JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 327 из 359The only horror we are spared is a vision of the Almighty in Adidas sneakers with a Head tennis racket over His shoulder and a golden coke-spoon around His neck. All of this comes next year, no doubt.
Before we leave the comparison entirely, let me point out that while Elkin's novel was heavily and for the most part favorably reviewed, Ellison's story, originally published in Penthouse (a magazine not regularly purchased by seekers after literary excellence), is almost unknown. Strange Wine itself is almost unknown, in fact. Most critics ignore fantasy fiction because they don't know what to do with it unless it is out-and-out allegory. "I do not choose to review fantasy," a sometime-critic for no less an organ that the New York Times Book Review once told me. "I have no interest in the hallucinations of the mad." It's always good to be in contact with such an open mind. It broadens one.
Margaret Thrushwood escapes hell through a fluke, and in his heroically overblown description of the auguries which foreshadow this supernatural belch, Ellison has an amusing whack at rewriting Act I of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar . Humor and horror are the original Chang and Eng of literature, and Ellison knows it. We laugh . . . but there is still that undercurrent of unease.
As the smoldering sun passed the celestial equator going north to south, numberless portents revealed themselves: a two-headed calf was born in Dorset near the little town of Blandford; wrecked ships rose from the depths of the Marianas Trench; everywhere, children's eyes grew old and very wise; over the Indian state of Maharashtra clouds assumed the shapes of warring armies; leprous moss quickly grew on the south side of Celtic megaliths and then died away in minutes; in Greece the pretty little gillyflowers began to bleed and the earth around their clusters gave off a putrescent smell; all sixteen of the ominous dirae designated by Julius Caesar in the first century B.C., including the spilling of salt and wine, stumbling, sneezing, and the creaking of chairs, made themselves apparent; the aurora australis appeared to the Maori; a horned horse was seen by Basques as it ran through the streets of Vizcaya. Numberless other auguries.
And the doorway to Hell opened.
The best thing about the passage quoted above is that we can feel Ellison taking off, pleased with the effect and balance of the language and the particulars described, pushing it, having fun with it. Among those who escape hell during the brief period that the door stands open are Jack the Ripper, Caligula, Charlotte Corday, Edward Teach ( "beard still bristling but with the ribbons therein charred and colorless . . . laughing hideously"), Burke and Hare, and George Armstrong Custer.
Before we leave the comparison entirely, let me point out that while Elkin's novel was heavily and for the most part favorably reviewed, Ellison's story, originally published in Penthouse (a magazine not regularly purchased by seekers after literary excellence), is almost unknown. Strange Wine itself is almost unknown, in fact. Most critics ignore fantasy fiction because they don't know what to do with it unless it is out-and-out allegory. "I do not choose to review fantasy," a sometime-critic for no less an organ that the New York Times Book Review once told me. "I have no interest in the hallucinations of the mad." It's always good to be in contact with such an open mind. It broadens one.
Margaret Thrushwood escapes hell through a fluke, and in his heroically overblown description of the auguries which foreshadow this supernatural belch, Ellison has an amusing whack at rewriting Act I of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar . Humor and horror are the original Chang and Eng of literature, and Ellison knows it. We laugh . . . but there is still that undercurrent of unease.
As the smoldering sun passed the celestial equator going north to south, numberless portents revealed themselves: a two-headed calf was born in Dorset near the little town of Blandford; wrecked ships rose from the depths of the Marianas Trench; everywhere, children's eyes grew old and very wise; over the Indian state of Maharashtra clouds assumed the shapes of warring armies; leprous moss quickly grew on the south side of Celtic megaliths and then died away in minutes; in Greece the pretty little gillyflowers began to bleed and the earth around their clusters gave off a putrescent smell; all sixteen of the ominous dirae designated by Julius Caesar in the first century B.C., including the spilling of salt and wine, stumbling, sneezing, and the creaking of chairs, made themselves apparent; the aurora australis appeared to the Maori; a horned horse was seen by Basques as it ran through the streets of Vizcaya. Numberless other auguries.
And the doorway to Hell opened.
The best thing about the passage quoted above is that we can feel Ellison taking off, pleased with the effect and balance of the language and the particulars described, pushing it, having fun with it. Among those who escape hell during the brief period that the door stands open are Jack the Ripper, Caligula, Charlotte Corday, Edward Teach ( "beard still bristling but with the ribbons therein charred and colorless . . . laughing hideously"), Burke and Hare, and George Armstrong Custer.