Quote:
Originally Posted by pyan  King "third-rate", Curt? Really? |
King the institution as well as King the writer can be quite the hack. Especially during his free-wheeling days as a coke addict. During the 1980s the man was churning out doorstops once a month for a decade.
As a prime example, I'd like to examine
'Salem's Lot. There are passages in which the cadences, lyricism and penetrating insight into the human condition will take you breath away, paragraphs where the man's prose transcends and elevates the book above the ghetto of its genre.
And then, what does he do? He'll revert right back to a gossipy soap opera tone and content, of which the sordid details do not help propel the story forward nor enhance it in any way (who's cheating on whose wife, who's the town drunkard, etc). It's tasteless populism taken to its picayune depths.
Reading
'Salem's Lot is a lot like watching Puccini's
La Boheme devolve into
Peyton Place bitchiness before your very eyes. Moments of sheer brilliance floating in a sea of raw sewage.
No Stevie, no!
The man's talent and high level of intelligence is clearly apparent. He has more money than the damned Vatican. We're thus assured that he and his family won't starve waiting for his next book deal to go through. He should cast aside his folksy workman attitude, hunker down and create something that's worthy of his gifts. He not only owes it to himself, he owes it to his art.