stephen king c/d?

Tbh if I were to make a list of king’s faults that actually bother me the endings would be right at the bottom

Or at least right at the end.

I like that he has about a dozen books where the ending is basically “the whole town is destroyed”

TS: "the whole town is destroyed" vs. "they somehow sensed what they had to do, as if some force was directing them"

the mob mentality is evil except for that one mob.

Which, if any, of the major King works are significantly different from their film adaptations? There are a number of them (Carrie, The Dead Zone) that I’ve never bothered reading because I assume that having seen the films, there’s really not much left for me to discover in the books, but are there any where I’m really missing out by not having read them?

There are significant differences between the Kubrick version of The Shining and the novel.

the movies are usually just missing a bunch of ugly bullshit. Kind of like the difference between Jaws the book and Jaws the movie.

The #1 answer to this question is always and forever going to be The Lawnmower Man.

Off the top of my head: Carrie is very similar to the book. The Dead Zone is fairly similar but I really like the slower, more methodical pace of the book. Cujo is pretty close but the book has a bleaker ending and the movie suffers from the absence of the dog's perspective (one of the book's strongest elements imo). The Mist, again pretty similar except the movie gets the bleaker ending this time 'round.

Silver Bullet (screenplay by King) is actually a fleshed-out version of the more elliptical Cycle of the Werewolf.

that's true of a lot of the short stories, a surprising number of which have been turned into movies.

Carrie is far streamlined from the newspaper article/Readers Digest excerpt novel.

Xps if we’re talking short stories with great endings I can’t believe “the jaunt” hasn’t been mentioned

if you're bothered by stephen king endings, stick to the short stories.

Which writer would be singled out for being particularly *good* at endings? Endings are hard.

tolkien packed five into LOTR tbf

Which writer would be singled out for being particularly *good* at endings? Endings are hard.

Most books have pretty good endings, imo. Being notably bad at endings I'd argue is a relatively rare thing, given how important endings are to books. I remember taking a contemporary literature class in college 20 years ago, and we read something I just didn't like. Maybe "The Joy Luck Club?" (King connection!) Anyway, I didn't like it and said so in class, and someone that did like it asked me why I didn't. So I said I didn't think it was well written. And she said there's more to a book than the quality of the writing. And I said, yeah, that might be true, but being well written is pretty fucking intrinsic to the success of a book!

Endings, too.

most books don’t even have good beginnings and middles

Of two authors that Stephen King has blurbed:

Michael Connolly is pretty great at endings, even if they're basically the same every time (the detective solves the case but there's a bittersweet/failed resolution to the B-plot about their personal life).

Elmore Leonard too - he's the anti-Tolkien of "saying goodbye to the characters".

xpost Ha, that's definitely true! I guess I meant most "good" books. Like, if a book's good, it's relatively unusual to say it's good ... except for the ending.

And yeah, for genre guys, folks like Leonard and Connolly are masters. I wonder if King's problem is more of a problem with monsters/supernatural/horror writing in general? Once you've introduced something not real into the world, with its own rules and whatnot, I wonder if it's harder to wrap up your story in a satisfying manner.

I've clearly turned a personal response into a universal there. Which is to say I'm generally kind of disappointed by endings. But then I know a good one when I see one, so. Fuck knows.

Good post ending.

Thx.

Surely a great book somewhere ends with the words "Fuck knows."

Didn't Hemingway famously win a short story contest with his classic story "Fuck knows"?

For sale: baby shoes, fuck knows

Big fish or not? Fuck knows.

The Sun Also Rises. Or Maybe It Doesn't. Fuck Knows.

For Whom the Fuck Knows.

A Moveable Feat is essentially one long 'fuck knows, m8!'

lol jic

Surely a great book somewhere ends with the words "Fuck knows."

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, May 23, 2018 8:54 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bruce Robinson's The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman comes close iirc

Also Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, iirc.

First half out Outsider is GREAT, then (wait for it) SK realizes he's painted himself into a corner yet again & has to get silly to get out of it.

Pet Sematery has a great ending and fantastic final line (“Darling.”)

but being well written is pretty fucking intrinsic to the success of a book!

This is demonstrably untrue

Example?

Anyone reading the Outsider? V much enjoying 100 pages in

I met Stephen King at a bar once. I told him, “You have given me so many nightmares.” He just walked away without saying anything.

Next day, I told my friend, who was there, “Stephen King is kind of a dick.” He said, “That wasn’t him and you really hurt that guy’s feelings.”

— Barlow Adams (@BarlowAdams) June 1, 2018

"but being well written is pretty fucking intrinsic to the success of a book!"

This is demonstrably untrue

― latebloomer, Thursday, May 24, 2018 9:12 AM (one week ago)
Example?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, May 24, 2018 9:19 AM (one week ago)

The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged. Twilight. Fifty Shades Of Grey. The first four Harry Potter books. Most of The Bible.

From The Inside. Hits And Memories. For The Term Of His Unnatural Life. Pulp Faction. No Tears For A Tough Guy. Hell Hath No Fury Like A Mate Shot In The Arse. Hooky The Cripple.

The outsider is ok, I groaned at a particular character/development when it arrived and started taking up room and (mild spoilers) pretty much everything in Texas is boring. Enjoyed it overall tho

xpost I meant artistically successful! Obviously all sorts of crap sells. Except the Bible, which is free.

artistically successful

ah cmon

thats not a thing

i mean

its a thing but its not a thing two ppl can discuss like it means anything

we have whole threads and boards about this

Think josh’s point isn’t that artistic success isn’t subjective but that one wouldn’t deem something artistically successful if one thought it was badly written

(& I think authors like king are the cases that really test this premise!)

this is straying into all that “low” and “high” culture snobbery that i fucking hate

and there are parts of the bible that are well-written imo (Revelations, Solomon, Isiah, Gospel of Mark)
but that’s for another thread

idk if it’s snobbery to think something is badly written

I think King can write well and what makes his work so frustrating sometimes is knowing he can do so much better.