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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
Este librote fue una montaña rusa de emociones. Es un libro que constituye parte de mi trabajo final de la universidad así que me he encariñado con él. Sin embargo, creo que independiente de mis sentimientos, es un libro extremadamente detallado acerca de King y su relación con la ficción de horror. No solo en su experiencia escribiendo horror, sino enfrentándose a este en sus diferentes presentaciones. Aborda principios básicos del horror de King como los puntos de presión fóbica hasta la importancia de la imaginación y la niñez.
Como les digo, es un libro bastante extenso del autonombrado escritor "verbo diarreico", pero si quieren pegar una ojeada en la mente de King está super recomendado. También les va a dar recomendaciones de libros, series y películas de horror que les durará al menos unos 2 años en ver y yo anoté mas de un par.
Me despido con una de mis citas favoritas e intencionalmente el fin del ensayo:
"Y creo que éste es, de verdad, el final. Gracias de nuevo por haber venido y que descansen. Pero, siendo quien soy y lo que soy, no me veo con ánimos de desearles felices sueños…"
Como les digo, es un libro bastante extenso del autonombrado escritor "verbo diarreico", pero si quieren pegar una ojeada en la mente de King está super recomendado. También les va a dar recomendaciones de libros, series y películas de horror que les durará al menos unos 2 años en ver y yo anoté mas de un par.
Me despido con una de mis citas favoritas e intencionalmente el fin del ensayo:
"Y creo que éste es, de verdad, el final. Gracias de nuevo por haber venido y que descansen. Pero, siendo quien soy y lo que soy, no me veo con ánimos de desearles felices sueños…"
informative
slow-paced
It was interesting to see Stephen King's view on different horror books and movie.
I hate horror: guts, blood and massacres, no thank you. And I discovered this book. And I thought: It must be more than that, you have prejudice, try Stephen King, try this essay, and then you'll see.
My, thank you Stephen King! I understand now the fascination horror brings to almost everybody. I discovered many things I didn't know, not just about horror, but also about SF and Fantasy. I wrote down horror books that might interest me - a great step!
It was sometimes hard for me to understand it all, as I really know nothing about horror, but I'm really glad I read this book!
My, thank you Stephen King! I understand now the fascination horror brings to almost everybody. I discovered many things I didn't know, not just about horror, but also about SF and Fantasy. I wrote down horror books that might interest me - a great step!
It was sometimes hard for me to understand it all, as I really know nothing about horror, but I'm really glad I read this book!
I first read this book more than 20 years ago, and wasn't very impressed with it. It was old even back then, so why read it again now?
I was moved to read it again because several months ago I blogged on [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]'s 70th birthday, and said that some of his monsters were convincing and others not (Stephen King is 70 | Khanya)). Brenton Dickieson commented that I had misunderstood some of the monsters. and so I re-read [b:It] to remind myself about the monster in it.
I wasn't altogether convinced. and so began reading a series of books about horror literature to see what they had to say abut monsters in particular, and we also discussed this a bit at our monthly literary coffee klatsch. And so I came back to this book.
What does [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg] have to say about monsters, his own and other people's?
In this book he deals mainly with the period 1950-1980, and nearly 40 years have passed. King himself has written many more stories featuring monsters since then, and so have a lot of other people. His own views may also have changed.
According to King there are three main types of monster in "horror" literature:
the Vampire
the Werewolf
the Thing without a Name
He uses three 19th century horror novels to typify these. The Vampire, of course, is [b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387151694s/17245.jpg|3165724]. The Werewolf is [b:Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde|8336663|Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde (Essential Classics)|Pauline Francis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418771388s/8336663.jpg|3257537] and the Thing without a Name is [b:Frankenstein|35031085|Frankenstein|Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498841231s/35031085.jpg|4836639].
But then there is the mother of them all, the Ghost Story, which was so common in the 19th century. If anything typifies the 19th-century ghost story it is [b:The Turn of the Screw|12948|The Turn of the Screw|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1443203592s/12948.jpg|990886] by [a:Henry James|159|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468309415p2/159.jpg].
