A friend recentlys ent me an e-mail saying he's reading "Firestarter" for the 1st time, and really enjoying it. He has commented several times in the past, & did so again in this e-mail, that he finds King eminently readable. "I'd read that guy's grocery list", he once quipped. He then asked my opinion as to what exactly it is about King's writing that makes him so readable.
I gather from the tone of some posts I've seen 'round these parts that there are those here who think it's not hip to like Stephen King. Whatever. He's one of my favorite authors, and has been since I read "Cujo" at age 9, which prompted me to go right out and buy and read every book he'd written to that point (most of which were better than "Cujo", of course). Color me unhip, I guess. But I'd be willing to bet there are some out there who still like the King man, on the strength of his earlier work, if nothing else. The following is more or less what I wrote in response to my friend's inquiry:
I think King's works succeed on one level because they're very accessible. His writing took horror into the mainstream more than any author before or since ever has. The reason for this, I think, is that he writes like I imagine he talks; it's a very conversational style. I once had a college professor who taught writing (in an academic, not a creative setting, mind you) who said that when you're as comfortable, as facile, with writing as you are with talking, you've made it as a good writer. King's main characters usually come off like regular Joes, and their inner monologues reflect that. King comes from a blue collar type background, and his writing fluidly expresses the thought processes, perceptions and mind set of that kind of person. The fact that these mental "conversations" happen to be written by a witty, funny guy makes it all the better. Even if King had never gotten into academia or writing, I think he would have ended up being the smartest guy at the mill where he worked. The one everyone enjoyed talking to and having a laugh and a brew with at the bar after work.
I would argue that before King there was no really big name horror writer that wrote in a contemporary style. That's not to say there weren't big names; but who could compare to what King became before that happened beyond Poe and Lovecraft? And their style can hardly be called accessible to the average 20th century reader. Their styles were incredibly dense at times ("The Pit and the Pendulum" being a good example). The points they made in their stories were often also made obliquely rather than with brutal directness. Much more was often implied in their works than was stated. Brilliant as they were, most readers hardly found them accessible. And before King made contemporary horror fiction into the money maker it was for the shining decade of the 80's (which I think kind of holds over to a lesser extent today), the usual horror fiction you'd find were reprints of stories by older authors. How many anthologies did we see in the 70's and early 80's that contained stuff we'd already seen by authors like Poe, HPL, Algernon Blackwood, Sheridan LeFanu, and so on? Because of this trend, I'd argue that many of the writers writing just before King hit it big were heavily influenced by these authors in style and tone, which left the mainstream readers flat most of the time.
I mean, how many of us are likely to inherit a mansion from a long lost, occult dabbling uncle, and move in to pursue our unspecified studies with no visible means of support, to set the scene for the eerie goings on that ensue? By contrast, how many of us can more easily picture losing our teaching gig because of our drinking, and being so desperate for work that we come to think taking a job as caretaker in a snowbound Colorado hotel is a good idea? Or being the kid that gets picked on in school and wishing we had the means to get back at our tormentors? Or getting trapped with our kid in that damn clunker of a car by a rabid dog? Or volunteering for a medical experiment in college for beer money? The occupationless Victorian gentleman protagonist has been replced by the much more realistic ad exec, out of work teacher/aspiring writer, and the handsome, arrogant rock star, among others. Refernces to fictional occult works like the Necronomicon are replaced by references to Madonna songs and Neil Diamond albums. For these reasons, what happened to King's characters hit us a lot closer to where we live.
And what happened to those characters is also a large part of the reason King's work resonates with so many readers. He tears away the pervading veil of lingering Victorian modesty, and isn't afraid to get brutal and violent. Georgie Denbrough doesn't just disappear into the sewer never to be seen again, like doomed Sarnath climbing the peak to challenge the Elder Gods, with no clue but his echoing screams as to his ultimate fate. No, IT rips Georgie's fucking arm off, and he dies bleeding in the rain. I always thought "It" failed as a TV miniseries because it had to tone this scene in particular down (along with the woeful miscasting). Had we been allowed to see this the way we read about it, we'd have better understood why the children of Derry were so afraid of IT (and don't give me that "But Pennywise was a clown" shit; some of us aren't all that scared of clowns in and of themselves). Give me a reason to think he was more than just a little creepy; make me FEAR him like Bill Denbrough did after seeing what IT did to his brother; make me think IT is the greatest menace the 10 year old protagonist will ever face in his life. I think King succeeded in the book because he presented us with exactly the kind of violence IT was capable of in a very matter of fact, brutally honest manner. Couple his ability to do things like this with his accessible characters and prose style, and the writing hits home all the more readily, making the writing all the more compelling and memorable.
