If I'm being honest, I don't really like Stephen King's books. I don't find them particularly horrifying, though some do manage to make me uncomfortable (Misery), but by and large I kind of view it as like...I dunno...mass market horror. It's the Airport Book™ version of horror. The things that he focuses on as aspects that scare him and, by extension, are meant to scare the reader, typically don't get much out of me and I find some elements to be in poor taste. Like, Pet Sematary was almost good for me. I really liked most of it. And then he decided to heavily imply the involvement of an Indigenous folklore creature. And yes, I realize it was a different time, but like...it was wrong back then, too. They've been asking people not to do this for decades.
I think most of his leads are insufferable in a way that makes me actively root for the forces of evil, and I think the movie adaptations of his work tend to be stronger, more enjoyable experiences. However. Leaving aside all this. The real reason I just don't vibe and his work...is how much he mentions nutsacks and what they're doing in moments of tension. Stephen. I do not want to hear about how the man's scrotum tightened. He described them as "creeping" in one of his books. I think that was The Shining, but it's been a few years.
I beg your finest fucking pardon, sir?
And like, sure. I can see what he's trying to achieve, and what he wants me to feel. But ultimately, as someone without testicles, it just makes me notice how much he talks about them. It doesn't produce any emotional or physical responses in me, it just kind of makes me go "oh we're doing this again." An uncomfortably large portion of the male population don't wash their asses, you think I wanna think about the swampy balls of one of Stephen King's protagonists doing a barrel roll or something in response to The Horrors? Absolutely not.
So sure, I could sit here and critique his work seriously and talk about how I think Salem's Lot is the lamest, most boring vampire story ever conceived, and how it builds and builds and builds and then shrugs and says "and they fell upon her" to imply someone was torn apart by bloodthirsty undead. I could make jokes about how I can absolutely tell IT was written during a cocaine bender, or how Kubrick's The Shining will always be what most people think of first when they hear the title. I could absolutely do that, but I'd rather laugh about how often balls come up in an attempt to make me feel something specific, only to miss the mark and make me chortle.
So, I'm sorry if King's work is foundational to you, or he's your favorite author, but I think I'm done trying to like his work, at least in its intended context: as horror.
