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Conference taveng::bagels

Title:BAGELS and other things of Jewish interest
Notice:1.0 policy, 280.0 directory, 32.0 registration
Moderator:SMURF::FENSTER
Created:Mon Feb 03 1986
Last Modified:Thu Jun 05 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1524
Total number of notes:18709

349.0. "Stephen King " by DARTH::SCHORR () Thu Aug 27 1987 14:36

    I am an avid Stephen King fan, but I am beginning to feel uncomfortable
    with his portrayal of Jews in two of his last books.  It is not
    whatI would call anti-semtism but it isn't a very positive image either.
    Has anyone read the book "Pet Sematary" and the beginning of "IT"?
    Do you get the same feeling as I do?
    
    Warren
    
    
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349.1King rides a popular waveDELNI::GOLDBERGThu Aug 27 1987 17:1211
    I don't know if he is anti_semetic, but in Pet Seminary, he
    gratuitously notes a bumper sticker on a car going by that makes
    an obscene reference to Ariel Sharon.  It may have been popular
    at the time of his writing to take shots at Sharon, and what is
    King if not popular.  Incidentally, I couldn't go on with the book.
    The writing was bad enough. That this hack insults his betters (no
    
    matter what you think of Sharon he *is* better than King) was too
    much.
    
    Herb
349.2yes, King seems sometimes anti-semiticVIDEO::OSMANtype video::user$7:[osman]eric.sixFri Aug 28 1987 11:4617
I have found Steven King's writing to be uncomfortable in its references
to jews, to the point where he seems to be anti-semitic.

Of particular note was his book "Seasons" or "Four Seasons", I forget which.
It's a book of four novellas.

One of the stories is about an ex-Nazi that someone is trying to prove
is a Nazi.  The story includes the Nazi's recollection of some tortures
that were committed to a jewish girl.

One might say the recollections were just vivid to make the story
work, but to me they were brutal, and the writer just didn't seem
sympathetic, something about a girl and an electric cattle prod.

It just sounded like King ENJOYED writing about the torture.

/Eric
349.3Another anti_Semitic bookSWATT::POLIKOFFSee SWATT run. Run SWATT run.Thu Oct 15 1987 15:3123
    	I just read one of the most anti-Semitic books I have ever seen.
    It explains why the Europeans killed the Jews throughout the ages
    and explains why the holocaust happened. Parts of this book
    have been around Europe since 1563. It is a compilation of
    short folk stories from 1563 to about 1880 that were read by just
    about every mother to her children drumming into them all the
    anti-Semitic rhetoric that finally caused the holocaust. One of
    the titles is "The Jew in the Thornbush" which stereotypes Jews as
    thieves. Since most of us had never seen all these stories in one
    place we never even imagined they existed. Granted, not all the
    stories are anti-Semitic. Some of the stories were read by you to
    your children and there have been movies made of them. The more
    familiar stories in the book are "Rapunzel", "Hansel and Gretel",
    "Cinderella" and "Snow White".
    	The name of the book if you haven't guessed is "The Complete Fairy
    Tales of the Brothers Grimm". Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm gathered all the
    European folk tales they could and wrote them down in the 100's.
    The book contains 242 stories and quite a few of them are about
    Jews in not a flattering way. My son's grandmother bought him the
    book because by the title, she thought it was a children's book.
    You can't believe the gore and violence as well as the anti-Semitism
    in it. I started to read it first and saw that this was not a children's
    book.
349.4why and wherefromBRAT::PULKSTENISBless the Lord, O my soul!Wed Dec 16 1987 11:535
    It's really not surprising. Did you ever consider the *source*
    of King's 'inspiration'?
    
    Irena
    
349.5BAGELS::FROLICHBobThu Dec 17 1987 08:555
    Irena,
    No, I haven't; what is the "source"?
    
    Bob