182 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
182 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
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From Rhode Island: Birthplace of Mr. Potato-head... it's
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ASTRAL AVENUE
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**************************
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Number 1 November 1986 "Eff the ineffable!"
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JUDGEMENT IN ALL THINGS
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TOPICS OF PRESENT INTEREST
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Right Up to Date
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
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Astral Avenue is an actual Providence street located not far from our
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home. Short, tree-lined, unprepossessing, it and its inhabitants have never
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yet exhibited any overt trace of Kozmic Konsciousness. And yet... light
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fractures strangely there on a summer's day; mailmen have been seen to enter
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and SKIP SOME HOUSES; LOVECRAFT NEVER WALKED ON IT; and there are STRAY DOGS
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ROAMING FREE. We wonder....
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KING OF AMERICA
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"He thought he was the King of America/ Where they pour Coca Cola just like
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vintage wine/ Now I try hard not to become hysterical/ But I'm not sure if
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I am laughing or crying." -- Elvis Costello
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I do not wish to indict Stephen King's story in the October issue of
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OMNI ("The End of the Whole Mess") simply because it is a lame, boneheaded,
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implausible farrago of old ideas and cliches. After all, plenty of
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momentarily captivating SF had been written based on stale or improbable
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notions (A. E. Van V.: Q.E.D.). No, what I object to about King's story is
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that it is patently the work of a man who -- at this stage of his career,
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after however many best-selling words -- still cannot write with any degree
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of competence larger than that of an apprentice hack.
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I identify three major failings in King's writings, which I'll try to
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illustrate from this one story, where examples abound. The reader himself is
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invited to look for instances in King's novels.
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1). King has only one voice.
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By this, I do not mean that all his fiction is identifiable as
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emanating from the same man. That is hardly a flaw. No, I mean that no
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matter how a King story is narrated -- first person, as here, or omniscient
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third person -- no matter how many characters are involved (basically two
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here, casts of thousands elsewhere), EVERY DESCRIPTION, EVERY WORD OF
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DIALOGUE, IS FILTERED BLATANTLY THROUGH KING'S OWN SET OF QUIRKS. There is
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no differentiation of characters in a King story, there are no perceptions
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evident but his. King inhabits a one-man universe.
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"T.E.O.T.W.M." features two brothers: one ostensibly a bright, but
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normal writer; the other a "genius." Their speech, mannerisms, and actions
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are identical.
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WRITER: "Good shit, too."
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GENIUS: "...bullshit...bullshit."
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WRITER: "...some weird shit..."
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GENIUS: "Shit..."
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Is this some hidden commentary on the writer-narrator's lack of talent,
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or how he and his brother think alike? I doubt it. What it is, is Stephen
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King talking as he would aloud. (Compare this laughable portrait of a
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genius, by the way, to Greg Bear's superior work in BLOOD MUSIC, which has
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much the same theme as the King story.)
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Let's look at some more examples of how a King story is like being
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trapped in an empty room with the author himself.
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The narrator is born in 1980; his brother in '87. But if you think they
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exhibit consciousnesses formed by the events of the 'eighties and 'nineties,
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forget it. They talk just like King, exhibiting all his by-now familiar
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tics: roots or retro music (Chuck Berry, Youngbloods, George Jones);
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baseball stars from two or three decades in the story's past (Catfish Hunter,
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Ron Guidry); LSD; old TV shows (WILD KINGDOM, ANDY OF MAYBERRY); comics
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(Peanuts); toys (Paddington Bear, American Flyer wagon); celebrities (Rodney
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Dangerfield). The depressing list goes on.
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If King had really wanted to limn characters born in the 'eighties, he
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could have stuck with all these same interests, but just updated them. Teddy
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Ruxpin instead of Paddington, different rock stars, etc. But that would have
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been too much work. And it wouldn't have reflected King's own youth, his
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only imaginative source.
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2). King's figurative writing and his literal/descriptive writing fail
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to seduce or convince the reader, and frequently accomplish just the reverse.
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King employs the same metaphors over and over and over. Mostly they
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involve excretion or fearful sex. "Asshole," "pissing in their pants," "pass
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a mental kidney stone," "social diseases," "AIDS virus," "my back teeth are
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floating," "potty trained," "our dad farted so much," "I want whores to
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douche in it." And let us not forget the "shit" leitmotif.
