caused her to go insane
and kill newborn babies at the hospital where she worked."
>What did you think of Charlene McGee? How do you
>think his women should act?
Charlie was a child, and not a terribly realistic one at that..King is
actually not very good at creating believable child protagonists, either.
Firestarter wasn't one of my favorites to begin with, but it's more
understandable that King creates children who don't act like children (since
children ARE, at the root of it, insane...according to King himself) than it
is that he creates women who don't act like REAL women...unless he also
believes that women are all insane, too.
> I agree too. Writing books for movies is not the kind of move I like to
>see in an author. And selling books out to make bad movies (since I am a
>Film major and think I can make "good" movies...lol) just pisses me off.
So, do you not think King has been doing this? It's funny, actually, that
the quality of movies based on his work HAS improved somewhat,
simultaneously with his decline in written work.
mst
>What I do find to be annoying, lately, is that I feel he is "out of touch"
>with the audience he tries to scare, and what they will find horrifying.
Again, I agree...and I find it terribly sad that instead of reaching out to
his readers, asking US why we're not buying his work in the same numbers
that we used to, he's resorting to focus groups and other impersonal means
of evaluating customer satisfaction. For instance, his website shut down
the email function after just a few weeks because of the initial rush of
responses. I would argue that they should have left it up and waited out
the first wave of fanatical letters...once it became an established outlet,
the committed fans would begin to use it as a way of providing immediate and
VALUABLE feedback on the books. It would be a helluva lot cheaper than
those overrated focus groups, too.
>But, if the old adage proves to be true, and you should "write what
>you know", well, just what DOES King have to be afraid of these days that
>would translate into a novel his fans would also identify with?
I don't think it's that he CAN'T relate to what regular folks find
horrifying. After all, he's in his 50's, and there must be the inevitable
decline in health and vigor that comes with the age. His children are also
at the age where they are establishing themselves as adults, and there may
well be fodder there, as well. PLUS, as a celebrity, I KNOW he's been
subject to some psychotic stalking episodes, and THAT'S something anyone can
relate to in this day and age (of course, you could argue that he's done
that one in Misery and doesn't want to spoil it with a lesser attempt, but
Misery was about the celebrity entering the realm of the fan, NOT the other
way around...which might make for an interesting comparison). If he focused
on THOSE universals, I'm sure he COULD find topics that would grab us, but
is unable to "figure it out" for some reason...namely that he's out of touch
and not interested in LISTENING to his fans anymore.
mst
>I strongly disagree here. Dolores is far from the battered-woman complex.
She is no longer a battered woman when the REAL story starts, as she
confronted Joe a few years before he died, but her rationale for allowing
him to beat her in the first place seemed to be rather pat..."my dad did it
to my mom, so I thought it was ok."
>Dolores did none of this once the behavior extended beyond herself.
This is probably the most realistic aspect of the novel, to me...that primal
mother-love of a strong woman. Like I've said, DC is one of the better
works from recent years, and I really don't have any major problems with it.
There are still certain elements that could be improved, however.
mst
> No? Somehow a hotel being able to pull the evil out of one's soul is
okay,
>but generating evil at random is not?
A place where evil resides being able to draw power from the evil within
those who pass through it is very different than a place that just imposes
its own all-powerful evil on innocent passerby. The fear comes from knowing
that the REAL problem is in YOU, not in the place...and from THAT you can't
ever escape.
> If that were true then if you don't believe in Vampires then toss out
Salem's
>Lot, and you'd better believe in telekenesis or don't bother reading
Carrie...
I'm actually not all that fond of either of those two novels, either. As
I've said before, it's not as simple as new v. old, but the ratio of good to
bad seems to have dropped.
> I see your words, and I'm genuinely trying to listen. Really. But it's
>really sounding silly to me. The criticism you level at the works you
don't
>like are equally valid against those you do like.
You know, I've read a lot of silly things that I disagree with on this ng,
and for the most part, I don't make a point of responding to them just to
insult the poster. I don't much care whether you agree or disagree with my
perspectives, but don't call me silly...that's not very constructive.
Besides, you don't really know WHICH books I DO like, other than the three
I've named as my favorites.
mst
>I have seen a lot of reasons why King's work has or has not deteriorated. I
>have argued in this NG earlier that his work has not changed at all. King
>still writes the same way today that he did in the beginning. The
difference
>is not in his style, but in the editing and approach by the publishers.
I believe this is the root of the problem as well, but I also suspect that
King contributes by being resistant to trim his work in the first place.
Some writers spend a great deal of time poring over their own words,
revising and editing themselves before going onto tackling a new project.
King clearly enjoys the act of creation more than perfection, as evidenced
by his sheer volume, and his published works are suffering as a result. If
all that matters to him is getting more stuff out there (and I've read/heard
that he IS overly interested in sheer numbers), then he COULD give his
trusty editors carte blanche in the production stage, if he cared about
quality.
Of course, he COULD have really crappy, lazy editors these days, too. Do
you remember how he used to constantly mention his appreciation for his
editor, Kirby McCauley? He doesn't attribute as much to his editors as of
late.
>Could the editors actually made the story better for my taste than King is
>capable of doing? Is it possible that the new stories are less editied than
>the old?
Entirely possible, but you know...it's HIS name on the cover, and HIS name
on the royalty checks. If he wanted, he COULD get a top-notch editor...but
it seems that his hubris is getting in the way of artistic merit (the same
crime of which he accused Kubrick in making the Shining).
mst
>Man, this argument bugs me. Please do not assume all "older" readers share
>your opinions.
I'm sorry, my point was not clear. I meant something along the lines of
"fans of his older work."
mst
>at the reality of just having them there. We disagree on the women thing
>obviously. but there are also other books that have weak characters.
Yes, and I don't necessarily think he's just on a downward projectory or
anything as simple as that. I honestly believe it's a combination of
editorial laxness and his own drive to PUBLISH PUBLISH PUBLISH. He
should've been an academic...would've had tenure ten times over by now.
>There was only one strong character in Pet Semetary, something you have
>accused him of doing in his later novels, and thus called a reason for
>their not being good.
I'm not terribly crazy about Pet Semetary, actually...although I will say
it's the MOST frightening one of his works I've read. I much prefer the
less horrific works overall...Different Seasons is probably the book I
reread most often, with the exception of Apt Pupil. And I find his short
story collections to still be quite wonderful, throughout his career.
They're a bit more hit-or-miss to begin with, but they've been consistent in
caliber, at least.
> Like his unresearched explanation for Carrie's abilites? When an author
>starts screwing up facts, to prove his fiction it takes more away from a
>book than when he just invents the problem.
Don't expect me to defend Carrie anymore, I said it was rough but with a
certain naive charm (Rocky Horror, anyone?), but it's no magnum opus.
> Crichton? Really? He has most things you say you want to see King do.
>Better resons for the existance of his problems, full histories and
>background for his psuedo-science. Resonalbe human responses.
No heart, no attempt at soul...like I said, even though I criticize, I still
think crappy King is way better than Crichton at his "best." If all you
want is a mindlessly fun fast read, any bestselling novelist can do that,
even a hack like Clancy...King used to be more, a writer dedicated to the
craft of writing. I find it sad that he's not interested in refining his
works as he used to.
> And Grisham...well now...There is someone who's early stuff outweighs his
>Latter stuff...LOL.
The early stuff is A Time to Kill...the rest is all pretty much the same.
The Client is one of the VERY few examples where the movie is BETTER than
the book. That must be quite embarrassing to a writer...but maybe he's
blushing all the way to the bank.
>I can see King doing little things
>here and there that seem to be moving into this direction, however I also
>see a true evolution, more towards his short story style.
Really? In what way? I like his short stories, but I have slightly
different expecations of a short story than a novel, so if he's sacrificing
DEPTH of character for the quicksketch stereotypical characters of a short
story, I don't see that it's a good thing. What kinds of evolutionary clues
are you talking about?