Last, but certainly not least, King has a keen understanding of what scares us. I read a story in college, "Tonio Kroger" by Tomas Mann, in which the autobiographical protagonist, a writer, is suffering a crisis of faith. He doesn't understand why he doesn't fit in to this world he writes about, despite the fact that he very desperately wants to. He commiserates with a painter friend (because we all know those Bohemian artist types live in little enclaves), and she tells him the reason he doesn't fit into the world is because as an artist, he perceives the world more acutely than the madding crowd. This is his blessing because it allows him to write moving prose based on his observations, but also his curse because the rest of the world doesn't perceive things the same way he does, and thus they'll never understand him and he'll never quite fit in with them. Tonio just needs to accept this and use it in his art. I would argue that king has just such a keen artist's perception, but that it's more attuned to the darker side of human nature most of the time (he has written some stories that aren't at all horrific, and are damned moving). He taps into the primal rages and fears we all feel but don't generally like to confront or think about, dragging them into the light and forcing us to look at them. The fact that King often does this through children as characters, with a rare level of skill, also ratchets up the scares a notch. No one, I'd argue, is better at regressing the reader back to their childhood mindset, and the things that scared us then, than Stephen King. Ramsey Campbell tries, but I don't think he can hold a candle to king in this regard. Violence against children is also a societal taboo he's broken on more than one occasion, and I've gone on record at length in the past on these boards about what an effective device I think this would be for writers and filmmakers to use, and wondering why it isn't utilized more often. And I don't think that he uses it as a cheap, shocking parlor trick, either. I discussed IT's violence against children above, and would add the other most famous example, Gage Creed from "Pet Sematary" as a device with a point. Perhaps more poignantly conveyed in the film than the book is the horror a parent would feel at first losing their infant child to a terrible accident, and then having him come back as a monster that you have no choice but to kill. By your own hand. Particularly if you're a parent, that scene where he sticks the needle in his son's neck while Gage tries to play on his sensibilities by crying and calling him "Daddy" hits you very hard in several uncomfortable places (or at least it should). I'd call it brilliant, in its own way.
Well, that's my two cents. What are your thoughts? Is King eminently readable to you, too, and if so, why? Do you think he's a hack? And if so, why? Share with the rest of the class.
I gather from the tone of some posts I've seen 'round these parts that there are those here who think it's not hip to like Stephen King. Whatever. He's one of my favorite authors, and has been since I read "Cujo" at age 9, which prompted me to go right out and buy and read every book he'd written to that point (most of which were better than "Cujo", of course). Color me unhip, I guess. But I'd be willing to bet there are some out there who still like the King man, on the strength of his earlier work, if nothing else. The following is more or less what I wrote in response to my friend's inquiry:
I think King's works succeed on one level because they're very accessible. His writing took horror into the mainstream more than any author before or since ever has. The reason for this, I think, is that he writes like I imagine he talks; it's a very conversational style. I once had a college professor who taught writing (in an academic, not a creative setting, mind you) who said that when you're as comfortable, as facile, with writing as you are with talking, you've made it as a good writer. King's main characters usually come off like regular Joes, and their inner monologues reflect that. King comes from a blue collar type background, and his writing fluidly expresses the thought processes, perceptions and mind set of that kind of person. The fact that these mental "conversations" happen to be written by a witty, funny guy makes it all the better. Even if King had never gotten into academia or writing, I think he would have ended up being the smartest guy at the mill where he worked. The one everyone enjoyed talking to and having a laugh and a brew with at the bar after work.
I would argue that before King there was no really big name horror writer that wrote in a contemporary style. That's not to say there weren't big names; but who could compare to what King became before that happened beyond Poe and Lovecraft? And their style can hardly be called accessible to the average 20th century reader. Their styles were incredibly dense at times ("The Pit and the Pendulum" being a good example). The points they made in their stories were often also made obliquely rather than with brutal directness. Much more was often implied in their works than was stated. Brilliant as they were, most readers hardly found them accessible. And before King made contemporary horror fiction into the money maker it was for the shining decade of the 80's (which I think kind of holds over to a lesser extent today), the usual horror fiction you'd find were reprints of stories by older authors. How many anthologies did we see in the 70's and early 80's that contained stuff we'd already seen by authors like Poe, HPL, Algernon Blackwood, Sheridan LeFanu, and so on? Because of this trend, I'd argue that many of the writers writing just before King hit it big were heavily influenced by these authors in style and tone, which left the mainstream readers flat most of the time.
