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Excellent. It's been too long since I've read that book. It didn't even come into my head.This is indeed a hard, almost impossible-to-answer question...but that's what makes it brilliant. You have to choose one when one can't really be chosen. Which one represents what a person feels is the most important issue?
It's tough for me. I am tending toward the Carrie/bullying issue. That encompasses a lot.
I also think The Stand -- which has been mentioned in the thread, but I'm not sure if I caught this specific mention -- fits. I'm thinking specifically of the ending to the original shorter version. Maybe that encompasses even more.
Another book I'll mention is From a Buick 8. Haven't read it in a while, but I remember thinking after the Ferguson event -- which I think was a recent inflection point in police/citizenry relations -- back to that book and the points King made about how law enforcement views the public. (Was the term in King's narrative something like Joe Q. Public? I can't recall.)
Neither can I. It's been to long since I've read From a Buick 8. That said, I will mention the NPR topic today was about right to carry can laws as they specifically refer to guns on campus and in academia. Since they were repeating the phrase "right to carry", I thought this is an open carry state.This is indeed a hard, almost impossible-to-answer question...but that's what makes it brilliant. You have to choose one when one can't really be chosen. Which one represents what a person feels is the most important issue?
It's tough for me. I am tending toward the Carrie/bullying issue. That encompasses a lot.
I also think The Stand -- which has been mentioned in the thread, but I'm not sure if I caught this specific mention -- fits. I'm thinking specifically of the ending to the original shorter version. Maybe that encompasses even more.
Another book I'll mention is From a Buick 8. Haven't read it in a while, but I remember thinking after the Ferguson event -- which I think was a recent inflection point in police/citizenry relations -- back to that book and the points King made about how law enforcement views the public. (Was the term in King's narrative something like Joe Q. Public? I can't recall.)
In my country, Under the Dome is a good comparison to the politics of my country. The Rennie tandem was actually a metaphor of our politicians thereReady to kill to protect their corruption and their control to the society
One word: Cell. Looking at the story as a metaphor, it's downright terrifying, because it's sadly true. Technology, and my extension, social media, tends to bring out the worst in people, and in some cases, amplify the nasty tendencies that are already boiling under the thin façade of normality.
Those were the two that first came to mind for me.
Going through the list of books I have read, and looking for one that has not been mentioned (unless I missed it in these three pages), I will say "It". Thankfully not all, but at least some people in the real world are like the people in Derry. We see bad things happening in front of us, but we don't do nor say anything about it.
Green Mile is also my pick.If you had to pick 1 book by Stephen King to closely related to the way society functions and interacts today, what would it be and why?
I would choose The Green Mile. Here's why: It's a story that could (to some extent) happen in real life. A man charged and executed for a crime he did not commit? Power hungry officer of the law? The ability of karma to come full circle (Billy the Kid) to uphold the balance of the Universe?
Use you opinions, for this is what they are...opinions.
The Drawing of the Three is my "deserted island" S.K. book. (but it has to be a copy with the illustrations).The hardest part of the reply is that I would like to look as the Dark Tower as one book and if I could do that I would say that. Actually the second book of the Dark Tower is my favorite and as much as I hate to pick just one from the Dark Tower it would probably be my favorite of all time by SK. If not I would go with Salem's Lot.
Thats my favorite DT. If I had to pick one.The Drawing of the Three is my "deserted island" S.K. book. (but it has to be a copy with the illustrations).
Yes, I think it's a technicality, not an out and out oops! Quoting Doystoyecsky to continue this discussion clears you of any penalty, were it up to me.First impulse is The Stand. Run with that one. Good answers all the above. Second idea kinda goes along with The Stand...how we seem to have, always, two choices, one or the other, but they are rarely as clear as the choices they had in The Stand...good versus evil. Today, there's the ole fifty shades of gray thingy going on. But there are other king stories with that same motif...what king has called the hive mentality...tommknockers, that is much like cell in that regard, one group of one mind with one goal, usually domination of the other...or with variations on that theme, needful things, one goal damn the circumstances. how about lisey's story?
the way so many worship an individual, reminds me of a quote from dostoyevsky, "so long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship." crews paraphrased it, "men to whom god is dead worship one another." take that theme and apply it to today, the election cycle, throw in a little leland gaunt, and the long fingers can be ignored, since the goal is all that matters, damn the circumstances. or consider booya moon, or for that matter annie's laughing place, audrey wyler's mohonk mountain meadow...and how everyone and that includes me...wants to have a place to go to be safe...but there's always the long boy, right? can't get away from that, the long piebald side, call it the comments section anywhere in social media, long, boy, is it ever, damn the circumstances. or a variation on that safe place, duma key, and the manner in which we as individuals paint our world. or how about the short, chattery teeth. i'd dearly love to have a set of teeth like that. heh! "now i can get them teeth." mr bundren. oops...novel...not shorts.
Then just go with The StandAll of them to some degree.
I think that can be said for a lot of authors actually whom we enjoy (and we all have own favorites). I think even they are written as mindless entertainment or with a purpose they all have something to say about either the times we live in, our own personal struggles or are a reflection of the past or some combo of them all and this extends to all genres.