Stephen King: Hack or Artist?

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]
I've only read King's On Writing but it seems like he is an incredible fiction writer.

[/ QUOTE ]

As not just a fan of his, but as a writer, this is one of my favorite books on writing (great title). I like how he also pushes people to get Strunk & White's Elements of Style for grammar issues.

Down with the adverb.

[chopstick]

[ QUOTE ]
I've read every book SK has done.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like his writing, except for the hard-core horror stuff.

My favorites of his were The Bachman Books, Different Seasons, The Stand, and Eyes Of The Dragon. I read Rita Hayworth & The Body before seeing either of the movies, those are probably all time favorites. I also really loved The Long Walk.

Would you mind giving us your top 5 or top 10 non-hardcore-horror pieces that he has written, in order of preference?

[chopstick]

[ QUOTE ]
As not just a fan of his, but as a writer, this is one of my favorite books on writing (great title). I like how he also pushes people to get Strunk & White's Elements of Style for grammar issues.


[/ QUOTE ]

S&W's EoS is easily the best grammar reference text there is, I don't care how old it is. It blows away that Little Brown Book or whatever it's called. My writing quality doubled after reading that text a few times.

[AnthonyV]

[ QUOTE ]
I've started 'The Satanic Verses' a few times but really don't think much of it - could someone suggest which book is Rushdie's best? I'd like to give him another go.

[/ QUOTE ]

db,

It took me several attempts to get through Satanic Verses. I am not kidding when I say that I've read the first 30 pages four times.

Admittedly, it is at times slow and debilitatingly dense. However, it's one of those books that will also just floor you with the complexity of the allegory he constructs and the fluidity with which he writes. Rushdie's use of diction is pretty high up there as far as contemporary authors are concerned.

Anyway, it takes an investment that I think is worth it. Maybe give it another shot.

[Triumph36]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've started 'The Satanic Verses' a few times but really don't think much of it - could someone suggest which book is Rushdie's best? I'd like to give him another go.

[/ QUOTE ]

db,

It took me several attempts to get through Satanic Verses. I am not kidding when I say that I've read the first 30 pages four times.

Admittedly, it is at times slow and debilitatingly dense. However, it's one of those books that will also just floor you with the complexity of the allegory he constructs and the fluidity with which he writes. Rushdie's use of diction is pretty high up there as far as contemporary authors are concerned.

Anyway, it takes an investment that I think is worth it. Maybe give it another shot.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will echo this - the Satanic Verses begins very odd and is a struggle at the beginning, but overall was an excellent work - like a more intellectual Marquez. The depth of Rushdie's intellect and imagination are both incredible.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]

Would you mind giving us your top 5 or top 10 non-hardcore-horror pieces that he has written, in order of preference?

[/ QUOTE ]


A slight problem you're going to have with Stephen King is that, in general, his older stuff is better than his newer (blame author burnout, his accident, stopping drugs, whatever). However, his older stuff I imagine is what you'd more classify as "hardcore horror" than the newer.

You might be best-served with his short (and not-so-short) story collections -- if a story gets to be outside your liking, it's easy enough to flip to the next tale without chucking the book.

In this spirit, off the top of my head, I'd recommend: Four Past Midnight, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, and Everything's Eventual.

Stand is his best book in my opinion, but since you've already read that, why not check out Green Mile -- there's a "book club" going for it as well in this very forum.

Hearts in Atlantis is one of my other favorites of his that would fall into the kind you want. A warning: I oftentimes hear bad things about this book ... but I really liked it. It isn't as universally loved as Stand, though.

[JaBlue]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've started 'The Satanic Verses' a few times but really don't think much of it - could someone suggest which book is Rushdie's best? I'd like to give him another go.

[/ QUOTE ]

db,

It took me several attempts to get through Satanic Verses. I am not kidding when I say that I've read the first 30 pages four times.

Admittedly, it is at times slow and debilitatingly dense. However, it's one of those books that will also just floor you with the complexity of the allegory he constructs and the fluidity with which he writes. Rushdie's use of diction is pretty high up there as far as contemporary authors are concerned.

Anyway, it takes an investment that I think is worth it. Maybe give it another shot.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will echo this - the Satanic Verses begins very odd and is a struggle at the beginning, but overall was an excellent work - like a more intellectual Marquez. The depth of Rushdie's intellect and imagination are both incredible.

[/ QUOTE ]

I saw Rushdie speak at some speaker's series and he was great. Very intelligent and eloquent dude. Also, not surprisingly, pretty witty.

[ua1176]

sometimes he's quite amazing:

Insomnia, Hearts of Atlantis, The Stand

other times he's pretty wretched:

Carrie, Tommyknockers, Cujo.

i think he's by far at his best when he's furthest from his horror-genre roots.

[Phoenix1010]

I don't have the literary backround to have an informed opinion on this, but I love SK. Yes, great storyteller. I remember while reading Eyes of the Dragon thinking that it was only an ok story, but the storytelling was so great that it made the whole thing better than it should be. And then of course some of his stories are so great that they'd be good even if they weren't executed so well, like those in Different Seasons.

My big knock on him is that he really seems to have trouble with endings. I actually enjoyed Tommyknockers pretty well, but the ending was just fuggin terrible. The Stand is great, but it ends in such ridiculouslness that it almost ruins it for me. I haven't read the Dark Tower series but it seems that it suffers from the same problem. To be fair I can imagine it's hard to write an amazing story and have an equally amazing payoff at the end without screwing something up.

Am I the only one who really liked Desperation? Maybe it was just because I was 12 and it was my first SK book, but I loved it. The beginning to that book is really well done IMO. He sets the stage vividly, and he does a really good job of putting you the reader in a pretty mundane run-in with an authority figure that gradually gets more and more creepy and frightening until it becomes clear that everything's crazy and you should be scared out of your mind. There's also a pretty chilling twist later on that I still remember making me say "oh my god" out loud. Definitely one of my favorites.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
other times he's pretty wretched:

. . . Cujo.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, what?