Stephen King: Love Him? Hate Him?

I'm halfway through Stephen King's latest doorstop, 11/22/63, and it's looking like it's going to be a good one.  At the halfway point it's surprising in that the horror has been minimal (an early attack, a murder) and the local color has been maximal. But we know it's headed towards a serious theme--what would have been the consequence if JFK hadn't been killed in Dallas? And it's charming that King uses that question to paint a picture of the entirely different universe of America in the early 1960s. The New York Times, of all places, named it one of their best books of the year.

Like most fiction readers of a certain age, I feel like I've come of age with King. My sister, two years older, pitched to me when I was fourteen that I should read two unexpected books: Salem's Lot and To Kill a Mockingbird. The second sounded like boring assigned reading. The first sounded like horror, which I couldn't see the appeal of. She persisted and I read them both and loved them both. I remember gasping out loud at a scene in Salem's Lot (a friend of our boy hero, become a vampire, clawing at the hero's window and pleading to be let in) and I didn't know that was possible with words on a page.

So I read all of his early writing. Then I started following Jesus and I wondered if this was a wise course of action. Just last week someone used a relative's love of Stephen King as an indicator of their distance from God. Years ago, as I described a scene from one of King's books to Grace, she said, "That man knows entirely too much about demons." And we now know from King's memoir (embedded in a really good instructional book) On Writing that he had a lengthy stretch of years as a serious addict, separating himself from his loved ones and making him wonder if he was trustworthy (as I recall, he says he has no memory of writing Cujo). And so he wrote really disturbing books that worked this theme out (The Dark Half, the novella "Secret Window, Secret Garden," to name two--The Shining is an early indicator of this theme to come). And then, perhaps inevitably for someone who wrote so prolifically, he hit a long stretch where nothing seemed to work. (Subject to debate to be sure, but after Misery, we got this stretch of books: The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia and Rose Madder.  And then, as if from heaven, the streak came to a resounding end with The Green Mile, which remains one of my happiest memories of reading fiction.)

But I come to praise King, not to bury him. He's an avowed agnostic, but nonetheless, I may never have read any author who so compellingly revisits the theme of a very ordinary hero who finds him or herself in a grand, cosmic narrative--perhaps the best sort of story there is for those of us who believe in a grand, cosmic narrative. He famously didn't like Kubrick's acclaimed adaptation of The Shining for just this reason. He says he got a call from Kubrick at 2 a.m. in which Kubrick--no greeting whatsoever--said only, "Do you believe in God?" King, groggily, at the time said that he supposed he did. Kubrick replied, "Well I don't," and hung up. And Kubrick made a movie in which the evil was psychologized.

I didn't especially like his Dark Tower series--it was too slapdash and uneven for my taste. But I love his creation of the Territories, this alternate universe that occasionally dips into our own. When he includes only hints of the Territories in his books--most notably for me The Talisman and "Low Men in Yellow Coats," the first novella in his wonderful linked-novella book Hearts in Atlantis--he hits a kind of metaphorical sweet spot describing the life of those of us who believe we are in fact living a story in which another world touches this one in key and unexpected ways. 

When I read that gasp-worthy scene in Salem's Lot, I didn't know that I was going to be invited into such rich worlds of meaning as "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" or "The Body" or It (one utterly-inexplicable and distasteful scene aside, there's a book that shoots for the cosmic in jaw-dropping fashion) or the other books I've mentioned.  I'm grateful, in 11/22/63, that he hasn't lost his ambition. 

What have been your reflections on King? Is he just that demon-guy?  Or...?

P.S.: On a completely unrelated note, there's a brilliant post to be written on Tim Tebow from a Blue Ocean perspective, but I have no idea what that post is.  But take that as a challenge.  Write that post!  I'm dying to find out how I should be thinking about the Tebow phenomenon.

Comments

[Vinceation]

Re: Stephen King... I know next to nothing, but the film Shawshank Redemption moves me about as much as any story.

