Thirty years ago, on May 26, 1987, I copied this comment by Stephen King from an article in a past issue of Playboy magazine (June 1983). I filed the handwritten note to myself in a folder with other writings, which I opened recently when I was sorting through old materials.
Here's the comment:
". . . the criticism in the TIME piece was a bit different. It basically attacked me for relying on imagery drawn from the movies and television, contending that that was somehow demeaning to literature and perhaps even heralded its imminent demise. But the fact is, I'm writing about a generation of people who have grown up under the influence of the icons of American popular culture, from Hollywood to McDonalds, and it would be ridiculous to pretend that such people sit around contemplating Proust all day. The TIME critic should have addressed his complaint to Henry James, who observed 80 years ago that "a good ghost story must be connected at a hundred different points with the common objects of life."