A Quote by Harold Bloom
I am not unique in my elegiac sadness at watching reading die, in the era that celebrates Stephen King and J.K. Rowling rather than Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll.
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The largest two books I've ever read more than once are 'Bleak House' by Charles Dickens and 'The Stand' by Stephen King, about 1,200 pages each.
Stephen King has the exact ability that Charles Dickens had. To get to his readers in spite of or despite anything the reviews say.
If you look back at a lot of these Spielberg movies and Stephen King books, even though there's a lot of fun and a lot of camaraderie, there's also a bit of sadness there, whether it's 'E.T.' with the divorce or in Stephen King's 'It,' where there's racism. There's always some sort of evil - there's sadness and people aren't happy.
I'm reading Barnaby Rudge, one of the less well-known Dickens novels. I've been a life-long lover of Charles Dickens ever since I think A Tale of Two Cities was the first Dickens novel I read.
I realized that for many people attending a reading is like watching television at the end of a long day. They don't want to be sad but to laugh. Chances are they'll pick the sitcoms over the horror movies. So I learned that, while one's larger body of fiction can have quite a bit of sadness and conflict and tragedy in it , in a reading environment, the average audience member seems able to tolerate only a little bit of sadness. They'd much rather the reading be sexy, funny, and witty. Life is hard these days. There's more than enough sadness in the world, so I can't blame them.
All reading is good reading. And all reading of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens is sublime reading.
Stephen King says that if you forget an idea, then it can't have been any good. He means he, not you. You are not Stephen King. Do not attempt to emulate Stephen King at home.
Stephen King in many respects is a wonderful writer. He has made a contribution. People in the future will be able to pick up Stephen King's books and learn a lot about who we were by reading those books.
Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking or Iris Murdoch or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever.
The emotions triggered by fiction are very real. When Charles Dickens wrote about the death of Little Nell in the 1840s, people wept - and I'm sure that the death of characters in J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' series led to similar tears.
I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert.
Brod discovered 613 sadnesses, each perfectly unique, each a singular emotion, no more similar to any other sadness than to anger, ecstasy, guilt, or frustration. Mirror Sadness. Sadness of Domesticated Birds. Sadness of Being Sad in front of One's Parent. Humor Sadness. Sadness of Love Without Release.
I think Austin is read more now than Charles Dickens, and Dickens was much more popular in his day. She endures because of her classicism.
A modern-day Dickens with a popular voice and a genius for storytelling in any genre, Stephen King has written many wonderful books.
When I was young, there was no such thing as YA. You simply went from reading children's novels to reading adult novels. So one year, I was reading Tove Jansson, and the next year, I was reading Stephen King.
Although Lewis Carroll thought of The Hunting of the Snark as a nonsense ballad for children, it is hard to imagine - in fact one shudders to imagine - a child of today reading and enjoying it.
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