Well Now!

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doowopgirl

very avid fan
Aug 7, 2009
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NOW!.....
As my mom used to say, such deep thoughts!
 

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
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I dunno -- maybe I'm over analyzing it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Stephen King IS a great and influential American author, so - when I pick up a King book -- I want to read King.......If I had wanted to read Steinbeck, I'd pick up a Steinbeck :)

Sorry for my rant but its also a compliment

Is it, though?

Looks suspiciously like pigeonholing to me.
 
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SpazzTheBassPlayer

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Dec 16, 2014
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Is it, though?

Looks suspiciously like pigeonholing to me.

yeah, i hear what you're saying......For example, Im primarily a funk bass player, but I can play almost any style (and do) so I guess i wouldn't want to be pigeon-holed as a musician either

On the other hand, if a rock band like AC/DC all of a sudden decided to release a pure funk album with brass and horns and rapping instead of singing, Im not sure how the fans would take it considering how watermarked the AC/DC brand is within their hard-rock genre, now matter how good the album is. To me, SK is like that too. I guess this is where having a "pen name" would certainly come in handy when a writer who has established his/herself deeply into a genre and has a well-defined writing "personality" of his/her own accord but wants to try different things

Too bad that Richard Bachman fella' passed away
 
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Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
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AC/DC is a very good example.

Those guys don't apologize for playing the same song over and over again and there's no reason they should.

And then there's the Chris Gaines approach (as a musician, I'm going to assume you know who that is), which King actually took with Richard Bachman (for as long as he could). I'm of the opinion that effective writers have a voice that identifies them -- I guess I'm talking about "style" here -- no matter what the subject matter or theme.

Of course, the old joke is that King could publish his laundry list and it would be a best-seller . . . but that's not really the same conversation, is it?
 
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SpazzTheBassPlayer

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Dec 16, 2014
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AC/DC is a very good example.

Those guys don't apologize for playing the same song over and over again and there's no reason they should.

And then there's the Chris Gaines approach (as a musician, I'm going to assume you know who that is), which King actually took with Richard Bachman (for as long as he could). I'm of the opinion that effective writers have a voice that identifies them -- I guess I'm talking about "style" here -- no matter what the subject matter or theme.

Of course, the old joke is that King could publish his laundry list and it would be a best-seller . . . but that's not really the same conversation, is it?

This is exactly what I was trying to imply when I made the Steinbeck comment -- I certainly wasn't trying to "pigenhole" rather than point out that a book marketed with the Stephen King brand, which is a juggernaut in the literary world, certainly comes with a "public reader" expectation for his style. I thought it odd that "Hearts" had a such a huge deviation within its construct, despite it being a collection of related stories than an actual story....I guess I should view it more as a "Going Through The Attic" read, where all kinds of diverse and forgotten things are found and - all of a sudden - come together as a pseudo-synchronized construction when assembled together on a table (REM did this with their "Dead Letter Office" album)