>I don't know what its like to be a great author but I can see the
>need for some light, quick, unthought out novels once in a while.
I can see the need to WRITE them, but not necessarily to publish
them...especially if they're not extensively edited and/or revised.
Look, I'm an English teacher, and one of the most important lessons I teach
is REVISE and REWRITE before you publish. I always read over my posts,
sometimes 2 or 3 times, before I send them out into newsgroup land. It has
become quite apparent to me that most ngfolk don't...but they aren't
charging for the privilege of reading their words, so you really can't
criticize that TOO much. It's different if you expect your reader to slap
down $25 for your latest offering, though.
>Maybe you are
>having difficulty because you want to love these characters when they
>aren't ment to be.
Horror is only effective if you care about the characters in danger...I
learned that from the master himself, in Danse Macabre. It's the same with
movies, the crappy slasher flicks are bad because you don't really care when
someone dies, in fact, that's what you came to see...blood and guts. An
effective suspense thriller works because the audience is shocked and
sickened with each victim. It's the psychological connection that makes it
work...without it, it's just bloodlust.
And if you're going to get into non-horror...well, maybe King SHOULD try
some more of that...it might be what he needs.
> Well I found some of it fun, I don't think we can fry Stephen King simply
>because he doesn't take himself as seriously as we do. I like finding his
>humor in things like this.
It was the DEGREE of inane chatter that lost me, a small dose of pop culture
works quite well...like the Hey Jude refrain throughout the series. But as
far as Eddie's whole monologue-on-speed goes, people don't talk like that,
for the most part...tying every experience as it happens into a reflection
on mass culture is an artificial means of DRILLING us with the alienness of
the environment. I found it condescending...especially that whole scene
with the Takuro cars in the parking lot. WHAT was the point of that?
>>The Stand (original)
> When you say the original...do you mean the unedited? Cause that would,
>technically speaking, be an original. Or do you mean the edited one?
I prefer the clarity of the edited version, although there were a few
episodes from the uncut that I found compelling. They weren't enough to
justify the rerelease, however.
> I know exactly what you mean. And thats part of the reason I love the DT
>series. I will bet that we reread for the same reasons (assuming you
>reread).
Of course. And yes, rereading, at its best, is like visiting old friends.
> I always love the motivation. I liked the little reasons for the stories
>at the end of Skeleton Crew. I want to know more though, Greed can't be
>his only reason for writing anymore.
No, I don't think it is, or has ever been, about the money so much as it IS
about reaching the largest NUMBER of people possible. Unfortunately, that
seems to translate into appealing to the lowest common denominator rather
than raising the literary expectations of the general public.
>And I don't accuse or blame or criticize your
>questioning. I agree with a lot you say, I don't agree with everything.
That's to be expected in any mature discussion. 100% agreement only exists
in an ideal world, or in relation to trivial issues. I DO appreciate the
civil tone of your posts, as some others have disagreed with insults. I
guess I should just ignore them...
>King has evolved a bit and fallen prey to the money monster a bit. Is he
>the same man he was when he started? No.
Of course, but he SHOULD still be capable of writing at the same level in
terms of emotional depth and CARING for his creation, shouldn't he?
>Are you the same person you
>were when you started reading him? I will venture, No.
Again, of course I've grown as well. But I haven't left behind ALL the
authors I used to read...John Irving has my loyalty, as have Alice Walker,
Toni Morrison, David Lodge, and even Judy Blume...among others. My
appreciation of literature has changed, but it is MORE inclusive than it
used to be, not less.
>You have the right to
>reject King if you choose, no one says you have to be "unquestionably
>accepting." However no one says King doesn't have the right to change
>either.
But he clearly wants to retain his readership AS WELL AS convert new ones.
Check out the NYT website and do a search...his recent publishing history
speaks volumes about his conflicting desires...and delusions.
Dow Fairbanks
mst <ter...@homey.com> wrote in article
<9J0K2.24508$FZ5....@news.rdc1.sfba.home.com>...
> Dow Fairbanks wrote in message <01be7500$d0453980
> > I don't know about you, and I am admittedly male, but I liked Larry's
Mom.
> > I liked Mother Abbigail, I loved Charlene McGee, I liked the young Bev
> >(not so much the older one, cause she didn't have that hardness you
speak
> >of...at least not as much as she had when she was a kid), I like Fran,
> >Robberta, and Susanah Dean.
>
> I liked Larry's Mom, too...but she certainly wasn't a loving,
affectionate
> woman, and there WAS an underlying subtext that her childrearing approach
> contributed to Larry's character flaws.
I totally didn't get that from the book. Just the opposite, that if Larry
had paid attention to his mom rather than reject her, he wouldn't have
turned out the way he did. I did not read that she was to blame in any
way.
> I'm not saying that these women aren't *likeable* so much as not
*loveable*
> to the same degree that some of his male characters are. It's more
apparent
> when we only examine the novels where he has a FEMALE protagonist
(Carrie,
> RM, DC, GG) compared the the ones where the main character is male
(Shining,
> DZ, Misery). The supporting characters, or the ones from an ensemble
cast,
> don't HAVE to be as well developed, and so, it's less noticeable when
their
> motivation is questionable.
Well, I have to admit, Stu was a pretty loveable guy wasn't he? Of course
it was Nick Andros that I really liked. But I loved Fran more...I think
your being a woman has clouded your judgement for the guys, just as my
being a man has clouded mine on the women. You have read Firestarter
right? Thats a female protagonist...and she is great. Then again I liked
DC and GG and Tommyknockers...and the female leads in them so...
> >So obviously I don't see what you are talking
> >about as far as non-loveable female characters.
>
> You don't have to see it, but that's what I see.
>
> > It could just be because I am not a woman that I don't see what you are
> >talking about but I know there are plenty of powerful, loveable women in
> >his books, and I don't recognize the "fear" he has of them that you talk
> >of.
>
> This ambiguous attitude is more starkly apparent in the short stories
than
> the novels. In the novels where it IS an issue, his
admiration/resentment
> conflict comes across more in the interaction between characters than in
the
> internal motivation. For example, Fran and Stu...WHAT is the basis of
their
> irresistable attraction? Considering how losing Frannie to Stu is a key
> motivation in terms of Harold's decline into evil, which is itself a key
> plot point, we really don't get a clear sense of the undeniable love
between
> those two.
Umm...okay... And Mother Abigail would play into the idea how? Fran and
Stu found eachother during a rather tough time for everyone. I don't think
its to difficult to understand why they might fall for each other. The
movie might not have played this off correctly but I don't think we can
really follow the movie. The book did fine explaining why they fell for
each other. And Harold was messed up and unreasonably jelous anyways. He
was imagining more than was there...common in most jelousy type situations
I have seen, and participated in.
> >You want questionable portrayal of women...Read Dean Koontz.
>
> Yeesh...wouldn't try THAT again if you paid me, talk about
one-dimensional
> characterizations.
Exactly. However do try Strangers, some of his best characters ever, not
to mention a great Female character. Please read it when you get a
chance...if you feel like it, and then tell me what you think.
> > I always have to ask myself if those women who
> >continually go back to abusive relationships are real. The answer is of
> >course yes. Just because they don't act the way whe think they should
> >doesn't make them less real.
>
> It's not about how *I* think they should act, but how well they
correspond
> to the behavior of real women I know...and I know a lot, from many
different
> cultures, of many different ages. My closest friends are, for the most
> part, women, and although I've often questioned some of their actions,
they
> are not easily traceable to some primal trauma or defect in their
> characters. There are SO many variables that you can't just say, "she's
in
> an abusive relationship because her father molested her as a child," or
"her
> dissappointment at not being able to bear children caused her to go
insane
> and kill newborn babies at the hospital where she worked."
