King Falls From Throne (UPDATED)

Stephen King:

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

Should I burn my copies of The Stand and It? After all, Mr. King thinks that people like me cannot read them. :::cough:::ASVAB:::cough::::

Did that car accident do something to him or was he always this idiotic? Being a Leftist is one thing, but claiming that persons in the military can't read? I became hooked on his books while stationed in Germany--because my fellow GIs were telling me how great they were.

One would assume that King hasn't read his marketing reports over the years, else he would have known better than to alienate a large portion of his fan-base.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

UPDATE: Apparently Mr. King never learned the First Rule of Holes: stop digging.

Comments

[Phelps]

He's another backwoods Maine cracker stuck in the 60s.

[baldilocks]

That's what I was thinking (not the c-word part, but the 60s part). :-)

[Gabriel]

Did he sleep through 2004? I mean, really, haven't we done this one already?

[Tully]

What, a liberal English major "child of the 60's" who spent the first half of his adult life stoned and drunk to the point of near-oblivion while cranking out horror fiction having an unrealistic view of the military?

Say it ain't so.

[baldilocks]

Good points Tully. :-)

[Julie]

Now I'm really glad I decided not to buy his new book this weekend. What an ass.

[silvermine]

I read The Stand. I thought parts of it were okay. I thought it was twice as long as it needed to be. And I thought the ending stunk. The pacing just wasn't good there. I never read another one. :P

[Phelps]

Actually, I regret the cracker comment too. Hillbilly is more appropriate.

[Tully]

No no, hillbillies come from farther south. In Maine they're just plain rednecks.

Some of 'em are pretty good people but you do have to remind them that table centerpieces should never be prepared by the taxidermist.

[baldilocks]

You guys can make those jokes but if I do, I get whines about "The Black Woman be Keepin' Me Down."

We finally have equality!

[IronMike]

Yea, but he supports the troops.

If you go to his "blog" you'll see comments from him about how he supports the troops, but is against the war. Also, there are some soldiers on his blog in the forum section supporting him.

I have no problem with him speaking out against the war. But to have someone as well-known and respected (as a writer) as Stephen King continue the myth that idiots and illiterates join the Army is getting tiresome.

He proclaims to support the troops ("I live in a national guard town, and I support the troops," he says) but he's obviously never met or talked with any soldiers. If he had, he'd know that they are among the brightest our country has to offer. I agree with him that 4000 of them is too dear of a price to pay. But to tell a bunch of high schoolers that they better learn to read (how sad is that...shouldn't high schoolers already know how to read? That's public education for you...) or it's the Army for them....damn that pisses me off.

[Brian H]

Geez, not sure where to come down on this one! 'Cause I think, and always did, that King's writing is crap. Obvious, club-footed prose, with more plot clichés than there are bats in Mammoth Cave.

But, as Mencken famously said, "No one ever went broke overestimating the bad taste of the American public!"

[spaceCADETzoom]

Alienating a large part of his fan base is right. No hard numbers on this, but it's plainly obvious that more books are being read by 18-24 year olds on 15 month deployments in Iraq than their counterparts in front of TVs stateside. I've got joes that read multiple books on short 3 week trips to JRTC...I can't even count how many they read actually deployed. And like most Americans, those 18-24 yr olds love trashy horror novels. I don't think even King can have a bloated enough head to raise his work to "literature." I'm not sure if King is lamenting literacy rates or being "well read." If the former, 100% of servicemen can read, less than 100% of adult Americans can. And if the latter: are we actually equating having read the Shining as "well read"?

[baldilocks]

I don't think even King can have a bloated enough head to raise his work to "literature."

Ha ha!

All in all, I feel slightly retarded for being a bit past the 18-24 age group when I first read a work of King.

Can I still say "retarded" in public?

[Ben-David]

what would happen if all servicemen/women returned their copies of his books - directly to the writer?

Don't active servicepeople get some sorta break on postage?

And familie and vets could get in on it, as well.

.... because *some* people just can't think conceptually, they need concrete visual cues...

[IronMike]

We get no discount on postage, except for when we're stationed overseas. Then we only pay for the postage from NY or CA to the final (US) destination.

Mailing back our books to him and/or his publisher would just cost us money. The answer is in not buying any of his books in the future.

[Tully]

You guys can make those jokes but if I do, I get whines about "The Black Woman be Keepin' Me Down."

Don't worry, I've got you covered.