Stephen King's dark side comes in a couple of varieties. There is the stark reality of Richard Bachman. Then there is the more mainstream stuff. Almost all of King's work contains dark elements. But some of it holds tight to the shadows. The dark novels, in my opinion, don't have happy endings. They leave us uncomfortable. They are full of death.
Here's my list of truly dark stuff:
- Pet Semetery
- Christine
- The Mist (the movie is darker than the book!)
- Rage
- Full Dark No Stars (All of it)
- Gerald's Game
- The Dark Half
- Cujo
- Salem's Lot
- Carrie
- The Long Walk
I think all of Sk's newer short stories are depressing now. Just Past Sunset was filled with depressing bleak stories. The last couple magazine stories also were depressing.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think there is a fine line between Dark and Depressing, if that makes sense. To me Blaze wasn't dark, just depressing. But Roadwork was just dark.
Maybe I just feel differently towards certain characters.
But since Pet Semetary had supernatural elements I found it more dark than say Cujo, which had no supernatural elements, way depressing.
It might be a matter of taste.
-mike
I don't know that someone could truly be a Stephen King fan and not appreciate the dark stuff. If someone said to me, "You know, I love Stephen King, but I hate it when he writes stuff that's dark and depressing," I don't know what I'd say to that person. Probably I'd just squint at them, frown a little, and then go somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteDark is good, but scary is best! It wasn't dazzling prose that got me into SK as a kid, it was the scary!
ReplyDeletelazlo. . . absolutely right on!
ReplyDeleteI don't have a problem with the dark stuff usually, but I only read Needful Things one time and have never gone back because he killed off the dog Raider, which was (to me) completely unnecessary. I knew he was going to go there, and then sure enough, he did, and while it didn't make me stop reading, I felt really sad and disappointed. Like I said, I think his point was made without having to go that route. But anyway, yeah, if you read SK, you're going to get dark stuff from time to time, and for the most part, I'm fine with that. Not every story, in real life and in fiction, ends happily ever after.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree that it was unnecessary to kill off Raider. The point was that Gaunt was getting to her by having Wilma hurt the one thing in the world that mattered the most to her.
ReplyDeleteI suppose King could have changed the story to have that one thing be ... I dunno, like, a book collection or an old wedding dress or something. But it wouldn't have had the same punch.
I'm very much against animals being used as plot devices to just gain sympathy in stories, but I don't think King has ever been guilty of that particular literary crime. Although he came close toward the beginning of "The Dead Zone," in the chapter introducing Greg Stillson...
Raidar or no raidar scene, the two women still chopped each other up in the middle of the street. Not exactly happy days there. I'm counting it as a dark novel.
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