JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 282 из 359I wrote a paean to my father. I didn't realize it until one night in 1965, a few years after the novel had been published. Sleepless, I got up and prowled my library, found the novel, reread certain portions, burst into tears. My father was locked into the novel, forever, as the father in the book! I wish he had lived to read himself there and be proud of his bravery in behalf of his loving son.
"Even writing this, I am touched again to remember with what a burst of joy and agony I found that my Dad was there, forever, forever for me anyway, locked on paper, kept in print, and beautiful to behold.
"I don't know what else to say. I loved every minutes of writing it. I took six months off between drafts. I never tire myself. I just let my subconscious throw up when it feels like it.
"I love the book best of all the things I have ever written. I will love it, and the people in it, Dad and Mr. Electrico, and Will and Jim, the two halves of myself sorely tired and tempted, until the end of my days.” Maybe the first thing we notice in Something Wicked This Way Comes is Bradbury's splitting of those two halves of himself. Will Halloway, the "good" boy (well, both of them are good, but Will's friend Jim goes astray for awhile), is born on October 30, a minute before midnight. Jim Nightshade is born two minutes later . . . a minute past midnight on Halloween morning. Will is Apollonian, a creature of reason and plan, a believer (mostly) in the status quo and the norm.
Jim Nightshade, as his name implies, is the Dionysian half, a creature of emotion, something of a nihilist, hellbent for destruction, ready to spit in the devil's face just to see if the spittle will steam and sizzle running down the Dark Lord's cheek. When the lightning rod salesman comes to town at the beginning of Bradbury's fabulous tale ( "running just ahead of the storm") and tells the boys that lightning will strike Jim's house, Will has to persuade Jim to put the lightning rod up. Jim's initial reaction is "Why spoil the fun?” The symbolism of the times of birth is large, crude, and apparent; so is the symbolism of the lightning rod salesman, who arrives as a harbinger of bad times. Bradbury pulls it off nonetheless, mostly out of sheer fearlessness. He deals his archetypes large, like those bridge-sized cards.
In Bradbury's story an ancient carnival, marvelously named Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, arrives in Green Town, bringing misery and horror under the guise of pleasure and wonder. Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade-and later, Will's father, Charles, as well-wise up to exactly what this particular carnival is all about.
"Even writing this, I am touched again to remember with what a burst of joy and agony I found that my Dad was there, forever, forever for me anyway, locked on paper, kept in print, and beautiful to behold.
"I don't know what else to say. I loved every minutes of writing it. I took six months off between drafts. I never tire myself. I just let my subconscious throw up when it feels like it.
"I love the book best of all the things I have ever written. I will love it, and the people in it, Dad and Mr. Electrico, and Will and Jim, the two halves of myself sorely tired and tempted, until the end of my days.” Maybe the first thing we notice in Something Wicked This Way Comes is Bradbury's splitting of those two halves of himself. Will Halloway, the "good" boy (well, both of them are good, but Will's friend Jim goes astray for awhile), is born on October 30, a minute before midnight. Jim Nightshade is born two minutes later . . . a minute past midnight on Halloween morning. Will is Apollonian, a creature of reason and plan, a believer (mostly) in the status quo and the norm.
Jim Nightshade, as his name implies, is the Dionysian half, a creature of emotion, something of a nihilist, hellbent for destruction, ready to spit in the devil's face just to see if the spittle will steam and sizzle running down the Dark Lord's cheek. When the lightning rod salesman comes to town at the beginning of Bradbury's fabulous tale ( "running just ahead of the storm") and tells the boys that lightning will strike Jim's house, Will has to persuade Jim to put the lightning rod up. Jim's initial reaction is "Why spoil the fun?” The symbolism of the times of birth is large, crude, and apparent; so is the symbolism of the lightning rod salesman, who arrives as a harbinger of bad times. Bradbury pulls it off nonetheless, mostly out of sheer fearlessness. He deals his archetypes large, like those bridge-sized cards.
In Bradbury's story an ancient carnival, marvelously named Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, arrives in Green Town, bringing misery and horror under the guise of pleasure and wonder. Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade-and later, Will's father, Charles, as well-wise up to exactly what this particular carnival is all about.