King (1982:79) makes a further division:
I'm not sure that these systems of classification work all the time, or even most of the time. King himself went on to write stories that cut across both systems.
What is the nature of a monster anyway?
As King and others have noted, one kind of monster is a physically misshapen creature. In the period King writes of, such "monsters" often appeared in circus side-shows -- dwarfs, bearded ladies, people who were unusually short or tall, fat or thin. People paid to go and see them, and King sees this as one of the functions of the horror story. When we see people with unusual shapes, we can be thankful that we are "normal" and it gives us a measure of "normality".
But in fantasy literature generally monstrosity is a symbol of evil, of twisting the good out of shape. So Tolkien's orcs are misshapen, deliberately twisted by their master. Shelob is a monstrous spider, monstrous because of her size.
But while Frankenstein's monster indeed has no name, it is also, like the Vampire, a revenant, something returned from the dead. It is created by the free will of Victor Frankenstein, but develops a will of its own and so becomes, from a human point of view, an external evil.
And this happens in one of King's own later stories, [b:Pet Sematary|33124137|Pet Sematary|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480069533s/33124137.jpg|150017].
Warning, possible spoilers
In this book there is a mixture of external evil in the form of the Wendigo, the wild spirit of the untamed woods, and the grieving father who tries to get his son back from the dead, and does that of his own free will. So at one level there is the classic zombie story.
Zombies, like vampires, are revenants, corpses returned from the dead. The difference is that vampires return of their own free will, but zombies are reanimated by the will of the living. And that applies to the composite monster created by Frankenstein too. The "thing" in Pet Sematary has a name, the name of the son who dies, so it doesn't fit neatly into King's classification system.
Several chapters in the middle of [b:Danse Macabre|11563|Danse Macabre|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1309287093s/11563.jpg|1230142] suffered from its being so out of date. King described horror films and TV shows. I never saw most of the films, and during most of the period King deals with we didn't have TV in South Africa, so I had no chance of seeing them, but even in countries that did have TV, no one under 50 is likely to remember them.
The book has two appendexes, one with what King regards as the better films of the period 1950-1980, and one of the better books.
Some of the books and films he mentions, or fails to mention, are quite surprising, however.
The film Horror Express, made in 1972, was well within the period that King writes about, and yet I could find no mention of it in King's book. It even starred such classic horror actors as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
Among the books he mentions is [b:Watership Down|76620|Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)|Richard Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405136931s/76620.jpg|1357456] by [a:Richard Adams|7717|Richard Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1210188763p2/7717.jpg]. I never thought of that as a horror tale. But Adams did write at least one horror story -- [b:Girl in a Swing|1354214|The Girl in a Swing|Richard Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1271535705s/1354214.jpg|1343915]. But perhaps it was too late for King's period, though only just.
I've added a few things about monsters in my blog post which are not included here, because they go beyond just reviewing King's book.
I was moved to read it again because several months ago I blogged on [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg]'s 70th birthday, and said that some of his monsters were convincing and others not (Stephen King is 70 | Khanya)). Brenton Dickieson commented that I had misunderstood some of the monsters. and so I re-read [b:It] to remind myself about the monster in it.
I wasn't altogether convinced. and so began reading a series of books about horror literature to see what they had to say abut monsters in particular, and we also discussed this a bit at our monthly literary coffee klatsch. And so I came back to this book.
What does [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg] have to say about monsters, his own and other people's?
In this book he deals mainly with the period 1950-1980, and nearly 40 years have passed. King himself has written many more stories featuring monsters since then, and so have a lot of other people. His own views may also have changed.
According to King there are three main types of monster in "horror" literature:
the Vampire
the Werewolf
the Thing without a Name
He uses three 19th century horror novels to typify these. The Vampire, of course, is [b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387151694s/17245.jpg|3165724]. The Werewolf is [b:Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde|8336663|Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde (Essential Classics)|Pauline Francis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418771388s/8336663.jpg|3257537] and the Thing without a Name is [b:Frankenstein|35031085|Frankenstein|Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498841231s/35031085.jpg|4836639].
