Demons exist and we are trapped in a nightmarish world with no form of escape. They are like an insidious plague that crawls into every nook and crevice and fills our head with haunting voices. Demons come in many shapes and forms, they can be vivid dreams, people, memories, objects, or substances. They lie there waiting for the perfect moment to hide in a secret corner of our psyche and unleash our darkest fears.
It is impossible to get rid of these inner demons because just as you hate them with a virulence, you also need them. You are them, and they are you. Without them you are nothing. While they cannot be destroyed, they can be caged. You can lock away your inner demons in your past, but first get to know them so you don’t fear their shadow, and only then will you be free.
Writing about the origins of fear, giving a voice and face to enemies, and bringing to life these demons are the many ways artists and writers have learned how to cope. Stephen King is not the exception, he too knows how to exploit his weaknesses and create terrifying and thrilling works. He spoke openly of the demons that continue to whisper in his ear in an interview with the Rolling Stone magazine.
1. Stanley Kubrick and his movie adaptations
The reason this filmmaker is a torment for King is because of the changes this acclaimed director made in his book, The Shining. While many praise the work of Kubrick, Stephen King despises this film because in his eyes, his book seethes with passion, while the film leaves you out in the cold. The novel ends with flames while in the film we are left frozen in fear.
For the writer, Kubrick changed the villain and left his work inert, frozen, and lifeless.
These are not the only discrepancies between both works. Jack Torrence, the main character of the book, is a man who truly tries to be a good person but who is inevitably pulled into a whirlpool of madness. On the other hand, Kubrick’s main man is unhinged from the very first scene. Finally, King maintains it is mysoginist adaptation since Wendy Torrence is hardly on screen when in fact it is a critical character in the original story.
2. National Rifle Association and the right to bear arms
King’s aversion to the Second Amendment and its followers is based on his belief that any gun-toting individual can go on a rampage. King expresses his posture against the writer and advocate of the Second Amendment, Wayne LaPierre, “One only wishes Wayne LaPierre and his NRA board of directors could be drafted to some of these scenes, where they would be required to put on booties and rubber gloves and help clean up the blood, the brains, and the chunks of intestine still containing the poor wads of half-digested food that were some innocent bystander’s last meal”.
3. Cocaine and Drug Addiction
One of the demons that has sat on King’s shoulder egging him on was cocaine. While this substance became the creative fuel of choice for the writer, it also unleashed hell in his life. His addiction accompanied him between 1978 to 1986 and in that space of time he wrote his most memorable works.
“Misery is a book about cocaine. Annie Wilkes is cocaine. She was my number-one fan.”
Cujo, Firestarter, Christine, Pet Sematary, It and Misery are some of the books he wrote while he was grappling with one of his biggest demons. In fact, in the Rolling Stone interview he affirms that Annie, one of the characters of Misery, is in fact the face of cocaine and the novel deals with its destructive forces.
4. Jimmy Swaggart and religion
King has confirmed that he is a believer of God, but in no way does he sympathise with religious organizations or its leaders. His disgust is apparent, ”
When you see somebody like Jimmy Swaggart and he’s supposed to be this great minister touched by God, and he’s paying whores because he wants to look up their dresses, it’s just all hypocrisy.” He considers religion and these men as villians who go against the principles of true goodness.
5-6. Michiko Kakutani, Harold Bloom and literary criticism
These two figures rank high on King’s list of enemies, since in his eyes the criticism doled out by these people are highly destructive and ignorant. One the one hand, we have
Michio Kakutani from The New York Times, and on the other the literary eminence from Yale, Harold Bloom. King questions their literary knowledge and the capacity to pass judgment on works of other writers.
“Bloom and Kakutani and a number of gray eminences in literary criticism are like children who say, “I can’t possibly eat this meal because the different kinds of food are touching on the plate!”
For King, these critics take their ignorance about popular culture and wave it around as a badge of intellectual prowess. Bloom extols Mark Twain and tags Jim Thompson as terrible despite the fact he hasn’t even read any of his work. Kakutani is charged with overlooking great literary works simply because they combine different genres, a fact that bothers this “expert.” King scoffs at these influential figures who undervalue and underestimate the works of great writers without even bothering to open the first page.
7. The abandonment of Donald Edwin King
Stephen King’s father was a merchant sailor who abandoned his family when he was only two years old. Even though Edwin King passed away in 1980, the King of Terror still pictures his father knocking on the door and finally having that fated conversation. Why did you leave? Must be a question that must keep him up at night.
The resentment doesn’t lie on the fact that he abandoned his family, but leaving behind a huge amounts of debts that forced his mother to work for most part of her life.
This revealing and unusual interview shows a more open and profound side to this writer. With nonchalance he exposes his deepest and greatest fears, worst memories, and the inner demons that continue to plague him. Just as good experiences leave behind a mark, bad memories dig deeper and stay longer. It doesn’t matter if you are a world renowned author, your fears, enemies, and demons will always form part of your life and they will play a role in each success and failure.
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Reference:
Rolling Stone
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