Stephen King – The Concordian

For the longest time, I was averse to Stephen King, specifically because his books seemed to be everywhere.

Not seemed to be actually; they were and still are everywhere. In your local drugstore, the airport gift-shop, and at this point, even your street’s grocery store has a section for King.

I remember perusing the thriller and horror section of bookstores, and always being taken aback with the shelves dedicated to his works.

It angered me, for some reason. I kept thinking that if a writer has so many works out there, in so little time, they’re probably not that great. And for the love of god, why is he trusted with so many book reviews? Safe to say, I developed an aversion to this man without even reading anything he wrote. Tssk at 15-year-old Youmna wanting to seem cool.

For context, I am a huge fan of thrillers and horror stories—books or movies. For the latter, though, no Final Destination, Annabelle, or IT. Gore, dolls and clowns freak me out.

I have always been more of an Edgar Allan Poe girl. Yes, I understand how that confession may be confusing, seeing as I have just expressed my disgust towards gore, but Poe is an exception. Simply because alongside the gory details of his murder stories comes psychological trauma—something your girl here lives for.

But naturally, just as I fell for the Game of Thrones frenzy, I decided to pick up a copy of King’s famous work, The Shining, just so my negative opinion on the man could be founded on more than just sheer annoyance.

Let’s just say I got a well-deserved reality-check and schooling session when I found myself engrossed in the 500-page novel, eating it up word-for-word, only pausing for mandatory family dinners. Remember that “F.R.I.E.N.D.S” episode, when Rachel was reading the book, and lifted the potato squasher on Monica when she came home from work? That was pretty much how I was that summer, reading The Shining at 3 a.m. because I wanted to set the mood right.

When reading Stephen King, you are not just thrusted into his world of horrors and spirits. You are completely swallowed by it, in a way Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories never managed to achieve. Some Poe readers will maybe agree with me when I say that although scary, his tales never shook me to the core, to the point where mundane tasks became terrifying.

King has that power.

The movie adaption of The Shining was child’s play compared to what I felt while reading the book. I was completely terrified by the last page, unable to get “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” out of my head.

Perhaps the reason King’s work is so captivating, yet terrifying, is because regardless of the supernatural aspect of certain stories, the monsters and fears come from real life—and let’s not forget his beautiful writing style, proving my initial judgment wrong.

King traps you in his world because he knows what humans fear most, and makes both the worst and best of it, by writing his stories and scaring the hell out of us.

In The Shining, Jack’s monster is alcoholism, and Danny and Wendy’s fears are based on Jack’s loss of control. As for me, I will never stay in another hotel ever again.

Graphic by @sundaeghost

Can words on the page be truly scary? While some choose to read the classics like Lovecraft, and others enjoy the pulp of Clive Barker, there is only one King.

It is hard to argue the impact that Stephen King has had on the horror genre. For the past forty years, King has contributed dozens of works to the realm of horror, including such influential classics as Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Misery, and It. If you haven’t read King, you’ve heard of him, and even if he isn’t your cup of tea, you still have to respect his talent.

“Stephen King has done a tour of just about every horror concept that you can imagine. He might be kind of a dirty word in the world of ‘literature,’” says Jessica Marcotte, a graduate student at Concordia. “But when you write as much as he does, you’re bound to write something good – he’s a master of the short story and novella. Different Seasons is one of the best collections of novellas I’ve ever read.”

What Marcotte points out is arguably King’s greatest strength. His sheer prolific nature has forced him to be recognized. While much of King’s work is still outside the realm of academia, he has become such a presence in the world of fiction that it is impossible not to encounter his work, whether it be in their original literary form or in the film adaptations.

Many authors are lucky if they can have one book or series become a successful film. King has enjoyed so many quality adaptations of his work that even his short novellas like The Mist and Secret Window have become major Hollywood films. Currently, King’s Dark Tower series is undergoing the film treatment, which has the possibility to set him alongside the likes of J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien.

While King’s reputation is unquestionable, how did one author from Maine become an international name in horror? The answer is that his novels and consequently his movies employ three techniques of horror that never fail to frighten; the gross-out; severed body parts, mysterious green goo dripping on someone’s arm, the horror; huge spiders, zombies, something grabbing you in the dark, and atmospheric terror; “when you come home and notice everything you own has been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…” BOO! you jump a foot in the air.