August 28, 2015

"Why don’t you drink your wine? It’s sitting right there, for Christ’s sake. Some of us can’t drink wine, we don’t have that privilege, but you can, so why the heck don’t you do it?"

That's what Stephen King almost walked over and said to 2 old ladies who were sitting near him in a restaurant about 27 years ago, not long after he gave up drinking for good. The ladies were allowing their "half-finished glasses of white wine" to sit "forgotten in the middle of the table" while they carried on an animated conversation.

He's reminded of that when he thinks about the way Donna Tartt — a great writer — has only written 3 books and Jonathan Franzen — also great — has only written 5.
The long gaps between books from such gifted writers make me... crazy.... As a young man, my head was like a crowded movie theater where someone has just yelled “Fire!” and everyone scrambles for the exits at once. I had a thousand ideas but only 10 fingers and one typewriter. There were days — I’m not kidding about this, or exaggerating — when I thought all the clamoring voices in my mind would drive me insane. Back then, in my 20s and early 30s, I thought often of the John Keats poem that begins, “When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain …”

27 comments:

clint said...

Much too much.

But still... couldn't GRR Martin write just a bit faster...

Doug said...

Stephen King should shut his fat pie hole. Maybe some authors don't feel like pumping out bilge on a regular schedule so they can fatten their wallets while simultaneously dragging down the IQs of their loyal readership like SOME gasbag authors do.

furious_a said...

The alchie's version of Are you going to eat that?.

Sam L. said...

Makes me happy for all the years I have ignored him.

Diamondhead said...

King should have kept some of those voices locked up. At the same time, I think he has a point about someone like Franzen; something about his reticence seems like an affectation.

themightypuck said...

To be fair, King was doing a lot of cocaine back then.

Rocketeer said...

Humblebrag.

m stone said...

I would rather write four brilliant novels in a lifetime like John Williams than a dozen forgettable ones.

I'm on my fourth now. After I complete this, I will have exhausted my finite supply for words for my lifetime like Williams.

The first was forgettable. Maybe that will buy me some time.

Carter Wood said...

I know Stephen King mostly through the movie adaptions, starting with Carrie, but the books I've read have been intelligent, well-written and engaging. I don't get the need to trash him. Because it's not high art?

Sydney said...

There are different types of authors. Some authors write carefully and only when they feel they have something they need to give voice to.
There are others who write all the time, like a job. King falls into the latter group. If you write something every day, you're bound to have some good stories in there once in a while. That's what I've always thought of King's writing.

Gahrie said...

Mr. King sounds like a typical Leftist...he knows what is best for you.....

mgarbowski said...

I rather surprised by the vitriol directed at King here as well. The quote, while not unfair, does make his essay seem more negative than it is. But the entire linked essay is highly flattering to Franzen, Tartt, and several other authors.
The only think I can't abide about King is his politics, which is absent here and in most of his works. He is a fine storyteller, generous with praise and goodwill, and from all that I can gather, would be an engaging fellow to spend some time with. I quite like him.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

M stone,

Absolutely. Stoner is the only book I've ever re-read immediately upon finishing it. A virtuoso piece of writing.

dbp said...

The reason Mr. King needed to give up drinking was because, unlike the elderly women, he feels a need to finish a drink.

Long ago, someone told me the quick test for propensity to become an alcoholic. Most people will leave a drink unfinished if they don't like it or are tired of it. Not an alcoholic--they leave no drink unfinished.

Ambrose said...

Why don't you drink your wine? .... for Christ's sake."

Talk about a metaphor leaping to life, this one practically rises from the dead!

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I disagree with the assertion that Donna Tartt and Jonathan Franzen are great writers.

Sally327 said...

I agree with him about Donna Tartt because I really enjoy reading her books. I wish she would at least put one out every 3 to 4 years instead of once a decade although I realize that if she did they might not be as good and that would be a real disappointment. It's always sad, to wait with anticipation for one of my favorite authors to publish the next book and find, upon reading it, that it's just not that good. This happened to me with Stephen King and "IT". I stopped reading him for years after that.

eddie willers said...

The only book I have been unable to finish was Tartt's Goldfinch.

It just droned on & on and would neither go forward nor dazzle me with wordplay.

