Why do you hate him so much, /lit?
>>8261902
because he's not 'literary'.
>>8261920
elaborate
>>8261902
Because he's a hypocritical, arrogant, repetitive douchebag. Anyone that puts out as many shitty books as him, all with his name as the largest text on the cover, is someone worth hating.
That, and he coincidentally looks just like the head of department that kicked me out of university for not attending his lectures.
>>8261954
I understand why you would call him "repetitive", but why "arrogant" or "hypocritical"? Also, I'm sure it's not his decision to have his name as the largest thing on his covers. Not that I really see what's wrong with that.
>>8261902
Virtue signaling tryhard
Fuck his piety and fuck him
>>8261964
Do you have a specific example of this virtue signaling?
>>8261958
>arrogant
Check out how he judges other authors (even more successful ones). He acts like they're beneath him.
>hypocritical
He's constantly telling new authors what they should and shouldn't be doing, but most of the time he either didn't do it himself or still doesn't do it. He's acting like there's only one way to write, and he does so from the comfort of already being established.
>>8261967
I know what you mean by the way he judges other authors, but it never seemed like he was doing it in a pompous way to me. It seems to me like it comes more from a place of casual art criticism. He also comments a lot on shitty horror and what he thinks of them. Maybe he is being an arrogant asshole, but it comes across as being on the level of a consumer rather than speaking as a peer.
>He's constantly telling new authors what they should and shouldn't be doing, but most of the time he either didn't do it himself or still doesn't do it. He's acting like there's only one way to write, and he does so from the comfort of already being established.
but he's very prolific and as a result he is constantly asked about his method. Even if he's hypocritical in his advice, there's a popular demand for his insight on the matter and he does have a unique position in regards to the subject. It's easy to understand why he engages in that dialogue. It's constantly demanded of him.
>>8261990
**shitty horror movies
I've only read IT and The Shining, but i didn't find them scary at all
I dunno, seems to me i never find books scary at all
>>8262063
>bunch of words on a stinky page
>scary
l M a O
INTERVIEWER
The use of brand names in your novels especially seems to irk some critics.
KING
I always knew people would have a problem with that. But I also knew that I was never going to stop doing it, and nobody was ever going to convince me that I was wrong to do it. Because every time I did it, what I felt inside was this little bang! like I nailed it dead square—like Michael Jordan on a fade-away jump shot. Sometimes the brand name is the perfect word, and it will crystallize a scene for me. When Jack Torrance is pumping down that Excedrin in The Shining, you know just what that is. I always want to ask these critics—some are novelists, some of them college literature professors—What the fuck do you do? Open your medicine cabinet and see empty gray bottles? Do you see generic shampoo, generic aspirin? When you go to the store and you get a six-pack, does it just say beer? When you go down and you open your garage door, what’s parked in there? A car? Just a car?
>And then I say to myself, I bet they do. Some of these guys, the college professors—the guy, say, whose idea of literature really stopped with Henry James, but he’ll get kind of a frozen smile on his face if you talk about Faulkner or Steinbeck—they’re stupid about American fiction and they’ve turned their stupidity into a virtue. They don’t know who Calder Willingham was. They don’t know who Sloan Wilson was. They don’t know who Grace Metalious was. They don’t know who any of these people are, and they’re fucking proud of it. And when they open their medicine cabinet door, I think maybe they do see generic bottles, and that’s a failure of observation. And I think one of the things that I’m supposed to do is to say, It’s a Pepsi, OK? It’s not a soda. It’s a Pepsi. It’s a specific thing. Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.
>tfw you do see generic bottles
>tfw you smile when someone talks about Faulkner or Steinbeck
>tfw you don't know who Willingham or Wilson or Metalious are
>tfw you don't write 1000 words per day and publish something every week
>tfw you will never be a great author
>>8262279
Grace Metalious? The fat bitch who wrote that soap opera of a novel Peyton Place? He's trashing College professors for not being familiar with her oeuvre?
