I think Stephen King is an extremely talented writer and fully deserves his popularity. I see only one weakness in his writing, and though very forgivable, it is keeping me from reading more of his books. At some point his novels became in my eyes far too long because of his chatting away. More and more, it seemed to me that he was giving the reader some bait, thinking that was sufficient to let us ‘outwait’ his detours. On and on the bait, the wait: the second ever longer. I was thinking: “Maybe because he knows he is so popular he thinks whatever he writes is automatically fascinating. And of course he gets away with refusing an editor since the publisher doesn’t dare to force him to have his books properly trimmed.” (But this is just fantasying of course, or internal gossipping. What do I know.)
‘It’ for example was way too long, and the author’s preferred edition of The Stand I couldn’t stand (I can seldomly stomach author’s preferred editions).
(I know, I am digressing too. This is all merely projection.)
I DO think Stephen King is an awesome writer. The grannychat thing is the ONLY weakness I see.
So I want to ask for King novels without too much elaborating or heel dragging.
For as much as I have become allergic to detours, I would love to find a firmly edited Stephen King that stays close to… the plot, I wanted to say, but I don’t mean that. I have enjoyed large parts of beautiful fiction in Stephen Kings books that were not ‘necessary’ for the plot and were more important to me than the story. So I am really only talking about the chitchat.