In the last decade or so, Stephen King has been winning praise from institutions that, if not reviling him, had at least brushed him off as a not-so-serious author. Lisey’s Story and Duma Key, his last two novels, received overwhelmingly positive criticism from The New York Times and other reviews; in 2003 he was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters; he was selected to edit the 2007 Best American Short Stories anthology (a post reserved for ‘serious’ authors, like Lorrie Moore and John Updike); and probably most importantly, his own fiction has been appearing in some of the most prestigious literary magazines in circulation.
But in practice, at least in the short form, King’s recent work has been sloppy. "Ayana," which appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of The Paris Review, is a watered-down version of Chris Adrian’s brilliant "A Better Angel" or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." King’s somewhat longer piece, "A Very Tight Place," which appears in the current issue of McSweeney’s, is rife with narrative clichés, has an incredibly contrived plot (which one would think to be his strength), the narration is inconsistent, and the characters are the literary equivalent of stick figures.
"A Very Tight Place" concerns two men – the half-bulimic, dandruff-ridden Curtis Johnson, and his cancerous neighbor Tim Grunwald, AKA The Motherfucker, or TMF. For the most part, with a couple unnecessary deviations, we follow Johnson’s point of view, and he recounts for us the bitter history between them. The two are duking it out in court over a seaside piece of real estate that both supposedly bought from a senile, now-dead third neighbor. When TMF installs an electric fence on his property that kills Johnson’s Lowchen, Johnson reacts by springing another lawsuit on TMF – seeking damages of $1,200, the price of the dog.
For TMF this is the last straw. "Yes, the Motherfucker had fallen on hard times. Hard cheese on Tony, as Evelyn Waugh might have said." As we’re told, TMF was abandoned by his wife, struck with cancer, and now the only solace in his life is his hot tub.
So he lures Johnson out to an abandoned condominium development, locks him in a Port-O-Sans, tips the Port-O-Sans over, and then leaves Johnson for dead amidst the drooling urine and fecal matter.
Throughout, King describes his characters’ thoughts and actions almost exclusively in the most mundane, commonplace terms. When Johnson leaves his cell phone at home, he is "off the grid." As he mourns his lost dog, he has "to get his head back in the game." When he hits his head against the Port-O-Sans, "he saw stars." (Though the first two may be attributed to the close-third-person narration, the last one can only have come from an omniscient narrator, i.e. King.) This is lazy writing intended, frankly, for lazy readers. It’s like spoon-feeding Gerber bananas to a grown-up – we know what these phrases taste like, what they’re supposed to mean; and in this form they’re made for easy digestion, and aren’t nearly as impressive as something a top chef might whip up.
The narrative clichés are trumped only by the spoken ones. "Do you feel lucky, punk?" TMF asks Johnson. Later on, having tipped over the Port-O-Sans, he exclaims, "He shoots, he scores!"
The upside is that, like much of King’s work, this is easy to follow, and kind of irresistible. So when TMF says, "But now you’re in my power, as they say," it’s as if King himself is speaking. At times it even seems King is trying to make a statement about clichés, as TMF loses his phrases a couple times. "Snug as a bug in a whatever," he stutters, as if acknowledging the pointless nature of his own words. But then, the use of formulaic language is so widespread, it becomes the story’s foundation, not just a clever theme.
This is all the more disappointing when King does conjure some original similes, as when a condo unit is compared to "Dandelions popping up on an indifferently maintained lawn." He could, though, just as well be talking about the infestation of stock phrases within this very story.
Once Curtis is locked in the Port-O-Sans, the "A Very Tight Place" becomes a loose interpretation of Dante’s Inferno. Several comparisons to the afterlife ensue, as the tank is called "cockroach heaven," and from below, Johnson regards the toilet hole above him as "the overworld." And just as Dante escapes hell by climbing out through its most treacherous spot, Johnson escapes the Port-O-Sans through its asshole, or bottom – where the shit is, at least.
Except that Dante’s journey through hell is an allegory for his personal struggles with depression, whereas Johnson’s revelation upon escaping the toilet is the made-for-TV line, "I was locked in the shithouse already and didn’t even know it."
There is no subtlety here, no epiphany. (Not that every story needs an epiphany. But it seems King is angling for one.) Furthermore, it becomes apparent Johnson might actually deserve what he’s getting. The electric fence that killed his dog was ten feet inside TMF’s property line. Also, Johnson admits to hoodwinking the senile man out of his property, while TMF paid a fairer price. Not to mention, he’s leveling lawsuit after lawsuit against an old man (TMF) who has lung cancer. We sympathize with Johnson only because we’re (mostly) seeing things from his perspective, and because something bad is happening to him. But the guy has no redeeming qualities of his own accord. The revelation "I was locked in the shithouse already" holds no seed of self-realization that he might actually be a bad person. "Tight Place" might have been a much more interesting – and more powerful – story had King left Johnson in the shitter.
Predictably, though, he doesn’t. Maybe the most disappointing aspect of the narrative is the plot. Though King employs typical deftness and suspense in getting Johnson into the Port-O-Sans, there’s never really a question of whether he’ll escape or not. Several times it’s pointed out that the compartment’s walls and ceiling have been reinforced with sheet metal, making them impossible to penetrate. But because we’re (usually) inside Johnson’s head, once he’s trapped, we behave as if we are trapped, too. It should take about one minute for the reader to think, "the bottom"; King waits fourteen pages – which in the story is about fourteen hours – before allowing Johnson to have this thought. I’m reminded of watching The Village, M. Night Shyamalan’s fourth major movie, and knowing there was going to be a twist at the end, because the pattern had already been established in his previous films. Even if you can’t figure out what that twist is, just knowing it’s there – seeing the skeleton of the structure, the drywall beneath
the faux brick – dispels whatever magic there might have been.
One of Chekhov’s famous dictums on writing is that there are no new stories, only new relationships. To have new relationships, one must have full characters. TMF is supposed to be deep because he’s lost everything dear to him, and has cancer on top of that. Johnson is supposedly fleshed out because he has dandruff, induces himself to vomit for vaguely metaphysical reasons, and is gay. (Really I can’t figure out why King chose to make Johnson homosexual, except as a means to make TMF – who uses epithets like "All gay people are lazy. It’s been scientifically proven" – more evil. Or maybe because having a gay character is literary. Otherwise, within this story, it has nothing whatsoever to do with his existence.) This strikes one as Insta-Depth, especially as these characteristics all evaporate once the plot kicks into gear – personality and backstory become negligible. In the end, when Johnson confronts TMF after escaping, TMF is more concerned about having been bested by his neighbor (plot) than about his woeful life (character). The relationship, then, plays on the old standard of hostile neighbors, and offers nothing new.
Stories don’t have to be ‘serious’ to be legitimate. Cujo is one of the most gripping, un-put-downable novels ever written, not to mention the hundreds of millions of other compelling, suspenseful tales King has penned. And he has other narrative fortes – his ability simply to move a story forward could very well be unparalleled by any other writer, living or otherwise.
But if he wants his ‘serious’ reputation to grow – which his references to Waugh and Dante, and the placement of his work in literary magazines, suggest he does – he’s got some renovation to do. Right now it seems King’s being applauded just for making the effort. And that’s totally cool – the effort is noble, and undertaken in earnest. And if he succeeds, it would be tantamount to the Americans winning a World Cup championship in soccer – millions of new fans might be turned onto something they’d never before considered viewing (in King’s case, heavy-hitting, personally affecting literature). And like the American soccer team, one might watch (read) hopefully, and even be encouraged by intermittent periods of creativity and cohesion, but in the end there’s still disappointment.
(header illustration from here)
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