His reputation will grow a lot in decades to come, same as happened with Poe and Lovecraft
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His reputation will grow a lot in decades to come, same as happened with Poe and Lovecraft
His reputation will grow a lot in decades to come, same as happened with Poe and Lovecraft
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DMT Has Friends For Me Shirt $21.68 |
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i mean as it should, some of his stuff is top horror
When he's at his best he's decent and I generally enjoy reading him, but he hasn't done anything that deserves to be canonized as a great horror writer. If Stephen King is going to be put on the same list as Poe and Lovecraft, you might as well add Dean Koontz to the list, since he's at least as good as King if not better.
King's problem is that he enjoys writing too much, and will take literally any stupid idea that pops into his head and develop it into a 900 page novel, which means that his good novels tend to be gems floating in a river of mostly forgettable crap. He also openly admits that he word-vomits his novels with little planning, which almost always results in long, meandering stories containing digressions and extra scenes that most other writers would realize they need to chop. Publishers used to make him pare his stuff down, which is probably why most of his best novels were his earlier ones, but unfortunately being famous means he can now bully editors and publishers and override their advice just by saying "I don't have to listen to you, I'm Stephen King, b***h." He's even gone back and released "updated" editions of his older books containing all the stuff that was cut out, and this will often add about half an inch of thickness to novels that were probably already longer than they needed to be.
tl;dr he has some talent, but he also has all the bad habits of a middling fanfiction writer. And, like a middling fanfiction writer who becomes popular, he never corrected any of his bad habits because he's received too much praise from too many people who don't know what they're talking about.
I'd probably add The Shining and a couple of the Dark Tower novels to this list, maybe Salem's Lot. Bag of Bones is also surprisingly good.
Came here to basically write this. Other Anons have mentioned the Americana vibe--that comes through strong, but only in some of his short stories, and those are already taught in undergraduate English courses. His novels are almost all mediocre airplane reads or embarrassing trash.
Pet Semetary, Carrie, and The Green Mile are his only real achievements. If IT had been edited properly, it would also be good, but it's not--it's about two-thirds of good-to-excellent material with the other third being absolute shit. The Stand was the last book of his I read by choice--it was so embarrassingly bad outside of The Walking Dude and Trashcan Man, who weren't characters as much as S-tier tropes wearing skin--it was the book that made me realize that I was done reading popular fiction, so maybe that's something. The worst thing is that I can't even find the short stories I want to reference even with keywording characters because he has written so. much. shit.
At best, he will be remembered as an inhumanly-prolific popular horror writer of the late 20th century and the inspiration behind films like The Shining and The Mist. Anyone saying that he will be remembered in the same way as Poe or Lovecraft is clinical and really doesn't know what the frick they're talking about. It's rare for popularity to increase after death if it was experienced consistently in life--excepts being Shakespeare and Hitchwiener, and I think Hitchwiener was redeemed while he was still alive.
Largely true.
King is a PROLIFIC writer - not a great writer, but a prolific writer who sets up a great moment here and there.
It's horror junk food.
He is the McDonald's of horror authorship.
>He is the McDonald's of horror authorship.
For me that was Dean Koontz.
what book would you think will be remembered best?
From what I've read of his, I would say at minimum The Stand, It, Pet Semetery, and The Langoliers
his short stories specifically the jaunt
Salems Lot
gerald's game, rage, and the short story about the black river slime
He’s more like the Ben Jonson of our time: famous in life, to be forgotten in death.
He's not forgotten, The Alchemist is classic and influenced centuries of English literature, Faulty Towers is similar,not quite as good
God, I hope not. He wrote digestible pulp but didn't do anything new or interesting. He will be forgotten.
I think the opposite. It’s become more and more of a popular opinion that he’s not that good. Even normies started considering his horror as overrated.
I think eventually he will be remembered almost as much for being an interesting writer of Americana as for being a horror writer. His work bridges the now half-mythic America of the 1950s when he grew up with the modern day. One of the sometimes overlooked reasons for his popularity is unlike some authors, he knows how to write characters who aren't neurotic intellectuals. He has a blue collar appeal.
