Stephen King or: My snobbish mind, what have ye done?

Join the revolution, Jacky boy.

Literary snobbishness is an important thing most of us readers have to overcome at one point or another. It's a result of learning to discriminate between good books and "bad" books, and in doing that, it's useful. But after a while, it needs to be grown out of.

I salute you. Sitting there, on the couch, right in front of me. Scratching your scrotum with a spatula and asking me to call you Mother.

I haven't read anything of Stephen King, except for "The dark tower"-series. And that series is really epic. Read and enjoy. Hear me, I beg.

I like Stephen King alright. I've read Dreamcatcher, The Dark Half, Needful Things, and I am currently reading The Shining.

I really appreciate his character development, it amuses/annoys me how he sometimes goes all out for a nearly a chapter to develop a character then BAM kills them as soon as he is done, or moves on and never mentions them in the story again. And at other times he barely develops someone who could have played a big role (I'm specifically thinking of in The Dark Half where he gives next to no information about (one of) the main characters wife. Writing about her could have given more insight into him (the character).

Of course I like books from all areas of literature, new and old. Though I don't like all books.

I know what you mean, but i've seen it like this, he mentions something like not one of them knew how important that thing/person/place would later become DAM-DAM-DAAM. You think, oh my god the excitement!

And then nothing happens.

Stephen King also slightly tempts me into saying he's good at writing women. But I'm not a woman, and I've dated a feminist, so I'm not even daring to tread that path.

I feel like I'm pestering, but, in TDT (The dark tower) I think the only main-character woman is kinda lame and off. She doesn't seem at all as realistic as the other characters; a twelve year old feels much more interesting. Also, she is kinda... she's there so there won't be anyone bitching about no gender-p.o.v. or something... I don't know... It's mostly in the latest book I read (# 5). I find her slightly irritating... but that is perhaps not unrealistic and boring. If you get annoyed by a fictional character perhaps it's good?

He really does! (This coming from a feminist, too.) I honestly think that Stephen King is almost perfection in some of his short stories and novellas. The Shawshank Redemption, Here There Be Tygers....there's also this one about a guy who digs a pit in order that his enemy will drive into it and he can bury him. Nightrious would know what I'm talking about.

dolan's cadillac?

I think what gets King shit on so much is because he just publishes EVERYTHING! for the sole reason that he can. There's no one to tell him, "don't publish this yet, it's crap still." He's got some brilliant stuff he's done but it's so overshadowed by the general mediocre crap, that a lot of the shine is lost.
He's a writer, not an author. And i don't think, hearing that, that he'd argue or even be insulted at it.

Oh, she knew the name of the book, what she meant was Nightrious actually did that to an enemy.

yeah, but he just copied it from the book.

Note to self: Get enemies.

You two still living together?

Yep.

I agree with Nate.

I really enjoyed his book, On Writing. It's possibly the best book on the craft that I've read in a really long time.

He's often (but not always) got some great story ideas and snippets which turn out to be really visceral onscreen, but just don't translate well into a 700 page brick. Having said that, most of King's tv-movie adaptations are terrible...i.e. IT, Misery (the book was good) and so on. His short story collections are best.

I would definitely say King is my fall back guy. Let it say about me what it may, but I think he's a great story teller. I tend to read a lot of classics, and his stuff is by comparison much more laid back reading. I'll usually pick up something by King if I want a guaranteed good read in simple English. It's kinda like comfort food for my brain. And yes, I do think some of the flack he gets is because he's so popular. By the way was IT good? I just bought it.

PS jakezz ~ I couldn't stand Suzanna's character either.

Well, it wasn't that bad, but it was still awfully corny in places. Not really William Goldman's fault, just stylistically. Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes was a great choice of casting, but i'm not sure about James Caan.

The Dark Tower Series is one of the best fantasy books I have ever read. The characters are very real. In "Song of Suzanna" King tells us that he is only a conduit (Gan's Navel) to these people. They are real somewhere on the 19th level of the Tower, and they feel as real as you and me, maybe they are reall and we are the fiction. I don't think anyone would scoff at this masterpiece, I'd set my watch and warrant by it.

Stephen can either be brilliant or absolutely lame. The first Dark Tower novel is one of my favorite books but by the end it was just horrible. I think it takes a special kind of hubris writing yourself into your novel, calling yourself the navel of Gan, and saying you channel the characters. Was he channeling Oy too? This reminds me of an old interview with Ann Rice where she said Lestat comes and talks to her. Amazing how Lestat became interested in Christian iconography the same time she did.

He definitely comes up with compelling concepts and scenarios. He has stretches of writing that I vaguely remember from the Tommyknocker's and Gerald's Game that I found just amazing at the the time.

I am almost exactly the same as you. When I was round about 12/13 my aunt bought me a copy of Insomnia for Christmas. It was the first sort of 'adult' novel I tackled and I completely adored it and began avidly devouring all his stuff. Insomnia remained my favourite but I also loved Gerald's Game, Tommyknockers, Needful Things, It, The Shining... Hell pretty much everything her wrote. The one about the vampires too, I forget what it was called, but it was excellent.
Then about 16 or so I got into Jack Kerouac and then heavily into William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski et al and King fell by the wayside. I didn't really develop any disdain for him as such, just regarded him as something I read at a period in my adolescence which wasn't as relevant now. But I think I'd still place Insomnia amongst my favourite books I ever read. And I'm quite intrigued to check out this On Writing book I'm hearing about.

For real?! This explains a lot.

You call it literary snobbiness... I call it discerning taste and I'm SOO happy I have it. Snobbiness gets a bad rap. Just because some things are better than others and I happen to like the better things I'm a snob. I'll take it. Call me a snob all you want but I'm not gonna go the shit route if there's something better out there.

And it was Salem's Lot... the one about the vampires, which I liked as well.

I think where it moves away from "discerning taste" into the realm "snobbishness." is when a person starts disliking something solely because it's supposed to be disliked. If they don't base an opinion on anything other than how other people will think of them.

such as?