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But I can't go on. After a while, it's like fill-in-the-blank: if you
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can think of a urogenital image, King'll use it. Perhaps this is some grand
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Yeatsian "Love has pitched its temples in the place of excrement" riff. Yeah,
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and maybe Billy Idol now houses the spirit of John Lennon. These aren't
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planned tropes, they're psychoanalytic free-association -- and they're simply
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embarrassing.
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As for his attempts at transcribing reality in a convincing manner, King
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fails because he only knows three tactics: a) make it "cute"; b) make it
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"gross" (a favorite King word, used in "T.E.O.T.W.M."); c) make it "hip."
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All three stratagems are miserable substitutes for simply observing
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reality and transcribing accurately. CUTE: "genny" for generator; "footy
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pajamas"; "Bow-Wow" for Howard. GROSS: "died raving and pissing"; "his
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body... impaling itself on a tree"; "some senile farmer got pissed at a pig
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and hit him with a shovel". HIP: "acid flashback"; "the goddamnedest
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popskull"; "a big bulldyke who smokes Odie Perodie cigars" (my fave).
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King seems to believe that by employing these three tactics he will
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create fiction that allows him to live up to his undeserved rep as a
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popculture maven, someone who has his finger on the pulse of America. To me,
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that describes William Burroughs and his work. Who King sounds like is
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Johnny Carson. The same mentality is evident: funny words like "Albanian"
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and "nostril hair" automatically rate a laff.
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3). King has no sense of pace, plotting, or climax.
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This is a familiar charge against the man, and I will not belabor it
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here. I only direct your attention to the ostensibly thrilling but draggy
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passage about the boy genius's glider, and the interminable "Flowers for
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Algernon" ending.
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And although King seems to realize his lack of brevity -- "Shit, I
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can't afford these digressions" -- he does nothing about it, perhaps
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realizing, rightly so, that he hasn't developed (and probably never will, at
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this point) the skills to shape his fiction consciously, and must rely on
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whatever tepid lava is vomited up.
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(Also note this Freudian slip: "Sometimes his syntax was garbled and
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his modifiers misplaced... such flaws... plague most writers all their
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lives.")
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King is the F. Marion Crawford of our day. His work is like
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pigeontracks in cement: arbitrary, but with a semblance of intention. But
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cement is just sand and water, and crumbles eventually.
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AVEDON ASKED HER TO POSE, BUT SHE ATE HIM
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A recent frontpage article in the Arts section of the Sunday NEW YORK
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TIMES mentioned a "life-size sculpture of the Sphinx." Is this one of New
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Journalism's fictional sources?
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"GER--? GER--? DOES IT MEAN 'PROTO'?"
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Has anyone else noticed that a prominent Soviet spokesman is named
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"Gerasimov"? Who knows Russian out there? Does "asimov" mean something, and
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is "ger" a prefix? What if "asimov" is the Russian word for some kinda slug
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or sumpin? We demand to know!
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GRAFFITO OF THE MONTH
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"Dyslexics of the world, untie!"
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FREEFLOATING INVECTIVE: PASS IT ON
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"The sheikh of my quarter is a creature of such horrible ugliness that
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I doubt not he was born from the coupling of a hyena and a pig. His approach
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is pestilential; for his mouth is no ordinary mouth, but rather a dirty anus
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like the hole of a privy; his fish-colored eyes pop sideways; his scabby lips
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are like a venereal sore and jet out spittle when he speaks; his ears are a
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sow's ears; his flabby painted cheeks are like an old ape's bottom; his teeth
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have fallen from his jaws from eating filth; his body is fretted with every
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foul disease of the earth; as for his anus -- well, he has not got one: for
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he has so long given himself to be a ditch for the tools of donkey-boys,
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nightmen, and sweepers, that his arsegut has rotted away and is now a cave
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stuffed with cotton swabs to prevent his tripes from falling out." -- 1001
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Nites, "The Tale of the Sweeper
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Wakened."
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ASTRAL AVENUE -- Paul Di Filippo
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2 Poplar Street
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Providence, RI 02906
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