Literary Guilt Ain't What It Used to Be

Thomas Sutcliffe for the Independent:

Apparently, Stephen King is the nation's favourite guilty pleasure - which strikes me as a bit pathetic, really. I have no problem with the pleasure bit, you understand, having from time to time opened up one of King's Gothic potboilers with the crooning sigh of someone easing into a hot bath. But I'm not at all convinced that these responders really understand what literary guilt is. Don't they know that King effectively bypassed guilt several years ago? That he is a recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. That The New Yorker has published his short stories? Alibis for reading his books are thick on the ground: you could claim to be fascinated by his deconstruction of late-20th-century consumer culture, for example; or pretend to an analytical interest in his incorporation of American demotic into the authorial voice. But you certainly don't have to feel guilty.
This may be true of pretty much any book these days, of course. There's no question that literary guilt once existed. I remember, during my first week at university as a student of English, being given a brief induction by our director of studies. Read deeply and widely, he advised us, but also keep something light and frivolous beside your bed so that you can unwind after a hard day in the library stacks. His suggestion was F Scott Fitzgerald - which, from the looks on the faces of my fellow-students, didn't exactly chime with their notion of literary downtime.

Read the rest of the article here.