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December 29, 2011

re re re re-evaluating Stephen King

Stephen-king
Is there any other living novelist who calls for a perpetual re-evaluation as much as Stephen King? Thirty-seven years after the publication of his first novel, Carrie, King still seems not just underrated but uncomprehended. For years his critical evaluation was hampered by the dual whammy of his being not only a genre writer but an immensely successful one. He was ridiculed and dismissed when he was paid any attention at all, yet when he didn’t go the convenient route of fading away after a few bestsellers (all but two of his books have remained in print), a sort of grudging attention began to be paid to him. Occasionally it was even approving. At a conference of postmodern novelists at Brown University, the critic Leslie Fiedler, who had written appreciatively of King (even mischievously calling him a closet intellectual), announced to an assembled group that included William Gaddis, Donald Barthelme and Robert Coover, “When all of us are forgotten, people will still be remembering Stephen King.” The serious consideration King has sporadically received over the years peaked in 2003, when the National Book Foundation honored him with a medal for lifetime achievement. The dedication was exactly right: “Stephen King’s writing is securely rooted in the great American tradition that glorifies spirit-of-place and the abiding power of narrative.” Notable among the expected harrumphing that followed was the noxious black cloud hanging over New Haven, which materializes whenever Harold Bloom decides a barbarian is about to defile the canon (see also Rowling, J.K.).
more from Charles Taylor at The Nation here.

Posted by Morgan Meis at 09:00 AM | Permalink

Comments

Stephen King is an awful writer. End of evaluation. I suspect articles like this are written because of some people's need to assuage their guilt about enjoying trash.

Posted by: Brian C. | Dec 29, 2011 9:58:32 AM

So hard, not to resent Stephen King for making enough money to support 10,000 good writers. The trouble is, I resented him enough to read one of his books, many years ago. Sure, I was loaded for bear. But a good writer, even one who is rich and ubiquitous, can always get me, so I was prepared to to cave, and to enjoy reading the kind of book I might well experience as a guilty pleasure. That's not what happened, however. Two evenings with Stephen King -- Reader, I finished him! -- had the sole effect of showing me I could discern a guilty pleasure from a low thing badly done. I have followed with interest the highbrow argument that he is after all a real and abiding talent in the tradition of Hawthorne and Melville -- that thinking was introduced to the discourse more than a decade ago, and it's no longer trendy. Literature has to make room for Stephen King about like architecture has to make room for tract housing.

Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 29, 2011 10:51:14 AM

He is in the very first row of second rate writers.

Posted by: Jeff Rollin Bruce | Dec 29, 2011 1:58:09 PM

Truly, until Stephen King writes a novel obout some well-off professional who gets a divorce and then haz a sad, he will never be taken seriously as a writer.

Also, that reviewer seemed mostly intent on making Left-Is-Just_As-Bad-As-Right points. Why is the left making "sanctimonious" points in the 12 hours after 9/11 equivalent to the Right destroying 3 countries, bringing torture back into the mainstream and destroying the world economy?

Posted by: Andrew C | Dec 29, 2011 7:25:41 PM

We, in America, always seem so uncomfortable with the idea that something can be bad and still make a lot of money.

Posted by: M. Jacobs | Dec 29, 2011 11:22:11 PM

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