Do you think it eats away at him, deep down, that he knows he

He has said he is the literary equivalent of a big mac and fries so no he doesn't give a shit

>>8642688
His nose bothers me. Look how high it is on his face. Like an orc.

>>8642688
He literally doesn't give a shit, he's perfectly comfortable churning out books regularly to keep himself rich.

>>8642688
he didn't luck out, he is entertaining for the masses. He would like critical recognition but I doubt it's "eating away at him".

basically this but without any bitterness:
>>8642713

>>8642713
>>8642829
Ok, so he is rich and successful. That is step one. Why not now that he has visibility, create the most mind blowing literature ever created? No lets just try to make billions and dumb down society even further.

he'll be remembered for carrie and misery, even if it's just as pop lit. books like 50 shades and tfios will be forgotten

>>8642990

That's not his concern.

>>8643013
Nah, in 200 years no one will even know his name, while people will still be reading and analyzing Shakespeare.

>>8642990
lol who cares you fucking nerd. not every book has to be a Tractatus you fucking fedora lord. get off your high horse and leave the normies be.

>>8642688
I hope so. I made the mistake of reading Lissey's Story and it was the worst piece of shit I've ever read. It was so bad that someone should chop his hands off to keep him from writing again. I heard his old stuff is good but I hate that Lissey's Story so much that I won't read his other shit and he can rot in hell. Hey Steven, fuck you buddy!

>successful author is not my eternal /lit/ messiah

who cares?

> he doesn't read clancy and king in between heavy shit

just let your pretentiousness devour your mind and you might end up dead in an asylum like Nietzsche. might as well stop brushing your teeth and get meningitis

>>8642990
>Why not now that he has visibility, create the most mind blowing literature ever created
Because he's fucking Stephen King. He doesn't know how to do that.

>>8642688
There's one and only one thing that I despise about Stephen King which is that near his home there is a bookshop that he is at least involved with that sells exclusively Stephen King.
What the fuck. He could have that bookshop stock books he loves, books he recommends, books that matter to him, he could try to point his readers to the rich world that exists behind himself (something actually good writers do every chance they get). But nope. He's content with it being a cash cow and vanity pleaser.
Fuck Stephen King.

>>8643308
Even as light interludes there's so many better authors. Lovecraft, Howard, Lieber, Vance, Gaiman, Moorcock, Conan Doyle, Burroughs, Rice, Asimov, Stout, L'Amour, Abnett, Stephenson
Why would anyone settle for King and Clancy?

>>8643406
>Lovecraft¨
>Light

>>8643038
If you're comparing every writer to Shakespeare they're all gonna come up short

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ITT: butthurt wannabe authors that wish they could bathe in money like Stephen King can.

>>8642688
>>8642713
>>8643038
Back in the day they said all this and more about Charles Dickens, HG Wells, Tolstoy, Gissing, Orwell, Conrad, Flaubert, Zola. Shakespeare himself regarded his plays as disposable pop-culture (he took his poetry a lot more seriously tbf), and in his day he wouldn't have been alone in that opinion.

And if he lucked out its only because his work translates brilliantly into the 20th centuries prime entertainment medium, cinema.

Also, knock his fiction if you like, but his book On Writing is essential reading for anyone wanting to be a writer of any description.

>>8643308

>heavy

>fictional literature

Sorry m8 maybe if you read less Stephen King you'd be better at reading.

>>8643494
The difference is they were all good, and wrote timeless literature, and universal characters, while Stephen King is still doing stories about trailer trash from michigan. They will get less and less relatable due to globalization.

>>8643494

>On Writing

why is it good? not attacking, but curious.

>>8643544
It tell you to never use adverbs

>>8643413
>Lovecraft fan on suicide watch

>>8643494
Yeah and they said it about a lot of other people who they were totally right about too.

>>8643544
Its the most practical 'How To' guide to doing the actual work of writing that you could wish for that doesn't just dictate a formula or a set of bullshit 'rules'. He does draw on his own writing and stories and their genesis to illustrate his points but the advice is broadly applicable to writing fiction or non fiction of any given style. And it's very lucid and readable.

>>8643536
Saying that is like saying Charles Dickens only wrote about London Street Urchins and other plebs in mid 19th century England which will now get less and less relatable due to the decline in industrial society. When he's at his best, King does touch on universal themes, the Shining is about the frustrations of parenthood, Carrie is about trying to be a teenager in a religious fundamentalist household, something a lot of people in the world will sadly still find relateable. And don't get me wrong, I'm not actually a massive fan of King, but then I don't really rate Dickens that much either, IMO they're both successful popular literature from different places and times and both have their fair share of merits and deficiencies, its just that one gets more respect than the other purely by dint of being a lot older.

