Stephen King

Right now I'm working on my first King book. It's not a "real" King book in that it isn't a novel, or collection of short stories. It's a book of diary entries and emails written by King and another (lesser known) author named Stewart O'Nan. The book is Faithful, and the average King reader probably wouldn't be into it. Unless, of course that reader is a baseball fan (especially a Red Sox fan like myself).

I'm not a King fan and I don't know anything about O'Nan, so I went into this cautiously (waiting until I could get it used for less than $5) and not expecting much. I'm actually pleasantly surprised though. Most of the book (so far anyway) is O'Nan's journal entries and I'm really enjoying it. I'm glad O'Nan is the primary writer at this point because I identify way more with him, as he needs to fight to get tickets to games (and to pay for them) like the rest of us, unlike King who has season tickets that go to waste while he's baking away in Florida. The writing is very technical and I've got to say it's helpful that I saw most of the games in the 2004 season and know who all the players are.

I don't know that I'd suggest it to anyone (except the mysterious user "Soxfan" I've seen lurking about). I'm just wondering if anyone else has read it and has anything to say about it.

I believe you are a little "harsh" on King who is a great Red Sox fan. I read a good book by David Halberstam called "Teammates".....A Portrait Of A Friendship. It is about Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams. A good read and especially so for fans of the Red Sox. I have much respect for those players. Today's ballplayers could take a few lessons from those guys both on the field and off.

muggle said:

I believe you are a little "harsh" on King who is a great Red Sox fan.

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Oh sorry, that's unintentional (at least in this context). I know he's a huge fan. What I intended to express was that I identify more with the guy who is doing most of the writing at this point because he's kind of an "average joe", rather than the kind of guy who can afford to get season tickets and not even use them all the time.

mehastings said:

Oh sorry, that's unintentional (at least in this context). I know he's a huge fan. What I intended to express was that I identify more with the guy who is doing most of the writing at this point because he's kind of an "average joe", rather than the kind of guy who can afford to get season tickets and not even use them all the time.

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what, no comment on the David Halberstam book.

I am new to Stephen King and I would like to try one of his books. Anybody have a suggestion to the first book of his I should read?

muggle said:

what, no comment on the David Halberstam book.

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Oh, sorry. I haven't actually read it. I've seen it, at the stores though. I'm not surprised that it was a good book though. Those guys are some of the best players ever to come through Boston. It's true that players these days have lost something. Not that those guys played only for "the love of the game", but at least it wasn't only about money.

Sorry direstraits and Libre, I've only now seen your posts as I haven't been keeping an eye on this thread.

ds: Actually King's writing about his own work (which I did think genuinely interesting) softened my opinion on him a good deal. As you'll see from the extracts I quoted, he acknowledges that he can't do 'good prose' and that he's basically doing the best he can with what he's got. I respect that. I suppose that, as in so many cases, it's less the author that I take against than the outlandish claims made for him by some of his fans (and I don't mean to include any TBF-ers when I say that).

As for Salman Rushdie, I haven't read Fury but I've heard it said it's not his best so you might enjoy his others even more. In fact my experiences of Rushdie have been mixed: I loved The Satanic Verses, admired (but struggled a lot with) Midnight's Children, and couldn't finish Shame, The Moor's Last Sigh or The Ground Beneath Her Feet. So I may not be the best person to open a discussion with...

Libre: I take your point but to be fair, although I only commented on selected specific parts of his prose (otherwise my comments would have gone on even longer...!), I thought his prose as a whole was poor, so I'm not "cutting and pasting one paragraph" or "taking one chord of a symphony or one frame of a movie." I read all of the story and didn't like the writing in any of it. Whether or not the quality of the writing matters is something we will just have to disagree on, but in my view if a writer - whose basic tool is language, from which everything else is constructed including story, characters, plot, themes etc - can't use language well on a sentence-by-sentence level, then for me anyway that's not good enough. It doesn't have to be poetic: writers I've read and loved recently including Richard Yates, Sloan Wilson, Mavis Gallant etc don't write 'poetically' but simply and elegantly and precisely.

