Saturday, July 9th, 2011 12:29 am
the point is that i don't have to look to know for sure
Today I finally got around to getting the ebook version of Stephen King's Danse Macabre, which is one of my deserted island books in the top five at least (along with The Stand, which always makes me feel a little guilty to include, as it feels like cheating; it's a hundred novels rolled into one, and I'm not referring to its length when I say that).
I read horror novels (sometimes), but I cannot sit through most horror movies; it took me most of my childhood and half my adolescence to understand and internalize this, but even with the entire Watership Down horror that still haunts me, I still didn't get a fundamental fact about my processing abilities. My friends would have a few nightmares; I'd go into obsessive thought circles that ended in insomnia for weeks and flashback on it for years afterward (again, Watership fucking Down, source of many bad nights sleep). There have been exceptions; I don't regret them, per se, but I rarely have the internal funds to deal with the price after. Being a grown-up is a conscious choice I make and takes a lot of work; I do not see the point of exhausting myself more than I have to when I'm not terribly good at it as it is.
Danse Macabre was magic. It gave me all the horror, intricacies of plot and circumstance, without the, you know, ongoing breaks with reality where I'm utterly convinced--not imagined here, I mean, convinced like I know I'm sitting on the bed--that there is Something There and its' not even I'm worried that it'll kill me; I'm worried more the problems with proof. I'll get to that.
(It's eleven at night; boy, do I know how to time these things.)
( here be lions )
I read horror novels (sometimes), but I cannot sit through most horror movies; it took me most of my childhood and half my adolescence to understand and internalize this, but even with the entire Watership Down horror that still haunts me, I still didn't get a fundamental fact about my processing abilities. My friends would have a few nightmares; I'd go into obsessive thought circles that ended in insomnia for weeks and flashback on it for years afterward (again, Watership fucking Down, source of many bad nights sleep). There have been exceptions; I don't regret them, per se, but I rarely have the internal funds to deal with the price after. Being a grown-up is a conscious choice I make and takes a lot of work; I do not see the point of exhausting myself more than I have to when I'm not terribly good at it as it is.
Danse Macabre was magic. It gave me all the horror, intricacies of plot and circumstance, without the, you know, ongoing breaks with reality where I'm utterly convinced--not imagined here, I mean, convinced like I know I'm sitting on the bed--that there is Something There and its' not even I'm worried that it'll kill me; I'm worried more the problems with proof. I'll get to that.
(It's eleven at night; boy, do I know how to time these things.)
( here be lions )