JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 267 из 359I have used the phrase "off-key note" earlier on, and that is Finney's actual method in The Body Snatchers , I think; one off-key note, then two, then a ripple,then a run of them. Finally the jagged, discordant music of horror overwhelms the melody entirely. But Finney understands that there is no horror without beauty; no discord without a prior sense of melody; no nasty without nice.
There are no Plains of Leng here; no Cyclopean ruins under the earth; no shambling monsters in the subway tunnels under New York. At about the same time Jack Finney was writing The Body Snatchers , Richard Matheson was writing his classic short story "Born of Man and Woman," the story that begins: "today my mother called me retch. you retch she said.” Between the two of them, they made the break from the Lovecraftian fantasy that had held sway over serious American writers of horror for two decades or more. Matheson's short story was published well before Weird Tales went broke; Finney's novel was published by Dell a year after. Although Matheson published two early short stories in Weird Tales , neither writer is associated with this icon of American fantasy -horror magazines; they represent the birth of an almost entirely new breed of American fantasist, just as, in the years 1977-1980, the emergence of Ramsey Campbell and Robert Aickman in England may represent another significant turn of the wheel. *
I have mentioned that Finney's short story "The Third Level" predates Rod Serling's Twilight Zone series; in exactly the same fashion, Finney's little town of Santa Mira predates and points the way toward Peter Straub's fictional town of Milburn, New York; Thomas Tryon's Cornwall Coombe, Connecticut; and my own little town of 'Salem's Lot, Maine. It is even possible to see Finney's influence in Blatty's The Exorcist , where foul doings become fouler when set against the backdrop of Georgetown, a suburb which is quite, graciously rich . . . and nice.
Finney concentrates on sewing a seam between the prosaic reality of his little you-can-see-it-before-your-eyes town and the outright fantasy of the pods which will follow. He sews the seam with such fine stitchwork that when we cross over from the world that really is and into a world of utter make-believe, we are hardly aware of any change. This is a major feat, and like the magician who can make the cards walk effortlessly over the tips of his fingers in apparent defiance of gravity, it looks so easy that you'd be tempted to believe anyone could do it. You see the trick, but not the long hours of practice that went into creating the effect.
We have spoken briefly of paranoia in Rosemary's Baby ; in The Body Snatchers , the paranoia becomes full, rounded, and complete.
There are no Plains of Leng here; no Cyclopean ruins under the earth; no shambling monsters in the subway tunnels under New York. At about the same time Jack Finney was writing The Body Snatchers , Richard Matheson was writing his classic short story "Born of Man and Woman," the story that begins: "today my mother called me retch. you retch she said.” Between the two of them, they made the break from the Lovecraftian fantasy that had held sway over serious American writers of horror for two decades or more. Matheson's short story was published well before Weird Tales went broke; Finney's novel was published by Dell a year after. Although Matheson published two early short stories in Weird Tales , neither writer is associated with this icon of American fantasy -horror magazines; they represent the birth of an almost entirely new breed of American fantasist, just as, in the years 1977-1980, the emergence of Ramsey Campbell and Robert Aickman in England may represent another significant turn of the wheel. *
I have mentioned that Finney's short story "The Third Level" predates Rod Serling's Twilight Zone series; in exactly the same fashion, Finney's little town of Santa Mira predates and points the way toward Peter Straub's fictional town of Milburn, New York; Thomas Tryon's Cornwall Coombe, Connecticut; and my own little town of 'Salem's Lot, Maine. It is even possible to see Finney's influence in Blatty's The Exorcist , where foul doings become fouler when set against the backdrop of Georgetown, a suburb which is quite, graciously rich . . . and nice.
Finney concentrates on sewing a seam between the prosaic reality of his little you-can-see-it-before-your-eyes town and the outright fantasy of the pods which will follow. He sews the seam with such fine stitchwork that when we cross over from the world that really is and into a world of utter make-believe, we are hardly aware of any change. This is a major feat, and like the magician who can make the cards walk effortlessly over the tips of his fingers in apparent defiance of gravity, it looks so easy that you'd be tempted to believe anyone could do it. You see the trick, but not the long hours of practice that went into creating the effect.
We have spoken briefly of paranoia in Rosemary's Baby ; in The Body Snatchers , the paranoia becomes full, rounded, and complete.