True but we are finding today, in our desire to blame other people, that
this seems to be the case in so many of these situations.
> >What did you think of Charlene McGee? How do you
> >think his women should act?
> >
> Charlie was a child, and not a terribly realistic one at that..King is
> actually not very good at creating believable child protagonists, either.
> Firestarter wasn't one of my favorites to begin with, but it's more
> understandable that King creates children who don't act like children
(since
> children ARE, at the root of it, insane...according to King himself) than
it
> is that he creates women who don't act like REAL women...unless he also
> believes that women are all insane, too.
IT? I found them all believable as children...absolutly loved that book.
When did King call children insane? Was that in an authors note somewhere?
And the last couple sentances I really didn't understand. You think his
women are all insane? Or should be? I don't get it.
> > I agree too. Writing books for movies is not the kind of move I like
to
> >see in an author. And selling books out to make bad movies (since I am
a
> >Film major and think I can make "good" movies...lol) just pisses me off.
>
> So, do you not think King has been doing this? It's funny, actually,
that
> the quality of movies based on his work HAS improved somewhat,
> simultaneously with his decline in written work.
No. King's style doesn't translate to the screen well. Thats not to say
that it can't be done, just that no one has been able to do it right. No I
don't feel he has been writing for the movies...nor do i think the quality
of the his Movies has improved at all.
Dow.
mst
>The inhabitants of some of King's earlier novels, however, really don't
>live up to this standard. With the exception of Jack, there are no such
>characters in The Shining. With the exception of Louis, we really don't
>get enough of anybody in Pet Sematary to say they measure up.
>Firestarter? I wouldn't say so. Carrie? Nope.
Those four are not among my favorites, either...I don't rank King's work in
order of how much I like them, but I DO have a handful of favorites.
>I'm not seeing how your perception of King's life has much to do with
>the discussion here. How about some sense of how you feel the latter day
>characters fail to measure up?
I've BEEN writing about that in almost every post...are you actually reading
them or are you just out to disagree with everything I say? And *I* don't
see how speculating on HIS life is not relevant to HIS work. Like Kim said,
one of the first rules of writing is WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW. It's
completely on topic to make connections between his own experience and the
worlds he creates in his books.
>This is one of the oldest complaints going about King's writing, and I
>think it is entirely mistaken. King has been writing fully developed and
>believable women almost from the get go.
&
>I think to a large extent, you make the same mistake as RW, though you
>tend to couch it far more diplomatically. You mistake matters of taste
>for matters of quality.
Funny how you say my opinions are wrong when you started this thread about
what an opinion IS. Am I, or am I not, entitled to believe what I do? If
you don't think so, and can do little more than tell me I'm "mistaken," I
don't think we have grounds for a discussion here.
>At this point, I have no idea why you continue to read Stephen King. Do
>you bang your head against the wall in other domains besides reading
>matter?
Perhaps...I AM a public school teacher, after all. Some people would argue
that free public education is already a lost cause. I'm going to say it
again...I keep reading out of hope, just as I teach with hope and LIVE with
hope. What else do we really have?
>Seriously, there is so much writing available, and never
>anywhere near enough time to read all one might want to, why spend time
>on a writer you feel has become pathetic?
It's all relative. Like I said, crappy King is still better than some other
bestselling authors at their best. I make a point of reading as much
popular lit as I can, to keep in touch with the market, and so I KNOW the
books that my students read for their independent book projects. I even
read VC Andrews...now THAT'S true shite...but it's fun, fast and the kids
like it.
>Just out of curiousity, what current _popular fiction_ writers provide
>this for you?
Why do you emphasize "_popular fiction_?" Do you not think it's possible to
have that kind of emotional depth in popular books or are you implying that
my standards are snooty? I don't really see much difference in "popular"
writing and "literature." Those artificial categories are set up more for
marketing purposes than literary ones.
As for current writers who grab me...Irvine Welsh, for one. As difficult as
it is to work through the dialect, the payoff in terms of emotional power is
ALWAYS worth it.
I've just finished Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, and although it is not
fiction, it is written in a novelistic style that could easily be mistaken
for fiction.
The latest John Irving (A Widow for One Year) was also quite satisfying,
although his previous novel (A Son of the Circus) was not.
Larry McMurty seems to have retained his ability to create believable
sympathetic characters, although he has similar problems in that his female
characters are LESS developed than his males.
Gish Jen, Kazuo Ishiguro, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker are all also currently
producing top quality work AND sitting on the lists. The two are not
mutually exclusive states.
Jon Skeet
> > Ah - now that's where you appear to differ in opinion with Robert. See,
> > he thinks it *is* about right and wrong, and that anyone that disagrees
> > is necessarily wrong. To this end, he accuses anyone who disagrees with
> > him of either being stupid or actively *lying* about liking the book in
> > question. It seems that in his view, liking Bag of Bones and being
> > intelligent are mutually exclusive states.
>
> That isn't true, Jon. As far as "lying" goes, I think a lot of fans
> actively make huge allowances for less pleasing aspects of "Bag of
> Bones", more so than I do. It's not "lying" so much as habituallly
> accentuating the positive.
Well, I seem to remember sentences which certainly implied that both
myself and Bev were being less than honest in our findings, and even that
Bev felt some duty to always claim that the latest King book is the best.
If you want me to hunt around on Deja News for those posts, I will.
--
Jon Skeet - sk...@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/
Jon Skeet
> If anyone made him it was Tabitha....
Surely his parents had something to do with it, too :)
Robert Whelan
As I remember, I also recanted as to *your* being dishonest. Bev, however,
I still think was exaggerating to incredible lengths.
Is it WRONG to suspect people of not being absolutely honest about their
reactions? One of the major motivations for dishonesty is all around
us...in the fannish mood of this newsgroup. People hesitate to say
ANYTHING negative, and to phrase negative reactions in positive ways,
like the person who was trying to rationalize her boredom with
Bag of Bones as "savoring". People DO try to be polite about things
they don't really like. I know I've "seen the good parts" in books
friends of mine liked, or tried to.
The fact that King contacts, such as Bev, and Tabitha King, monitor
this newsgroup on occasion, makes certain regulars particularly
obsequious out of habit.
Jon Skeet
> As I remember, I also recanted as to *your* being dishonest.
Indeed. I apologise, I should have stated this. The original feeling was
there, however, and I still infer accusations of dishonesty in others
within other posts you make about Bag of Bones.
> Bev, however, I still think was exaggerating to incredible lengths.
We have to differ then. I base my opinion on the fact that I've never
seen any reason to doubt Bev's honesty. You seem to base yours on the way
that you can't imagine anyone intelligent liking Bag of Bones.
Out of interest, I don't remember whether I asked you or not at the time:
given your theory about Bev liking the most current King book best, how
do you explain his stated opinion that The Gunslinger is the best of the
Dark Tower books?
> Is it WRONG to suspect people of not being absolutely honest about their
> reactions? One of the major motivations for dishonesty is all around
> us...in the fannish mood of this newsgroup. People hesitate to say ANYTHING
> negative, and to phrase negative reactions in positive ways, like the
> person who was trying to rationalize her boredom with Bag of Bones as
> "savoring". People DO try to be polite about things they don't really
> like. I know I've "seen the good parts" in books friends of mine liked,
> or tried to.
True, but that doesn't mean that when someone says they liked a book,
they must be dishonest just because you didn't. Sure, people are
rationalising sometimes - but sometimes they're not! Sometimes they're
just enjoying the book...
> The fact that King contacts, such as Bev, and Tabitha King, monitor
> this newsgroup on occasion, makes certain regulars particularly
> obsequious out of habit.
When you call Bev a "King contact" I suspect you're over-stating the
situation. AFAIK, Bev has met King once, and seen him another couple of
times. He has very good information sources, but I believe the
information flows towards him, and then towards the newsgroup, rather
than the other way round.
