![day-29-stephen-king[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/hGi8DaT.jpg "day-29-stephen-king[1].jpg")
Is Stephen King a hack whose potboiler books purely belong in the book section of a grocery store or do you feel his works have literary merit?
I ask this because I'm under the impression that most people experience King as adolescents or teenagers, but I first read his books recently as an adult. King's works have made a big impact on pop culture and I was curious enough to see what all the fuss was about. I've come away with mixed feelings and wanted to see what other folks thought.
>>8173600
>a big impact on pop culture
who gives a shit about this?
>>8173600
He pretty much just writes airport fiction and things that belong in grocery stores more than bookstores, yes. I know this because I used to devour his books by the fuckton when I first started reading and had no idea what I actually liked and just sat around libraries reading shit like The Stand all day because his name was one of the few I'd heard of at the time.
>>8173600
>do you feel his works have literary merit
noooope
I find them on the same level as the films that have been made on them. Sometimes, rarely, I am in the mood for some small-town horror shit and that's all he's worth. I only ever got through Talisman and that was rough.
>>8173600
>or do you feel his works have literary merit?
I don't think Stephen King himself thinks his works have literary merit.
a) you haven't read any of his books
b)stop caring so much if books have 'literary merit'. If you like them you like them
>>8174367
B-but what if strangers on the internet think I'm a pleb?
Stephen King, like him or not, is not an airport writer just because he's famous and whatever else lit crybabies want to say about anyone who is enormously popular and easy to target.
Hes an airport writer because while he has an amazing grasp on small town, Middle America, and has shown that he can present emotions and characters, he puts whatever nonsense he wants in afterwards. It doesn't matter how stupid contrived or elementary his horror is, King seems to write adept level versions of shitty plots you'd find in budget horror shows or SYFY original movies.
He's shown that he can write some very deep, familiar, nostalgic and fun stuff. Hes great when he does. When he doesn't, and instead you got a finger in the bathroom sink, you want to skip pages.
>not liking based Moving Finger
>>8174484
OP here. That seems a pretty fair assessment, and encapsulates a lot of my issues with what I've read of King so far. When he's good he's really good but it's always mixed in with some ridiculous shit. Perhaps that's why a number of pretty good movies have come out of his works: adaptation can curb his excesses and highlight the good material.
>>8174589
Yeah, he's just having fun now. Exploring himself. Don't blame him. He knows he won't be Shakespeare, and he doesn't try to be.
But I do wish that someone would be there to talk him out of some of the more rancid stuff.
"Alright Steve, what are we looking at today. An evil fridge that poisons food, a dead guy who haunts millennials, and this story is just you freestyling while listening to classic rock again! Damn it Steve."
>>8173600
These kind of posts used to get more instant hate, I enjoy a King now and then but he's not literature and we shouldn't be asking ourselves if he is.
>>8173620
First half of The Stand is fantastic.
I guess I'm in the minority, but I like King best when he's writing completely ridiculous shit. I hate his smalltown America drivel, it's all so repetitive and unrelatable to an autist like me. I loved the Gunslinger, and immediately lost interest in Drawing of the Three because it was almost entirely about various periods in American history.
Are Carrie, The Stand, and It some of his better books? I've never read King and was about to order some or all of those.
>>8175484
It is probably my favorite book of his, flawed as it is.
>Michael Bay makes glorious high def action masterpieces and gets called dumb
>Charlie Kaufman coughs up 90 minutes of teen angst and gets called a deep poet philosophy guy
>David Lynch makes pure self indulgent garbage where the screen shakes and the colours are wrong and gets called a boundary pushing artist
>Stephen Spielberg makes anything that will sell because he likes money and everyone remembers his name
If you're not a movie guy then these names probably mean nothing to you right?
All their movies probably seem like Hollywood bullshit to a book guy yeah?
You really have to try if you wanna see artists as more or less artistic/smart/credible than one and other.
It's about using the creations of others to define and express your own special magic identity, and has nothing to do with the quality of the artist.
You like Linkin Park if you're a sad lil boy, and you like the Beatles if you're some superwholock faux-nerd.
There's nothing particularly good or bad about either band.
It's all you.
