The King of egotrips

Read Stephen King's Song of Susannah this week. I thought this was it, that the gunslinger meets his maker now, but no, he has managed to stretch it further. There is one more - book 7, The Dark Tower. Have to hunt it down cheap on amazon now, how annoying!
What can I say. Stephen King writes in an irritating way, but I am still drawn to him 16 years after I read his first book.
I used to think, especially when I was in India that buying a King gives you good value for money. Not many authors give you 500-600 pages at that price. So if you are looking for an afternoon to waste or a 9 hour flight to tide over, there is no one better - as long as you are prepared to throw the book away when you get off the plane. A literary equivalent of casual sex.
I like King because he has this weird lopsided angle when looking at life. His spyglass is quite stained and smeared (with things you don't want to know about) and he manages to see the dark side in everything. This, I have always felt is what fascinated me. To see the underbelly of life, the less appealing side - like Irvine Welsh says in High Fidelity - knowing a woman long enough to know that she leaves disgusting cotton underwear lying around and not just the sexy nylon stuff that you get to see on a short hot fling.
A bit like that, but worse.
He is at his best when he describes characters. If he were an artist, he would be one of those wrinkly gruff slightly bitter ones who would only do pencil sketches, never add colour, yet manage to make the paper come alive. I hardly ever read his books for the horror, for it is not a shock or a suspense that he demands from his CRs (CR=Constant Reader). He prefers to make you shuffle in your seat and squirm when you read the dark bits of his characters, for he forces you to acknowledge your own weaknesses and darkest of thoughts, thoughts you would not accept as your own, thoughts like mutant psychopathic children that you don't want to know about, definitely not the ones you would have photos of in your wallet - yet for all your vehement denial, they are your own.
He makes you face up to them, stay in the same room with them and try and talk to them. Here in lies the real horror of his books - a study of the capacity of the human MIND for socially unacceptable behaviour.
What better example that his short story 'Riding the Bullet'. That stands out for the simple reason: it really makes the reader accept his own selfish love of life . Ever since I read that, I have seen selfish behaviour in a new light and I understand it better. I also think twice about adopting a 'holier than thou' attitude. I will not spoil it for people who have not read the story yet - go ahead, read it and decide for yourself.
Why call this post egotripping?
Because that is what his Dark tower series has turned out to be. One of my american colleagues said King is two sandwiches short of a picnic and although that is a bit harsh, I think I can see why she said that.
His style has definitely changed as he got older. If you read the Bachman Books, you see a different King. Young, hot headed, raging against the system and very very crisp and economical in his writing style, even when he digresses off the plot to describe a character in detail, it all feels essential in some strange and beautiful way. Despair and horror in plenty, but of a much better quality.
Nowadays, as he says himself, he gets away with publishing his laundry list and still come up with a best seller, and I think his writing has turned out of form and corpulent in it's old age.
As if he cannot be bothered to make the effort anymore. Even in the Dark Tower series, you can see how the story has become less gripping as you read further - and it feels as if the series is his excuse to get everything he has ever written published - all the ugly mutant children of his brain out in the open and his CRs are forced to adopt them all without question.
Sad, really, for he is very good when he puts his mind to it.
He says Tabby (his wife) is his greatest critic. Why has she let him get away with this? She should know better, surely.
Maybe after his near fatal accident, she has softened a bit, maybe that's why.
But still, as a CR, you tend to expect more from him, which he does not deliver nowadays.
What explanation could there possibly be for him dragging himself into the story?!! Does he think that that would immortalize him any better than if he just wrote a cracking good tale? I think he is sorely mistaken if that was his plan.
It does not add anything to the tale and makes one disappointed is a peculiar skin crawling way. As a CR, you see King as someone you know and the feeling is akin to how you feel when you have just introduced your elderly uncle to a group of friends and he then lets rip a loud smelly fart that leaves you not only embarrased, but also sorry for him.
Oh well, my ranting is over for now.
I am going to hunt down Book 7. Like I said, I still read his books, even if I am being screwed over by the publishers.
I still read his books hoping for his old style, in someways, I am hardly bothered about how it all ends - I dont think he can do very well, the way things have panned out. But still if the journey is interesting, I don't mind if the end leaves me disappointed.