Stephen King is scared of a lot of stuff. Bats. Rats. Spiders. Death. Bambi. The corpse in the bathtub opening its eyes -- revealing nothing but bulging whites -- in the 1955 film Diabolique.
King said in his introduction to Night Shift:
"At night, when I go to bed, I still am at pains to be sure that my legs are under the blankets after the lights go out. I'm not a child anymore but... I don't like to sleep with one leg sticking out. Because if a cool hand ever reached out from under the bed and grasped my ankle, I might scream. Yes, I might scream to wake the dead."I think most people have a lot of fears. The cool thing about Stephen King is that he writes about them! Well, I haven't read a Stephen King book about Bambi yet, but most of his fears find a spot in his novels. King has the courage to explore his fears! We read him because he's willing to go there!
Aren't you scared to go down the cellar? So is little George, because we know monsters are down there.
King once said he had to rely on Tabby to chase bats that get loose from the attic. Seriously. . . who lives in a house with bats?
Pet Sematary was an exploration of death; and in particular, the agony of the death of a child. Stephenkingshop.com says,
According to King, Pet Sematary, a story about a man who brings his son back to life after he is killed by a speeding truck, was written after the same thing nearly happened to his own son. Likewise, King felt tremendous financial stress during the years prior to publishing Carrie, and The Shining was written as much about how financial and other stresses can tear apart a marriage as it was about a haunted hotel.King's fears intensify -- refine -- his ability to scare all of us. His fear of spiders crawls into Needful Things, IT, The Mist and The Dark Tower.
So what's your fear? King has probably got something to make you squirm!
- Are you scared of the dark? King will tell you to hold his hand, then lead you down a long journey through the Lincoln Tunnel -- lights out!
- Sacred of dogs? Oh, there's a book for you!
- Clowns? Aliens? Ghosts? The devil? Yep, King will give you the devil himself!
- Anyone scared of a Gypsy curse or demon possessed law enforcement?
- Scared of the hospital? The doctor?
- Anyone scared of Zombies? How about cell phones? And that's another thing, isn't it!? King sometimes takes a fear, and combines it with other fears. I didn't like my cellphone to begin with, now it might turn me into a zombie!
- You scared of vampires? King gives us a town full of vamps! Or, in Night Flier, a vampire with a plane.
- Does the haunted house around the corner scare you? Check out Salem's Lot!
- Do airplanes creep you out? The Langoliers is a lot of fun.
And let's talk rats for a moment. I don't even like little mice -- but rats are truly horrifying! I think the first exploration with rats came with Graveyard Shift. Trips down into the sub-sub-basement, only to discover ever growing rats. The journey is still scary! King gave us more rats in his recent novella 1922.
I like this quote from 1922, "The rat twisted and flopped. its tail first lashed my calf, then wrapped around it like a grass snake. Blood gushed from its mouth. Its black eyes bulged like marbles." That's nice, Mr. King.
According to stephenkingwiki, The Rat is one of the twelve Guardians of the Beams that hold up the Dark Tower.
My dislike of rats didn't come from Stephen King, it came from George Orwell. In his novel, 1984 -- which is scary in an "Under The Dome" sort of way -- the main character is scared of rats. So, to punish him, Big Brother puts a face mask on him connected to a pipe full of rats. The rats then attack his face! Oh, and this book is required reading in some schools.
Let's be real honest, gang: One reason we read Stephen King is because we like being scared! It's like a drug, though -- each time takes a higher dose.
Let's rap about the Sixties for a moment. There's a reason for this, and it has to do with 11/22/63.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not you're finished one thing to talk about without the risk of spoiler is why King wrote it at all. In Danse Macabre, King talks about how the mind reels if it believes senseless acts of violence happen for no reason in a universe that has no meaning. He also talks about the paranoia of the Sixties in regards to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I fundamentally believe that the downside of that era makes up part of what frightens King as much as anything, and people like Oswald sum up that decade's dark side in his mind. I'm also convinced it's where his drug and alcohol problems came from, along with Richard Bachman.
Now personally, I'm convinced the Sixties were an on the whole okay time, not without the bad as well as the good it's true, however I think the effort of most Americans during that time in fighting battles that needed to be fought (Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam) ultimately redeem whatever failings that decade had as a whole.
I also think that King was always aware and afraid of the decade's downside and knew how it could effect people and wanted nothing to do with it anymore. All this is by way of saying that's why I'm convinced it's the reason he believes Oswald guilty and why he made him the villain of the book.
Whatever proof might have to do with it (and I count myself a Warren Commission skeptic) I believe it has more to do with experience and the lessons learned and self-taught, a whole decade's worth.
Feel free to read over and make of it what you want, I'm not here to change minds. I'm just giving what i believe the reasons for the books existence, bear in mind he tried it first back in 73. Feel free to use what you want from this in your final 11/22/63 journal entry if you think you should, or don't, I'm not here to force things either. First however, be sure to reach the words that say THE END.
I have two massive fears: one of them is spiders. I get majorly creeped out just thinking about them. If there was a tarantula or some other large spider in the room with me, I would almost certainly freak out and/or have a panic attack.
ReplyDeleteThe second one is a bit more intellectual a fear: black holes. Why? Because they are effing TERRIFYING. Something so powerful that not even light can escape from it? That's really, really, REALLY bad news. As if they weren't bad enough just on their own, there's the notion that rogue black holes can roam the galaxy, sucking up everything in their path. Well, that's just GREAT.
Luckily for me, King has never truly written anything about spiders. "It" and "The Dark Tower" are exceptions, but those spiders are somewhat incidental. No, I mean that he hasn't written about spiders in the same way as he wrote about rats in "Graveyard Shift," or clowns in "It."
And thank God, he's never written about black holes, either.
As for the above comment from good old Anonymous, I'd have to say you're probably onto something there. I thought a few times while reading "11/22/63" of the story King tells about himself -- can't remember if this is in "Danse Macabre" or if it comes from somewhere else -- involving the notebook he kept about Charles Starkweather. It was an action we might associate with a mildly deranged personality, but King says that he did it so as to better understand Starkweather ... and that he wanted to better understand Starkweather so that when he saw someone like him in the street, he'd recognize them, and be able to avoid them.
King made several attempts during the first decade or so of his career to put Starkweather-like characters in his fiction: Curt Garrish in "Cain Rose Up," Bart Dawes in "Roadwork," Todd Bowden in "Apt Pupil" ... they're all extensions of that Starkweather notebook, in a way. And the version of Oswald in "11/22/63" is similar.
Personally, I tend to lean toward thinking conspiracies like the one which ostensibly resulted in Kennedy's assassination are few and far between. People are too fallible; somebody, somewhere along the line would have left indisputable evidence. And who knows, maybe it'll turn up someday. But I tend to think not: I tend to believe it was, indeed, one lunatic with a rifle and a chip on his shoulder.
But that's just me.
I always say, never trust a skinny cook or a sane writer. The best writers tend to be people who are trying to work out their issues, in my opinion. This is not to say that Stephen King isn't fundamentally sane, just that he has issues. As a caveat, this comment comes from a person who lives with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and OCD. In King I recognize a fellow OCD sufferer.
ReplyDeleteI love Stephen King. He is my top favorite among the modern horror authors. Plus he has the sense to realize that Twilight is shit. A smart man indeed!
By the way, love the Storm of the Century banner at the top of the blog. Colm Feore is an incredibly underrated actor.
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