Stephen J King's X-rated rant on his fellow one percenters

[RebLem]

Stephen J King has written an X-rated and very funny and very serious angry rant on his fellow one percenters in The Daily Beast. If I actually published the text, the text editor would probably censor it, and if not, some people would be ticked off at me for this secondary issue which I do not want to be a bone of contention, so I am exercising an option I seldom do--submitting just the link.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -sake.html

[jbuck919]

Geez, the guy can write after all (insert emoticon for sheer admiration).

[John F]

Wow! (He's right, you know...)

[lennygoran]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -sake.html

Bravo! Bravisimo! Regards, Len

[RebLem]

I keep wondering if Romney has a cherry orchard at one of his homes.

[Mark Harwood]

Geez, the guy can write after all (insert emoticon for sheer admiration).

Did you think he couldn't?

[jbuck919]

Geez, the guy can write after all (insert emoticon for sheer admiration).

Did you think he couldn't?

I find this essay of far higher quality than the pedestrian writing in King's books. As Harold Bloom put it when he was forced to include King as an author in some series for which he was the overall editor, "To read Stephen King is not to read." There are also excellent novelists whose writing apart from their fiction is undistinguished, as well as talents such as George Orwell who have been good at both.

[Mark Harwood]

C'm on, Harold Bloom is a bit highbrow to be passing judgement on popular fiction. I wouldn't be the least bit interested in Schoenberg's views on King Oliver either.

[living_stradivarius]

C'm on, Harold Bloom is a bit highbrow to be passing judgement on popular fiction. I wouldn't be the least bit interested in Schoenberg's views on King Oliver either.

I agree. Bloom's framework for evaluation is a bit too structured for the likes of King.

[jbuck919]

C'm on, Harold Bloom is a bit highbrow to be passing judgement on popular fiction. I wouldn't be the least bit interested in Schoenberg's views on King Oliver either.

It is more like King does not belong on any list of authors who are to be the subjects of critical essays by or edited by Bloom. But I can't blame King for writing all those trash novels when they made him so much money, even though he is apparently capable of better writing. If I had been lucky enough to stumble on a winning formula at just the right time and had the stamina to churn out all that stuff year after year, I would also have done that rather than write for quality because it would have made me a wealthy man. As Samuel Johnson said, nobody but a blockhead ever wrote for any reason other than to make money. (It's not really true, but a great man said it and it fits. )

[Mark Harwood]

SK has written a couple that I didn't enjoy, but I'd be hard pressed to describe more than maybe three as trash, except those he wrote under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman".
For those who haven't read SK, I'd recommend "The Man Who Loved Tom Gordon".

[jbuck919]

SK has written a couple that I didn't enjoy, but I'd be hard pressed to describe more than maybe three as trash, except those he wrote under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman".
For those who haven't read SK, I'd recommend "The Man Who Loved Tom Gordon".

Richard Bachman is not a depository for inferior works but a coincidence related to the speed with which King turned out his, um, stuff. His publisher made him use a pseudonym because people would buy novels simultaneously from two different authors before they would buy two new ones from the same author. And you mean "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon." If he had written a novel called "The Man Who Loved Tom Gordon," it is probable that all bets would be off.

Nobody wants to deny you your guilty pleasures, Mark. God knows I enjoyed the two then extant novels of Dan Brown while passing time on a flight (of course anything that is so wrong about so much that I happen to know about also engages another part of my brain). But nothing could cause a Stephen King novel to divert me even mildly, and I have tried several times. He is a ghastly hack.

[Mark Harwood]

SK has written a couple that I didn't enjoy, but I'd be hard pressed to describe more than maybe three as trash, except those he wrote under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman".
For those who haven't read SK, I'd recommend "The Man Who Loved Tom Gordon".

Richard Bachman is not a depository for inferior works but a coincidence related to the speed with which King turned out his, um, stuff. His publisher made him use a pseudonym because people would buy novels simultaneously from two different authors before they would buy two new ones from the same author. And you mean "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon." If he had written a novel called "The Man Who Loved Tom Gordon," it is probable that all bets would be off.

Nobody wants to deny you your guilty pleasures, Mark. God knows I enjoyed the two then extant novels of Dan Brown while passing time on a flight (of course anything that is so wrong about so much that I happen to know about also engages another part of my brain). But nothing could cause a Stephen King novel to divert me even mildly, and I have tried several times. He is a ghastly hack.

Er, yes, it's "The GIRL...." It's one of his plotless yet absorbing pieces, and quite short.
Of course it's each to his own when it comes to the pleasures of reading. I used to enjoy more literary works, such as those by great Russian authors, but not these days. Even so, I've managed to avoid Dan Brown.
Last point: SK can be very funny.

[karlhenning]

. . . But I can't blame King for writing all those trash novels when they made him so much money, even though he is apparently capable of better writing.

It might (or it might not) have been on CMG itself that I read of Michael Caine having been asked about one of the Jaws movies (whichever one he was in) . . . his reply was something like, I've not seen it, and rumor tells that it is a wretched movie, "but the house which it bought me is lovely."

Cheers,
~Karl

[jbuck919]

. . . But I can't blame King for writing all those trash novels when they made him so much money, even though he is apparently capable of better writing.

It might (or it might not) have been on CMG itself that I read of Michael Caine having been asked about one of the Jaws movies (whichever one he was in) . . . his reply was something like, I've not seen it, and rumor tells that it is a wretched movie, "but the house which it bought me is lovely."

Caine wasn't in any of the Jaws movies, but I believe he said that of his starring role in The Island, which is also based on a Peter Benchley book (and yes, Caine is famous for his nonchalance about being in bad movies only for the money). In fact, Benchley, as the grandson of Robert Benchley and a writer who could have gone in several directions, was a candidate for the phenomenon we're talking about.

[karlhenning]

Thanks for the corrigendum, John!

Anyway, I think Caine deserves his nice house even if only for playing Charlie Croaker in The Italian Job.

Cheers,
~Karl