Compared to Raymond Chandler, she's just a broad drooling on a note pad.

Quaestor said...

The first Stephen King I read was Salem's Lot; it was in the school library and very popular. We didn't have Goth kids back then, but some of us were horror fans. I didn't count myself among them even though I'd read s few "Famous Monster" issues.

I breezed through that first King novel in one long dreary Saturday. So, the following Monday I checked out another King work, I have forgotten which, but immediately I felt like I was reading the same book.

The problem with King and the horror genre in general is that the characters must do something stupid to fall into jeapardy vis-a-vis the Monster. I mean, some characters have foresight, King is really fond of these, but few have even common insight. I never read Pet Semitary (I had to fight spellcheck tooth and claw to get that one typed!) but I saw the film. Pretty damned dismal (which is the Goth version of exciting, I suppose) and formulaic. The filmmaker, and I surmise the novelist, dwelt at length on the subject of psychopathic truckers who can't be bothered to drive sensibly, so you know that an IMPORTANT PLOT POINT is being established. In real life the residents on that road would do at least one of several things, probably all of them, including build a fucking fence, dumbass! and threaten the factory up the road that employs those manic drivers with a fucking lawsuit. But no, King's characters thoughtlessly cooperate in their destruction. Conclusion, instead of being the self-confessed workaholic, King strikes me as pretty lazy.

Nichevo said...

Pet Sematary, a gripping and desperate tale, was probably ill treated in filming. SK is tough to film.

One thing to remember is King had a terrible pedestrian accident while jogging in his neighborhood, almost died. Without getting into it (he had not finished the Dark Tower saga), Carpe diem. Produce while you can.

Wilbur said...

In the words of another famous substance abuser:
"Why don't you mind your own business? If you mind your business then you won't be minding mine."

Psota said...

Marilynne Robinson is another "slow" writer, plus her books tend to be on the short side.

Pynchon used to be a "slow" writer, but after "Against The Day" his oeuvre seems MASSIVE

Laslo Spatula said...

"I never read Pet Semitary (I had to fight spellcheck tooth and claw to get that one typed!) but I saw the film. Pretty damned dismal (which is the Goth version of exciting, I suppose) and formulaic."

First of all: your Laslo may be a little drunk, although I left two-thirds of a drink at the bar.

"Pet Semitary": the last King novel I read.

Grew up reading them as fast as he could produce them.

But.

"Pet Semitary": the gist was you buried a dead pet in this (Indian?) cemetery and they came back to life, but a little bit wrong. Not as a monster, just: a teensy bit feral and slow.

Guy buries his kid there, kid comes back to life.

I thought this was going to be the best King novel ever. Until I noticed there was only about fifty pages left.

This was the gut not afraid to throw around eight-hundred-pages on "THe Stand", "It," etc.

This thin amount of pages left behind my thumb on the hardback told me it was a waste of time.

THIS is where a novel could blossom: your dead child, back -- he speaks with you, he understands what you say, but now he is -- a bit feral and slow.

As a parent you will protect him as he grows: he will make weird jokes and you will laugh because he is making a joke. You know it is not a joke -- you don't know what it is at all, really, but it is Your Kid.

And now your teenager is a bit feral and slow and deep into drugs. Is it that he can't handle Life, or is it that he needs drugs to handle coming back from the Dead?

Are there any moral anchors in him, or did they stop when he died, an adult toddler wanting Now Now Now?

What happens when he gets the high-school girl pregnant?

( I know: KIng writes pathetic sex scenes).

Again: a BIG fucking novel there.

Except King went to fifty pages of autopilot horror.

Did I mention I might be drunk?


I am Laslo.

Joe said...

Like many popular writers, King lacks a good, strong editor. Most of his books are too long, meander to much, have sucky endings and are entirely self-indulgent. Moreover, like many popular writers, King needs to follow his own advice on how to write.

jr565 said...

Is not being an alcoholic now a privilege?

jr565 said...

and then we have James Patterson putting out 12 books a month and having commercials about them showing the other end of the blade. Someone needs to tell that guy that the doesn't need to put out a book a month. he's not a club.

jr565 said...

I can't stand the way that King writes his internal monologues where the protagonist comes face to face with his own demons or actual demons who start berating him in stream of consciousness. It's so Stephen Kingish.