Tim Moses
mst wrote in message ...
>TD1SF wrote in message
>>I strongly disagree here. Dolores is far from the battered-woman complex.
>
>
>She is no longer a battered woman when the REAL story starts, as she
>confronted Joe a few years before he died, but her rationale for allowing
>him to beat her in the first place seemed to be rather pat..."my dad did it
>to my mom, so I thought it was ok."
Although it *could* be argued that this is only the reason she gives to the
man sitting across from her, not her TRUE reason....besides, she had other
things on her mind to talk about, if I remember correctly.
>
>>Dolores did none of this once the behavior extended beyond herself.
>
>
>This is probably the most realistic aspect of the novel, to me...that
primal
>mother-love of a strong woman. Like I've said, DC is one of the better
>works from recent years, and I really don't have any major problems with
it.
>There are still certain elements that could be improved, however.
No fair leaving us dangling! Which elements?
DC is also one I greatly enjoyed: got it for Christmas that year & read it
straight thru Christmas night.....
KAH
("The most important things are the hardest things to say.")
>
>Teri
>++++
>"Well, since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable
>to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."
> Tock the Watchdog
Phantom Tollbooth.....
stevie
> stevie wrote in message <36F831...@rogerswave.com>...
>>The inhabitants of some of King's earlier novels, however, really don't
>>live up to this standard. With the exception of Jack, there are no such
>>characters in The Shining. With the exception of Louis, we really don't
>>get enough of anybody in Pet Sematary to say they measure up.
>>Firestarter? I wouldn't say so. Carrie? Nope.
>Those four are not among my favorites, either...I don't rank King's
>work in order of how much I like them, but I DO have a handful of
>favorites.
I'm curious. Aside from the three or four novels you names as favs,
which King novels _do_ you like? By the increasing number you say are
not among your favs, I begin to wonder if you ever really did like King
in any sort of general way, and whether, in fact, there have always been
more you dislike than like.
>>I'm not seeing how your perception of King's life has much to do with
>>the discussion here. How about some sense of how you feel the latter
>>day characters fail to measure up?
>I've BEEN writing about that in almost every post
Have you? I've seen lots of statements of how King is spiraling
downward, and lots of statements about which books you don't much care
for, and some statements about what you think makes for a good
characterization, but have you actually given examples of how you think
the latter day characters fail to measure up, or simply stated that they
don't?
>...are you actually reading them
Sadly, yes.
>or are you just out to disagree with everything I say?
No, but you make it easy to disagree, as it happens. ;)
>And *I* don't see how speculating on HIS life is not relevant to HIS
>work. Like Kim said, one of the first rules of writing is WRITE ABOUT
>WHAT YOU KNOW. It's completely on topic to make connections between
>his own experience and the worlds he creates in his books.
Well, first off, you are drawing connections between what you _imagine_
his own experience to be, and what you perceive in his books. That's not
the same thing as drawing connections between his _actual_ experience
and the worlds he creates.
And secondly, although the well worn mantra of "write what you know" is
a decent beginning guide to subject matter, it is also one of the more
overused and misunderstood clichés in writing. I certainly doubt that
many writers of "fantastic" fiction are writing what they know in any
literal way, and I dare say that the best writers of "fantastic" fiction
are writing a lot more of what they imagine, than what they know.
>>This is one of the oldest complaints going about King's writing, and I
>>think it is entirely mistaken. King has been writing fully developed
>>and believable women almost from the get go.
(snippage)
>>I think to a large extent, you make the same mistake as RW, though you
>>tend to couch it far more diplomatically. You mistake matters of taste
>>for matters of quality.
>Funny how you say my opinions are wrong when you started this thread
>about what an opinion IS.
Your opinions are not wrong, but neither are they fact. I take exception
to your stating your opinions as facts, which you tend to do repeatedly.
You do not state that you have enjoyed King less as the years go by, nor
do you state that you find less to enjoy in his writing. Rather, you
state that his writing is worse.
>Am I, or am I not, entitled to believe what I do?
Of, course, and to reduce the discussion to this level is to miss the
point.
>If you don't think so, and can do little more than tell me I'm
>"mistaken," I don't think we have grounds for a discussion here.
I think you are probably correct in your surmise that we have little to
discuss. I'm not going to change your mind, nor you mine. I started out
informing you about the overall ng antics of a poster you chose to
defend, while you lacked full knowledge. You have, since then, exhibited
remarkable similarity in content and pov to that poster. Hmmmmm.
>>At this point, I have no idea why you continue to read Stephen King. Do
>>you bang your head against the wall in other domains besides reading
>>matter?
>Perhaps...I AM a public school teacher, after all. Some people would
>argue that free public education is already a lost cause. I'm going to
>say it again...I keep reading out of hope, just as I teach with hope and
>LIVE with hope. What else do we really have?
Fine, but I'll ask as I did above. How many King novels do you actually
like? And following on that, when does hope run out? Surely you will not
continure reading another twenty or thirty King novels as he continues
to disappoint you? There are so many other authors out there. Have you
tried Dan Simmons, Robert McCammon, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Pat
Conroy, Mark Helprin?
>>Seriously, there is so much writing available, and never
>>anywhere near enough time to read all one might want to, why spend time
>>on a writer you feel has become pathetic?
>It's all relative. Like I said, crappy King is still better than some
>other bestselling authors at their best.
I think you either have a high tolerance for, or a loose definition of
"crap".
>I make a point of reading as much popular lit as I can, to keep in
>touch with the market, and so I KNOW the books that my students read
>for their independent book projects. I even read VC Andrews...now
>THAT'S true shite...but it's fun, fast and the kids like it.
Well, chacon a sont gout, but I can't imagine subjecting myself to
repeated doses of something I considered crap writing, and a
disappointment to boot. Surely one, or even an occasional example would
do.
> >Just out of curiousity, what current _popular fiction_ writers provide
> >this for you?
>Why do you emphasize "_popular fiction_?"
Because that's what King writes, and I was trying to get a sense of
whether or not you saw merit, generally, in pop fiction.
>Do you not think it's possible to have that kind of emotional depth in
>popular books
Sure, but its usually, if not always, a more accessible and less
literary style, or it wouldn't be popular.
>or are you implying that my standards are snooty?
Not at all. I see nothing snooty about preferring literary fiction, or
the classics, or any other form or genre. I do think it might be part of
a problem with King's work, if one's preference is for something other
than popular fiction.
>I don't really see much difference in "popular" writing and
>"literature." Those artificial categories are set up more for
>marketing purposes than literary ones.
That's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure it is particularly
defensible.
(list edited of comments for brevity's sake.)
>As for current writers who grab me...Irvine Welsh, Frank McCourt,John
>Irving (A Widow for One Year) Larry McMurty, Gish Jen, Kazuo Ishiguro,
>Toni Morrison, Alice Walker
I'm not sure I would consider any of those authors, with the exception
of McMurtry, as authors of popular fiction. I do believe I understand
your disappointment with King. Are there any current authors of horror,
or dark fantasy whose work you enjoy?
Stevie
Covenant
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr wrote in message <7d9h4i$13h$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <7d6267$bgu$1...@news4.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> "Covenant" <cove...@joelamb.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
First thing...
The first para wasn't me, it was mst (?) IIRC.....
>> >Just to defend Mr. Whelan a bit here, I HAVE personal correspondence
from
>> >him that shows he DID genuinely appreciate King's earlier works, and has
>> >thought about them intelligently and analytically. His disdain for the
>> more
>> >recent publications has been sharply worded, but is, for the most part,
>> >justified given the drop in quality.
>Mr. Whelan doesn't need your D-fenz. He reads well and knows his books.
WHAT?
*I* read well (as I guess do most people on this NG) ... Have done since I
was three (quick starter). Do you know Robert? Buy his books for him? Decide
what IS and what ISN'T a *good book*?
