You know, a few years back, I was having a bit of a back-and-forth with a couple of people (a critic and a former Faber editor) about SK's true standing, following a comment I made to one of the former ed's opinion pieces.
They mentioned sales and, sometimes, content, but could get past the whole genre thing. So I did a textual analysis (I have the knowledge, education and skills to do such things, at least to a certain level), and tbh what I found surprised even me.
Taking 20 chapter at random and comparing each of them to samples from - among others - Dickens, Dostoevsky, Hardy and Austen, I found that, on a 'cline of literariness' taking into account sociocultural, cognitive and inherent word meanings and forms of creativity, SK came out generally level...and in some cases was more literary than some of the greats.
I PM'd the results across, and where previously it had been a case of 'It'll be interesting to see what you find' (in a snarky kind of way), the attitude became rather more superior and sniffy. The critic even said something along the lines of 'Ah, but what actually qualifies you to do such a thing? It proves nothing', at which point I just let it go. There was absolutely nothing I could have said or done that would have changed their minds, or even caused them real pause for thought, and I reckon that would have been the case even if I'd been a college professor.