But then there is the mother of them all, the Ghost Story, which was so common in the 19th century. If anything typifies the 19th-century ghost story it is [b:The Turn of the Screw|12948|The Turn of the Screw|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1443203592s/12948.jpg|990886] by [a:Henry James|159|Henry James|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468309415p2/159.jpg].
King (1982:79) makes a further division:
All tales of horror can be divided into two groups: those in which the horror results from an act of free and conscious will -- a conscious decision to do evil -- and those in which the horror is predestinate, coming from outside like a stroke of lightning.
I'm not sure that these systems of classification work all the time, or even most of the time. King himself went on to write stories that cut across both systems.
What is the nature of a monster anyway?
As King and others have noted, one kind of monster is a physically misshapen creature. In the period King writes of, such "monsters" often appeared in circus side-shows -- dwarfs, bearded ladies, people who were unusually short or tall, fat or thin. People paid to go and see them, and King sees this as one of the functions of the horror story. When we see people with unusual shapes, we can be thankful that we are "normal" and it gives us a measure of "normality".
But in fantasy literature generally monstrosity is a symbol of evil, of twisting the good out of shape. So Tolkien's orcs are misshapen, deliberately twisted by their master. Shelob is a monstrous spider, monstrous because of her size.
But while Frankenstein's monster indeed has no name, it is also, like the Vampire, a revenant, something returned from the dead. It is created by the free will of Victor Frankenstein, but develops a will of its own and so becomes, from a human point of view, an external evil.
And this happens in one of King's own later stories, [b:Pet Sematary|33124137|Pet Sematary|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480069533s/33124137.jpg|150017].
Warning, possible spoilers
In this book there is a mixture of external evil in the form of the Wendigo, the wild spirit of the untamed woods, and the grieving father who tries to get his son back from the dead, and does that of his own free will. So at one level there is the classic zombie story.
Zombies, like vampires, are revenants, corpses returned from the dead. The difference is that vampires return of their own free will, but zombies are reanimated by the will of the living. And that applies to the composite monster created by Frankenstein too. The "thing" in Pet Sematary has a name, the name of the son who dies, so it doesn't fit neatly into King's classification system.
Several chapters in the middle of [b:Danse Macabre|11563|Danse Macabre|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1309287093s/11563.jpg|1230142] suffered from its being so out of date. King described horror films and TV shows. I never saw most of the films, and during most of the period King deals with we didn't have TV in South Africa, so I had no chance of seeing them, but even in countries that did have TV, no one under 50 is likely to remember them.
The book has two appendexes, one with what King regards as the better films of the period 1950-1980, and one of the better books.
Some of the books and films he mentions, or fails to mention, are quite surprising, however.
The film Horror Express, made in 1972, was well within the period that King writes about, and yet I could find no mention of it in King's book. It even starred such classic horror actors as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
Among the books he mentions is [b:Watership Down|76620|Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)|Richard Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405136931s/76620.jpg|1357456] by [a:Richard Adams|7717|Richard Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1210188763p2/7717.jpg]. I never thought of that as a horror tale. But Adams did write at least one horror story -- [b:Girl in a Swing|1354214|The Girl in a Swing|Richard Adams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1271535705s/1354214.jpg|1343915]. But perhaps it was too late for King's period, though only just.
I've added a few things about monsters in my blog post which are not included here, because they go beyond just reviewing King's book.
informative
reflective
Como disse num update de status, ler/ouvir isso aqui é como estar numa conversa unilateral com o King. E isso é maravilhoso.
Pude descobrir o que ele acha sobre as obras do gênero entre os anos 50 e 80 e agora estou morrendo de vontade de assistir e ler vários filmes e livros que ele recomendou e comentou ao longo dessa obra.
Tirei uma estrela porque acredito que a estrutura poderia ser um pouco mais bem dividida, afinal ele dá SPOILERS sobre várias obras que eu particularmente ainda quero ler, então seria legal ter cada obra como um tópico, sabe? Consegui pular certinho os trechos que não queria ouvir por causa de spoilers, mas no geral essa foi uma experiência MUITO bacana.
Pude descobrir o que ele acha sobre as obras do gênero entre os anos 50 e 80 e agora estou morrendo de vontade de assistir e ler vários filmes e livros que ele recomendou e comentou ao longo dessa obra.
