Stephan King writes at a 6-8th grade level. His fiction is simplistic and so is his sentence structure. He writes at the level of genre fiction.
If he wrote at a 12th grade level he’d have have been a figure in pop culture. Because most of the population that reads his books wouldn’t be able to read them.
My only issue with King is he needs an editor to trim down his books. I went through a King phase back in the late 80s and by the early 90s I couldn’t pick up another one.
At that point his best work, IMO, was Four Seasons but yea, his prose isn’t James Joyce.
Amen to that. I thought the first Dark tower was great, but they kept getting… longer and longer and pointlessly so.
I feel the same way about Murakami too. I read his novels and was confused why people liked them so much they were so long and annoying. Then I read his short fiction and was like ‘oh he’s actually good’. He just needs to cut out the filler.
Meanwhile I vividly recall my 2nd grade teacher giving me a weird look for reading Stephen King in the classroom.
Damn, and I thought I was doing good reading 6 grades above my level.
Stephan King writes at a 6-8th grade level. His fiction is simplistic and so is his sentence structure. He writes at the level of genre fiction.
If he wrote at a 12th grade level he’d have have been a figure in pop culture. Because most of the population that reads his books wouldn’t be able to read them.
My only issue with King is he needs an editor to trim down his books. I went through a King phase back in the late 80s and by the early 90s I couldn’t pick up another one.
At that point his best work, IMO, was Four Seasons but yea, his prose isn’t James Joyce.
Amen to that. I thought the first Dark tower was great, but they kept getting… longer and longer and pointlessly so.
I feel the same way about Murakami too. I read his novels and was confused why people liked them so much they were so long and annoying. Then I read his short fiction and was like ‘oh he’s actually good’. He just needs to cut out the filler.