A friend suggested I read Salem’s Lot so I did, and I loved it.
Then I read the Dark Tower series, and yes I do mean I slogged through all seven books. I could probably write a whole separate post on that, but the long and the short of it is I thought some parts were fantastic and the storyline as a whole had a lot of promise; however, King’s editor could’ve condensed the good stuff down to two or three books at most (and probably should’ve advised him to lay off the crack).
After that, I made an attempt at Holly. Couldn’t get past the kidnapping scene. The narrative style was incredibly dull and flat.
So, I decided to give it one last shot, and here I am procrastinating finishing The Shining. Now I will admit, I found the story to be engrossing, but again, I don’t care for the narrative style, and on top of that the scary stuff just isn’t…scary. Like, at all. The only part where I felt the slightest twinge off suspense was when Hallorann was driving up the mountain in the middle of a snowstorm. Other than that, I’m left scratching my head as to why so many people consider this to be a masterpiece. To each their own, I guess.
Anyway, I’m done with King.
Cool story bro.
Except most of The Dark Tower was written after he’d got sober. He stopped the coke in 1986, around the time he was writing the second book. From book 3 onwards, he was sober.
There are plenty of great King books which you are missing out on if you simply decide not to read his work. The Green Mile was fantastic, for instance. Stuff like The Shining is definitely not his best work, it’s just super popular because of the film and because Jack Torrence represents a version of the worst of us that we can confront, though I also thought the book itself was lacklustre and frankly boring - and I love King and his work.