That's my problem with modern liberal arts college education. Most of the professors are very out of touch with the workings of the modern world, having buried themselves in trying to find the "hidden messages" from documents which are decades or centuries old. I put about as much credit to them as I put on the people who try to fake bigfoot or document alien visits. They survive because they allow the rich to believe they are "more important" than everyone else. They feed elitism.

I think we should rate these people against one another, based on their BEST work, not their average. Stephen King SHOULD be remembered for his very best literature, as we read Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Arthur Miller today.

This Yale guy wants an academic work credited, not a commercial work in a vain attempt to pretend that academia still matters. It doesn't, and it never did.

Shakespeare's plays weren't for kings and queens, but for the bawdy common folk in a community theatre in a middle-class town in England. The nobles were appalled at Shakespeare's writing and Mozart's music. So common! Too many notes!

My take on fiction writing is this:

1. Does the story line work? Can I follow it? Does it flow? I don't mind books that take you 3-4-5 places at once, as long as the story comes together at some point. I don't want a completely linear story, but I don't want it so disjointed and disorganized that you can't follow it. Isaac Asimov was a genius doing this in his Foundation Series, moving the story from one end of the galaxy to another, until you find out they are people from the same planet.

2. Does the writing permit you to paint a mental picture of the events? Do you smell the leather and varnished wood in the lawyer's office? You you feel the cold as blizzard wind whips across your body? I think this is one of Stephen King's greatest abilities. He can gross you out by reading about cauterizing blood with a blowtorch. You see it in your head, you smell the flesh, etc. Your stomach turns. Touchdown SK!

3. Do you "relate" to the characters? Are they real people with feelings and emotions and motives? I can accept some stereotyping here, evil and good, but some of the very BEST writers go further. It's the difference between the characters in The Stand (where you could pretty much map out evil and good) and Jenny in Forrest Gump (who was really complex and messed up). This is one place I would probably not give King much credit. He tends to formularize the characters, from what I've seen and read. If there's an SK novel with a good/complex character, point it out to me.

4. Finally, good novelists "innovate". They take something you're familiar with, and use it in a different and unique way. They "twist" it. That's what I like about Gresham and Clancy, and even Stephen King. This is one of Kings BEST attributes. You start with something familiar, and he takes you somewhere that, maybe, you don't want to go? That's why he gets this award IMHO.

If this Yale guy thinks he's so good, then why doesn't he write something that does the four things above, and sell it? Perhaps, the truth is, he's too boring to be worth reading. A lot of the authors, playwriters, and musicians of Shakespeare's time made a lot of money working for the king, but none of their music is being played 3 centuries later.

Glen Austin