I usually look forward to reading his articles on the last page of Entertainment Weekly. But not this time.
This time he whined about how he’s not selling enough books any more, and it’s my fault. My fault for being fifty and not “boogying” anymore. People in his generation are watching TV, not buying his books or going to movies based on his books or buying any music other than the Beatles. We’re just lazy, and he begs us to go listen to the White Stripes and buy his latest book. Don’t go to sleep.
Well, you know what, you filthy rich bastard? I don’t have a few thousand spare dollars a week to buy books and movie tickets and Strokes CDs with. I have to go to work every day, and take care of my house and my family, without having one single paid employee to to a damn thing for me. During the week, I come home after being away from my home for about twelve hours, and after I get thing like dishes or laundry or bill paying taken care of, sometimes I’d like to sit down and watch my frigging TV.
Or sometimes I read a book. Sometimes I do some lampworking. Sometimes I work on the book I’m writing. I can’t even imagine how I’d do all these things if there were kids involved.
If I do want to find out about any new books or music or movies, I read EW, or catch a show on that same damn TV. I’m sorry that hasn’t put enough money in your pocket for your latest effort. It couldn’t possibly be that maybe you’re just not putting out the same quality as you did back in the day, could it? Naw, it’s just us lazy-assed middle aged gentle readers that have let you down.
I can tell you this, Mr. King. I buy a lot of books. There’s not enough room in my house for them, and the only new furniture I’ve bought this year was more bookshelves. But the section of my shelves that houses my Stephen King books will not be expanding. If I do read any more of your books, and frankly, your recent stuff doesn’t have me quivering in anticipation to get your latest, it will be a copy I picked up from the library.
Hey, King has a point. People don’t buy as many books as they used to; Heck, people don’t read very much, for that matter.
I can’t tell you how many times people have walked into my library and said, “What’s with all of the books? Do you actually read this much? I hate to read!” Some people have actually said it with a tinge of disgust in their voices, as if reading is a vice which should be genteely concealed from others.
Family members have tried to be “helpful” by suggesting I don’t “waste” so much money on books. They tell me I should get them from the library. I can’t make them understand the pleasure in actually owning the book-- being able to go back and read it at your convenience, simply by plucking it from the shelf.
Perhaps that’s true for fiction, otherwise I allude to the net as evidence we’re not reading any less than we used to. We’re merely using a different tool; digital screens as opposed to paper.
Stephen King actually expects his novels to appeal to people over the age of thirty? Wow. I used to read his stuff a lot, but I don’t have as much time as I used to, and what reading time I do have I want to spend on reading books that are… you know… good. I just can’t waste my days reading any old crap any more.
Besides which, I thought King had “retired” again?
Well, I’m an old fart and I’d buy more of his books if he followed his own advice in his absolutely great book “On Writing,” instead of cranking out dreck like “From a Buick 8” and “Dreamcatcher.”
King is dead on: as fewer books are bought, fewer books will be published. When you finish with the book you’re writing, and discover how hard it is to sell it in a shrinking market, you’ll change your tune.
I didn’t read the article in question, but he’s right in that people don’t read as much as they used to, at least from what I’ve seen.
Wolves of the Calla was quite good and I expect the next two DT books will be even better. I admit I didn’t like Dreamcatcher much, but after seeing the movie, I think it was a relative masterpiece. Read the Dark Tower series. I cannot emphasize this enough to fans of Stephen King that think his work has gone downhill… also, read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
I read more than I ever have, but I am buying fewer books. I can no longer afford 30.00 for a hardcover, 16.00 for a trade paperback or 8.00 for a paperback. I would buy more books if they weren’t so darned expensive.
I use the hell out of the local library, I currently have 19 books checked out and I expect to read them all.
I literally spend more on books per month than I do on rent.
A lot of the books I read are academic publications (sociology and history), which, even in soft cover, tend to cost a lot more than popular fiction. Books published by universities are usually pretty expensive.
I rarely read fiction, but when I do, I have to have the hardback or trade paperback edition. I utterly detest mass market paperbacks. (I don’t like the way they feel in my hands.)
Thankfully, it seems that most non-fiction is published in trade paperback editions. But I’m an impatient soul, and I have a hard time waiting for a new book I want to come out in paperback. The upside is that hardbacks seem to stand up to multipe re-readings much better than softcovers.
Really, though, I don’t mind the costs involved in buying books. I like to think that I’m supporting the authors financially, helping to ensure that more books of these types will be published.
Which is great, but most of us don’t have that option. I love reading, but don’t rarely buy books. Like Glory, I’m avid patron of my public library. If I had a bigger disposable income, I’d buy more books, but I refuse to feel guilty about not doing so.
If you think it’s mainly about King’s declining sales, you didn’t get past the first paragraph.
King’s main point is that the baby boomer generation, the “richest and most powerful generation in American history,” has become mentally lazy and unadventurous, at least when it comes to entertainment. At the time in their lives when they presumably have money and time to spend on things like hardcover books, they don’t. And the only music they buy is oldies like the Beatles and the Stones.
The title, and last line, of the essay is “Don’t Go To Sleep.” I.e. stay awake, stay interested, stay adventurous, take some chances. King means it in relation to pop culture (which is his and EW’s business after all), but it’s good advice for life in general.
He recommends that they buy an album by – gasp! – Kid Rock, that famous countercultural rebel. If the generation can be awakened by the purchase of a Kid Rock album, the Boomers are in worse shape than I thought.
Maybe if there was stuff out there worth buying (Kid Rock?!) people would be spending money. And Stephen King is the last one who should be talking…he hasn’t written a decent novel in over twenty years.
I find it all but inconceivable that anyone who’s like any of King’s old and respected stuff like The Shining could have read Desperation and given it a grade below “decent”. All but inconceivable.
While decrying a lack of readership, King managed to blast “literary snobs” for dismissing populist literature in his speech at the National Book Awards. Seems like he wants to have it both ways. He made a point of comparing his dialogue in a doom-laden, climactic scene in one of his books which had a character exclaiming, “Oh, SHIT!” against the dialogue of another writer’s in a similar scene which had the character saying his farewell by saying something like “The bible says to make a good woman out of her.” King’s position that his was the more “truthful” literature. Great, Stephen, all you’ve done is eliminated poetry and humanity in favor of vulgarity. Maybe King needs to stop thinking about himself and his profits, take stock and realize that even the humblest among his reading audience yearn and aspire to something greater in their lives than the “shit” King and his ilk apparently think they deserve.
Read the Dark Tower series. I cannot emphasize this enough to fans of Stephen King that think his work has gone downhill… also, read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.