As a non-american I love his american worlds that are very different than lit about modern city americans(usually not in New England). Like very edgy and degenerate Mark Twain stories.
>dude what if Maine
>dude what if popular plot but written better than the previous guys wrote it and with 30 sex jokes per scene
>dude what
Could Stephen King ever come to prominence if he started today?
He got published in this perfect boomer storm when they wanted fair new material for horror movies, tv films, etc, and he was the pump for it. It's crazy how much 80s/90s video culture was directly from King, he's canonized in the medium term (the next few centuries) just on that alone, whether anyone likes it or not. If it falls away later that's another matter.
Also he enjoyed an extremely convenient name.
Stephen King is basically the Blink-182 of horror fiction. When you're in 7th grade and have no prior exposure to the genre you get instantly hooked and start jabbering about him to all your friends. But, as soon as you start hanging around people who are more knowledgeable and getting exposed to what they're into, you'll realize there's much better stuff out there that merits closer attention.
He should be remembered for what he is, an excellent pulp horror writer. He is on par with Lovecraft and Poe. He does deserve his reputation. He will be considered one of history's great masters of horror one day and considered a classic writer.
Perfect, a slightly relevant thread.
Do you prefer the original The Stand or the uncut version? I'm leaning towards the original, unless the uncut version has some sort of important connection to The Dark Tower that isn't in the original.
I have never read a King book.
I would say uncut but to be fair it's so long since I've read the original that I'm not even sure I ever did. I might have just only ever read the uncut version.
The stuff that's in the uncut version doesn't really add anything to the story but it doesn't really hamper your enjoyment of it, either. It's basically just the stories of some oddball side characters who don't factor into the broad plot too much but add some extra color to the book's world. Overall the book is a surprisingly quick read for how long it is, so the extra time investment probably won't be all that high, so it's up to you.
I wouldn't worry too much about the Dark Tower connections unless you're super into the mythos, you won't pick up on most of it unless you've read all the Dark Tower books anyway.
Thanks, that's exactly the response I needed to solidify reading the original.
Why would that happen when unlike those authors, King has enjoyed enormous success while he still lives?
King has enjoyed tremendous popularity but he is still widely seen as a being just a guy who writes books that people buy to not get bored on airplane flights. He doesn't get much literary respect. I think that this will change in the future as people re-evaluate his work. Similar to how Poe went from being known as a literary critic who wrote a few good poems and stories to now being seen as a key literary figure. And how Lovecraft went from being seen as just a pulp magazine writer to now being evaluated as an interesting artist.
Everything written after the world wars will be forgotten. That stuff written in the internet she and kept mainly on the internet or elsewhere in hardware are especially liable to be lost in the sands of time. It will be like it never existed at all.
This, but in the grand scheme of things the same can be said for anything. Nothing lasts forever.
he's going to he known for the movies that were adapted from his books
>she's going to be known for the movies that were adapted from her books
Hitchwiener changing the ending of Rebecca is more well known than she is.
But aren't some of the most popular adaptations of his books ones that diverge heavily from his books?
Eg: the shining, the running man?
His legacy will be a reminder that all creative types/ artists should stay the frick off twitter unless they want their work to get tied up into politics.
What will he be known for in a general sense? With Poe and Lovecraft, an aesthetic instantly springs to mind.
Same with King, his aesthetic is blue collar Americana with horror mixed in to it, told in a kind of stream of consciousness style with pop culture references thrown in the way some actual ordinary Joe would probably describe things, plus an overriding notion that victimized people sometimes develop supernatural powers either for evil or for good
Why are his nostrils facing forward?
Ligotti will.
Why, dear anon, but to snort coke of course!
the dark tower is kabbalah
I actually quite like many of his science fiction novels he wrote early on, and haven't really read or enjoyed any of his horror at all aside from Duma Key and The Stand. I read the first five Dark Tower books and some of the imagery is fun but they are pretty terrible as novels imo.
My favourite three sci-fi novels that he wrote:
Firestarter is one of the few books he wrote with a satisfying ending imo.
