Quick Poll:
What's your favorite Ray Bradbury for Halloween?
Buffy: You tossed that vamp like he was a... little teeny vamp. Riley: You wanna go again? C'mon. I bet this place is just teeming with aerodynamic vampires.
'Help'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
DavidS - Oct 30, 2008 10:01:07 am PDT #7857 of 28414
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Atropa - Oct 30, 2008 10:02:47 am PDT #7858 of 28414
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
What's your favorite Ray Bradbury for Halloween?
His short story "Homecoming". And Something Wicked This Way Comes, and From Dust Returned.
Frankenbuddha - Oct 30, 2008 10:04:57 am PDT #7859 of 28414
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"
I always had a soft spot for The Halloween Tree, but it's been ages since I read it.
DavidS - Oct 30, 2008 10:23:12 am PDT #7860 of 28414
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I'm reading Something Wicked This Way Comes on my commute and it's reminding me how evocative Bradbury's language is, but also how distinctive his style is. He takes some big chances with the figurative language, pulling odd but apt comparisons into his similes and metaphors. He also has a lot of storyteller phrasings, as if he's telling it to you aloud.
Jilli, remember when I did an LJ post at the proto-goth early sixties? I should've added this to the list. It came out in 1962. Same year as We Have Always Lived In the Castle, as well as the American release of Eyes Without a Face. The movie version of The Haunting came out in 1963.
There's a new book out about the golden age of publishing in America (roughly post-war to early eighties) with chapters on all the main publishing houses and their style and their editors.
They have a sidebar on the guy who single handedly created the Gothic Romance sub-genre. He basically asked his mother-in-law why she kept re-reading Rebecca. She said they don't write them like that anymore and he decided that people should write them like that some more. So he used Rebecca and Jane Eyre as his models, and he worked out all the cover tropes and they were a big hit through the early sixties.
Atropa - Oct 30, 2008 10:39:09 am PDT #7861 of 28414
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
Jilli, remember when I did an LJ post at the proto-goth early sixties? I should've added this to the list. It came out in 1962. Same year as We Have Always Lived In the Castle, as well as the American release of Eyes Without a Face. The movie version of The Haunting came out in 1963.
Oh, SWTWC totally belongs on a Goth influences list. I wish someone would do a really good audiobook version of it. (I know there is one, but the snippets I've heard from it don't impress me.)
They have a sidebar on the guy who single handedly created the Gothic Romance sub-genre. He basically asked his mother-in-law why she kept re-reading Rebecca. She said they don't write them like that anymore and he decided that people should write them like that some more. So he used Rebecca and Jane Eyre as his models, and he worked out all the cover tropes and they were a big hit through the early sixties.
That's so cool! I've been getting into Gothic Romances as brain candy fluff books.
hippocampus - Oct 30, 2008 10:41:31 am PDT #7862 of 28414
not your mom's socks.
screeches into thread: Yearlong Poe Celebration, 2009
also? one of the toll booth operators I passed the other day was reading a book - I asked which one (slow toll) and she said "Twilight!" So me: "twinkly vampires?" Her: Yes! Isn't it wonderful?
I don't think downshifting them from sparkly to twinkly is destructive, per se. But it can't help. And I'll do that all I can.
DavidS - Oct 30, 2008 10:46:30 am PDT #7863 of 28414
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
Anybody here familiar with the Boileau-Narcejac writing team?
They're the french writers who wrote Vertigo, the screenplay for Diabolique and the screenplay for Eyes Without a Face.
That's a pretty good resume.
lisah - Oct 30, 2008 10:48:31 am PDT #7864 of 28414
Punishingly Intricate
the screenplay for Eyes Without a Face.
oh, dang, now that frickin' Billy Idol song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
I've never read Something Wicked This Way Comes . I wonder if it would freak my shit out too much.
Frankenbuddha - Oct 30, 2008 10:49:43 am PDT #7865 of 28414
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"
I read a really bizarre novel of theirs called (in translation) Choice Cuts.
Strix - Nov 04, 2008 2:39:25 pm PST #7866 of 28414
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Heh. I texted my little sister ( a bookseller) and was all "The internet is crackier than normal! I can't walk away!"
She's all calm: "I'm ignoring it. A new Robb, Kenyob and Hamilton all dropped today."
Me (temporarily diverted): Gentry or Anita?
Sis: Gentry. She hasn't slept with anyone is 160 pages!
Me: Did she die? (Would that stop her?)