>He also sees the value of King's earlier work, probably more clearly than
>most others.
Hmm... Sounds to me like you are running to his 'D-fenz'... Surely not? He
doesn't *need* that does he !?
Still, taken that as read, *why* do you say that? What *possible* means do
you have to identify that one person's opinion is more valid than another's?
> And, yes, as writers age their work drops off in quality.
Tell that to Tolkien, Lewis, Solzheinitsin
(and that's without having to think about it...Or look up Alexandre's
spelling....)
>> Then why not START one of those threads yourself? (I'm afraid just
>> constantly posting that BoB is a second rate porn novel doesn't seem to
be
>> intelligent critique to me...)
>
>One problem with King is his blatant exploitation of sexual themes
beginning
>with Gerald's Game, which is probably one of King's best books yet.
Okay. You say exploitation is a problem in the book, then say it is one of
his best books yet?
Which do you actually mean?
>King will always exploit the cheap shot if he can, the bogeyman under the
bed,
>the closet door partially opened, the thin veneer of civility behind the
>storefront in Needful Things, one of King's best books yet.
Again, you call it a cheap shot and then claim it is One of his best books
yet.
Again... which do you mean?
> I haven't read
>Bag of Bones
You should... It's one of his best books yet!
>because I didn't know it was published yet.
Yeah... It's only been out for, what, 8 months?
>I plan to read it and have read the web pages on it. It's a second rate
Kinger; we've >seen it all before, elsewhere.
Ermmm........
Look, you just said you haven't read it.....
So where does your critique of it come from?
Websites?? Other people's opinions? *Mr* Whelan?
Why not try, (and I know this is a radical idea...) READING the thing?
(But then that'll obviously be a fairly pointless excercise. You've made
you're opinion and I doubt if you'd be honest enough to post that you loved
it if you did.)
>King was at the top of his form with "IT".
All together now !
...
"One of his best books yet !"
(Cool... Michael's got a catch phrase!!!!!)
Covenant.
A Man With Far Too Much Time On His Hands ( Being A Nice Guy Doesn't Mean
Being An Easy Target!)
Covenant
mst wrote in message ...
share
>>your opinions.
>
>I'm sorry, my point was not clear. I meant something along the lines of
>"fans of his older work."
Hi Teri.....
I feel the problem may be that your post stated something which gave the
impression you felt that if you liked King's earlier works then you *can't*
enjoy his later works.
Now, obviously that *can't* be the case.
Why not? Because the only book of Kings that I feel was sub-standard, ("Oh
no..." think those who actually read my meanderings... "here he goes again
!")... Was The Tommyknockers.
I thopught it was poorly written, overlong, (yet somehow seemed to have been
rushed!?)
But hey... What do *I* know?! ; ' )
That said........
>"Well, since you got here by not thinking, it seems reasonable
>to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking."
> Tock the Watchdog
I was all prepared to get ready for verbal fisticuffs with you !
But how CAN I now that I know you're a fan of The Phantom Tollbooth !!!!
(Don't say there's nothing to do in the doldrums......)
Covenant.
A Man With Far Too Much Time On His Hands... "Time, time, time, time,
ticking and tocking itself away, itself away to say, better beware...."
etc.......
Wag
Ivy Lee wrote in message <36f98a42...@nntp.infoave.net>...
>On Wed, 24 Mar 1999 14:28:56 -0000, "Covenant"
><cove...@joelamb.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>But then that'll obviously be a fairly pointless excercise.
>
>
>Ivy
Yes... Michael, like Courvasier, is an acquired taste. But
once acquired, the subtleties are well worth the patience
required.
Wag
mst
>I'm curious. Aside from the three or four novels you names as favs,
>which King novels _do_ you like? By the increasing number you say are
>not among your favs, I begin to wonder if you ever really did like King
>in any sort of general way, and whether, in fact, there have always been
>more you dislike than like.
Even the ones I do not consider my favorites have been enjoyable to read,
they just do not hold up under close examination, which is what I ultimately
LIKE to do with the books I read. If you're not into analysis, that's fine,
but to say that those who DO search for deeper meanings are missing the
point is missing the point that we ALL want different things from our books.
Some others I find particularly powerful are Misery, the Talisman, and ALL
of the short story collections. Of the recent works, I feel DT4 and Green
Mile have the most promising elements, but I did not particularly like the
episodic nature of GM...perhaps those problems will not be present in the
consolidated novel. As of now, I have read EVERYTHING King's published, and
feel his general decline is definitely related to publishing factors. If I
wasn't in the middle of writing my MA thesis, I might take the time to go
back and reread, but as it is, I'm wasting too much time on this thread.
>Your opinions are not wrong, but neither are they fact. I take exception
>to your stating your opinions as facts, which you tend to do repeatedly.
>You do not state that you have enjoyed King less as the years go by, nor
>do you state that you find less to enjoy in his writing. Rather, you
>state that his writing is worse.
I addressed this earlier in my comment about being committed to one's own
perspective. Yes, I suppose I COULD qualify every one of my opinions with
an IMHO or some such, but that is--to me--a bit of a cop out. It's what I
think, and I would hope that I don't have to be constantly apologizing for
and watering down my statements when any mature, rational person could SEE
that it is, ultimately, just an opinion. If you interpret what I say as
fact, that's YOUR perspective, not mine.
>Fine, but I'll ask as I did above. How many King novels do you actually
>like? And following on that, when does hope run out? Surely you will not
>continure reading another twenty or thirty King novels as he continues
>to disappoint you?
I read a LOT...two or three books a week, on average. It takes me maybe a
day or two to get through even King's 1500 page monsters, so it's not really
much of a sacrifice to read them. And I DO enjoy them, just not as much as
I used to...what's it to you whether or not I keep trying?
And I've already told you which ones I particularly like. There are very
few that I actually find abominable, but since one of those is your
favorite, it's clear that we don't appreciate the same things...so why drag
out a point by point comparison?
>There are so many other authors out there. Have you
>tried Dan Simmons, Robert McCammon, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Pat
>Conroy, Mark Helprin?
I liked Barker's short stories, but find his novels unfulfilling in terms of
characterization (again). Straub, I feel, has actually improved greatly
over the years, and his Blue Rose series has so far been the most satisfying
of his books I've read. I BELIEVE I've read everything Straub has ever
published, including those crappy early novels, Marriage and Under Venus. I
read the Prince of Tides, but could not separate the written characters from
the ads for the movie (which I did NOT see) and I LOATHE Streisand...'nuff
said. The others I have not read, and probably will not.
>I think you either have a high tolerance for, or a loose definition of
>"crap".
I have high tolerances for many things...I HAVE to in order to remain sane
while dealing with 150 17-year olds for 6 hours a day. Or perhaps *I'M*
insane to actually enjoy my job.
>I'm not sure I would consider any of those authors, with the exception
>of McMurtry, as authors of popular fiction.
If sitting on the NYT bestseller lists isn't a sign of popularity, I don't
know what is.
>I do believe I understand
>your disappointment with King. Are there any current authors of horror,
>or dark fantasy whose work you enjoy?
Frankly, no, not since I moved into the genres of true crime and historical
non-fiction memoirs. The fantastic elements of horror pale beside real life
horrors. But I'm not all that concerned with whether or not King's writing
still scares me, since it never really did. He's often said that he is not
JUST a horror writer, and I've always heartily agreed with that. My main
complaint is that he no longer MOVES me.
--
Teri
++++
mst
>But hey... What do *I* know?! ; ' )
You know what you know. That's all, and that should be enough.
>I was all prepared to get ready for verbal fisticuffs with you !
>But how CAN I now that I know you're a fan of The Phantom Tollbooth !!!!