The upside of this is that, although I couldn't enjoy the story on the page because of the distressing effect of his prose, I may well like some of the films made of his books. Kubrick's The Shining, for one. Maybe King is better as source material than finished product...

Shade-
Fair enough. King's prose work for me though.
By the way, did you know Brahms destested - and destroyed - much of his work? I mention it by way of example that an artist's own opinion of their work may be at odds with a whole lot of other's opinions.

muggle said:

Would you recommend The Stand as it is on my TBR list.

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Muggle, The Stand is awesome! I would highly recommend it to anyone. I mean, OK, it's not "fine literature", but it's a helluva great story - a real page turner. I've only read the re-released Uncut version, so I can't comment on the original, but I say 'Go for it!!!"

I've liked most of the books I've read by him alot but there's been a couple of times that I've wanted to slap him for such a stupid ending. I'm about to read Gerald's Game then Bag of Bones.

^I hated Gerald's Game, but loved Bag of Bones.

Steph said:

I am new to Stephen King and I would like to try one of his books. Anybody have a suggestion to the first book of his I should read?

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I would definitely recommend that you try The Stand. If you're not so keen on reading such a lengthy novel, however, I suggest that you read The Gunslinger, which is the first book in the Dark Tower series. Don't give up after the first if you don't like it - it's a lot slower than the others. The second book is just great.

Try Carrie; it's short and is from a time when he was (sort of) trying.

I suggest, if you want the quintessential Stephen King, you might try Carrie, Firestarter, or The Stand. If you want something different, but well written, you might try Eyes of the Dragon or The Gunslinger. The Green Mile was pretty good, too.

Contrary to the opinion of some others here, I think Stephen King is a great story teller. While his storylines are at times implausible, and he has been lazy on occasion, he has mastered his language, and can hold your attention right up to the often disappointing end.

he's certainly got a ton to choose from. i bought a few from walmart, including Green Mile and Different Seasons. (a collection of novellas) Carrie was the first King novel i read. its really easy to get into his books and keep reading and kill some time when you can't sleep at 4am =P (like last night)

i just finished reading Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption from Different Seasons. i really liked it. plus, it had a 'happy' ending. i agree with some others, he really is a good story teller. i read 80 pages of it nonstop two nights ago.

The Stand!! A great story, IMO. The only King book I couldn't get through was Gerald's Game.

WoundedThorns said:

i just finished reading Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption from Different Seasons. i really liked it. plus, it had a 'happy' ending. i agree with some others, he really is a good story teller. i read 80 pages of it nonstop two nights ago.

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I'm currently reading that one right now. I'm to the part where he finds out another inmate knows who really murdered the golfing pro and his wife. I'm hooked as well, which for me, indicates that a person is a good story tellers as there are a lot of things that compete for the books time. I almost wish that I hadn't viewed the movie as every time I imagine Red, it's Morgan Freeman.

Came in my email today:

Amazon.com has announced "Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher" - a weekly original series which will stream live on the Amazon.com homepage every Thursday night for 12 weeks beginning June 1. Stephen will be doing an interview for their preview show being recorded this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. That interview will air on Amazon.com on Tuesday, January 24th to offer customers highlights of the show.

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If anyone hasn't checked out the interview, I whole-heartedly recommend it. The interview starts out commenting upon King's aura of being a horror writer and incapable of writing about anything else. Interestingly enough, he mentioned Rita Hayworth & Shawshank redemption to a fan who asked if it was true that horror is all he wrote. Upon mentioning shawshank, the lady said-" No, no, I saw the movie and you didn't write that." Interesting commentary as well regarding drinking in his past, and how he thought his works would've been better had he kicked the habit sooner. Gotta enjoy Bill Maher as well, definitely someone who can do an interview and command the viewer's attention the whole time.