JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 352 из 359It's inthe eyes.
Not something that's there; something, rather, that has left.
Kids are bent. They think around corners. But starting at roughly age eight, when childhood's second great era begins, the kinks begin to straighten out, one by one. The boundaries of thought and vision begin to close down to a tunnel as we gear up to get along.
At last, unable to grapple to any profit with Never-Never Land anymore, we may settle for the minor-league version available at the local disco . . . or for a trip to Disney World one February or March.
The imagination is an eye, a marvelous third eye that floats free. As children, that eye sees with 20/20 clarity. As we grow older, its vision begins to dim . . . and one day the guy at the door lets you into the bar without asking to see any ID and that's it for you, Cholly; your hat is over the windmill. It's in your eyes. Something in your eyes. Check them out in the mirror and tell me if I'm wrong.
The job of the fantasy writer, or the horror writer, is to bust the walls of that tunnel vision wide for a little while; to provide a single powerful spectacle for that third eye. The job of the fantasy-horror writer is to make you, for a little while, a child again.
And the horror writer himself /herself? Someone else looks at that item about Little Miss Nobody (toldja we'd get back to her, and here she is, still unidentified, as mysterious as the Wolf Boy of Paris) and says, "Jeez, you never can tell, can you?" and goes on to something else. But the fantasist begins to play with it as a child would, speculating about children from other dimensions, about dopplegangers, about God knows what. It's a child's toy, something bright and shiny and strange. Let us pull a lever and see what it does, let us push it across the floor and see if it goes Rum-Rum-Rum or wacka-wacka-wacka . Let us turn it over and see if it will magically right itself again. In short, let us have our Fortian rains of frogs and people who have mysteriously burned to death while sitting at home in their easy chairs; let us have our vampires and our werewolves. Let us have Little Nobody, who perhaps slipped sideways through a crack in reality, only to be trampled to death in the rush from a burning circus tent.
And something of this is reflected in the eyes of those who write horror stories. Ray Bradbury has the dreamy eyes of a child. So, behind his thick glasses, does Jack Finney. The same look is in Lovecraft's eyes-they startle with their simple dark directness, especially in that narrow, pinched, and somehow eternal New England face.
Not something that's there; something, rather, that has left.
Kids are bent. They think around corners. But starting at roughly age eight, when childhood's second great era begins, the kinks begin to straighten out, one by one. The boundaries of thought and vision begin to close down to a tunnel as we gear up to get along.
At last, unable to grapple to any profit with Never-Never Land anymore, we may settle for the minor-league version available at the local disco . . . or for a trip to Disney World one February or March.
The imagination is an eye, a marvelous third eye that floats free. As children, that eye sees with 20/20 clarity. As we grow older, its vision begins to dim . . . and one day the guy at the door lets you into the bar without asking to see any ID and that's it for you, Cholly; your hat is over the windmill. It's in your eyes. Something in your eyes. Check them out in the mirror and tell me if I'm wrong.
The job of the fantasy writer, or the horror writer, is to bust the walls of that tunnel vision wide for a little while; to provide a single powerful spectacle for that third eye. The job of the fantasy-horror writer is to make you, for a little while, a child again.
And the horror writer himself /herself? Someone else looks at that item about Little Miss Nobody (toldja we'd get back to her, and here she is, still unidentified, as mysterious as the Wolf Boy of Paris) and says, "Jeez, you never can tell, can you?" and goes on to something else. But the fantasist begins to play with it as a child would, speculating about children from other dimensions, about dopplegangers, about God knows what. It's a child's toy, something bright and shiny and strange. Let us pull a lever and see what it does, let us push it across the floor and see if it goes Rum-Rum-Rum or wacka-wacka-wacka . Let us turn it over and see if it will magically right itself again. In short, let us have our Fortian rains of frogs and people who have mysteriously burned to death while sitting at home in their easy chairs; let us have our vampires and our werewolves. Let us have Little Nobody, who perhaps slipped sideways through a crack in reality, only to be trampled to death in the rush from a burning circus tent.
And something of this is reflected in the eyes of those who write horror stories. Ray Bradbury has the dreamy eyes of a child. So, behind his thick glasses, does Jack Finney. The same look is in Lovecraft's eyes-they startle with their simple dark directness, especially in that narrow, pinched, and somehow eternal New England face.