America in King

Do you guys think America and a sense of American-ness is integral to King's work? A lot of what I'm working on centers around Hearts In Atlantis and how it examines the end of the American dream with the Vietnam war, the wasted potential of that generation. Also it seems to me that King's work gives a sense that America is in some way rotten at the core, through stuff like The Running Man and The Long Walk, the symbolism of The Barrens in IT, the fall of America in The Stand and the dystopian future of The Dark Tower series. Do you guys have any opinions on this?

I think King draws heavily from where he lives or travels, and from his own political views.

Geography:

King's books are mostly in Maine, which is cool. I've never been there, but I feel like I have. Living there, it's his main (pun intended bubba) inspiration geography wise.

King vacationed in Colorado, we get The Shining and to a lesser extent parts of The Stand.

King starts wintering down in Southern Florida, we get The Ginger Bread Girl and Duma Key. Which I loved both of those. Not only were they well written, but I grew up in Southern Florida around those areas, and he nails the location. Like going home for me. I think he is picking up his game with the new surroundings down there, the new digs seem to inspire him.


Politics: I don't know how much is pro-American or anti-American in the work. I know the military and the government doesn't come off that well sometimes, (The Stand, Dreamcatcher, The Long Walk). But if you look at it, King takes characters and puts them in hellish situations, makes the local Library a sinister place (Library Policemen) , etc.

I would tend to think King is pro-American and just writes America (sometimes) as a really ****ed up place, cause that's part of the ambiance. But I really like America, so maybe I'm putting my own views on the stories.

And I also think that Anti-American is not the word I'm searching for anyway, you can be pro-American and think the country is messed up. Wanting to change the way things are doesn't make you Anti-American.

Hearts in Atlantis is a separate deal I think, as King grew up in the 60's, was what I think of as a quasi hippie. He did that book to explain the Vietnam era, and it was written from a mostly liberal stand point. I'm not really liberal, but I liked the book. I didn't feel like he was preaching in it, he was just presenting what it was like back then, in a fictional setting. I tell ya, it made me understand those times a little more.

Interesting. I just started a similar topic in another of our forums.

I'd definitely recommend Danse Macabre, RobUK, if you haven't already read it. In general, I do think that you're onto something, but it is a bit tricky to analyze. "Write what you know" certainly is part of it, but I'd have to say that there's more to it than that. SK's work features "American-ness" and Americana in quite a remarkable way.

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Originally Posted by Whidden

...Hearts in Atlantis is a separate deal I think...

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I wouldn't say that. I sincerely regard HiA as thematically central to Dark Tower, and thereby, to Stephen King.

I tend to think of all speculative fiction as studies of reality, through attempts to examine what is possible. It'd be easy to dismiss these questions by saying that the darkness in King's books is just a natural part of the horror genre, but that would be kind of a chicken-or-egg question; it raises the issue of why it is horror that he wanted to write, anyway.

Hard to say how much of it is angst over the human condition in general. Still, I believe that modern American society is an especially pretentious one, and that King wants to illuminate that. Not so much that our country is more rotten at the core than others are, but that we do need to recognize the inherent evil here, and the problems common to all civilization so far. Further, I think that he's been somewhat successful in this-- that his work really has contributed to some increase in our awareness. It's not entirely a new concept; the hippies of the sixties seemed to think that if we'd just stop being ignorant, and focus on human concerns over nationalism and arbitrary contructs, then we could easily solve all social problems. It's pretty clear now that reality is not that simple... but, indeed, we still have to face it.

Anyway, that's my opinion. :)

Whidden and path have put this very well, but I will go one step further and assert that the American-ness of King's fiction is essential to understanding the stories that he tells as well as the characters in them. Naturally, Roland and the folks from his world fall outside of this, but only slightly as we see from TDT that their society had reached the technological and social equivalent (nay, exceeded it!) of America at some point. It is his ability to bring this realism into fiction and not make us curse him for his criticism of something we love.

Obviously there are exceptions to what I have said, but that's my lunch hour, in-a-nutshell comment.

By the way, I also brought up this aspect of King's works in my orals. They knew I would. Heh heh heh, to quote our old pal the Cryptkeeper.

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Originally Posted by Whidden

I think King draws heavily from where he lives or travels, and from his own political views.

Geography:

King's books are mostly in Maine, which is cool. I've never been there, but I feel like I have. Living there, it's his main (pun intended bubba) inspiration geography wise.

King vacationed in Colorado, we get The Shining and to a lesser extent parts of The Stand.

King starts wintering down in Southern Florida, we get The Ginger Bread Girl and Duma Key. Which I loved both of those. Not only were they well written, but I grew up in Southern Florida around those areas, and he nails the location. Like going home for me. I think he is picking up his game with the new surroundings down there, the new digs seem to inspire him.

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A small town near me known as Daleville, Indiana, is a rest stop in The Stand.

Aye, and Jack passes through Muncie in The Talisman.
SK may have been drawing on his past; I hear that he spent part of his youth in NE Indiana.

As far as I know, the Chuthulu mythos story "Crouch End" is his only work (other than those set in fantasy worlds of one type or another) that is not set somewhere in America.

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Originally Posted by Woofer

...their society had reached the technological and social equivalent (nay, exceeded it!) of America at some point. ...

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Ah, but according to TMIB, their social progress was actually quite limited. Definitely related to us.

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Originally Posted by pathoftheturtle

Aye, and Jack passes through Muncie in The Talisman.
SK may have been drawing on his past; I hear that he spent part of his youth in NE Indiana.

As far as I know, the Chuthulu mythos story "Crouch End" is his only work (other than those set in fantasy worlds of one type or another) that is not set somewhere in America.

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Originally Posted by Woofer

...their society had reached the technological and social equivalent (nay, exceeded it!) of America at some point. ...

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Ah, but according to TMIB, their social progress was actually quite limited. Definitely related to us.

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*nods excitedly* Exactly my point! The parallels are there though the "current" time of the DT series shows us a place that could be America after a massive technological meltdown and/or a chem-bio tragedy.

IIRC, "Crouch End" was written specifically for the Lovecraft tribute collection New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.

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Originally Posted by pathoftheturtle

Aye, and Jack passes through Muncie in The Talisman.

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I'd forgotten that...poor bastard!

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Originally Posted by RobUK

Do you guys think America and a sense of American-ness is integral to King's work? <snip>

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How could it be otherwise? King is a U.S. citizen, and I've read nothing to indicate that he's traveled much outside the United States, so it's obvious to me, I guess. I was just reading another thread where someone was complaining how America-centric The Stand is. Why would it be otherwise? The novel isn't written from a global perspective, but from an American one.

It's rather as if someone were to be surprised that the works of Terry Dowling are set in Australia, with aborigines and everything. (You get one guess as to Dowling's nationality:______)

As far as some of the discussion in this thread concerning King's opinions, political or otherwise, and that it might somehow reflect on his patriotism, well..... I'll just leave that discussion to others.

I don't think many were surprised that King would focus on the US in The Stand....just that he doesn't really speak of anything going on anywhere else at all hardly. It does seem a bit odd to me...if it's a worldwide plague not to say more about what's going on elsewhere, but I love the story as it is.

King has always stated that he's a writer of the time. So as society evolves (Or not, depending on your stance) then so do his stories. I think he takes a bit of the climate around him, his travels and his vast net of friends and writers and uses that to craft what he's looking to put out.

If you want to be really weird about it, it can be said that the US is the main character in almost all of his books since the stories take place in the US and we, the people in the books, are more like bugs on the face of the country and as mundane as we are, there are some stories that can be told.