Repost of my first post...

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HMW

Well-Known Member
May 11, 2012
145
744
Sweden
Hello!

I don't log in a lot. But now it seems all my former posts are gone. That can happen of course, the forum does look a lot different (in a better sense) than it used to, and I guess a lot of old posts didn't make it through the design shift.

Anyway, below is a rerun, if you will, of my first post to this board. I will try to be more active in the future.

I used to be an idiot. Ten years from now, if I don’t meet an untimely death, I might look back at myself and repeat those words. Still, I am fairly confident that I am less of an idiot today than I used to be. There are different kinds of idiots, and I was one of the worst. I was a snob. Not the Gucci, Armani or Porsche kind. No, I was a literary snob.

To my knowledge, nobody starts their reading career by picking up a copy of (for instance) The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Neither of course did I. As a kid I remember reading a lot of Biggles, and a bunch of mysteries for children by an author called Enid Blyton. I developed a fascination for horror and mysteries early on, a fascination that thrives to this day. With a fascination and interest like that, there is simply no way to avoid Stephen King. I devoured his books in my early teens, and loved them all: Cujo, Carrie, The Tommyknockers, It and more. Naturally, I read books by other writers as well, but King definitely stood out. He was – for lack of a better description - ”the ****”.

As my teens progressed to twenty-something, I also started to develop my idiocy, as well as a broader literary interest. There is nothing wrong with the latter, but unfortunately for me, the two went hand in hand. You see, I started reading the so called classics out of curiosity (basically I wondered what all the fuss was about), hence I dug into Hemingway, Kafka, the previously mentioned Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Baudelaire, Céline, even Sigmund bloody Freud and more. Somewhere here my idiocy went from its early stages of infection to full on disease. The symptoms were as follows: I started to frown when I saw the books by King in my bookshelf. Suddenly I was embarrassed by them as they stood beside some crap by Marcel Proust (yes, I back that sentence one hundred percent - reading Marcel Proust was the about the worst investment of time ever. And since I was then a certified idiot, I even forced myself to read the whole thing through). What was even worse, if the subject of said writer (or other writers I now considered less worthy) arose, I dismissed them by saying something stupid like: ”Yeah, I used to like that stuff in my teens”. There is another - perhaps kinder - way to describe what I suffered from: ”low self esteem”, but personally I prefer idiot.

So, just who was I trying to impress with my now growing collection of ”serious” literature? Honestly, I don’t know. I wasn’t (and still am not) an overly social person. The people who entered my flat already knew me, and they were never particularly impressed with my bookshelves. Girls? Hardly. The ones (they weren’t many, I might add) who ended up in my measly living quarters weren’t interested in analyzing the different editions of Kafka’s Amerika, and neither was I. Still, I felt ashamed of my little Stephen King section, as if it was somehow inferior to the others. I had become what I despised most.

This idiot phase persisted for far too long. At least five years. It wasn't until I turned thirty I somehow managed to shake free from the idiot inside (this particular idiot I better add, there are more of those left inside, but I will have to deal with them one idiot at a time). I started to think back (for no apparent reason) at those books I read some ten years ago, and what they had meant to me. Also, I wondered why they were considered ”bad”. That soon led to action, and I bought my first King novel in a decade or so. It was called Cell, and is to this day the worst King novel I have ever read! I felt let down, but somehow couldn't let this issue rest. Due to odd circumstances, a while later I found a copy (yes, true story) of Desperation. I thought to myself: ”OK, Stephen, you'll get one more chance. If this one doesn't do it for me, you will remain nothing but a fond memory”. This time ”it” happened. I wasn't drawn back to my youth, nor did I feel ten years younger or something equally silly, but I was pulled into a really good story.

Since then, I have plowed through a lot of the books by King I missed during the idiot years, and not one of them have let me down. I have lost track of how many I have now read, but it must be more than twenty (and I count The Dark Tower series as one big volume). Of all those books, only one – the above mentioned Cell – has been sub par. One. Another writer I love is José Saramago, who sadly passed away not too long ago. He is a Nobel prize winner. A ”serious” writer if you will. His production is nowhere near that of King's, and some of the stuff he has written is flat out unreadable. As in ”crap”. Again, King has written (to my knowledge, I still haven't read them all) one poor book, out of a total of forty nine (according to Wikipedia). One.

Mr. King will never win the Nobel prize in literature. Not that it matters, the man has been awarded plenty over the years. Not least by a lot of Constant Readers. Also, it seems as though some critics have finally accepted his writing as something more than a literary equivalent to a Big Mac. I can't remember which one of them who first made the comparison between him and Dickens, and it doesn't matter. I have read both, and know who is most dear to me (no offense Charles). Fact: Had it not been for Stephen King, I would never have read the rest of them. The ”serious” writers, the underground poets or the epic tales by long dead bearded Russians. He opened the door to literature for me, as I am sure he has done for countless others.

Pick up a copy of almost any book by King, and you will probably see the words ”master storyteller” printed somewhere on the dust jacket. It's a sales pitch of course, but it also happens to be true. We need those, now – in a world of quick fixes, tweets and new distractions just one click away – perhaps more than ever.

Take care all, and thanks for reading.
HMW
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
11,749
34,805
Welcome aboard, HMW...:) I've read some Saramago. His Blindess begins like a King story...Cell...it called to mind. But then the complete story is like a King story and what does that say about the Nobel process? Or maybe that manuscript from long ago, there must be a link here...that is a kind of precursor to Under the Dome. The working title is/was The Cannibals. Saramago's story reminds me of both stories from King. There's no end it seems of good stories to read...nothing wrong with the so-called classics. They are called that for a reason. Dostoyevsky's The Idiot reminds me of the United States, Russia then seems much like the U.S. is today and what does that say about our future?

There was a board make-over...there have been several incarnations of the board...and many posts/threads have been shelved. There's some grunt at the NSA camp in Utah sorting through them all but I doubt they make them available to the general public. Putin blames it on the CIA. So who's the idiot? And does it matter in the end?
 

HMW

Well-Known Member
May 11, 2012
145
744
Sweden
There was a board make-over...there have been several incarnations of the board...and many posts/threads have been shelved.
Yeah, I figured as much. Thanks for the welcome, I'll try to stay more active on this board in the future.

...yar, I remember this post-and how well stated it was...glad to see you back!...
Thanks for the kind words Gentle Giant. Appreciate it, although not much a fan of the band I have to admit.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
Yeah, I figured as much. Thanks for the welcome, I'll try to stay more active on this board in the future.


Thanks for the kind words Gentle Giant. Appreciate it, although not much a fan of the band I have to admit.
...they ARE an acquired taste, but I adopted their name for my DJ "nickname" back in my days of spinning records and doing a regular radio show...
 

Haunted

This is my favorite place
Mar 26, 2008
17,059
29,421
The woods are lovely dark and deep
542680~Welcome-Mat-on-Forest-Trail-Posters.jpg
AGAIN!