October 2, 2006 by Simon at 12:05 pm Via I found this Washington Post article: . As is usual with Stephen King s recent writings, my eyes started to roll at the beginning of the article and continued on until the very end. The first counter-clockwise roll of the eyes started with this paragraph:
About halfway through my latest novel, Jim Dooley, a dangerously unhinged literary stalker finds himself in the study of his idol, Scott Landon, a famous writer.
Although Scott has been dead for nearly two years, Dooley is overcome with awe. He deserved a nice place like this, he tells Scott s widow. I hope he enjoyed it, when he wasn t agonizin over his creations.
King has been getting a ton of flak from critics because he always recycles old plot points: 1.Physically disabled and/or mentally retarded Jesus figures (The Green Mile, Dreamcatcher) 2. A katet or group of youngsters who are tied together by destiny and propelled forward to the ending because of this destiny (Dark Tower books, IT), 3.
Magical amnesia where said destiny causes his characters to forget major events when it s convenient (Insomnia, IT), etc
One of his most tired tropes is casting a main character who happens to be a writer. Not only a writer, but often it s a bestselling or critically acclaimed writer, which leads us to two assumptions: 1. Bestselling writers are so numerous they must grow on trees, and 2.
They have an incredibly high percentage of being visited by horrific supernatural events.
If I ever taught a writing class, one of the first things I d tell my students is Don t cast any of your main characters as writers. For one, it s literary masturbation.
How lazy can you be as a writer if you can t extend your imagination past your own profession? By casting your character as a writer, you re essentially casting yourself as the main character, which is as lazy as can be. Secondly, writers who cast main characters as writers create idealistic cliches in which the character is either a bestselling writer which is unrealistic in its unlikelyhood , or a starving artist.
Neither of these are very compelling, and with the exception of a few cases, I ve disliked most writer stories I ve read.
This doesn t stop Stephen King from casting his characters as writers. He even likes to use bestselling writers from time to time.
Just for fun, let s have a list of every book or story of his that has a main character who s a writer. I ll bold the ones where the writer is either critically acclaimed or bestselling.
1.
Bag of Bones
2. The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet (can t remember if this had a bestselling writer in it)
4. The Colorado Kid (newspaper journalists count as writers)
7.
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (King casts himself as a character)
9. IT (bestselling horror writer, no less
17. Word Processor of the Gods
It s been awhile since I ve read a lot of those books and stories (high school), so there s probably a lot more than that.
But this list gives you a good picture of how Stephen King stories have become more recycled than your average formulaic fiction. And it looks like his latest novel not only has a famous writer in it, but is also another version of Misery.
There s a mystery about creative writing, but it s a boring mystery unless you re interested in this one small animal, sometimes quite vicious, that makes its home in the bushes.
It s a scruffy little thing with fleas and often smells of whatever nasty mess it s been rolling in. It can never be more than semi-domesticated and isn t exactly known for its loyalty.
Ah, vague artsy fartsy metaphor.
Well, at least he doesn t start using the biggest writing cliche of all: The Muse.
Some writers in the throes of writer s block think their muses have died, but I don t think that happens often
I always thought that what happened was Mr. Heller finally cleared away the muse repellant around his particular clearing in the woods
often under duress; most writers find their muses do not travel particularly well, although Truman Capote said his enjoyed motel rooms
My muse is here.
It s a she. Scruffy little mutt has been around for years, and how I love her, fleas and all
He uses the word muse at least three other times in the article, but you get the point. Rather than giving any substance to the writing life, the entire article is metaphor after metaphor that digresses further and further into vagueness until we can only come to one conclusion: The writing life consists of a magical creature, a flea-ridden beast that burrows down into the muse s bossom (?
) and sometimes lashes out, becoming an evil creature
Ok, now I m just making shit up. But now we at least know one thing: Stephen King s essay/articles are just as overwritten as his monolithic books.
September 29, 2006 by Simon at 2:41 pm Heather Lindsley s short story is one of those stories that stems from a concept that women can be born and live their entire lives in the span of a week and then branches off into the many sociological implications of such a life.
The character literally has the life-span of a mayfly, only in this case, the memories of her ancestors are implanted in her brain before she s ever born. This allows Lindsley to skip past the question of how a character can have so much self-inflection after only being alive for a week.
This condition only exists within her family tree, so the reader watches how the world reacts to someone of her kind, how she and her ancestors are forced to kind of blend in, and because they grow and mature so quickly, nobody really notices that something isn t right.
In order for their lineage to go on, each woman must find a mate to impregnate her after only a few days of life usually on the third or fourth day.
Like most stories of this kind, the backdrop allows for a deep characterization that is quickly realized. The character must struggle against the notion that her life is so short and must find some sense of worth within the span of a week.
There s a scene where she briefly considers picking up and reading a Tolstoy novel to add a cultural inheritance to future generations, but at the same time realizes that the book is too long to justify reading it. Instead, she goes to see Hitchcock marathons and visits art museums. All so future generations can call themselves cultured.
The presiding theme here is selflessness. On the one hand, she realizes that her life is so short and that she wants to do the most with it, but on the other hand she knows her time is very limitted and she has to prepare for future generations. This creates an internal conflict that works well with Lindsley s writing style.
This really is a wonderful story. I highly recommend it.
September 4, 2006 by Simon at 10:25 pm Chandrahas Choudhury is a writer based in Mumbai, India.
His literary weblog features essays on both new and classic works on writers from around the world. His reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Sunday Telegraph, the Scotsman and Himal. He is at work on a novel.
Simon Owens: How different is literary blogging from mainstream reviewing?
Chandrahas Choudhury: I see it this way: reviewing is the work available to me in the real world, and my weblog is closer to an ideal world. With my blog I tend not to follow the news - I write about whatever I m reading or thinking about.
Reviewing brings with it constraints of space, deadlines to be met, and the pressure of staying up to date - if you don t review a book the month it s out, you ve lost the chance to write about it.
A weblog allows you to rove freely across time and space and national boundaries, as long as you can keep things interesting for readers.
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