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Danse Macabre by Stephen King
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Danse Macabre

by Stephen King

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An interesting book about King's views of horror. I enjoyed the horror fiction section very much. His movie section was OK but as a non-movie person, it didn't appeal to me. ( )
cal8769 | Jul 5, 2009 |  
Stephen King's Danse Macabre by Stephen King (1997) ( )
krisiti | Jul 1, 2009 |  
Stephen King must have gotten tired of answering the question ‘Why do you write such horrible stuff (and why do we read it)?’

Danse Macabre is sort of a wildly expanded version of the introduction he wrote for his first short story collection: Night Shift. Here, he discusses his love for the horror genre and explains what he finds valuable about it. This leads him to a survey of horror in the source of novels, films, radio and comics from the 1950's through the '80's.

Reading through the book, it is pretty dated. If you're an oldster like me who can remember the seventies and eighties the book ought to give you a heady dose of nostalgia and maybe remind you of some books and movies that should be checked out again, or some books you wanted to read back then, but have forgotten about.

However, if you are younger and can't remember stuff like Dark Shadows then the book's examples could come off as too unfamiliar for enjoyment. He is mainly focused on the years 1950-80 (with detailed side trips to praise the three horror bedrocks Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) so depending on your age/interest in what the state of horror was at that time, your mileage may vary.

I enjoy the way the book was written, because even in his non-fiction he still has the gift for the gab and I enjoy his writing persona. Other LT reviewers that I respect didn't enjoy that so much, so maybe it depends on how much you like King's style.

You'll also get more horror book and movie recommendations than you can shake a stick at. He gives some interesting analyses of The House Next Door, The Haunting of Hill House, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Ghost Story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Doll Who Ate His Mother and The Incredible Shrinking Man.

This book also deserves credit for sparking my interest in Richard Matheson. King is fairly generous in recommending other horror writers and gives clear explanations of why he thinks the good ones are good.

I do wish he would do a companion book. Hey, in 2010 he could cover the 80's, '90's and '00's. That would give him another thirty year block. That would be cool. ( )
jseger9000 | Jun 14, 2009 | 2 vote
Pointers, pointers and more pointers to good sci-fi and horror books. On the other hand, many spoilers, but it is ok. ( )
hukes | May 2, 2009 | 1 vote
King's 1981 analysis of horror as both genre and emotion can also be seen as an autobiography and a critique of many films and literature of his chosen field. Fascinating insight into the thinking process of a working writer. ( )
avanta7 | Apr 24, 2009 | 2 vote
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People/Characters
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Awards and honors
Epigraph
Enter, Stranger, at your Riske: Here there be Tygers.
"What was the worst thing you've ever done?"
"I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing..." Peter Straub, Ghost Story
"Well we'll really have a party but we gotta post a guard outside..." Eddie Cochran, "Come On Everybody"
Dedication
It's easy enough--perhaps too easy--to memorialize the dead. This book is for six great writers of the macabre who are still alive. Robert Bloch, Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, Frank Belknap Long, Donald Wandrei, Manly Wade Wellman.
First words
For me, the terror--the real terror, as opposed to whatever demons and boogeys which might have been living in my own mind--began on an afternoon in October of 1957.
Quotations
Have you ever stood in a bookshop, glanced furtively around, and turned to the end of an Agatha Christie to see who did it, and how? Have you ever turned to the end of a horror novel to see if the hero made it out of the darkness and into the light? If you have ever done this, I have three simple words which I feel it is my duty to convey: SHAME ON YOU! It is low to mark your place in a book by folding down the corner of the page where you left off; TURNING TO THE END TO SEE HOW IT CAME OUT is even lower. If you have this habit, I urge you to break it...break it at once!
Being who I am, I cannot find it in my heart to wish you pleasant dreams.
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0425104338, Paperback)

In the fall of 1978 (between The Stand and The Dead Zone), Stephen King taught a course at the University of Maine on "Themes in Supernatural Literature." As he writes in the foreword to this book, he was nervous at the prospect of "spending a lot of time in front of a lot of people talking about a subject in which I had previously only felt my way instinctively, like a blind man." The course apparently went well, and as with most teaching experiences, it was as instructive, if not more so, to the teacher as it was to the students. Thanks to a suggestion from his former editor at Doubleday, King decided to write Danse Macabre as a personal record of the thoughts about horror that he developed and refined as a result of that course.

The outcome is an utterly charming book that reads as if King were sitting right there with you, shooting the breeze. He starts on October 4, 1957, when he was 10 years old, watching a Saturday matinee of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Just as the saucers were mounting their attack on "Our Nation's Capital," the movie was suddenly turned off. The manager of the theater walked out onto the stage and announced, "The Russians have put a space satellite into orbit around the earth. They call it ... Spootnik."

That's how the whole book goes: one simple, yet surprisingly pertinent, anecdote or observation after another. King covers the gamut of horror as he'd experienced it at that point in 1978 (a period of about 30 years): folk tales, literature, radio, good movies, junk movies, and the "glass teat". It's colorful, funny, and nostalgic--and also strikingly intelligent. --Fiona Webster

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400)

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