Is the phrase "I read that in Spock" correct?

Question

This context comes from a part of Stephen King's book "The Shining" in which Wendy, Jack's wife, speaks to him about Danny, their son. She thinks Danny isn't eating enough lately and spending too much time trying to teach himself how to read (which she thinks is to please them). The following text is Jack's answer to this claim.

"They taper off" he said vaguely. "I think I read that in Spock. He'll be using two forks again by the time he's seven."

Wikipedia says:

Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children's needs and family dynamics

The phrase "I read that in Spock" is weird to me. I wouldn't say I read that in King or Dostoevsky. I would say "I read that in one of the King's books or Dostoevsky's". Initially I thought it might be a magazine named after him, in which case the sentence would make perfect sense. Also, there are no books of his titled with his name only. Is this a mistake, informal speech, or some kind of linguistic invention of King's, for which he's known, after all?

Answer 1

Such expressions are very common. For example, one might say "I've read Shakesepeare extensively." The person means that he or she has read Shakespeare's works, not the author himself. This is an example of metonymy.

Answer 2

The grammar is fine, as others have answered. I’ll add that it’s especially common to cite works by author’s last name in academic papers, and the character Jack Torrance is a (fired) prep-school teacher who likely told his students to cite their sources this way in their essays. You might already know this, but there’s a reference to Postwar U.S. pop culture that might be obscure today.

This “Spock” is Benjamin Spock, a famous pediatrician and author at the time The Shining was written. He was usually called “Dr. Spock” and in 1977, was more famous than the character from Star Trek, a show that had been canceled back in the ’60s and not yet revived as a movie, even if it weren’t clear from context who they meant. As late as 1994, Patrick Stewart, the lead actor of TNG, did a joke on Saturday Night Live about how he knew a lot more about the original series than everyone thought, like how there were two doctors on the Enterprise, Doctor McCoy and Doctor Spock. Dr. Benjamin Spock’s best-known book, Baby and Child Care, was written in 1946 and sold more than fifty million copies

The background here was that he usually told parents to let their kids do whatever they want, and they’ll turn out fine. Thirty years later, when The Shining was written, its influence had already peaked and there was a backlash to it, and to the permissive culture he exemplified. Jack Torrance, the character who says this, is also the kind of person who’d start out trying to follow Dr. Spock’s advice, but by this point we already know that he doesn’t stick to his good intentions. We’ve seen him lose his temper and break his son’s arm, and make a whole string of mistakes that ruin everything for his family. So what he’s saying is not really reassuring at all.

Answer 3

Stephen King sentence:

"I think I read that in Spock. He'll be using two forks again by the time he's seven."

That means: in Spock's work.

When referring to the work of famous intellectuals or in academic papers, we often just use: in Spock, in [last name of the person]. Usually, this is about authors who write non-fiction and not about playwrights or novelists or poets.

Spock wrote a "ton" of books.

See for yourselves: Books by Dr. Benjamin Spock

Answer 4

"I think I read that in Spock. He'll be using two forks again by the time he's seven."

In this particular case it is an elliptical reference to a particular book known to both the speaker and person listening to them: "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" by Dr. Benjamin Spock or, potentially at least, another work by the same author about child care.

Amongst parents in the time when it was at the height of its popularity, "to (have) read something in Spock" meant to have read it their copy of his child care book. In my personal experience, the book achieved such popularity that "to read something in Spock" became a set phrase that meant to (have) read it in said child care book. This meaning was then commonly understood even you didn't know the exact book title, had never read it yourself, and/or weren't even a parent.