Comments

1
On the bright side, (my impression is that) college English departments are teaching more genre lit in literature courses (vs. creative writing). I bet the creative writing programs will hold on to "literary fiction" for quite some time.
2
That's the trend these days in book covers. Cheaper to produce, and the transfer well to different formats. And they can tell themselves they are being artsy and retro when in fact they are just being cheap.
3
Here's the thing: I love me some well-written genre fiction, as long as the genre is something I can digest, meaning American-style mysteries and crime fiction (no Agatha Christie style, thanks awfully). I've been able to get down a fair amount of sci-fi as well. But I think Stephen King, on the evidence of the few I've tried to read, is just plumb godawful. "The Shining" is one of the very few books I not only didn't finish, but mutilated in anger about 50 pages in. I tried to read "Carrie" and "The Stand" as well, with no success. I've heard people praise the way his language naturalistically, the way real people think and talk, but I'm not seeing it. Not even really stupid people think and talk that way; just endless streams of cliche and visible chinks of plot dragging the characters around. You want naturalistic language, get some goddamn Elmore Leonard.
4
I like the cover. SO THERE.
5
@3 As you say. But I am a King fan and The Shining is one of my favorites. Yet I read a couple of Elmore Leonard books, after seeing him much-praised, and honestly couldn't see what the fuss was about. I didn't hate them, no, but they barely registered. I couldn't tell you a single thing now about either one.

What can one say about that? De gustibus non est disputandum, is about it. Your opinion that even King's best work is godawful is no more authoritative or objectively correct than mine that it's pretty good.

6
I'm a librarian and one of those nose-in-the-book types since I was about four. I'm also a storyteller, and tend to while reading a book think about how it would sound if spoken aloud. Stephen King is a masterful storyteller. He creates extremely realistic characters, who speak and act exactly as one would expect people to do in real life. I can't tell you how many so-called "literary fiction" type books I've read that I had to give up on, finding myself thinking "People just don't talk/act like this". King has written some absolutely horrible books, but at his best, he captures the feel of American culture and its inhabitants, especially its children, like no other author.
7
This is a person who doesn't understand the concept of "Good Bad" or "Bad Good", where something is so bad it circles around and becomes good.

Heck, I can think of a theater festival where if you don't go to at least one "Good Bad" show you can't really say you've done the festival.
8
Are we now criticizing novels for being literary fiction, i.e. not crap? That's depressing.

I'm rereading Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. Literary fiction with characters who do cowboy-speak so believably that you know that's how they spoke, and if you're old enough, you remember people in your life who spoke that way. Then there are Larry McMurtry's cowboy not-so-literary novels where the characters talk in McMurtry-speak, but you still love them because they are McMurtry characters. You can love both types of fiction, but you needn't denigrate the first in order to praise the second.
9
1. This guy is a pretentious shitheel.
2. 11\22\63 was a great take on time travel, and especially as an audiobook full of atmosphere.
3. Critiquing King without reading The Dark Tower series, and in particular The Gunslinger, is like basing your opinion of Microsoft on ME, of Ford on the Pinto, of Italian cooking on Olive Garden, etc. But then, he's a pretentious shitheel; I shouldn't expect him to do more than follow his own preconceived notions.

Oh, and as for his question: "After you’ve read Roberto Bolaño and Denis Johnson and David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, as my son has, why would you return to Stephen King?" Because we're not all pretentious shitheels writing book reviews while our own wastrel literary career haunts the back of our minds, you polesmoking douchenozzle. Considering that when I look for 'your dark writing' I find 3 novels under your name in either Barnes & Noble or Amazon, and that out of the 2 sites they have a grand total of 2 reviews. Some of us like to read books we actually enjoy, that allow us to shut off our minds and forget the trials and tribulations of the real world, rather than concern ourselves with what pretentious shitheels think of the books we choose to read. Those works clearly don't come out of your pen.

Huh. Apparently that article annoyed me.
10
Paul: you're completely wrong about what defines genre fiction

You said: "Who decides that language is more important to a novel than plot?"

You seem to be implying that literary fiction has good language, whereas genre fiction has good plots. But this is just laughable. The whole point about genre fiction is that it has generic plots - the detective solves the case - with small variations worked in. The plots of good literary novels, on the other hand, are magnificent beasts, being about lives, or things, or ideas, spanning centuries or minutes...

I understand the argument you're trying to make about breaking down literary silos, but this is the wrong way to make it.
11
I feel like if you only ever read "certifiably literary fiction " you would probably never read anything by a woman author....?

But I like Stephen King too, so what do I know.
12
Yeah, what NateMan said!
13
This has always been my problem. Honestly very few literary books have kept me interested. Until I read Alexandre Dumas, I had equated literary to boring. Then again, Dumas was criticized as a hack writer during his time so there's that.

I guess it's like that with every form of art though. Music critics who only enjoy symphonic orchestras and operas and shun any other genre of music.

It's just pretentious.
14
@9 - You do a good job of convincing me not to read the article, because I think I would be just as annoyed as you were. I have read DFW, and Pynchon, etc. and I still like to read the occasionally King book. What is this world he lives in, where you must set a bar for your entertainment and never stoop below it? And why is that bar set above genre fiction? Do these snobs not have moods? Even the snootiest foodie I know loves a good hot dog. Dag, now I'm annoyed, too.
15
@8- "Literary Fiction" doesn't mean "not crap." It means "not marketed to the genre niche market." Tons of literary fiction is crap. Tons of genre fiction is great.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.