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1. Non-King readers think I'm reading really (REALLY) bad stuff.
Hey, I don't endorse it all -- but for the most part, people who don't read King have bought into the idea that all he writes are scary novels full of bad words. So I say to my friends, "You know, King also wrote the Green Mile." This usually results in puzzled looks. For real? Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, even the screenplay for Little House On The Prairie. Throw that last one in just for fun. if they didn't know he wrote the first three, and they find out you're right, they start to wonder if maybe he did indeed write Little House.
2. He's super famous.
Is that a problem? Not really, except that it means he's in no way accessable to the average fan. Look, if you want to talk to most authors, you can write them a note, drop them an email and have a normal correspondence. I talk to authors all the time! This includes novelist, theologians, historians and more. But once a writer reaches a certain level of popularity, they are no longer able to correspond with readers one on one.
There was a day -- many days ago -- when you could mail Stephen King your copy of one of his books. He would sign it and mail it back to you. Those days are -- GONE!
3. There's brain damage.
This is awkward to confess to, but Stephen King messes with my head. Scenes from books are etched in my brain and flash before me at inopportune times. Our church once did a Christmas play that had a scene in a child's bedroom. The mother came into the room to pray with the child and discuss why daddy was deployed to Iraq. But, the bedroom scene on the church stage had been set up right under the big sanctuary cross. All I could think was -- CARRIE WHITE! Stop it brain! And thank you, Mr. King.
Most of the brain damage has to do with people. Not a problem if a sweet, Godly, old lady reminds me of Mother Abagail. But I've also met Mrs. White, Mrs. Carmody, and Reverend Coggins. You can't say to people, "You remind me so much of this person from a Stephen King novel!"
4. I don't read first editions.
Are you crazy? You can't read those things! Not the Cemetery Dance first edition, anyway. So then I have to buy two copies of new novels! I once complained to my wife when she read my first edition of The Dark Tower. "Come on, David," she shot back, "I don't are if it's a first edition. I've read six novels, I'm not waiting until this comes out in paperback to read it." Sure enough, she didn't, and she smudged a page. A SMUDGE! She didn't see the problem.
Most often I fix this problem by buying the audio book and the hardcover. That way I can listen to the book first, put the unread hardcover on my shelf, and patiently wait for the paperback.
5. I feel the need to correct people on obscure facts.
"I like Stephen King, too," someone will say. "Especially the one with the haunted hotel, where the guy chases his wife with an ax."
Do you leave that alone? Dare I explain that my friend is discussing the Kubrick movie, not the King story. Because to most people, it doesn't matter. But it does to me!
"Didn't he write the one about the house. . . what's it called? Amityville. . ."
nooooo!!! And this is a problem. When friends say things that are wrong, how quickly should a King fan correct them? How big a nerd do you really want others to know you are? If you correct them too quickly, they might say, "Hey, you know a little too much about Stephen King. Maybe you're getting a bit too obsessed." Yeah, knock it off, redrum.
6. I have a love hate relationship with a lot of movies and television.
I can't wait for a movie version (or television) of a book I like to come out. But I also know, I KNOW, that the likelihood of it being really very good is, well, not very good. So do I stay away from the screen versions of King's work? No way! I've got to see them. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised, like with Secret Window. Often, it's a little painful. (I offer you nothing here, because you all know the movie's I'm talkng about!)
What's worse, since King is mostly known for his media, non-King reading friends think they know King by his movies. I went to watch Sleepwalkers with my dad. Ulgh. We left the theater with me trying to explain that didn't represent the Stephen King universe. But now when he sees Stephen King on my shelves, he thinks Sleepwalkers.
BONUS: 7. He makes it look easy.
Of course I can write like Stephen King. It can't be hard, right? Well, it must be tougher than it looks, because I can't do it. And there are lots of people who try to write like King, an haven't mastered it. He has a natural story-telling voice that speaks directly to the reader that cannot be matched.
Okay, your turn. What's the down side of being a Constant Reader?
Harlan Coben compared writing to sausage and giving birth. It looks like it is made easy, but it is far more challenging than it looks.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for totally cracking me up this morning. :) Read on!
ReplyDelete"...she smudged a page. A SMUDGE! She didn't see the problem."
ReplyDeleteOh good grief! I know what you mean. Try having a special edition of a very special Book out on the coffee table when you're little cousin is visiting. You leave the room and come back a minute later to find a blue pen marker on the cover that wasn't there before.
The only thing worse, in my opinion, is the accidental damage you do to books yourself, like for instance putting your copy of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy on the floor behind the driver's seat cause you think it can get scuffed on the floor, only to take it out later and noticed you've inadvertently bent a slice of the back pages and cover out of shape.
This is the kind of stuff that only die-hard bibliophiles understand.
ChrisC
IT'S F---ING EXPENSIVE.
ReplyDeleteAnd time-consuming. Other than that, I don't see much of a downside.
This kinda goes along with him being famous; while there are a lot of people who assume popular = good (not true) there are just as many who assume popular = pulp trash. Many people I know write King off as garbage of no more quality than, say, romance novels, insisting that King is meaningless, mere entertainment, not art, not literature. Without fail, not one person I've encountered who thinks this has read a word that King has written.
ReplyDeleteI identify strongly with points 1, 5 and 6. Many people I encounter, mostly church-goers, don't just suggest that King writes really vulgar stuff but also think he's a blasphemer who glorifies horrific stuff and wants you to glorify it, too. My father once was talking about King vs. Dean Koontz and said that while both wrote horror, Koontz was a Christian while King was "anti-christian." Um...what? King, anti-Christian? Try reading The Stand and tell me that, or The Green Mile. He hates what religion has turned into, sure, but he's got no problem with people of faith, and believes in God himself.
Point 5 really bugs me, because people tend to assume they know about King's works because...well, not even that they've SEEN the movies, they just know the movies exist. My brother's like that. He's never read one word King wrote, and I don't think he's seen more than one or two King movies, but he thinks he knows enough about King to talk about "the way he writes" and "what he writes" and he "knows" that he doesn't like his works.
As for Point 6...sigh. I love most of what King has written. There's probably not even ten King-based films that I truly love.