Re: Tim Tebow, Chuck Klosterman wrote a great article http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7319858/the-people-hate-tim-tebow... As a Chicagoan, I am just incapable of writing that post right now...

[Jonathan]

That is a great article on Tebow, Vinceation. It cuts through the mocking of the Realists and the praise of the True Believers and hangs the intangible fervor around Tebow on faith itself. What you think of faith is what you will think of Tim Tebow. He hasn’t given room for anyone to call him a fake, to separate the beliefs from the man and call them dogma. His lifestyle has been consistent on and off the field, and he has one major advantage over other modern heroes of the True Believers: His faith is arguably paying off in a very quantifiable way in a very public arena.

(“For now,” say the Realists. “Hallelujah!” say the True Believers).

I’d also add that it’s the way that Tebow wins that really sells the faith connection to his on-field performance. He’s not a top-tier quarterback (yet), and he doesn’t engineer 30-point victories. He ekes out last-minute heart-attack wins by a field goal when the game seems all but over. Which is more or less how you’d expect faith to work.

Sorry, a bit OT to the post at hand, but the article grabbed me.

[Prashant]

With similar qualms about the horror genre - I am a definite fan of Stephen King. It isn't just that his ordinary heroes find themselves in a grand narrative - it is that good & evil are clearly & unambiguously demarcated in those narratives. With the exception of a few sections of the Dark Tower series, I'm unaware of anything by King where there is a shred of doubt about who is good & who is evil. Normally that trait almost guarantees bad storytelling, but he pulls off compelling, gripping & pulsating stories despite it.

I've been eagerly waiting for my library to acquire that new Kennedy assassination book.

Lots to say on Tim Tebow but I'll wait till there's a thread. Klostermann is excellent as usual.

[Dave Schmelzer]

I have, btw, finished 11/22/63 since writing this. Man alive, what a powerful ending.

[Titi]

What? No mention of The Stand? A refreshingly uncaricatured depiction of Christians engaging in eschatological spiritual warfare in the physical realm?

[Dave Schmelzer]

Let me be perfectly clear. The Stand rocks.

[Peter Benedict]

I have mixed feelings on King; He's awfully egotistical (having said, if I recall correctly, that whomever sells the most books is the best writer), but he's also unusually gifted.

My favorite of King's works is The Dark Tower series, uneven as it may be, which puts me at odds with Our Faithful Post-Writer. I love the beginning, the middle, and even the end. I'm a fantasy reader, which perhaps explains my appreciation for that particular work, but I think King's non-horror themes (good vs. evil, relationships, betrayal and loss) are expressed well throughout.

I definitely don't view him as "that demon-guy," a label I'd reserve for... no one? Or perhaps I'd save it for whomever makes me maddest, in the heat of the moment, anyway :-)

As to Tebow: I loathe college teams from Florida, and I loathe their heroes. Tebow has, nonetheless, won me over. The reports of his faith have gone from cloying/syrupy to something else (genuine?), and the extraordinary coincidence of his winning rate with the Broncos has been more riveting than any story in sport at this moment. Jesus is getting a lot of press right now, and even the anti-Tebow slant I come across usually has a begrudging respect for his moral consistency.

Off to read some Klosterman...

[Dan Mitchell]

I question Stephen King's agnosticism. I think King has a hesitation to believe in what most Americans seem to think of as the "Christian God" - a clear sign that Stage 2 religion is what the media (and most people) think of when they talk about God. But I don't think King ever takes a stance where there is NO God in his stories - as opposed to one of his influences, H.P. Lovecraft, whose works were one of King's main inspirations for "It."

What King did in many of his books (starting about halfway through the Dark Tower series, right around the point when he consciously decided to link all of his new works into the Dark Tower universe in ways big or small - see Hearts in Atlantis) is include references to "the White," the un-nameable, indescribable force of pure good that often suddenly inhabits characters who are standing up to a great, mystical evil. In fact, two references stood out to me, in my own atheism/agnosticism, when I read them as a young man.

