My thoughts inspired by SK's work...Maybe you feel similar?

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Van Blaricum

Deleted User
Oct 28, 2014
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I have been thinking recently, that Sk has made it into the pop culture pantheon. All over the place, I am reading or watching or listening to something, and I think to myself that it reminds me of SK stories. Not to say that Stephen King invented any particular concept or theoretical, but that he does write about many intriguing ones and parlay them so well. Concepts that exist and have always have existed in consciousness are explained and typified in symbols in his books and when I listen to or hear certain things on movies, t.v's and in books and authors are discussing those same concepts, even if SK didn't invent the concept, if he had a dope book or movie on it, they always have to mention his seminal work- blahdy blahdy blah. Because of this, I feel confident to say that I think SK has a way of reaching into the subconscious of people and inter facing with their own Index of symbols and such a huge awesome Index of " Cool Ideas and Stuff " based out of ancient mythologies ( it seems to me not to say that he feels so ) and cosmologies, that I must say I think he is an American Shaman unwittingly. Also, I must add, of grand proportions.

I have read something called The Hero with a Thousand Faces and I cant really do it Justice, but the gist of it for the one or two of you who aren't into it already, is that there's so many stories to tell, but a million or more ways to tell them. SK is the guy who sums some of the best of them up for us in the way her knows he can because he knows how we are going to be able to to stomach them. I think SK has all these amazing stories and when I read thing about inters or extra dimensional beings or something, I get all weirded out, but I like it because when I read Scientist American all the time, and about the Multiverse, I suddenly think of the monsters from The Mist. I used to think about that kind of stuff as a kid, and then I read SK books and it only stoked them flames... why just yesterday I saw The X Files and the writer's mentioned him, and then on this show called No Ordinary Family, they mentioned him. I think this happens because he can put his finger on the imaginary indexes and connect to people that way. Everywhere I look on popular television he gets a nod. I think maybe sometimes fancy literature and art thumbs a nose but in all reality popular culture knows where it's at and pays tribute. That's kind of cool. SK is like a translatable understandable voice for certain kinds of relate able communications :)

Maybe it's creepy of me to say so, but I think he's kind of magic, like a shaman or something. I mean, exactly like a shaman, he works magic and mental medicine to allay the fears and metaphorical suspicions of... us all :) I mean stoked it and makes us freak out ;)

I feel like mathematically, out of all the people on the planet, there are probably X amount of people who just sort of have all the best keys to all the symbols understood and used by society and have the advanced powers to share and explain them...OR NOT.

What makes SK so awesome is that he shares far out concepts in a fun way, instead of the OR NOT option.

Hehehehe. I think of it as the Universe making a psychic telephone call to the inside of his head in a dream and then he wakes up and prank calls us and we all freak out. I like that.

Monday is my Friday, don't think when you drink it's pointless
 

Mr Nobody

Well-Known Member
Jul 9, 2008
3,306
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Walsall, England
Um...well...for me, he's just a storyteller. A extremely able and gifted one, but a storyteller. And like all the best storytellers, he uses lies to tell us the truth. He holds up a mirror to our lives and times and human nature in general and we respond to it because we see it clear and true, all bundled up in what are usually damn good yarns. There's also complexity in his work that looks like simplicity. You could say that's genius and I wouldn't argue, but I don't think it's a conscious thing with him. I think that stuff just happens as he goes along, working things in just because he wants to tell the best story he can and has hit upon this idea - perhaps unwittingly, sometimes (hell, usually) they just sneak out of the bushes on ya - that somehow just clicks.
Whatever the truth of it is - after all, the stuff about not plotting, etc, could all be lies, and the truth is that not only does he plot but that everything is carefully planned (I don't think it can be the case, but...) - SK's works have become cultural touchstones, mostly in (North) America for obvious reasons, but not only there. Phrases of his have become more or less common usage, and not just among fans. There's a shorthand at work ("He went all Cujo and tried to bite me" etc). Probably without intending to, SK has become an icon. There was another guy who's work has had a similar impact, some fellow born near Stratford-upon-Avon, though I think SK would be embarrassed, but not displeased, by the comparison.
Because, in essence, he is what I said in the first sentence: just a storyteller.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
Um...well...for me, he's just a storyteller. A extremely able and gifted one, but a storyteller. And like all the best storytellers, he uses lies to tell us the truth. He holds up a mirror to our lives and times and human nature in general and we respond to it because we see it clear and true, all bundled up in what are usually damn good yarns. There's also complexity in his work that looks like simplicity. You could say that's genius and I wouldn't argue, but I don't think it's a conscious thing with him. I think that stuff just happens as he goes along, working things in just because he wants to tell the best story he can and has hit upon this idea - perhaps unwittingly, sometimes (hell, usually) they just sneak out of the bushes on ya - that somehow just clicks.
Whatever the truth of it is - after all, the stuff about not plotting, etc, could all be lies, and the truth is that not only does he plot but that everything is carefully planned (I don't think it can be the case, but...) - SK's works have become cultural touchstones, mostly in (North) America for obvious reasons, but not only there. Phrases of his have become more or less common usage, and not just among fans. There's a shorthand at work ("He went all Cujo and tried to bite me" etc). Probably without intending to, SK has become an icon. There was another guy who's work has had a similar impact, some fellow born near Stratford-upon-Avon, though I think SK would be embarrassed, but not displeased, by the comparison.
Because, in essence, he is what I said in the first sentence: just a storyteller.
...WELL stated...and we are always welcome to join him 'round the campfire...
 

blunthead

Well-Known Member
Aug 2, 2006
80,755
195,461
Atlanta GA
Um...well...for me, he's just a storyteller...
Okay, but what is a story? sK himself has said that the stories he writes are not his own creations, but things which he discovers by digging them up. He has said that these things already exist, buried, waiting to be discovered and that an author's job is that of an archaeologist.

So, if stories already exist then there must be a reason humanity needs them. This idea suggests to me that a story is more than just a story, and a storyteller is more than just a storyteller. I know many if not most readers say they just like to read stories and don't try to read anything into them. Maybe I should be more that way, but I do enjoy trying to figure out why an author included this instead of that, or rather why the story includes in itself what it does.
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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sweden
It is the same with songwriters. They often say that the song just wanted to be written and that it just came to them, the author, how it it would go and lyrics. I remember what Paul McCartney said about Yesterday that he asked himself if he had actually written it or if he just remembered it. It came so easily to him.