Your most underrated SK book

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

Officious Little Prick

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2014
129
443
51
Broken Arrow, OK
Bad taste? I wonder how many battered women escape into fantasy to block out the horror of real life. I guess we are all entitled to our view of a particular book but to me the supernatural did not take away the message that battered women suffer a great deal and need to escape their partners.

I just found it to be, at best, flippant, and at worst, outright condescending and dismissive, toward a very real, tangible horror. I don't believe that was King's intention for a second (GERALD'S GAME and, most assuredly, DOLORES CLAIBORNE ring with too much truth for that to be the case); nevertheless, King's prowess with language and command of character notwithstanding, conceptually, I've never seen his arrow fly so far from the target. To me, this was like someone writing a book positing that Hitler's evil was caused by Nazi surgeons implanting microchips in his brain and controlling him with the world's first supercomputer, or one where we discover the American slave owners of the 18th and 19th Centuries were under the mind-control of extraterrestrial aliens. It's just a very indelicate novel, if you ask me.
 

Officious Little Prick

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2014
129
443
51
Broken Arrow, OK
I think he practically always are good with children. One of his many big strengths-

Actually, I've always found it a little difficult to swallow some of the refined dialogue that comes out of the mouths of King characters aged ten and under. I can only assume his three children must have always been very advanced for their age so, to King's ear, they must represent what all children sound like. It's rarely out-and-out unbelievable dialogue, but pretty much every King character with a single digit age comes off as incredibly precocious.
 

The Mangler

Well-Known Member
Apr 9, 2008
332
179
Manchester, UK
Actually, I've always found it a little difficult to swallow some of the refined dialogue that comes out of the mouths of King characters aged ten and under. I can only assume his three children must have always been very advanced for their age so, to King's ear, they must represent what all children sound like. It's rarely out-and-out unbelievable dialogue, but pretty much every King character with a single digit age comes off as incredibly precocious.

Not necessarily true, but a good thought. I know a lot of kids aged under 10 who can speak very well, and although in dialogue it comes off as precocious, it's quite common for kids to be able to talk and think in the manner in which they have been portrayed by King.
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
65,192
59
sweden
Actually, I've always found it a little difficult to swallow some of the refined dialogue that comes out of the mouths of King characters aged ten and under. I can only assume his three children must have always been very advanced for their age so, to King's ear, they must represent what all children sound like. It's rarely out-and-out unbelievable dialogue, but pretty much every King character with a single digit age comes off as incredibly precocious.
I guess we have to agree to disagree on that. I think both his kids and his youths are totally credible.
 

Officious Little Prick

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2014
129
443
51
Broken Arrow, OK
I guess we have to agree to disagree on that. I think both his kids and his youths are totally credible.

I'll live. ;) Although I can't remember any specifics, I seem to remember the worst example of this was three year-old Kyra in BAG OF BONES (one of King's lesser works all around, if you ask me--when you're Stephen King, why do you want to make a V.C. Andrews book?!), whose lines constantly stretched credulity to the near breaking point for me.
 

FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
44,082
175,641
New Zealand
I'll live. ;) Although I can't remember any specifics, I seem to remember the worst example of this was three year-old Kyra in BAG OF BONES (one of King's lesser works all around, if you ask me--when you're Stephen King, why do you want to make a V.C. Andrews book?!), whose lines constantly stretched credulity to the near breaking point for me.
I loved Bag of Bones. I disagree with you about Kyra. All of my kids were speaking in full and quite complicated sentences by three years of age. My eldest (it's often the eldest---like Kyra was) was reading and writing by three also... so her character rang quite true for me.
 

Officious Little Prick

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2014
129
443
51
Broken Arrow, OK
I loved Bag of Bones. I disagree with you about Kyra. All of my kids were speaking in full and quite complicated sentences by three years of age. My eldest (it's often the eldest---like Kyra was) was reading and writing by three also... so her character rang quite true for me.

Fair enough. The issue for me is less that it's unbelievable and more that ALL of King's young children are painted with this same stroke of precociousness. For a writer who can conjure such a vast array of varied teenage and adult types, he's rather one note for those who are ten and under.
 

FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
44,082
175,641
New Zealand
Fair enough. The issue for me is less that it's unbelievable and more that ALL of King's young children are painted with this same stroke of precociousness. For a writer who can conjure such a vast array of varied teenage and adult types, he's rather one note for those who are ten and under.
I don't think that all of them necessarily are. But I guess often times the story requires the child/ren to be functioning at a certain level... and as in real life, particular situations will many times extend a child further than they would have otherwise been, had a situation not arisen.
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
65,192
59
sweden
I don't think that all of them necessarily are. But I guess often times the story requires the child/ren to be functioning at a certain level... and as in real life, particular situations will many times extend a child further than they would have otherwise been, had a situation not arisen.
Very true, Flake. It is extra ordinary what children can do once they realise that they have to do it and can't run to a grownup for help. Like Mark Petrie in Salems Lot, like the children in IT and so on.