In Progress: Danse Macabre

July 30 (page 18): There's over forty pages of prefatory material here, so I'm actually more into this book than it would seem. Stephen King has definitely gotten more snarky with age, if the criteria is a comparison of the 2010 introduction with the original. He has some pretty weird thoughts on what constitutes a good horror movie, though I generally agree with him on what constitutes a bad one. And your fun fact for the day: Dawn of the Dead was the movie that knocked Passion of the Christ out of the top spot at the box office!

July 31 (page 50): The first chapter is all about movies. King's got some interesting theories about what is scary and how the times impact the popularity of the horror genre. Also, I have this strange desire to watch garbage AIP movies now.

August 6 (page 102): I thought it would be nice to check in after each chapter, until I noticed a later chapter is about one-third of the entire book. I'm somewhere in the "autobiographical" chapter right now, which reminds me a lot of On Writing, but somewhat less lucid. The previous chapter was on the Big Three classics of horror: Frankenstein (definitely read), Dracula (might have read), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (definitely have not read). An interesting observation: for two of these, the author is really only known for that particular work. Good work, Mr. Stevenson.

August 17 (page 300): I'll do the mature thing and blame it on a final exam, but I let the updates slip. No worries. The two chapters on horror movies were fun because many of the films discussed were so ridiculously bad, yet getting a rather serious treatment. I then turned into the slog of a chapter about horror fiction. I feel like King is trying to distance himself from the authors he was getting lumped with at the time by name-checking Faulkner & Co. as often as possible. However, two of the books he reviews admirably are by Peter Straub and Anne Rivers Siddons, which are at a more even keel as his own work.

August 21 (page 403): The book is about done. This long penultimate chapter (150 pages) is getting wearisome and should probably be called "Ten of My Favorite Books in the Past 30 Years" of which probably not all will resonate with the reader. To King's credit, his list is pretty solid. Some are of no interest to me, but I do feel more than a little shame about neglecting Harlan Ellison, and not reading more Ray Bradbury. Also of interest is King's tripartite division of fiction into "literature", "mainstream", and "pulp" and he most certainly holds to the middle category, but is happy to show he is knowledgeable in all three.