-“How long did it take you to compose ‘Hallelujah’?”
– “Several years… how long did it take you to compose the song ‘I and I’?”
– “About 15 minutes…”
This famous dialogue between Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylanin addition to being an anecdote about their mutual admiration, serves as an introduction to the new book by Stephen King. The anthology of unpublished stories is titled If you like darkness, in homage to Cohen’s song ‘You Want It Darker’. An elegant choice by the master of horror, inspired by a song about the proximity of death from the Canadian’s last album.
King has achieved something remarkable with his readers, whom he affectionately refers to as ‘dear constant reader’ in his forewords. Through his autobiographical essay While I write and his anthologies of stories, turns them into vivid and close protagonists. And here, the king, once again, bares himself and admits, like Leonard Cohen, that Some of these stories have taken a lot of time. Even years…
If you like the dark: why read Stephen King
In his latest collection of unpublished stories, If you like darknessStephen King returns with his insightful commentary, notes, and deep reflections on writing and the creative process.
From his first anthology of short stories to the recent If you like the darkKing has perfected a paratext (a term he would surely reject, as he explains in The bazaar of bad dreams: ‘what my sons Owen and Joe call ‘metafiction’ and I call appearing in one’s own story’) of notes that could constitute a separate book. Sometimes these notes are as rich as the stories themselves.
Sometimes their ideas are presented in the introduction, prologue, or notes. before or after each story, or even at the end as an epilogue, as in this collection. What continues to amaze about King (77 years old, 65 novels, 500 million copies sold worldwide), is his still fresh approach to creativity.
To the question “How do you spell it?” King already answered it in his classic, while I write: “word by word”. “Whether you’re writing a simple one-page note or an epic trilogy like The Lord of the rings, you always work word by word. The door of writing isolates you from the rest of the world, but it also confines you, concentrating on what you have at hand.”
Creative process, mystery and influences: from Goya to Shirley Jackson
In his new book, Stephen King guides us through a door in the form of an epilogue, acting as a portal between mainstream culture and—apologies for the concept—’high culture.’
Despite being one of the most read and popular authors in the world, with adaptations that no one is unaware of (Carrie, The Shining or Stand By Me), you can immerse yourself in the classic French literature of Victor Hugo or quote Francisco de Goya.
The story ‘Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream’ and its reference to Inspector Javert in The Miserables They share a creative process through the painting “The dream of reason produces monsters.” For him, these dreams and monsters are necessary components of sanity.
And quotes Shirley Jackson: “No living organism can exist healthily for a long time in conditions of absolute reality; Even larks and grasshoppers dream.”
“Am I curious about the process? Since it has played a big role in my life, of course I am. I’ve written about fiction writers and about the act of writing nonfiction, but I still don’t get it.”.
The tales of If you like darkness and a naked king
Imagination and influences know no limits. In the story “Rattlesnakes”, Stephen King presents us with a sequel to his famous novel Cujothis time with an old friend of the rabid Saint Bernard as the protagonist.
There is stories that emerged from his morning walks with his Welsh corgi, Mollysuch as “The Dreamers,” “Red Screen” and “Finn.” And he says that he sometimes sees words before writing them, as if they arrive “fully formed, waiting for the right trigger to declare itself.” Even in his mind, semicolons find their place.
In “The Fifth Step“the step-by-step self-help course becomes a psychopath’s excuse. The imagination, according to King, is hungry and needs to be fed.
However, even for a “constant writer” like him, Stephen King doubts himself. Does she get naked? Yes: “The execution has never (no, not once) been as splendid as the original concept. Even with my long novels like ItemI ended up feeling that a better writer would have done a better job.”
Two talented bastards: the mystery of talent
In “Two talented bastards” Laird Carmody, a very, very popular American writer (less reclusive than Thomas Pynchon and cult like JD Salinger), refuses to give interviews, What is the mystery and secret of your talent What led him and his childhood best friend, two ordinary boys from Maine, to become the greatest artists of their generation? What is he hiding?
Stephen King presents us with a kind of new fantasy version of Robert Johnson’s crossroads myth and pacts with the devil. Also, through the narrator, the reader can read Laird Carmody’s improved paragraphs before and after he gained “talent”, such as the crossed out, corrected and improved passages of While I write. If King does not make metafiction (“my children call it metafiction and I call it appearing oneself in the story,” as he says in one of the notes of The bazaar of bad dreams) looks quite similar to him.
It is one of the best stories in the collection and in the labored relationship between an elderly father and adult son, there are echoes of the extraordinary story “Batman and Robin have an altercation”.
More writing tips… and an antidote to reading megalomania
Those who have read the aforementioned while I write and the epilogue of this new collection, have a world of notes from the author of 11/22/63 to continue exploring.
In the preface to the collection The threshold of the night, King reflects on the drive to write and relates writers such as Poe and Lovecraft with Anne Sexton, Albert Camus and James Joyce, who have addressed topics such as sex, death and the symbolic unconscious. In Everything is eventualmany of his notes connect with his love of classic and noir cinema, from Orson Welles to actor Elisha Cook Jr.
However, it is in the collection The Bazaar of bad dreams where Stephen King comes closest to contemporary American literature. Between dedications and praises to John Irving, Elmore Leonard and Cormac McCarthyconfesses, in a very human way, that until 2009, when a newspaper asked him to write a review, he had never read Raymond Carver. A real antidote to reading megalomania.
“’A significant gap for a writer who came of age at about the same time as Carver,’ you might be thinking, my dear constant reader. And you would be right. The only thing I can claim in my defense is: ‘so many books, so little time’ (and yes, I do own the shirt).”
Danse macabre: Borges, chainsaw and the “republican monster”
Originally published in 1981, Macabre dance It is an essay by Stephen King on the history of horror as a genre in a broad sense: both in literature and in cinema. Discontinued almost twenty years ago, The book will be back in Argentine bookstores in October of this yearaccording to what Página/12 consulted with the distributor Grupal.
The book is dedicated to Robert Bloch, Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, Frank Felkna Plong, Donald Wandrei and Manly Wade Wellman.“six wonderful writers of the macabre who are still alive.”
Highlights include an analysis of the cult classic Freaksdirected by Tod Browning and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Besides, King explores social theory, horror, and bipartisanship in America. According to him, “Monstrosity fascinates us because it brings out the conservative Republican in all of us. We need and enjoy the concept of monstrosity, as it represents a reaffirmation of the order we long for as human beings.”
Almost at the end, King mentions Borges again and to recommend it “for readers looking for eccentric fantasy, with characters devoted to the worst and most venal of themselves, but also to the best, most courageous and sincere.”