How can an English major NOT be a fan of the Phantom Tollbooth? If only
more Ph.D dissertations were as astute and clearly written.
mst
> I totally didn't get that from the book. Just the opposite, that if Larry
>had paid attention to his mom rather than reject her, he wouldn't have
>turned out the way he did. I did not read that she was to blame in any
>way.
What I remember from the book was that she recognized Larry's faults, and
tried to correct him...but because she was a cold fish, he rejected her
attempts and essentially abandoned her. I'm not necessarily saying that she
DESERVED the blame, but that LARRY felt a good deal of resentment that she
wasn't more loving and affectionate to him throughout his childhood.
> Well, I have to admit, Stu was a pretty loveable guy wasn't he? Of course
>it was Nick Andros that I really liked.
I completely agree. Nick is probably the one character that I would give
anything to see brought to life...not just by an actor, but somehow created
flesh and blood a la Pygmalion.
>But I loved Fran more...I think
>your being a woman has clouded your judgement for the guys, just as my
>being a man has clouded mine on the women.
The opening scene with Fran and Jesse at the pier...she treats him rather
bitchily, don't you think? While I can understand that she's upset at being
unexpectedly pregnant, it really isn't very constructive of her to pick a
fight with the father of her child, whether or not she intends to remain in
the relationship. To introduce her character in this light seemed a bit
mean, to me...and not terribly realistic. And keep in mind, I LOVE the
Stand...so my criticism clearly does not change my affection for the work in
question.
> True but we are finding today, in our desire to blame other people, that
>this seems to be the case in so many of these situations.
Is this a good thing? I don't think so. To oversimplify human behavior
leads to social problems I don't even want to get into here. I see the
results of such mistakes constantly in my classes...smart kids that just
didn't fit into the expected mold and are more or less shunted aside, lost
in the system. Making the attempt to understand deeper motivations will
help more people achieve their highest potential.
> IT? I found them all believable as children...absolutly loved that book.
>When did King call children insane? Was that in an authors note somewhere?
I believe it was in Danse Macabre, but I'm not certain. If you're
interested, I could look it up in a few weeks, after I turn in my thesis.
But you know, I'm sure someone else could find it quicker than that...would
anyone like to try?
> And the last couple sentances I really didn't understand. You think his
>women are all insane? Or should be? I don't get it.
That was a sarcastic remark. I meant that if his female characters were as
unrealistic as his child characters, it might be a sign that he thinks women
are also insane, since he has stated that he believes children are insane.
> No. King's style doesn't translate to the screen well. Thats not to say
>that it can't be done, just that no one has been able to do it right. No I
>don't feel he has been writing for the movies...nor do i think the quality
>of the his Movies has improved at all.
Stand By Me was BEAUTIFULLY done. And Shawshank was quite enjoyable as
well. The Stand miniseries turned out much better than I had hoped. And
Misery was incredibly powerful. I would actually love to see Rage (Getting
It On) done properly, by a serious director who would not cheese up the
teenaged characters for cheap laughs.
mst
>No fair leaving us dangling! Which elements?
The rational for the dust bunnies, for one. A better explanation for
Dolores deciding to marry Joe than "he had a nice forehead," for another.
Stronger development of Dolores and Joe's other children, for a third.
Ivy Lee
mst
> Okay so you have one example. Do you have more?
Rose Madder's supernatural painting just shows up, no real explanation as to
how it acquired its strange powers, nor why she's drawn to it.
Leland Gaunt appears in town with no preliminary history or understanding of
his motives...similar to Salem's Lot, but there isn't even a rationale like
"he's a vampire" to make it make sense.
Insomnia...cheesy mythological connections, but no real relationship to the
world they invade, or any explanation as to why they choose to show up and
reveal themselves when they do.
I could probably find more, but I'm really not interested in picking apart
King's books piece by piece.
>There is a little background for some of the events in some of
>his novels but truly they are all fabrications aren't they?
I think the attempt at these fabrications are a vital part of making his
plots realistic, and his characters believable. Whether or not your
rational mind BUYS his explanations, they create a fuller world within the
book, which allows the reader to sink deeper into it.
>But Christine?
Roland LeBay sacrificed his child to the car, thus bringing it to demonic
life, and it took over from there. When HE died, his spirit joined
Christine's and made her even more powerful. A bit weak, I will admit, but
the strong point of the book was the cruelty of teen society, and THAT was
drawn VERY convincingly.
>IT?
I did not particularly like this one, and found the whole spider in the
sewer rather lame, overall. The clown was a helluva lot scarier than the
spider, don't you think?
>Pet Semetary?
Ancient Indian burial ground...classic horror motif, and easily believable
because it is rooted in the literary tradition of these tales.
>Tommyknockers
>presupposes the existance of Extraterrestial life, if I don't believe, does
>that make it a bad book?
Tommyknockers WAS a bad book, not because of the aliens, but because the
townspeople were not particularly likeable to begin with, so when they
succumbed to extraterrestrial possession, who gave a shit? Even the cute
little kid lost on the airless planet story was a bit pat.
>Name a couple King books that don't Presuppose
>something. Suspension of disbelife is what makes any fiction novel
>enjoyable.
It's becoming harder and harder to suspend disbelief with King's work,
especially when the illusory details that create the reality within the book
are absent, while the rambling, mundane, interior monologues become more and
more obvious.
> Okay, sexist assuptions on your part aside, PEOPLE do strange things for
>strange reasons.
Strange to us, but it makes sense to THEM. An author who KNOWS his
characters would be able to make it make sense to the reader, rather than
essentially saying, "look at what that crazy guy did." Greg Stillson was
quite insane, but I understood where he was coming from, and his behavior
made sense in light of his history...despite the thinly disguised parallels
to Hitler.
Why is it sexist of me to suspect that King does not really explore women's
perspectives in his work? I'm certainly not alone in feeling this way, even
if I may be alone in this ng in saying so.
>Why did Luke see himself when he killed the phantom Vader in the Degaba
>system? I don't know, it wasn't explained fully, i think I know what it
>means, but does this example make Empire strikes back a bad movie?
It's not a bad movie, but it's lacking that certain something that makes
Star Wars so powerful. I think it's actually quite apparent why Luke sees
himself in Vader's helmet...his subconscious fear that he will also succumb
to the Dark Side.
Ivy Lee
thread). Robert and I tend to have similar literary tastes; that is, I tend to
like the novels that he likes and dislike the ones he pans. I really was
disappointed by the way Bag of Bones fell apart at the end, and by the
short-cuts, repetitions, and shallow characterizations (in my view) in the
writing of that novel. It had fine moments in it, but not enough to redeem it
for me (or the trouble a friend went through to get it for me early from the
UK). It was a let-down, at best a pleasant way to spend a couple of
days--nothing I really want to read again.
I don't think anyone who liked BoB is stupid, not at all--but I do feel that the
craftsmanship of King's work has fallen off measurably, by a standard of
personal satisfaction which I am a great deal less articulate at expressing than
some who have posted in this thread. I tend to wonder (and this is possibly a
horrible thing to say) if his declining eyesight is part of the problem--if he's
editing and reworking his writing less now, or less effectively now. I am
trying to imagine that task done aurally, perhaps by dictation, and it seems
hideously difficult to me. Or I imagine trying to edit an 800-page document in
Word in 100-point fonts. I'd be gnawing the mouse cable in no time, were it me.
(I am sure, now, that someone on this group can name forty vision-impaired
people who wrote brilliant books in just that way, but those writers probably
hadn't been working for twenty years doing things quite a different way, as has
King. I suspect they took more time per book than King, as well. . . he hasn't
slowed down, but perhaps he should. Your mileage no doubt varies. I fear I may
be a sorehead. Perhaps it's a good time to mention my own vision is dismal, but
[thank God] corrective lenses do the trick.)