1) In "It," when Richie (the comedic young man who is always doing impressions of different people) is confronted by the great monster, he repels it by doing his impersonation of the good-natured Irish policeman that they kids are always encountering, with the impersonated policeman telling the monster to go away - however, when he does the impression, brogue and all, he suddenly feels filled with a mysterious, spiritual presence. The words he's saying to the monster suddenly gain spiritual weight and force beyond any expectation, and the monster is miraculously repelled by it.

2) You may recall, Dave, that in 'Salem's Lot there is a character of a Catholic priest, who is repelling the chief vampire with a cross - which is glowing with blue light and harming the beast. But when he is tempted to put the cross down, and he refuses, the light goes away - because he believed that the power was coming from the cross, not from an outside source. That's a pretty clear example of a bounded-set faith (which includes Catholic symbolism) failing where a centered-set faith (focusing entirely on Jesus) would have succeeded.

I think that King actually has an intuitive, somewhat accurate idea of what a mystical relationship with God is actually like, but that he doesn't know that it's the same thing that many followers of Christ strive to achieve. I would like to hope that, if confronted by evil of a similar magnitude, God would come and fill me with his strength the same way.

Where I think King can be off-putting is that his depictions of evil are so graphic, so intimate, that people wonder how he can know evil so well. That's soemthing only he can explain, but I appreciate how intimately he explores evil in his stories. It makes their defeat at the hands of regular, normal people (who sometimes receive some help, or inspiration, or whatever, from "the White") have relevance.

I am a fan of King.

But Dave - you're right about that scene in "It." It's definitely a "what the. . . ." moment.

[PB]

I know zero about Stephen King, but I want to go check out some of his stuff now! Any suggestions on what to read first?

[Dave Schmelzer]

All great points, Dan. Well said.

[Dan Mitchell]

If you don't mind reading a very large book, I would 100% suggest "The Stand." Also, "The Talisman" (which is co-authored by Peter Straub) is a WONDERFUL book that I have loved since I was a 12-year-old boy. It's the source of the "Territories" that Dave mentioned.

[Dave Schmelzer]

All the books mentioned favorably here are good, to my mind. It depends upon your capacity to enjoy horror. If you groove on that, I have happy memories of The Talisman, his collaboration with Peter Straub. But The Green Mile, as I said, is perhaps one of my best experiences with fiction ever (horrific moments, but not a horror novel). This new one takes patience--it's really long and not a ton happens for a very long time--but it (also not horror, though with occasional horrific moments) packs a powerful punch.

[Dave Schmelzer]

Wrote this comment concurrently as Dan was writing his--but note the The Talisman synchronicity. Much mean something spooky is afoot...

[Dan Mitchell]

Dave - I'm a fan of spooky! I'll let everyone insert their own "scary noise" here. . . but I'm making one in my head.

PB - Since Dave makes the valid point that horror might not be your bag, I would also recommend "The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon." Not even remotely a horror book, and no horrific scenes come to mind - but it has one of those moments I was commenting about, where King seems to write in a brief but significant mystical God experience, near the end. I greatly enjoyed it.

[PB]

haha nice. Side note, as someone who works with kids, it's fun to hear what you guys were up to when you were young/pre teens. 11 or 12, my best friend and I -- video game enthusiasts -- used to score our favorite games with our parents' CDs around the house to see how they changed the game's mood. Years later I found one of our "playlists" from around 1995 which included playing John Tesh on top of Mortal Kombat II...

[Brent]

Personal side note: Tom Gordon is from my home town (Avon Park, FL) and when I was in HS Stephen King roamed the halls one day with Gordon doing 'research.' I was already a fan, so it was pretty cool to shake his hand. Got a signature on something on which he wrong 'Brad' not 'Brent,' but lost it long ago.