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A review by ojtheviking
Danse Macabre by Stephen King
3.5
As much as I love Stephen King's fiction novels, I do also enjoy his non-fiction efforts. Especially as Danse Macabre can perhaps be summed up thusly: The King of Horror takes an analytical look at all things horror.
Shortly summarized, he takes a close look at what makes horror work, why it's scary, and even why it might be necessary for the human psyche. And he reveals an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre and its history in the process. He also points out how horror and science fiction from one period to the next naturally mirror what's going on both in general society as well as the current political climate. I liked the way he divided different stories into specific archetypes such as The Vampire, The Werewolf, and The Thing With No Name (with the stories not always literally being about vampires or werewolves).
But what I loved most of all, is how this book feels like an extended version of some of the interviews I've seen of him, where he's just chatting away about topics he is passionate about. In the book, he invites you to dance with him, as a metaphor for traveling through the entire horror universe and exploring it. And it truly does feel like a dance - a verbal one, mind you - where he naturally takes the lead, and you just follow along and enjoy the ride.
I've read some other non-fiction books on horror before, and while some of them have also been interesting to read, they've usually stayed on topic, and as such, can come off as a bit dry. King's approach in this book feels as casual and natural as his fiction. He'll digress, reminisce, go on tangents, serve up the occasional smartass rebuttal aimed at critics either of his own work or of horror as a whole, and it feels less like an academic lecture and more like that guy who'll always grab the attention of people around him at a bar, telling tall tales and being both entertaining and charismatic.
Some things are of course a bit outdated by now, as this was originally published in 1980, but I'd still say that there are plenty of core elements in his analysis of the genre which still ring true to this day.
Thanks for the dance, King!
Shortly summarized, he takes a close look at what makes horror work, why it's scary, and even why it might be necessary for the human psyche. And he reveals an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre and its history in the process. He also points out how horror and science fiction from one period to the next naturally mirror what's going on both in general society as well as the current political climate. I liked the way he divided different stories into specific archetypes such as The Vampire, The Werewolf, and The Thing With No Name (with the stories not always literally being about vampires or werewolves).
But what I loved most of all, is how this book feels like an extended version of some of the interviews I've seen of him, where he's just chatting away about topics he is passionate about. In the book, he invites you to dance with him, as a metaphor for traveling through the entire horror universe and exploring it. And it truly does feel like a dance - a verbal one, mind you - where he naturally takes the lead, and you just follow along and enjoy the ride.
I've read some other non-fiction books on horror before, and while some of them have also been interesting to read, they've usually stayed on topic, and as such, can come off as a bit dry. King's approach in this book feels as casual and natural as his fiction. He'll digress, reminisce, go on tangents, serve up the occasional smartass rebuttal aimed at critics either of his own work or of horror as a whole, and it feels less like an academic lecture and more like that guy who'll always grab the attention of people around him at a bar, telling tall tales and being both entertaining and charismatic.
Some things are of course a bit outdated by now, as this was originally published in 1980, but I'd still say that there are plenty of core elements in his analysis of the genre which still ring true to this day.
Thanks for the dance, King!