By STEPHEN KING

Published: September 30, 2007

"The American short story is alive and well.

"Do you like the sound of that? Me too. I only wish it were actually true. The art form is still alive — that I can testify to. As editor of “The Best American Short Stories 2007,” I read hundreds of them, and a great many were good stories. Some were very good. And some seemed to touch greatness. But “well”? That’s a different story.

...

"Talent can’t help itself; it roars along in fair weather or foul, not sparing the fireworks. It gets emotional. It struts its stuff. If these stories have anything in common, it’s that sense of emotional involvement, of flipped-out amazement. I look for stories that care about my feelings as well as my intellect, and when I find one that is all-out emotionally assaultive — like “Sans Farine,” by Jim Shepard — I grab that baby and hold on tight. Do I want something that appeals to my critical nose? Maybe later (and, I admit it, maybe never). What I want to start with is something that comes at me full-bore, like a big, hot meteor screaming down from the Kansas sky. I want the ancient pleasure that probably goes back to the cave: to be blown clean out of myself for a while, as violently as a fighter pilot who pushes the eject button in his F-111. I certainly don’t want some fraidy-cat’s writing school imitation of Faulkner, or some stream-of-consciousness about what Bob Dylan once called “the true meaning of a pear.”"

...

Some of his points certainly aren't terrible, but on the other hand I can't help but get the feeling that Stephen King really is a douchebag for this essay. For arguably the most published author of the 20th century, and one of the living icons of American fiction, I can't help but feel that Stephen King is a hack, and most of his writing his soulless. Even compare this essay to some of the arguments he makes in his book about writing, where he specifically discusses writing for an audience, and not writing for yourself. I'm thinking here of events like the ending of "It" and "The Stand" where the ending is either a) hallucinogenic spiders or b) THE HAND OF GOD COMES DOWN. Yeah, maybe it's not SoC Faulknerwannabeism, but it's still **. Not, "The **," or even "Tha **," just **. Short story writers and other writers are often reduced to the bottom shelf because ** authors like Stephen King are saturating the Best Sellers list for novels with unfinished, terrible plots.

Hahaha . . . I love that part. He does sound a lot like a douche with those statements, doesn't he? Although his writings are barely tolerable, he's still not the worst to me. I tend to curl up into a fetal position and weep like a baby whenever the Bestsellers List is mentioned.

By Alec Mouhibian

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12241

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