>>8261902
He's ugly
>>8262343
You will forever be a pseud. You can judge King or you can join King, and I'll bet you'll never be capable of the latter.
>good morning
>>8262279
tfw I see generics, too.
>buy stuff
>look at price
>measure food efficiency in calorie per €
>>8261953
American scum.
>>8261902
Cause he looks like a live-action Dr. Suess character
His nose looks fake desu
He writes shitty books and is ugly. I wanted to punch the screen when I saw this picture.
I've never read King but he always seems to be the favorite of self proclaimed 'readers' on kikebook. For that reason alone I can safely assume he's not very good.
I bet his stuff is entertaining, with a highschool level depth that most people can read comfortably.
>>8262279
The fact that he needs brand names to describe objects tells me two things... first that he can't adequately describe anything and secondly that he feels the need to distract his readers with unnecessary details. That's his books will never have literary merit.
>>8261902
I don't, I just don't find him that interesting - there are much better horror writers (Ligotti or Laird Barron for example). Danse Macabre was a good critical history though, and I like bits of Salem's Lot.
I read Pet cemetary and it seemed like some b rate horror movie
>>8262786
>The fact that he needs brand names to describe objects tells me two things... first that he can't adequately describe anything and secondly that he feels the need to distract his readers with unnecessary details.
You admit that you haven't read any of his stuff and both of those statements are undeniably incorrect if you've actually read any of his work. Being descriptive and concise are two things that he does remarkably well. So, you just don't know what you're talking about and you just don't like him because he's popular.
>>8262821
That's fair, but it's definitely not one of his better books.
>>8262834
Anyways, I'll tell you a valid criticism... a lot of his dialogue is terrible. It's not always bad, but it often is and when it's bad, it's really bad.
Kubrick exposed him for the fucking chump he is by completely ignoring whatever "themes" were in the original King version and creating an entirely different characterization and subtext. Then Stephen King moans about how Kubrick raped his story and behold, the version based directly from the book is conventional shit.
He's a terrific inventor of interesting scenarios but he's more of a spooky campfire storyteller than an artist.
>>8263085
kubrick>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>stephen king
>>8262547
This. I took one look and saw one of those Whos from Whoville in that Grinch film.
I hate him because I ain't him. No portal to his head on a midget's floor.
Can't stand his work desu. I think a lot of people like him because of how frequent his releases are. His stories in general are boring, his writing style i long-winded.
>>8263085
The Kubrick film didn't discard the main theme of the novel. It used it verbatim. It discarded some more minor subtexts, but they weren't poor ones. There are 2 major problems that made the miniseries bad and neither are the fault of the novel. It was long-winded and it had low quality made-for-tv production. Neither is a problem in the novel. You can fault him for thinking that writing for television is exactly the same as writing novels, but you can't fault him for writing poor novels unless you have some criticisms that are in the context of the novel itself. Movies/TV and books are two different mediums that require separate skills to do well.
>>8263085
I mean, Kubrick was a master of cinema. Of fucking course he made a way better adaptation than King himself. It'd be shocking if he didn't.
>>8263195
>Kubrick was a master of cinema
>>8263239
>implying he's not
>>8263239
OK, He was good at making movies. Happy?
I started reading Salem's Lot cause I heard its a good vampire novel to read after Stoker's Dracula. 100 pages in and I gave up, way too boring and slow, especially compared to the first 100 pages of Dracula (Jonathon Harker's journal).
Had another anon read it? Is it worth finishing?
>>8262129
well i did say i didn't find it scary
though i read them because i hoped to
But what's the point in a horror book if nobody can get scared by a book?
>>8263929
I don't see horror as having the sole purpose of causing fear. A book doesn't cease to be horror if it isn't scary. The movie Leprechaun isn't scary, but it's still undeniably a horror movie. I wish I could think of a better example than Leprechaun. I'm sure that there are examples of better works that fit that bill.