I don't think it's age. Some writers, such as Bradbury, seem to recycle
material, get tired, lose their edge, but there are just as many who've gotten
better with age. And I am not a wholehearted fan of all the "early" books: I
dislike Tommyknockers, Christine and IT, while I adored Delores Claiborne. My
fave is probably The Dead Zone, because it's tightly written and doesn't fall
apart at the end. Anyhow, I don't line up in a camp of "earlier novels are
always better than later novels"--the short stories maybe; not the novels.
But this thread has gotten personal about Robert, and it was Robert I wanted to
address, particularly. I did say I share some of Robert's opinions. I honestly
think most of his initial criticisms--before he starts foaming at the
mouth--make sense, and a lot of the people who disagree with him come off as
less rational and articulate by comparison. The sentiment "if you don't like
it, just leave" is a particularly offensive one, to me. There should be room
for dissenting opinions here, for heaven's sake; we're not a church of Stephen
King worship.
But. The way Robert expresses his opinions here on absk, particularly his utter
inflexibility once Stevie joins the fray, can be so irritating it nearly moves
one to violence. That line-by-line criticism of the TGWLTG prologue he did was
one of the most incredibly annoying posts, including casting threads, that I've
ever read; you could take *any* piece of writing to pieces in that way and
basically defecate on it. As criticism it was nearly meaningless. Equally
meaningless are line-by-line "well, *why* did you like it?" replies to people
who either are too inarticulate to say why they liked it, or are tired of trying
to explain to a fencepost.
That immediate reply to the introduction of this novel foreshadows--no matter
whether the book's golden or clay--months of similar attacks on TGWLTG, should
anyone say they like it or indeed even mention it by name. Some people *will*
like it, of course, even if it turns out to be poo (erm, well). Flames,
vendettas, whining, plonking, maybe a permanent departure or two. Geez.
[Btw--I have no opinion as yet on TGWLTG; I don't see how anyone could really
form an opinion from such a short, admittedly bland snippet. I don't have high
hopes--but even if it were flawed, the writing in BoB was better than things had
been in a while, so I think there *could* be an upswing with this book, or the
next, or the next. Hope is a fine emotion, often useful--and I find it no
sillier to take a chance on a new King novel than an unknown novel by someone
I've not read before. I do both, in hope. In any case, you should be glad I
give money to finance the nice red house and motorcycle, etc.]
I think Stevie Canuck has little right to criticize Robert's behavior, btw,
because I saw near-equal excesses on his side when they used waste our time by
following up each other's every post with personal insults and histories of same
to date--and again, I fear months of *that* rivalry blooming as soon as we all
get a proper look at TGWLTG. Stevie's embrace of certain novels seems as
mechanical and dogmatic as Robert's rejection of them. I don't like anyone
telling me what I *ought* to think about a book, even if I do agree with their
basic criticisms. I also don't like being told, "Well, if you haven't liked
King's books lately, don't read him any more and don't talk about it and go
away." Pah. For one thing, we still *do* discuss the older books here, if not
as often. For another, this is Usenet and I'll post if I want to (you would
post too if it happened to you, dah dah dah dah dah).
If only sensitive sorts would not rise-n-whine to obviously inflammatory and
inflexible statements! However, each novel is going to bring in some
unsuspecting new faces, and there are some old folks who can't resist a good
tussle or a well-baited hook. I guess we'll all just have to grit our teeth and
bear it. Cos we sure as hell aren't all going to get along, are we?
One thing's clear, to my mind: there is something in this group to annoy
everyone. Absolutely everyone.
Crochet-ily (knit one purl two),
Ivy
Jennifer Hardy
> Jennifer Hardy wrote in message <01be7591$0026c0c0
> >Man, this argument bugs me. Please do not assume all "older" readers
share
> >your opinions.
>
> I'm sorry, my point was not clear. I meant something along the lines of
> "fans of his older work."
No, your point was perfectly clear and if you hadn't snipped (or had read)
the rest of my paragraph where I state I have been a fan since the original
publication of "Carrie" you would have seen that I did indeed "get it". To
make *my* point completely clear (although I thought it was) I'll rephrase
the above sentence to read:
"Man this argument bugs me. Please do not assume that all "fans of his
older work" share your opinions."
Cheers,
Jennifer
*********
"If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that
considered a hostage situation?" Stephen Wright
Web Master
: you remember how he used to constantly mention his appreciation for his
: editor, Kirby McCauley? He doesn't attribute as much to his editors as of
: late.
From the notes at the beginning of Bag of Bones:
"Thanks to Chuck Verrill for a monumental editing job -- your
personal best."
--
Bev Vincent
Houston, TX
-- "God might be a sports fan, but he's not a Red Sox fan."
mst
>No, your point was perfectly clear and if you hadn't snipped (or had read)
>the rest of my paragraph where I state I have been a fan since the original
>publication of "Carrie" you would have seen that I did indeed "get it". To
>make *my* point completely clear (although I thought it was) I'll rephrase
>the above sentence to read:
>
>"Man this argument bugs me. Please do not assume that all "fans of his
>older work" share your opinions."
All right, I'll make another attempt at clarity, and please don't get
snippy, I wasn't trying to imply that YOU didn't understand...I was making a
genuine effort to rephrase something *I* said. I have no problem admitting
that I may not have made myself clear.
...I MEANT "fans who prefer his older work."
I know some people like everything King has ever done. So be it.
JSM
says...
>
>mst <ter...@homey.com> wrote:
>: you remember how he used to constantly mention his appreciation for his
>: editor, Kirby McCauley? He doesn't attribute as much to his editors as of
>: late.
>
>From the notes at the beginning of Bag of Bones:
>
>"Thanks to Chuck Verrill for a monumental editing job -- your
>personal best."
King may still give credit to his editors, but I feel that since Kirby
McCauley his editors have not done the job King needs on his work. It could be
a simpkle, 'well, he's the boss and he doesn't want to do too many rewrites so
we'll keep it simple...' or it might be a case of hero (or money) worship. In
any event, he needs another Kirby McCauley, IMO.
What made the editing job on BoB so monumental? Did Verrill have to fight King
for every little change? Was original manuscript so much larger than the
finished story? Why is it monumental?
And for Verrill's 'personal best', I once ran a 10 minute mile, which for me
is my personal best. Not very impressive, though. 'Personal best' is a very
subjective term!
;)
--
John for e-mail, "mod_con" = "modcon"; "nospam.org" = "ionet.net"
mst
> In any event, he needs another Kirby McCauley, IMO.
Strongly seconded here.
Since King switched to Scribners with BOB, could he have worked all that
extensively with Verrill? Did he bring his editors with him when he moved
house?
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr
stevie <mill...@rogerswave.com> wrote:
<snip>
> You obvisouly haven't been around her long, or you would know that RW,
> aka Fuzzy Bunny, aka One of the Fascists, aka ... is obsessive in both
> his likes and dislikes, and entirely egocentric in his view of
> literature.
This remark reflects poorly on the person making it. It's not that
I need to defend RW who is perfectly capable of that himself. It's that
what stevie is saying goes beyond all the data. No one working
on a computer should be able to make these statements because they
don't have the hard evidence. It's a waste of time to talk like this. Besides
who isn't "egocentric"? Stevie has one of the biggest egos around.
> He believes he knows the mind of the author, and he believes
> that anyone who holds and opinion contrary to his own is wrong, and in
> need of being shown the error of their ways.
In other words he has the balls to take a position. Unlike the eunuch-like
character of stevie's remarks that accept all comers as long as they
manage to remain "polite".
> He is, in short, that bane of at least two ngs.
Complete horseshit.
<snip>
> I think that more of King's best work is "latter-day" King. Gerald's
> Game, Rose Madder, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, the third and fourth DT
> volumes, Bag of Bones, these are all among the better third of King's
> output, and the only "early" books that compare are Salem's Lot, Dead
> Zone and Pet Sematary.
