JК
Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 72 из 359Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a masterpiece of concision-the verdict of Henry James, not myself. In that indispensable little handbook by Wilfred Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, the thirteenth rule for good composition reads simply: "Omit needless words." Along with Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Douglas Fairbairn's Shoot, Stevenson's economy-sized horror story could serve as a textbook example for young writers on how Strunk's Rule 13-the three most important words in all of the textbooks ever written on the technique of composition-is best applied. Characterizations are quick but precise; Stevenson's people are sketched but never caricatured. Mood is implied rather than belabored.
The narrative is as chopped and lowered as a kid's hot rod.
We'll leave where we picked this up, with the wonder and terror these three great monsters continue to create in the minds of readers. The most overlooked facet of each may be that each succeeds in overleaping reality and entering a world of total fantasy. But we are not left behind in this leap; we are brought along and allowed to view these archetypes of Werewolf, Vampire, and Thing not as figures of myth but as figures of near reality-which is to say, we are brought along for the ride of our lives. And this, at least, surpasses "good.” Man . . . that's great.
CHAPTER IV
An Annoying Autobiographical Pause
EARLY ON, I mentioned that trying to deal successfully with the phenomenon of terror and horror as a media/cultural event during the last thirty years would be impossible without a slice of autobiography. It seems to me that the time to make good on that threat has now arrived.
What a drag. But you're stuck with it, if only because I cannot divorce myself from a field in which I am mortally involved.
Readers who find themselves inclining toward some genre on a regular basis-western, private-eye stories, drawing-room mysteries, science fiction, or flat-out adventure yarns-seem rarely to feel the same desire to psychoanalyze their favorite writers' interests (and their own) as do the readers of horror fiction. Secretly or otherwise, there is the feeling that the taste for horror fiction is an abnormal one. I wrote a fairly long essay at the beginning of a book of mine ( Night Shift ), trying to analyze some of the reasons why people read horror fiction and why I write it.
The narrative is as chopped and lowered as a kid's hot rod.
We'll leave where we picked this up, with the wonder and terror these three great monsters continue to create in the minds of readers. The most overlooked facet of each may be that each succeeds in overleaping reality and entering a world of total fantasy. But we are not left behind in this leap; we are brought along and allowed to view these archetypes of Werewolf, Vampire, and Thing not as figures of myth but as figures of near reality-which is to say, we are brought along for the ride of our lives. And this, at least, surpasses "good.” Man . . . that's great.
CHAPTER IV
An Annoying Autobiographical Pause
EARLY ON, I mentioned that trying to deal successfully with the phenomenon of terror and horror as a media/cultural event during the last thirty years would be impossible without a slice of autobiography. It seems to me that the time to make good on that threat has now arrived.
What a drag. But you're stuck with it, if only because I cannot divorce myself from a field in which I am mortally involved.
Readers who find themselves inclining toward some genre on a regular basis-western, private-eye stories, drawing-room mysteries, science fiction, or flat-out adventure yarns-seem rarely to feel the same desire to psychoanalyze their favorite writers' interests (and their own) as do the readers of horror fiction. Secretly or otherwise, there is the feeling that the taste for horror fiction is an abnormal one. I wrote a fairly long essay at the beginning of a book of mine ( Night Shift ), trying to analyze some of the reasons why people read horror fiction and why I write it.