>>8261902
"If you say, ‘Well, OK, I don’t believe in God. There’s no evidence of God,’ then you’re missing the stars in the sky and you’re missing the sunrises and sunsets and you’re missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together. Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design"
King pisses me off with the shit he says. Losing your belief in God in favor of more rational, scientific explanations allows you to enjoy sunrises, sunsets, and the way nature works. Letting God take credit for all of that just cheapens it all — it makes everything just a part of someone’s blueprint instead of something that turned up naturally yet came together beautifully.
>>8264013
King has criticized religion in every book of his that I've read in at least some small way. Why does it bother you that he has different views than you? There's a ton of smart theists. It's not a big deal, man. It's not like he's some bible thumper. He quite clearly dislikes organized religion.
>>8264013
I mean, the first things that come to mind as far as that goes are Children of the Corn and The Mist. Those are two of his most well known stories that use distrust of religion as the core theme. Oh, and Carrie. That's another big one that uses that theme.
>>8263992
Alright
Horror: A story told in a way that is meant to be horrific.
But i still don't get written horror. am i supposed to be afraid the characters might die? well, they might, but i just don't feel it
Am i supposed to be reminded of what evil things might find me? well, i doubt it
>>8264042
I don't know. I don't find books or movies to be scary. I wish I did. I remember being scaried by them as a kid. I still enjoy horror just as much. Just in a different way. It's not good horror if being scary is all that it's going for anyways.
He writes a lot of shit when he has nothing to say.
>>8262709
You might wanna unfriend your mom on Facebook then.
>>8263085
The movie is basically the novel without the affectation and the stupid / preposterous shit
>>8261902
He's an extremely rich and successful faggot autist with some narcissism issues and has contributed greatly to art of streamlining literature for mass market potential.
Basically the Todd Howard or Michael Bay of literature.
If you actually care about the potential quality of art and it's benefit to a healthy and intelligent culture then this man should be your enemy.
>>8264822
>>8262786
>Kikebook
Why is it that your taste is ironically probably just as awful?
Kings problem isn't in description. He can describe things in an Americana fashion, and he's basically responsible for the theme and style of every horror movie in the American setting. He is the one who makes America look normal and then creepy. He describes things perfectly fine and when he uses a brand name, its to mark the story as a regional American peice, and the work is better off with it. Carver did it too. Tell me he sucks at description.
Kings problem is lazy ideas and good ideas just becoming perverted with retarded horror elements that aren't even necessary sometimes.
And magic black people.
>>8264822
Save us anon! Write a book that will somehow save the industry for doing things you don't want it to! Give us a story that will slap the king novels from peoples shelves. Please anon!
>>8262279
He just fills in gaps in brand names because he doesn't know how
And then he starts name dropping random people like they're going to back up his argument for him. Also source for this
Dad-rock: the writer
>>8264951
fuck you i made that thread
get off my lawn, you crazy kid
>>8264914
I don't get the brand name criticism. I feel the same way about it as King does. If you want to say that your character drinks a Coke then why wouldn't you say that instead of going out of your way to say that the character drinks a "cola" instead. Shit, that's one of the things that King does well. He writes in natural modern everyday language without it coming across as dumbed down as it often does with many authors. Why is writing about household products as generics seen as the proper way to do it and the opposite draws so much criticism even though it's an unnatural contrived thing to do?
>>8261902
I'm not a fan of his writing because there's little to no takeaway from his stories, which is incredible considering the length and breadth of his ouvre.
I don't like reading for sheer entertainment, I always feel like I've wasted my time, but when I do I read shorter works, not 1000+ pages about some spooky guy killing folks.
For a guy who's out-written just about every author he certainly doesn't have much to say.
He's popular and prolific.
I like him, but he's a very self-indulgent writer. Like, you can basically get a sense for what was bothering him in his life at any given moment based on what happens in his books and to whom. For example, the number of physical therapist characters has skyrocketed in his work since his accident and recovery and, wouldn't you know it, they're almost all dumpy, merciless cunts who have the audacity to know what's right for a patient. Even the one in Duma Key, who was kinda a bro, died horribly. Obviously he's still butthurt because his own PT was mean to him or something. This is just one example, but it wears pretty thin after a while.