>>8642688
Yep. He soaks up his tears in fat piles
of hundred dollar bills.

>>8643763
Is there any evidence people said that about Dickens? It is hard to believe considering his work is so masterful.

>>8643038
Yellowstone gonna blow
God gonna hit restart
Nothing left but cockroaches and amoebas

>>8643763
Can I skip the autobiographical parts of On Writing or do those contain good advice?

>>8642725
no it's that his philtrum is too long

>>8643808
He wrote about the poor for the first reading audience as mass literacy among the lower classes was a thing so no doubt he got a bit of derision among contemporary critics from the upper classes as well as other writers and intellectuals of the time like George Elliot, John Stuart Mill and Anthony Trollope. Aside from that, not really by anyone who mattered.

Later period writers, particularly the modernists who came after him were a bit harsher. Henry James actually gives what I think is a fairly even handed assessment of him.

>>8643849
You can't really skip the autobiographical parts, but you wouldn't want to. Its just basically his way of explaining how he got to be the sort of writer he is so he can extrapolate on what he's learned and what he considers important enough to pass on and give context so you can decide for yourself it the pointers are worth taking. Also, you wouldn't want to skip it anyway, the book isn't that long and doesn't really get bogged down in detail as its making the points it does.

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>>8643763
>Carrie is about trying to be a teenager in a religious fundamentalist household, something a lot of people in the world will sadly still find relateable.

>>8643930
Oh come on, that wasn't even remotely fedora tier. You can't hear the word "religion" and instantly run to the memes. Growing up in a fundamentalist household sucks, fullstop

>>8643930
LOL, I'm from Northern Ireland dickhead, we have elected politicians holding ministerial positions with real political power here whose religious views would make Margaret White seem relatively tame. Not even joking.

>>8643930
>people analyze every book they read, even fiction books

does no one on /lit/ read because they enjoy it?

I don't sit down and write a book report and detailed analysis of the message I thought the author was trying to convey every time I read a book.


I guess I'm just a pleb

>>8643983
But don't think about the book you've read after you've finished it? That's still analysis

I'm just mad that everyone knows his name and he has all of the money and a billion books written and well-acclaimed movies made from his stories and they are all pretty awesome.
I want to be awesome too.
How many people want to be Stephen King, but literary?

>>8643987
I do but I don't think "Oh yes the author was trying to convey x by their description of y"

A lot of books I read I just try to find something that makes it worth reading or parts that I enjoy. Some books are almost entirely made up of that with only a few bad parts and others are the opposite.

>>8643998
Then again the last time I read anything serious was when I was like 14 or 15 and I probably didn't understand it very well or care about it much, I was just reading it because it was considered "classic".

Never really read any philosophy either, haven't read at all really since then because I just read books because I had nothing better to do, and the internet is a much better way of wasting time when I have nothing better to do.

I guess I am a pleb.

>>8644009
You don't read. Why do you post here then?

>>8644016
I don't read anymore, at least not very often.

And I only post here occasionally but 99% of the time it's just people jerking off about philosophy and being pretentious.

It's seems like for most people who post on /lit/, reading is just a method to make themselves feel superior to others, not something they actually enjoy doing.


I guess I post here to try to understand the mindset of reading for enjoyment of stories == bad.

>>8644028
It's not bad, it's just the base of the sofistication-pyramid. Enjoying higher part of it doesn't prevent one from enjoying the lower.
I am personally not satisfied with just a good story. I don't care. I find it boring. It might have something to do with being a writer myself, and stories-overload, which is actually a thing

>>8644043
I haven't read anything in a long time that isn't just whatever fiction trash.

I sort of want to start reading again, and read stuff that isn't just generic trash, but it feels like a waste. Learning an instrument seems like a more productive thing, even if I'd only be playing it for myself.

I don't know.

>>8643998
Fair enough, whatever floats your boat. But we're talking about the relative merits of writers specifically based on the universality of the themes and subtexts of their works.

And yes, I don't get a lot of time to just read these days so when I do I tend to read mostly for fun, for the enjoyment of it, but even the pulp literature, popular literature and occasional YA books all have a subtext and themes, as does any work of art in any medium, which you can ignore if you want or engage with.

