[cognito20]

[ QUOTE ]
The only work of Melville's I have read - Benito Cereno - is a tightly-written story that touches heavily on themes of class and race, written in splendid language.

I have read much of King's catalog, and it does not come close to this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps. It's really a matter of taste and opinion. Even if I was to concede your point that Herman Melville was a better writer than Stephen King (which I don't, necessarily, but just the sake of argument), that would have absolutely no bearing on whether or not Stephen King deserves to win the Nobel Prize. Stephen King's work does not -need- to be better than Herman Melville's to be honored with the Nobel. Even if King is no Melville, neither are too many other writers today, to understate the point just a little bit. In fact, it's kind of analogous to the time late in Joseph Heller's life when some book critic snidely mentioned to him that he'd never written another _Catch-22_; Heller's immediate comeback was, "Neither has anybody else." [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] It's kind of like arguing that Pinter was an unworthy recipient of the prize because he couldn't have carried Bill Shakespeare or G.B. Shaw's literary jockstrap (whatever one of those may be).

[ QUOTE ]
Much of King's work is sprawling and filled with unnecessary details

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I kinda like the "unnecessary" details, they add a healthy and sometimes-needed (especially in the early works) dose of realism to his works.

[ QUOTE ]
- plus the man cannot write a good ending to save his life.

[/ QUOTE ]

And Melville had this annoying habit of taking fifteen pages to say "The cat sat on the mat". Every writer has weaknesses. You've pinpointed King's. His endings aren't that bad, anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
You're trying to tell me that works like Desperation and Insomnia are worthy of the Nobel Prize?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. That's because the Nobel Prize is not given for certain works. The Pulitzer, National Book Award, NBC Circle Award, and Booker Prize are. The Nobel Prize is a -lifetime achievement award-. Yet another reason the award to Jelinek in '04 was a joke. I don't think even the most rabid internationalist here could claim that the quality of the totality of her works matches the quality of someone like, say, Joyce Carol Oates. Or Stephen King. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
If they gave out a Nobel for work most in need of an editor, King might win that one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not as long as David Foster Wallace is still writing (and footnoting), he wouldn't.

[ QUOTE ]
Stephen King is an excellent storyteller - but most of his work only lightly grazes the serious themes other writers are exploring, and does so only to advance the plot.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. God forbid that the plot be advanced in a novel. That might actually keep the reader's attention and inspire him to do something drastic like, say, finish and enjoy the book rather than throw it aside and watch "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart".

--Scott