Why Stephen King Rocks
On my vacation between Christmas and New Year’s, I read most of Stephen King’s latest, Under the Dome (I finished it last week). It was straight up awesome, probably my favorite thing he’s written since The Stand. Has a lot in common with The Stand, actually. I am a sucker for the post-apocalyptic stuff, and Under the Dome is definitely post-apoc flavored, though more of a local flavor. I could just so easily imagine all the tragic local politics happening in any of the smallish towns I grew up around in Ohio, or even some of the smaller burgs here in Virginia. That’s what made it scary – the plausibility.
Tonight I’m going to finish Duma Key. Chalk up another great one for Mr. King. Of course, at its heart, the premise is just so far out, I’d even call it whackadoo, but this is the genius of Stephen King: by the time he gets to the really weird shit, you’re already so invested in the story and the characters, you’re willing to go along with it. And he always, ALWAYS gets to the weird shit eventually. That’s what makes him Stephen King!
I find myself longing for his next project, whatever it may be. Get to work, King!
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In grad school I took a class that required a research paper as the final project: I wrote a 16-page paper called “Finding Room in the Canon for Stephen King,” wherein I argued that King should be taught in contemporary American literature courses alongside the likes of Toni Morrison and Truman Capote.
Comment by Jenny I. — January 12, 2010 @ 8:29 am