>>8264914
but /lit/ and scholars do this all the time. maybe not brand names, but popular works and authors. and they give examples of characters or entire works to back up their lesson.
>>8266603
The physical therapist in 22/11/63 was a bro too and didn't die.
Anyway nothing wrong in writing about what you know and have experienced.
>>8266603
I don't really see anything wrong with that.
>>8261902
He's popular. That's it.
>>8261902
Why is he so ugly?
>>8266660
Euro or Canadian spotted.
He stopped doing drugs and became a boring, comfortable, virtue-signaling writer, just like all the rest. All he does is belch out hackneyed political opinions along with predictable by-the-numbers horror novels. He's an old, disingenuous fart.
Plus, he also disavowed some of his earliest works, which automatically makes him a piece of shit.
>>8261902
I don't hate him, I just think he produces quantity over quantity mass marketed schlock.
>>8267685
Well yeah there are more, around half a billion :P you only just found one on this thread, you're not very good at this art you.
>>8262063
Salem's lot and the stand are worthy
>>8268325
scary or just "worthy"?
>>8268325
pet semetary was also p good
1408 as well
>>8262279
If you're gonna hat on King, I don't really think the brand name thing is a great example. It's just not that in your face. There are much worse offenders out there, where this issue does actually become annoying.
>>8269068
Yes, especially Salem's climax is scary good.
>>8261902
He's the contribution to horror literature as the new Ghostbusters is a contribution to high art.
>>8262279
He's spot on about this.
>>8263239
I mean, he's no Bela Tarr or Yasujiro Ozu, but who is AMIRITE HAHAHA????
>>8264891
what book is this, it's fucking hilarious
Because he's a pompous fuck. All his shit is exactly the same aside from a few differences.
>>8261902
Because he's not very good, isn't that enough?
>>8263289
Yes, it is one of his better works and genuinely creepy. Bear through the slow start and it pays off at the end.
>>8261902
He told a room full of real writers, people who spend 10 years on books and get read by like 50 people, that they should read Mary Higgins Clark, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham. He is pretty much delusional, bought into the meme that "today's bestseller is tomorrow's classic!"
His books do not put forward a novel human vision at all, he has no consistent style across books, he is a master of placing one thing after another to invoke stock human emotions and reactions. not art. gay fag
>>8270419
When did he do this? I'm curious.
>>8270419
[source needed]
>>8270419
Curious when he did this it too, if it has merit it just proves even more how delusional and retarded he is even more.
>>8261902
He was too lucky.
>>8263289
I'd say yes. It's about the closest he comes to a decent ending, which makes it a phenomenal standout in his works, and more importantly the slow beginning leads to a pretty scary middle.
Richard Bachman was a better writer.
Stephen King is good for when you just want to experience the lives of an Everyman, his soon to be girl, and their friends as normalcy is ripped away by an unexpected and purely evil force that is ultimately surmountable. He'll lose most of his friends and maybe the girl, but his bullies will be violently ended and he'll definitely know what he went through saved the world. It's breezy with an interesting conceit you would be scared to see applied to real life.
The only criticism I have about his work is that he never, ever, has a satisfying conclusion. Ever. If you can tolerate that it's fun to follow the weirdness now and then.
He's not bad, just average. Plots and characters are fairly decent. The problem is that there is nothing behind his works, no emotion, nothing. It is your average consumer's literature.Neither outstanding nor horrible. Just average.
>>8270905
It's about the ride, not the destination....right?
Just finished DT and I'm actually quite OK with the ending.
>>8271008
The ending is fine, it's the last couple books leading up to it that are awful.
>>8271019
They don't quite reach the level of the prior books yeah.Sue's pregnancy and the autistic artist kid were alright tho
>>8269850
It's one of The Dark Tower books.