I mean, how many of us are likely to inherit a mansion from a long lost, occult dabbling uncle, and move in to pursue our unspecified studies with no visible means of support, to set the scene for the eerie goings on that ensue? By contrast, how many of us can more easily picture losing our teaching gig because of our drinking, and being so desperate for work that we come to think taking a job as caretaker in a snowbound Colorado hotel is a good idea? Or being the kid that gets picked on in school and wishing we had the means to get back at our tormentors? Or getting trapped with our kid in that damn clunker of a car by a rabid dog? Or volunteering for a medical experiment in college for beer money? The occupationless Victorian gentleman protagonist has been replced by the much more realistic ad exec, out of work teacher/aspiring writer, and the handsome, arrogant rock star, among others. Refernces to fictional occult works like the Necronomicon are replaced by references to Madonna songs and Neil Diamond albums. For these reasons, what happened to King's characters hit us a lot closer to where we live.
And what happened to those characters is also a large part of the reason King's work resonates with so many readers. He tears away the pervading veil of lingering Victorian modesty, and isn't afraid to get brutal and violent. Georgie Denbrough doesn't just disappear into the sewer never to be seen again, like doomed Sarnath climbing the peak to challenge the Elder Gods, with no clue but his echoing screams as to his ultimate fate. No, IT rips Georgie's fucking arm off, and he dies bleeding in the rain. I always thought "It" failed as a TV miniseries because it had to tone this scene in particular down (along with the woeful miscasting). Had we been allowed to see this the way we read about it, we'd have better understood why the children of Derry were so afraid of IT (and don't give me that "But Pennywise was a clown" shit; some of us aren't all that scared of clowns in and of themselves). Give me a reason to think he was more than just a little creepy; make me FEAR him like Bill Denbrough did after seeing what IT did to his brother; make me think IT is the greatest menace the 10 year old protagonist will ever face in his life. I think King succeeded in the book because he presented us with exactly the kind of violence IT was capable of in a very matter of fact, brutally honest manner. Couple his ability to do things like this with his accessible characters and prose style, and the writing hits home all the more readily, making the writing all the more compelling and memorable.
Last, but certainly not least, King has a keen understanding of what scares us. I read a story in college, "Tonio Kroger" by Tomas Mann, in which the autobiographical protagonist, a writer, is suffering a crisis of faith. He doesn't understand why he doesn't fit in to this world he writes about, despite the fact that he very desperately wants to. He commiserates with a painter friend (because we all know those Bohemian artist types live in little enclaves), and she tells him the reason he doesn't fit into the world is because as an artist, he perceives the world more acutely than the madding crowd. This is his blessing because it allows him to write moving prose based on his observations, but also his curse because the rest of the world doesn't perceive things the same way he does, and thus they'll never understand him and he'll never quite fit in with them. Tonio just needs to accept this and use it in his art. I would argue that king has just such a keen artist's perception, but that it's more attuned to the darker side of human nature most of the time (he has written some stories that aren't at all horrific, and are damned moving). He taps into the primal rages and fears we all feel but don't generally like to confront or think about, dragging them into the light and forcing us to look at them. The fact that King often does this through children as characters, with a rare level of skill, also ratchets up the scares a notch. No one, I'd argue, is better at regressing the reader back to their childhood mindset, and the things that scared us then, than Stephen King. Ramsey Campbell tries, but I don't think he can hold a candle to king in this regard. Violence against children is also a societal taboo he's broken on more than one occasion, and I've gone on record at length in the past on these boards about what an effective device I think this would be for writers and filmmakers to use, and wondering why it isn't utilized more often. And I don't think that he uses it as a cheap, shocking parlor trick, either. I discussed IT's violence against children above, and would add the other most famous example, Gage Creed from "Pet Sematary" as a device with a point. Perhaps more poignantly conveyed in the film than the book is the horror a parent would feel at first losing their infant child to a terrible accident, and then having him come back as a monster that you have no choice but to kill. By your own hand. Particularly if you're a parent, that scene where he sticks the needle in his son's neck while Gage tries to play on his sensibilities by crying and calling him "Daddy" hits you very hard in several uncomfortable places (or at least it should). I'd call it brilliant, in its own way.
Well, that's my two cents. What are your thoughts? Is King eminently readable to you, too, and if so, why? Do you think he's a hack? And if so, why? Share with the rest of the class.