Tirei uma estrela porque acredito que a estrutura poderia ser um pouco mais bem dividida, afinal ele dá SPOILERS sobre várias obras que eu particularmente ainda quero ler, então seria legal ter cada obra como um tópico, sabe? Consegui pular certinho os trechos que não queria ouvir por causa de spoilers, mas no geral essa foi uma experiência MUITO bacana.
Another Army Central Library find, I had no idea at the time that this was a nonfiction work. I've actually had to go back and reread this one a couple of times because of the references-- I get better at recognising them as more time passes entirely because I'm getting older and better able to 'get' said references.
In spite of that, the book is a great deal of fun especially the parts where Mr King reminisces about his childhood and family, musing about the impact of both on his ability to write.
After having read Mr King's other work on the mechanics of fiction (On Writing), rereading this one showed how far Mr King has come as both writer and teacher. Where Danse Macabre has moments of hesitancy, On Writing is confident. Taken together both books are two sides of the same coin-- you don't necessarily have to read one to enjoy the other but if you do, you're in for a treat.
Fav lines: Time is not a river, as Einstein theorized - it's a big fucking buffalo herd that runs us down and eventually mashes us into the ground, dead and bleeding, with a hearing aid plugged into one ear and a colostomy bag instead of a .44 clapped on one leg.
Recommended Music: Tool discography
In spite of that, the book is a great deal of fun especially the parts where Mr King reminisces about his childhood and family, musing about the impact of both on his ability to write.
After having read Mr King's other work on the mechanics of fiction (On Writing), rereading this one showed how far Mr King has come as both writer and teacher. Where Danse Macabre has moments of hesitancy, On Writing is confident. Taken together both books are two sides of the same coin-- you don't necessarily have to read one to enjoy the other but if you do, you're in for a treat.
Fav lines: Time is not a river, as Einstein theorized - it's a big fucking buffalo herd that runs us down and eventually mashes us into the ground, dead and bleeding, with a hearing aid plugged into one ear and a colostomy bag instead of a .44 clapped on one leg.
Recommended Music: Tool discography
This is one of the most effective studies on horror by one of the masters. Although King only covers thirty years of modern horror in the media (1950-1980), he still manages to cover a wide arc of large, Cold War-era horror medium to the quieter self-involved horror that peaked in the Seventies and Eighties. This is a fantastic read and a must for any horror fan.
It ha taken me THREE months to finish this book. I have tried my hardest to enjoy it, but it just wasn't meant to be.
It was definitely on the Top 10 of most boring books list.
Now I LOVE Stephen King work, I actually have every book he wrote in an actual hard cover at home on my shelf. I absolutely loved his other 2 books about writing that were a non fiction, but this one was just hrs to swallow.
Sitting here trying to think why, it hits me. This book was written in 1981...most of the movies and books he is speaking about are from 60's and 70's so other then the classics like The Exorcist or Amitiville Horror or Rosemary Baby I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
All the actors names he's mentioning I have never heard of.
This books simply did not engage me like it would engage someone who knew all this material before hand. There was nothing there to draw me in.
Obviously, I'm going to read the next King book on my list, without a doubt.
But a hint of caution to readers who have not been a part of 60's and 70's cinema releases, TV shows and book reading: you will fall asleep after 3 paragraphs...
Roman
It was definitely on the Top 10 of most boring books list.
Now I LOVE Stephen King work, I actually have every book he wrote in an actual hard cover at home on my shelf. I absolutely loved his other 2 books about writing that were a non fiction, but this one was just hrs to swallow.
Sitting here trying to think why, it hits me. This book was written in 1981...most of the movies and books he is speaking about are from 60's and 70's so other then the classics like The Exorcist or Amitiville Horror or Rosemary Baby I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
All the actors names he's mentioning I have never heard of.
This books simply did not engage me like it would engage someone who knew all this material before hand. There was nothing there to draw me in.
Obviously, I'm going to read the next King book on my list, without a doubt.
But a hint of caution to readers who have not been a part of 60's and 70's cinema releases, TV shows and book reading: you will fall asleep after 3 paragraphs...
Roman