The Long Walk I think he wrote when he was 17 and it's an interesting premise.
The Running Man is completely underrated as cyberpunk and absolutely bodies anything Gibson put out. It's completely unlike the Arnold movie.
Those three are worth checking out in my opinion if you are a scifi fan, even if you don't like King.
Countless dissertations will be written on him.
misery is a great page turner and made me enjoy reading again
I don't like him. There is an incredible amount of fantastic horror yet people only read King.
One of my mates said he wants to read some King book and I suggested for us to watch The Shining later over Discord. He refused saying that he doesn't want to watch it because it requires thinking. I asked if reading King requires less thinking and he got unreasonably angry.
>There is an incredible amount of fantastic horror
such as? i read heart shaped box by his son and it was okay at best. i just started ghost story and i'm kinda worried it'll be the same thing. what great horror is there?
Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts still keep me up at night.
I always thought those were more sci fi than horror. what about ghosts and haunted shit like king writes about? IQfy's horror chart is really hit or miss
Black person doesn't know how to end a book.
Lovecraft died in poverty, while Clark Ashton Smith was more popular than him when they were alive, and it's interesting how the tables have turned. Numerous renowned writers of the past are now forgotten, while numerous obscure writers have gained immense popularity.
Mark my words, King will be forgotten, the masses with short attention span, the main consumers of his work, will find something else to read once he's dead.
>Clark Ashton Smith was more popular than him when they were alive
>King will be forgotten
Dean Koontz renaissance incoming
I already knew who Smith was and his collected stories are easily available on Amazon. I own volume one. For a guy whose been dead for almost 100 years that's still good. He's not widely known but is very well known in weird fiction circles.
Clark Ashton Smith actually died only in 1961. He outlived Lovecraft by a lot. And then Lovecraft's explosion in popularity helped to expose many people to CAS who would otherwise have likely never heard of him. Same with Machen and Dunsany, popular writers in their time but nowadays probably getting at least half of their new readers because of the Lovecraft connection.
Yeah probably. Someone should make a movie out of the story about the demon in the chateau
His writing is boring and his stories range from embarrassing to meh to, extremely rarely, alright. Any one who has read widely outside of contemporary popular literature knows this.
I've read pretty widely outside of contemporary popular literature and I like King's stuff
I can confirm this.
But Shawshank Redemption movie was alright, even fine, heck, probably a top 100... I read then how many modifications they had to do to the novel to make it a movie and was like "yeah... thought so"
Regardless of the merits of any given movie adaptation and my own distaste for King's boring prose, any adaptation of a novel into a film is usually going to require substantial changes. I am generally uninterested in such adaptations for this reason. The two media do not translate very well into each other and when directors try to make faithful films of novels they usually stretch the medium beyond what the form ought to bear.
I am not overly fond of Shawshank Redemption, though it and the Shining (also changed quite a bit) are probably the best adaptations to film of King novels. The Shining is good because Kubrick said frick it and made it his own.
his face is more scary thany any horror he wrote
True.
Among the best of the pop-pulp writers, nothing to scoff at as this puts him ahead of many of the worst "literary" writers.
If this was the only thing King had published, he would be considered a cult literary figure and a hero to IQfy
I firmly believe that he had it removed from reprints of the Bachman books because it was the most embarrassing garbage he ever wrote. The "muh school shootings" line was just a cover.
Au contraire, he will be forgotten like Harold Robbins or Sidney Sheldon and other purveyors of formulaic bestseller slop with whom he has much more in common than with masters like Poe and Lovecraft who both tellingly died in abject poverty. Their true successor and the only modern American horror writer worthy of critical acclaim and academic study is Thomas Ligotti
If he would have died in 1995 he could have a nice legacy. Now... meh.
he used to be good but then he got off drugs and got hit by a car and became an anti-gun advocate and his writing is shit and hes just a fricking failure anon I used to feel the same way but he's just a trash writer and a trash person
At best as a storyteller - His writing (prose) is nothing. At worst (best) as a nonce.
He wrote your favourite movie, Shawshank Redemption
morons here don't like him 'cause he's anti Trump leftist.