King is better when grounded in social reality. He can do fantasy but
he really isn't the master of fantasy. He is good when commenting on how
Americans live their lives. That's why the earlier work is BETTER. A lot
BETTER. This doesn't mean that the recent work isn't worth reading. It
most certainly is. Once I start a King book I have to finish it. BUT lately
the commentary, the "bite" isn't there.
We all have to make decisions in life. I vote for RW, against stevie.
Michael
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Rob Lancaster
Ivy Lee wrote in message <36fb8a7a...@nntp.infoave.net>...
>
>But. The way Robert expresses his opinions here on absk, particularly his
utter
>inflexibility once Stevie joins the fray, can be so irritating it nearly
moves
>one to violence. That line-by-line criticism of the TGWLTG prologue he did
was
>one of the most incredibly annoying posts, including casting threads, that
I've
>ever read; you could take *any* piece of writing to pieces in that way and
>basically defecate on it. As criticism it was nearly meaningless. Equally
>meaningless are line-by-line "well, *why* did you like it?" replies to
people
>who either are too inarticulate to say why they liked it, or are tired of
trying
>to explain to a fencepost.
>
feel that
he takes the time to explain why he doesn't like these works, rather than
just post a
troll-like "BOB was rubbish". I don't feel that the initial post was
annoying, although I
disagreed with many of his comments (and posted to that effect).
What becomes irritating is that in a thread that is now over 80 posts long,
only 3 or 4
actually talk about TGWLTG or respond to RWs criticisms.
Rob L.
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr
ifyouknowmeyouhaveit.com wrote:
> I don't think SK has declined. I think he has changed with the times.
> I find his latest works, BoB, RM, GG, D/R are all good reads. This is
> my opinion, of course. I really enjoyed BoB, but thought that the door
> was left open for a continuation. I noticed in the "pregame" of TGWLTG
> that the TR came up again that was in BoB. I think its the same place
> that SK was referring too. It sure sounded familiar.
The problem here is that King is bending over to please the women's movement.
That, especially from a guy, is unseemly. Women are victims, Women are
victims, Women are victims. Women need to find their own resources. Well,
that's fine Virginia, but I really don't give a fuck about your problems
because I got enuf of my own. Now I wish King would confront human problems,
especially the horror of murder, rather than the problems of women.
> I think that in RM that SK just decided to address the issue of abuse,
> since, unfortunately seems to be more commonplace these days then it
> once was, and mix it up with a little of the supernatural. No, I don't
> think abuse is more commonplace today then it was some time ago, but
> now its more talked about. I am glad that more people report abuse and
> get out of abusive relationships then they once did, but then that is
> off the subject.
Yeah, watch the Oprah Winfrey show.
> I thought that GG was a good book too. SK just used a more "today"
> horror then a supernatural one. I think GG was horror just because
> that could actually happen to anyone and not just a character in a
> book.
>
> I like SK's old stuff...Salem's Lot is one of my favorties.
>
> I don't see anything wrong with SK venturing down new literary
> avenues. Everyone changes. I for one, will continue to read and enjoy
> SK. I may not like every single book that he puts out, but then, "You
> can't please all the people all the time," you know?
>
> I will return to lurking now. Thanks for reading.
I don't see anything wrong with it either. As long as it goes beyond cliches
which mostly it doesn't.
Michael
I consider English usage to be a matter of empirical study. By this,
I mean it is a domain of investigation in which claims must be
supported by the observed facts.
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr
"Kim Hammers" <ki...@gls3c.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Perhaps the horrors being faced by this audience is no longer being made fun
> of at the prom, but having the boy you went to the prom with coming home and
> beating you up night after night, physically and/or mentally.
> I think that our collective fears change over time, and I think that King
> tries to define these fears through his "horror novels".
It's true that our fears change over time but not our horrors. The fear of
how we meet horrors changes, from ridicule at the prom and lack of social
acceptance, as in Carrie, to having your face battered in by a man who
pretends to love you, RM...it's true that the form of our fears change, but
the basic horror of life, the horror of spilt blood doesn't change. The
shedding of blood is the most basic, archaic form of horror we know. King
grasped that in Carrie and it held his work together right up to BOB.
<snip>
> Notice that the fear of a child dying is a universal fear. It cuts across
> class, race, and gender. King was able to effectively deal with this issue,
> because he was able to relate to it.
I agree with this. Yet, it doesn't raise to the level of horror unless there
is blood. Blood and guts on the freeway. IN that case alone do we have
horror. Otherwise it's merely sentimental and romantic sensitivity.
> The horror of a spouse who abuses you, sexually or physically, as in Rose
> Madder and Gerald's Game weren't that effective efforts. I think this is,
> again, because of point of view. King cannot truly understand the fear of
> leaving an abusive spouse when you have no money and no way to support
> yourself, anymore than he could understand a woman's point of view in being
> sexually abused, or abandoned, as in Gerald's Game.
He's trying to. And it's clear that his work has come under the influence of
some sort of political agenda. That's sad when a creative artist of his
stature lowers himself to recent political events.
> Maybe that is why the later efforts have not been up to the quality that is
> demanded by the audience. I think that King had much more universal fears,
> and was able to express them to an audience that he could relate to, while
> he was poor, sitting in a trailer, worrying about feeding his family. I
> think that his fame and wealth has defeated anything he could ever be truly
> afraid of.
This is partially correct. The fear of poverty is always there in the earlier
work. But even as King ages and becomes more self-indulgent because he can
afford to be, he stills sees the essence of horror. The blood of the innocent
on *your* hands, everyday, everywhere.
Michael
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr
"mst" <ter...@homey.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Again, I think you've nailed it. King's portrayal of women has always been
> questionable...he seems to feel a great deal of ambiguity about strong
> women. On the one hand, he respects their power...on the other, he resents
> it, and maybe fears it.
That is because *power* itself, in any form, is ambiguous. Those who enjoy
power, whether men or women, are open to examination and doubt as to their
motives. Take any woman. What are her motives? To exploit a man so she doesn't
have to earn her own living? Isn't that possible?
> Although he's created many sympathetic strong
> women, there's always this current of bitchiness or hardness that runs
> through them which keeps them from being truly *likeable* characters (Larry
> Underwood's mother is the example that comes to mind).
Underwood's mother suffered in silence for many years. She is hard but
because she has been denied pleasures which would normally go with married
life. Larry seeks to satisfy his own mother's cravings, i.e. incest, but
begs off.
> Let's face it, King's women have NEVER been terribly realistic, but they
> USED to at least be sympathetic. Lately, they haven't even been THAT.
I have no problem with Rose Madder. I cared about her and her confusion.
But only because she understands the meaning of *blood*.
Mic...@www.jtc.ac.kr
j...@sprintmail.com wrote:
<snip>
> > I don't know about you, and I am admittedly male, but I liked
> > Larry's Mom.
I felt sorry for Larry's mom. She had a difficult life. And her son was
involved in a decadent life style.
> > I liked Mother Abbigail,
REALLY an overworked character if there ever was one. Ridiculous. Some kind
of latter day priestess, except we don't know the name of her religion.
> > I didn't think he had a hard time hitting on the horror of being
> > chained to a bed...maybe he didn't write exactly how you would have handled
> > abuse, but then everyone is different (unless you want to claim that
> > everyone's experiance and coping process are the same).
But *are* women *chained* to the bed? Does a woman earn her living
by lying down?
Anyway, powerful women can NEVER be lovable. NEVER.
<snip>
> I'm with Dow here. Only difference being I'm wholeheartedly female. 100
> percent and everything. I *don't* find King's portrayal of women to be
either
> unrealistic or unsympathetic. Umcomfortable, yes. Unrealistic, no.
THE question here would be: do we find any loving relationships between
men and women in King's books? For the most part, no we do not.