Dance of Death

One thing that is inevitable if I am going to post more book review-type items, is that I must reveal the truly terrible reading habits I have. Though I am a fairly prolific reader, much of the material I consume is not exactly of high literary value, or full of insightful wisdom. I won't go into all the details, but I employ an arcane and complex system of deciding which books to read, and in what order to read them. I have so much invested in this system that I feel I must continue down this path, even though it ultimately leads to madness, and on the way to madness, leads to me reading a lot of books that are frankly, a waste of time.

The above preface is going to be true for a lot of the books I will discuss in this space, but I now want to make an argument that it is not true for today's book. The book in question is Danse Macabre by Stephen King. King is an author that gets a lot of grief, unfairly in my opinion. Of course, he is enormously popular (I think probably the best selling author in the US, over the course of his career). You can buy his novels in supermarkets or in airport lounges. And almost everybody who reads recreationally has read something by him at some time. Even if I believed his books weren't very good, the fact that he gets people who are not normally readers to pick up a book would be plenty of defense by itself for King. Except that, in addition to that, I actually do think that King is pretty good.

King sometimes lacks discipline and has page count can soar well above what is strictly necessary. However, compared to other superstar authors, his books contain well-drawn characters and contain often exquisite wordplay. And as someone who is infatuated with the horror genre, his novels have the ability to give me goosebumps better than anyone else I've read. The Stand may well one day be regarded as a classic. Cujo is a model of lean efficiency without any resorting to supernatural events. And his stories excel in creating brightness and hidden horror of small towns; they burst with a blend of nostalgia and realism that I find winning.

But, to change directions again, Danse Macabre is a departure from any of King's other work. First, you will notice it is non-fiction. It is King's effort to evaluate the horror genre from 1950 to 1980 or so. He talks casually, but intelligently, about radio, television, films, and books. He talks about the archetypes of the genre, talks about how our fears are manifested in it, the roots of the horror story, and what some of his favorites are. It is not a book for the casual horror fan, since it delves at length into these topics, but I was enthralled. King has done his homework and produced a book that is essential for horror fans. The argument for how horror fiction can represent societal fears (be they political, cultural, economic, or something more primative yet) is of course not original to King, but he has layed it out more clearly than any other writer I've encountered.

The book is like an enjoyable, long talk with a knowledgable friend. Danse Macabre, the Dance of Death, has always occupied a place in human psyche. Here is a good primer for understanding the strange ways it has been expressed; here is a window into a part of ourselves we are afraid to see.