This post will serve both as a book review and sharing-a-learning text which is always a great combination. As I also want to start reviewing more fiction, I will show here that you can get valuable knowledge that is applicable to many practical sides of life even from the seemingly “not-real-world” stories or fantasy. You do not have to of course and not all things need to be practical. But I personally enjoy when I start noticing more fiction in my life and conversely more reflections of the everyday world in the most fantastic books I can imagine, and I encourage everyone to try this.

Let’s get to the point. As everyone knows, Stephen King is one of the most successful writers in the world famous for his horror and fantasy stories. I have been reading his books from time to time for many years and I consider most of them not just entertainment pulp fiction, but a proper Literature. A very common feature of his books is that they feel especially close to the real everyday world and readers easily identify themselves with the characters. A lot of times I heard his works described as “cozy” which is a bit puzzling if you remember these are horror stories after all. I think a lot of it comes down to how often he uses consumer goods brands in text and in what context.

“Stark lit a Pall Mall himself, picked up one of his Berols, opened his own notebook …”

Stephen King “The Dark Half”

As someone with experience in the consumer industry, I am absolutely fascinated by the sentences like that which occur almost on every page in King’s books. He does it so often in text and so matter-of-factly, that if you don’t know that Pall Mall is a cigarette brand and Berol is a pen, you can easily get confused with what is it that the character is doing. Wouldn’t it be easier to just write “Stark lift a cigarette himself, picked up one of his pens, opened his own notebook…”?

Maybe. But if you are in this situation yourself, that is not how your mind operates. You are not just smoking a cigarette, you take it from the same-and-always-familiar pack of Pall Mall with all the massive legacy of that brand and its history. In a certain way, it is more important to you that it is a Pall Mall or a Berol, than whether it is a cigarette or a pen at all. That is why it is not as relevant whether consumers think your product tastes better or not than competitor one. You don’t think about it as a useful pen, you think about it as a Berol.

But there was more than dullness in the confessional; it was not that by itself that had sickened him or propelled him toward that always widening club, Associated Catholic Priests of the Bottle and Knights of the Cutty Sark.

Stephen King “Salem’s Lot”

The genius of Stephen King comes not from knowing which brands are the most popular with his potential readers and inserting them in the books for people to make the world “feel real”. It is in the understanding that we, his readers, perceive the world in part through the filter of brands and so will identify ourselves easier with the characters who do the same. Same as us, his heroes use these familiar concepts to organize the chaos of this immense and in all probability unknowable, horrifying universe into recognizable blocks and patterns.

“Want a Coke?” Abra asked. “Sugar solves lots of problems, that’s what I think.”

Stephen King “Doctor Sleep”

Try noticing something interesting for you next time you read Stephen King or any other writer you admire. And perhaps write a comment about it or a short message.

Cheers!

Now playing: A.K.A.C.O.D. “Happiness” (phenomenal album by the remaining members of a cult band Morphine)

Photo from National Today. You know why I chose that one.