Non-meme opinion:
I've only read The Shining and Salem's Lot and they were both unbelievably turgid. Way too many inane pages that just described the environment in the most boring possible way. There are a handful of tremendously effective scenes that combine tightly nit narration, ornate language, and actual dread. Like the guy burying the boy in Salem's Lot and he keeps getting intrusive thoughts about him being alive in his coffin and it suddenly ends when he digs him out. Or Jack entering room 237 in The Shining, "what was he eyeball to eyeball with", that spooked me in real life. But ultimately these too few and far between to justify the lengths of the books. They lose so much steam so many times, King is essentially a creepy pasta writer who dilutes his stories to the breaking point.
>wow such undertones, much nuance, so mature
Undertones and nuance work best when they are things, on even footing with the skeleton of the story as far narrative impetuous, and are mostly ineffective when haphazardly sprinkled on top of dead pages.
Also the ending in The Shining might be The Worst Thing I've Ever Read.
>>8270419
>he has no consistent style across books
stopped reading there.
>>8262279
Is 1k/day that much? I've been writing that for about two weeks straight (was planning to write twice that but life got in the way).
>>8271192
Similar opinions here. I've only read The Stand and the first Dark Tower, but I've had enough. Perhaps it was my own fault for getting the "authors choice" (ie SK added ~400 pages back in) edition of The Stand but dear god did that drag on, with literally hundreds of pages that didn't really feel like they mattered, such as the scenes with the Kid. Also he seems to be in to fully describing a character in three adjectives. So super-centenarian black woman is all you need to know and everything else derives from that. In the end you don't know anything more about people/the human condition/whatever happens to interest you, just a rough sketch of characters coming together as expected for a final standard good vs evil battle.
His prose is shit.
Horror isn't /lit/.
I enjoy it tho. The Shining scared the bejesus outta me when I was 12; taught me most of my swear words too.
>>8272358
It isn't that much, but it's about the minimum of what some would consider 'actively writing.'
>>8272393
His prose isn't the best, is it? I find myself reading his stuff, and just becoming slack-jawed at how inept it is.
>>8273051
Eh, ı'm expecting my current project to be abhorred by patricians and not understood by plebs, so shame is not an option. I'm writing--fuck everything.
>>8273038
sometimes it's good and sometimes it's fucking weird and bad. The best way I can describe it is that he writes like someone who has experience and skill but at the same time doesn't give a fuck and doesn't spend much time at all going back and changing what he already has down on the page.
>>8273323
If you could make millions off every published book, would you pump out shit and make big buckaroos or spend your life to craft a masterpiece that will likely be trash compared to those like Joyce?
>>8273337
I like to think that when I had made the money, I'd then get down to attempting to craft masterworks.
>>8273337
I'd at least try to put out stuff that pleases my fans and picks up some new fans here and there. Which he does. Hell, look at 11/22/63, fairly recent novel of his that is a huge success amongst readers that aren't necessarily already King fans. He doesn't phone it in. If he did people would stop buying his books. Maybe you'd argue otherwise, but either way, he at least writes stuff that he thinks people will like. I wasn't trying to trash him with the previous comment. His write it once and don't look back style works for him and people like it.
>my linguistics professor just openly shittalked Stephen King during his lecture
Wew lad
He has the most punchable face in history
The real question is who is worse
Stephen King
Or
John Green
>>8273865
Wow, that's just cold.
>>8273337
Not that guy, but if I could churn them out for millions, I fucking would. As much as I love literature, I've lived in true poverty and I never want to return to it.
>>8269850
>he hasnt read the dark tower
>>8274165
life's too short for crap literature, lad
>>8273865
King. Not close. Green didn't write a book about how -not- to write.
>>8274177
Oh, you know more about writing?
>>8274198
>this car doesn't handle as well as other cars
>do you know how to build a car?
>>8276045
No, that's not the same thing. It's more like if a mechanic told you that something was wrong with your suspension and you argued with them that they don't know what they're talking about even though you know nothing about cars.
>>8261902
He made me really mad with the self insert in The Dark Tower. I was 14, loved the first four book then he did that. Fuck Stephen King, man.
