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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 5, 2010 14:21:12 GMT
The Emissary remains my favourite horror story. jamesdoig I think has hit the nail on the head. read as a young teenager Bradbury really expresses the magic of that age beautifully - the horror, the emotions. Reading him later on he has, to quote dem, a mawkish tendency. The Jar though is a beauty.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 5, 2010 14:41:29 GMT
I also realized that, while I think we tend to associate Bradbury with the fetishization of childhood, the smell of tennis shoes, and whatnot, he also has, perhaps paradoxically, a strong anti-children and anti-childhood streak in stories such as "The Playground," "Let's Play Poison," "The Small Assassin," and many others.
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Post by lemming13 on Sept 5, 2010 15:34:46 GMT
You know, I'm not sure Bradbury is anti-child; it does look that way (especially when listening to an old pulp radio dramatisation of Zero Hour), he is obviously a bit paranoid about kids, but I think he's got some kind of abuse issue going on. His child characters are usually anti-adult because the adults either ignore or inflict corporal punishment on them for showing any sign of independence or imagination. Wonder what his own childhood was like? Mawkish, though, definitely. To the point of nausea.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 5, 2010 17:48:50 GMT
How do people feel about Harlan Ellison®? To me he is like a drunk and angry Ray Bradbury. He has the same cloying sentimentality and greeting-card "poetic" style, but with an extra edge of bitterness and hysteria.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 5, 2010 18:44:44 GMT
Never much got into Ellison. Always seemed sensationalist and forgive me saying it here - unnecessarily violent
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 5, 2010 18:51:57 GMT
Again with Bradbury it could be a generational thing. I know as a kid I could understand his language and he spoke, with this tremendous prose, many things I felt. He gives childhood that aura of magic and horror which summed it up for me. I think in a strange way he is immensely realistic about childhood, hence the horror - remember that cupboard at the foot of the stairs or the strange patch on the ceiling, cemeteries, skulls? Bradbury could do it.
Adults were always extremely strange in childhood. Bradbury was very good at getting that over-lit absurd adult world from a child's perspective. And what about 'The Crowd': great story.
Perhaps what puts some people off is his Americanisms. I have to utterly disagree with a comparison to King except at a very basic level. I read a King novel lately 'The Stand' and unlike me just stopped at some point overwhelmed with tedium. The American viewpoint is obviously shared but Bradbury is essentially a poet and King a storyteller.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 5, 2010 19:31:52 GMT
Not much of one, though! My point was that King takes ideas suitable for short stories (and frequently ones that have been so used already by others) and turn them into 1,000-page epics. A case in point is THE DARK HALF, which is based on the same premise as L P Hartley's short story "W. S." I do not personally care much for that particular premise, but if I have to read about it I much prefer Hartley's economical treatment. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 5, 2010 20:56:55 GMT
Not much of one, though! My point was that King takes ideas suitable for short stories (and frequently ones that have been so used already by others) and turn them into 1,000-page epics. A case in point is THE DARK HALF, which is based on the same premise as L P Hartley's short story "W. S." I do not personally care much for that particular premise, but if I have to read about it I much prefer Hartley's economical treatment. I'm forced to agree. I couldn't finish The Stand and I barely managed to finish Nightshift, mostly because the stories were short enough to get through before I gave up. It's a style of writing that really just puts me off. But it does sell and I think it actually makes reasonable movies - watchable hockum. Having said all that I'd never rent a King video but if I'm stuck in a hotel I can watch it. I was really suggesting that Bradbury and King are not comparable in terms of writing ability. |
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Post by killercrab on Sept 5, 2010 22:53:37 GMT
Salem's Lot , Carrie , Thinner , Pet Semetary are superb reads. Knocking King is no longer cool.  KC |
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Post by pulphack on Sept 6, 2010 6:48:41 GMT
Craig - the thing that always strikes me about Ellison is that he started with a wonderful style, then got a bit angry in the sixties and was told he was a rebel and iconoclast - and so has spent the next forty plus years thinking that spleen and throwing his toys out of the pram reinforces that reputation , forgetting sometimes along the way about the writing. When he's good he's very good, but he forgets too much as the years pass by...
