JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 331 из 359There is also a succubus tale in Strange Wine , but in "Lonely Women Are the Vessels of Time," the succubus is more than a sexual vampire; she is an agent of moral forces, come to set things back in balance by stealing the self-confidence of a wretched man who likes to pick up lonely women in singles bars because they're easy lays. She exchanges her own loneliness for Mitch's potency and when the sexual encounter is done, she tells him: "Get up and get dressed and get out of here." The story cannot even be described as sociological, although it has a patina of sociology; it is a moral tale, pure and simple.
In "Emissary from Hamelin," a child piper returns on the booth anniversary of the abduction of the children from that medieval town and pipes finis for all of mankind. Here Ellison's basic idea, that progress is progressing in an immoral way, seems a bit shrill and tiresome, an unsurprising mating of the Twilight Zone moral stance with that of the Woodstock Nation (we can almost hear PA systems blaring, "And don't forget to pick up the garbage."). The child's explanation for his return is simple and direct: "We want everyone to stop what they are doing to make this a bad place, or we mill take this place away from you." But the words Ellison puts into his newspaperman-narrator's mouth to amplify the thought smacks a little bit too much of Woodsy Owl for me: "Stop paving over the green lands with plastic, stop fighting, stop killing friendship, have courage, don't lie, stop brutalizing each other . . ." These are Ellison's own thoughts, and fine thoughts they are, but I like my stories without billboards.
I suppose this sort of misstep-a story with a commercial embedded in its center-is the risk that all "fable fiction" runs. And perhaps the writer of short stories runs a higher risk of falling into the pit than the novelist (although when a novel falls into this pit, the results are even more awful; go down to your local library sometime, get a stack permit, and look up some of the reporter Tom Wicker's novels from the fifties and sixties-your hair will turn white). In most cases Ellison goes around the pit, jumps over it . . . or jumps right into it, on purpose, avoiding major injury either by his own talent, the grace of God, or a combination of the two.
Some of the stories in Strange Wine don't fit so comfortably into the fable category, and Ellison is perhaps at his best when he is simply goofing with the language, not playing whole songs but simply producing runs of melody and feeling. "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet" is such a story (except it is not really a story at all; it is a series of fragments, some narrative, some not, that reads more like beat poetry). It was written in the window of the Change of Hobbit bookstore in Los Angeles, under circumstances so confusing that Ellison's introduction to the piece does not even really do it justice.
In "Emissary from Hamelin," a child piper returns on the booth anniversary of the abduction of the children from that medieval town and pipes finis for all of mankind. Here Ellison's basic idea, that progress is progressing in an immoral way, seems a bit shrill and tiresome, an unsurprising mating of the Twilight Zone moral stance with that of the Woodstock Nation (we can almost hear PA systems blaring, "And don't forget to pick up the garbage."). The child's explanation for his return is simple and direct: "We want everyone to stop what they are doing to make this a bad place, or we mill take this place away from you." But the words Ellison puts into his newspaperman-narrator's mouth to amplify the thought smacks a little bit too much of Woodsy Owl for me: "Stop paving over the green lands with plastic, stop fighting, stop killing friendship, have courage, don't lie, stop brutalizing each other . . ." These are Ellison's own thoughts, and fine thoughts they are, but I like my stories without billboards.
I suppose this sort of misstep-a story with a commercial embedded in its center-is the risk that all "fable fiction" runs. And perhaps the writer of short stories runs a higher risk of falling into the pit than the novelist (although when a novel falls into this pit, the results are even more awful; go down to your local library sometime, get a stack permit, and look up some of the reporter Tom Wicker's novels from the fifties and sixties-your hair will turn white). In most cases Ellison goes around the pit, jumps over it . . . or jumps right into it, on purpose, avoiding major injury either by his own talent, the grace of God, or a combination of the two.
Some of the stories in Strange Wine don't fit so comfortably into the fable category, and Ellison is perhaps at his best when he is simply goofing with the language, not playing whole songs but simply producing runs of melody and feeling. "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet" is such a story (except it is not really a story at all; it is a series of fragments, some narrative, some not, that reads more like beat poetry). It was written in the window of the Change of Hobbit bookstore in Los Angeles, under circumstances so confusing that Ellison's introduction to the piece does not even really do it justice.