>>8276206
I think he sort of used Dark Tower as a sandbox to do weird shit.
>>8261902
He churns out a lot of shit books.
The thing that infuriates me most is I feel like he's written some pretty good short stories when he actually tried, but half of them are just shat out and he can't stick the ending of a novel to save his life. A lot of his novels have a good scene or two and a thousand pages of garbage around them.
He's annoying because I think maybe he could be a great writer if he tried and also hated money.
>>8276194
Well what if that mechanic made every car he repairs still kind of janky or broken in some way. Would you still want his advice?
>>8276194
>like if a mechanic told you that something was wrong with your suspension
Work men like mechanics have been known to rip people off.
>>8261902
I don't hate him but he's a bad writer and he could never write anything good. Even people that like him say he couldn't finish a book at all.
>>8261902
That can't be his actual face
>>8277065
I like him and my opinion is that sometimes he's good and sometimes he's bad, but I nearly always enjoy reading his stuff. When it comes to genre fiction, sometimes something can be bad and I'll still enjoy it reading it. I think many others feel the same way.
I don't hate him. In fact I would even say that he is my favorite author. However I would not say that he is the greatest author or even in the top ten. I enjoy his work, he produces a shit ton of it, adaptations are easily made from his work and I can directly relate to it.I am not a literary expert, nor even someone who has his shit together, but I can voice my own opinion and say what I feel. In the end all that matters is that I have enjoyed his work and look forward to his future endeavors. All we are are a bunch of nobody's on a rock hurdling through space.
His face is very punchable. Looks like a rodent had sex with Cindy-Lou Who.
>>8279636
>Looks like a rodent had sex with Cindy-Lou Who.
Now that's some fan art that needs to exist
Look i have a Ph.D. in English Lit and I can be arty and horrific with the best of them, but King is so much better than the average "successful" writer that it's absurd to complain about him too much. "The Stand" is a lovely and popular post-apocalyptic thriller written well before such things were really mainstream. No it's not literature, but it's amazingly difficult to create even such a "level B" grade work and that demands respect. I love how he can crank stuff out. I hate the tortured writer meme; the blood on the pages; just shut up and sit down and write 4k words a day and stop whinging. King is great for showing authors just working and not being wankerish about it.
Instead, let's make fun of really annoying people like Malcolm Gladwell who are actually dangerous/arrogant pricks, with enough history/science to get them in trouble, and persuasive in their tone/feel for the cultural moment, but utterly fucking trash.
>>8279978
>Ph.D. in English Lit
Probably a very trite question for you, but what are you currently doing for work?
I am debating following this passion of mine, or playing it safe and going into an in-demand STEM field.
Technical writing/tech stuff. Yeah, if it is not a consuming passion, don't even attempt to get a job with a English Lit. Ph.D. Plus a lot of the field is utter bullshit. One of my big papers was on cant/verbiage and the proliferation of specialized/obscure language in criticism -> of course simply to hide paucity of thought. Same old shit, tart up specks of insight with reams of ink-horn terms/made up words/concepts. Did not endear me to anyone in the profession but yeah. No. Run. Theory in the main destroys interest/appreciation of literature. Modern theory at least. Older stuff I find helpful and inspiring. The last 50 years? no.
>>8261902
His only good novels are 'Salem's Lot, It and The Stand. the rest of his sea of shit is, well shit.
>>8279978
Why do you think Gladwell is bad? Genuinely interested, seen his books around a lot but don't know the first thing about him.
Well he's really shit. He's big on overarching theories and cherry picking and making nice sounding claims, but it's really garbage. Nobody takes him seriously. He makes absurd errors all the time which make it clear he's a talented hack, little more. Google his name and igon value which is cringe worthy for sure.
>>8261902
he looks like an old jim carrey with glasses.
>used the i write like app
>pasted several different parts from different writing projects
>dan brown once
>stephen king twice
The way I see it I got two choices. Get myself to 4k/day or just fucking kill myself
>>8269834
