Well, this is just sad. I’ve been running the Kenneth and Linda Lay
Emergency Relief Fund since the month began, and how much have we
received so far? One dollar. One stinking dollar. What’s the matter
with you people? Where’s the compassion? Where’s the love?
There’s a rather
stupid article on Stephen King’s retirement up at Salon.com. The article isn’t
quite as bad as the
“Lord of the Rings”
vs. “Star Wars” article that appeared last month, but it’s close.
Let’s give the author some credit: he is brave enough to admit that he likes
some of Stephen King’s work. True, he establishes right at the beginning
Stephen King is at best “unpolished”… and he feels he has to sprinkle a little reference to
Tom Wolfe here and a firsthand account of a New Yorker
awards ceremony there, just so we know his literary street cred is intact. But
at least he lays the groundwork for a real critique — you can’t reduce his article to,
“Stephen King sux!” So that’s something, at least.
Still, this sort of damning-with-faint-praise really gets under my skin. Why
is it each time a “literary” writer refers to a
science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, or mystery novelist, they have to play
footsies? “When I was a child I just loved Writer X — golly, she was
such rip-roaring fun!” God forbid you should come right out and say, “I like Terry
Brooks!” “Orson Scott Card is A-OK!”
(For the record: I’ve never been all that fond of Stephen King’s fiction,
and Terry Brooks was only rip-roaring fun when I was a child. There, now that
my street cred is preserved, let’s move on…)
Anyway, the really silly part comes on the second page, where the author tries
to portray King as estranged from his fans, hiding behind legal warnings:
Consider the series of questions and answers his Web site, StephenKing.com, provides
for fans. “Will he read my manuscript?” Nope. “To avoid any litigation problems, he
has been advised by his agents not to look at any manuscript that has not been accepted
by a publisher.” Does he accept story ideas? “To avoid any litigation problems, he has
been advised … ” Can he help find an agent? “There being some legal problems with this … ”
You get the picture. King has built a tall, spiked, wrought-iron fence around himself, and hung a
“Beware of (Rabid) Dog” sign on it.
Eh? I’m not aware of any published author who reads strangers’ manuscripts,
accepts strangers’ story ideas, or helps strangers find an agent. If you know
of one, let me know, because I sure could use someone to
hold my hand while I find an agent…
No, King is absolutely right about the legal problems, but let’s face it:
he’s being polite to use that as an excuse. I can’t imagine how many
submissions he would get from his millions of fans if he offered to read
manuscripts… but I know it would put poor,
overworked Tim to shame.
I dunno. Salon.com must really be in its death-throes, publishing obtuse
articles just to provoke a response. After all, these days they’re presenting
product press
releases as journalism. It’s all downhill from here.
That’s about it. Oh, except I bought a copy of Windows 2000 and did a clean install on
my PC. I thought that would solve certain issues once and for all, but it doesn’t
seem to have helped a bit. And here I was being good, not buying a cracked version of the OS.
I hate, hate, hate, Microsoft. That’s the last cent I pay them, ever.
Edit, April 2003: Hang in there, Evan-from-February-2002. Salvation is just around the corner…