>>8644062
Sometimes I think I realize stuff like that but don't think about it or find it significant unless it's being explicitly pointed out or discussed.

I never really discuss books or reading with anyone.

>>8644060
You should read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, its short, enjoyable enough of a read and its intellectual but it won't go over your head, assuming you're not an idiot, and you can get it for free on Project Guttenburg which is handy if you've got an e-reader. If you like it come back here and talk about it and why you liked it, I'm sure people will be happy to recommend where you can go from there, if not then have a good think about what you are really looking for from your reading material.

>>8643406
King is at least as good as L'Amour, what the fuck are you talking about

>>8643494
>Shakespeare himself regarded his plays as disposable pop-culture
and he was fucking right

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>>8644106
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syJJrsmrts

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>>8643494
>Shakespeare himself regarded his plays as disposable pop-culture (he took his poetry a lot more seriously tbf),
>shakespeare
>taking direct credit for anything currently attributed to him
>mfw

>>8644091
That book is fucking fantastic. Anyone with a 'I want to find the meaning of life' boner will fucking love it.
>>8644043
>stories-overload
>not satisfied with just a good story
I understand this now that I'm a writer but after awhile plot and characters just aren't as fun as before. I wonder if in a couple of years I'll only care about the language being really clever instead of whale druids that shoot acid on battleships while our saddened byronic hero sips wine.

guy probably has a 12 part epic poem to be released once he dies.

>>8642688
He probably has more nightmares about Vans or writing the last chapter of a book than he does about his literary legacy

>>8645282
I can imagine he has some final piece of writing locked away in a Maine safety deposit box.

>>8642688
It's like you're not aware that there are levels between having no talent at all and being one of the greatest writers of all time.

>>8645276
>but after awhile plot and characters just aren't as fun as before
That is the writers stage of enlightenment, but don't make the mistake that it is not important to audience. It is entirely the only thing audiences will care about.

>>8645319
Yeah, that's pretty clear. I had the theory the other day that it's all really demographics.
A two year old likes pictures, a 6-10 likes a simple book maybe a goosebumps or mystery book or harry potter, a 10-13 falls into that too.
Then 13-18 its YA stuff, although I read that YA readers are 50% adults probably because they never matured past high school intellectually.
Then on from there you have your DFWs, then the high literature types in their 40-60s pumping out the most awesome work and the 20-40s pumping out the most 'novelty' works like prufrock etc.
Everything sucks to someone, everythings good to someone. Well, not everything, but everything at least decent right?

>>8643849
>>8643902
I actually think you can skip the autobiographical parts, but it becomes a lesser book

>Lucked out
>created a successful pseudonym to prove it wasn't luck
K. I ain't saying he's great, but it wasn't luck that got him there.

>>8645663
The fact that we know its his pseudonym proves that the sales weren't good enough. Same with JK Rowling / Galbratih

>>8643494
The problem for king is those writers you named did not have to compete against other culture forms like film/games/music like king has. In 200 years, the amount of culture to consume will be enourmous provided we humans, and our society still exist in a similar fashion as today. Most people who read dickens, orwell, zola, shakespeare, tolstoy, does that in school in order to understand the history. Why would someone waste hours readin kings novels about drugs and pedophilia disguised as unnatural monsters, when they could learn about or age in minutes by listening to a song or spend an hour watchin a flick?
People are stupid, they want to escape, etc. Yes,those are the ones who read him today. Why arent they reading dickens, shakespore or hg wells instead? Because that is yesterday. King will be forgotten, since those who enjoy him doesn't care, like he doesn't care about them.

>>8642688
nigger are you kidding me?

He is possibly one of the most influential horror/thriller writers of all time.

His books are still being adapted. He's still making a gorillion dollars.

His works have influenced and inspired writers and directors for the past couple decades.

I'm not saying he's the best, Lord knows he has his fair of shitty stories that no one should read, but he is still damn good and his iron grip on the horror genre isn't going away anytime soon.

>>8644028
It could be worse. People on /tv/ feel superior to other because they like superhero movies panned by critics.

>>8645709
You can't prove that he revealed the authorship of the Bachman books in order to boost sales.

>>8645838

>why would someone waste hours reading Stephen King novels to understand the history of a particular period

because popular literature/popular horror literature is its own unique phenomenon distinct from music and film

that's like saying why would someone waste hours reading Infinite Jest when they can just watch art house cinema from the 90s