Bradbury, on the other hand is like a poet - a folksy American one, more Whitman than Frost, but if you like that he's great, if you don't it verges on sentimental - like a painting by Rockwell, I suppose.
As for the drive-by shooting on King - how did he come into this? I can't stand long novels, but King keeps people turning pages and to do that you have to have a fairly prosaic style as it's about driving the reader on. Which he seems to do. And that's the exact opposite of Bradbury's aim. So to compare them is a bit mystifying.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 6, 2010 7:19:08 GMT
Salem's Lot , Carrie , Thinner , Pet Semetary are superb reads. Knocking King is no longer cool. KC I read Carrie and Salem's Lot years ago - not read Pet Seminary. I now get confused between the films and the books. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 6, 2010 7:35:17 GMT
Craig - the thing that always strikes me about Ellison is that he started with a wonderful style, then got a bit angry in the sixties and was told he was a rebel and iconoclast - and so has spent the next forty plus years thinking that spleen and throwing his toys out of the pram reinforces that reputation , forgetting sometimes along the way about the writing. When he's good he's very good, but he forgets too much as the years pass by... Bradbury, on the other hand is like a poet - a folksy American one, more Whitman than Frost, but if you like that he's great, if you don't it verges on sentimental - like a painting by Rockwell, I suppose. As for the drive-by shooting on King - how did he come into this? I can't stand long novels, but King keeps people turning pages and to do that you have to have a fairly prosaic style as it's about driving the reader on. Which he seems to do. And that's the exact opposite of Bradbury's aim. So to compare them is a bit mystifying. Blame Jojo Lapin X for suggesting a Steven King novel is a Bradbury short story. I have to say I haven't read enough by Ellison to be much of a judge. Who could forget a 'Boy and his Dog' but looking at the rest of his output I remember reading things and getting annoyed at him - especially for creating off-putting titles like 'The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World' which for me summarised the sort of over indulgent pretension you might get at a Warhol party. (only Warhol would be the least pretentious there) His editorialship of Dangerous Visions always made me think that if you swear a lot or write something gratuitously objectionable you get published although there were a few good stories mixed in. it could be argued Ellison has become a sort of angry old man or a rebel with a tired cause whatever it is. To be described as "possibly the most contentious person on Earth" means that you get on everyone's tits and are probably unreasonable and possibly uncaring; neither quality appeals to me personally. |
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Post by David A. Riley on Sept 6, 2010 9:15:07 GMT
Like Craig I've never read enouigh of Ellison to judge him as a writer. I think his attitude to so many things - his petulant anger in particular - has tended to put me off even trying him. That and a feeling that pretentiouslness never lurked far away from him.
As for Stephen King I used to like him a lot as a writer - and his early novels were brilliant in my view, especially Salem's Lot, Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, etc. Some of his later stuff, like Tommy Knockers and Dream Catcher were hard slogs to finish and in my view quite self indulgent. And some more recent ones, like Cell, I just had to give up on out of sheer boredom. However, saying that, his most recent Under the Dome, I found riveting, and I got the feeling he was back on form again. He may not be a poetic writer, like Bradbury, but when he's on form he keeps your attention and has the ability to create interesting and believable characters.
He can also be a brilliant writer of short stories and novelettes. I loved The Mist, for instance.
King has had a massive output and, by the way of things, not everything is going to be top notch. Overall, though, he has probably written more first rate stuff than any other writer in the horror genre, in total number of words if nothing else!
Bradbury I loved at one time, many years ago, but I don't know if I could even summon the energy to read him again now, though I might have a go once I've finished the Oliver Onions' collection from Wordsworth Books.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 6, 2010 9:42:21 GMT
I read Carrie and Salem's Lot years ago - not read Pet Seminary. Pet Seminary! Hurrah - caged nuns! If it hasn't been written it should be. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 6, 2010 9:56:47 GMT
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