The forenote to Danse Macabre may be short but it does have a few comments that deserve our parsing. First, I like how he used his Themes in  Supernatural Literature course at U of Maine to work through his ideas - that will be the class that I will be imagining I am a part of.

"No one is exactly sure of what they mean on any given subject until they have written their thoughts down; I similarly believe that we have very little understanding of what we have thought until we have submitted those thoughts to others who are at least as intelligent as ourselves."

This quote resonates with me because I'll often ramble on a topic but then find out I have very little to say when it is time to put in on paper. This blog so far has been an example of this; I will work through plenty of unrelated bits of ideas in my mind during the day but when it is time to write, those ideas have to make sense. Imagine having to work through those thoughts with an audience sitting in front of you; that must have been unnerving to say the least.

The forenote also is the first time he relays his anecdote about hanging out a bar in July 1978 watching the All-Star game with his friend and editor Bill Thompson and asking the bartender who takes advantage of the bar's A.M. alcohol special and the bartender responds with "College kids like you". It's interesting that he told this story again in On Writing in reference to his alcoholism as opposed to him just casually telling the story in Danse Macabre. Let's dive into some of the differences in the two tellings of the story,

Not that it matters but when he told the story in 1980 all drinks were fifty cents from 8-10 A.M. while in 2000 it now says that screwdrivers are $1.00. Interestingly in 2000 the story is given more detail so now we get more details about the bartender and the bar but King is consistent that the bar is Irish and it was at the 1978 All-Star Game. One thing that is very consistent about King back in the day was that he was very cavalier about alcohol. He would show up at book talk with a beer and in his non-fiction would just casually mention that he drank alot of beer. So the point of the story in 1980 was that his partner-in-crime Bill Thompson would just hang with King and shoot the shit. Whereas when tells the story in 2000 it is clearly to illustrate the alcoholic side of King.

Finally the forenote contains what I believe to be the first appearance of King's often-used line, which appears in many variations:

"If you like the book in question, thank Bill, who thought it up. If you don't blame the author, who screwed it up."

King usually uses this line to thank his researchers but here he uses it to thank Bill Thompson for asking King to write this book. I wonder exactly how many times he has used that line. Anyone know?

There isn't really anything in the Forenote to the Paperback Edition worth talking about so I will be jumping in to Chapter 1. I am going to begin by viewing the films The Day the Earth Stood Still and Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. I watched the former about 20 years ago but I've never seen the latter so this should be fun.

For next class:
Read Chapter 1
Watch The Day the Earth Stood Still
Watch Earth vs. The Flying Saucers

Introduction:

My goal with this blog is to treat Stephen King's 1981 non-fiction book Danse Macabre as my own personal Lit class. This is appropriate since King was teaching some literature and writing courses at the University of Maine at the time that he wrote this book. The point of the book was for King to make a definitive statement on the horror genre, which would be a lifelong task, King reasoned, if one starts at Grendel so instead King focused on the last 30 years of horror on the radio, televison, cinema and of course in books.

I will be using the 2010 trade paperback edition for this project, which I now consider to be the definitive edition of Danse Macabre. The first edition (published in 1981) contained a forenote asking for people to correct any mistakes that King made. Letters came and corrections were made which led to the paperback edition of 1983. The 1983 version has by far the best cover and was the definitive version until King added a new forenote in 2010 called What's Scary. This is more of a general overview of some good horror movies of the last decade or so. It is a fun read but should be at the end of the book and is honestly not of the same quality as the rest of the book, which shouldn't be surprising since it was originally published over two issues of Fangoria.

Full disclosure: I lied to you a moment ago, I am actually still just using my trusty 1983 paperback. I just downloaded the free sample of Danse Macabre from iBooks onto my iPad, which contains the complete What's Scary essay.

I have read all of King's books and stories and was an English major in college so I have done alot of reading over the years. Outside of King's books, though, I have actually read very little from the horror genre although I do have a passion for good horror movies. I am hoping that by taking Stephen King's Lit class I will learn alot more about the horror genre and gain a greater understanding of the works that influenced Stephen King. I will be looking for how the works he talks about in Danse Macabre may have turned up in his own stories and I also am just looking to become more well-read because college was a long time ago and it really burnt me out on "literature" so other than King I really haven't done a whole lot of reading over my adult years.

Just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from as a Stephen King fan, I tend to divide his career into six distinct stages.

Stage One: The 70s

Personal favorite: The Shining

Basically everything that King touched turned to gold in the seventies. This is my favorite stage of King's career, although in some ways his least interesting just because everything works so perfectly.

Stage Two: The 80s up through Misery 

Personal Favorite: IT

This part of his career is really interesting to me because it has some of my favorite books mixed in with some that I didn't dig. What's really interesting is that basically every book in this period has massive amounts of fans. I think this is due to Stage Two being the part of King's career when he was on top of the world. This is also the stage where King spread his wings and was trying everything he could to help his writing stay fresh. Check out all these wild departures from his 70s work:

First sliver of super long epic: The Gunslinger

Christmas card serial novel: The Plant

Heavily illustrated novella: Cycle of the Werewolf 

Non-Horror novella collection: Different Seasons

Co-write with another super famous horror author: The Talisman 

Screenplay from a movie he wrote: Silver Bullet

Comic Books: The Lawnmower Man Comic Book, X-Man charity comic book 

Write a screenplay directly for screen and create a graphic novel: Creepshow

Direct your own movie: Maximum Overdrive

Final Statement on the Horror Genre: Danse Macabre

Stage Three: Late 80s through 1994 (The Tommyknockers-Insomnia)

Personal Favorite: Dolores Claiborne

Stephen King has never been shy about his struggle with addiction and The Tommyknockers seems to be the book where it all caught up with him. I don't know King's life story super well but it looks like he took 1988 off to get clean and then slowly got his mojo back throughout this period. He kept writing and publishing but virtually every book from this period feels too long and too slow - even short books like Gerald's Game. Books like Insomnia have some amazing parts but it can be a real chore to make it all the way through.

Stage Four: 1995-2000 (The Green Mile-On Writing)

Personal Favorite: Hearts in Atlantis

I think that King went back to making writing interesting again via the serial novel (Green Mile) and the dual novels (Desperation & The Regulators) then his new contract with Scribner really helped him get going. Unfortunately this stage is cut short by the truck that almost killed him. This is my 2nd favorite stage of his career as I love virtually every book from this period.

Stage Five: 2001-2008 (Dreamcatcher-Duma Key)

Personal Favorite: Black House

Just like in Stage Three when he used writing to help himself recover from addiction; King dove right back into writing to help him heal but I think that once again it took some time to get his mojo back. This period actually feels a bit trippy probably from the pain and drugs from the accident seeping into his work. This isn't my favorite stage but it has some strong work in it and it obviously has many stories directly influenced by his near-death experience.

Stage Six: 2009-Present Day (Under the Dome-End of Watch)

Personal Favorite: Joyland

King really turned a corner in my opinion with the trifecta of Under The Dome/Full Dark, No Stars/11/22/1963. This stage really seems to have a heavy focus on reflecting over life and of course thinking about death and what will follow.

Assignment for next class: Forenote and Forenote to the Paperback Edition