I should have been studying...
....I just finished reading 'The Shining'. I love Stephen king books. I like horror fiction in general, actually, books or movies. In movies I like the 'Sixth Sense' kind, not the 'Scream' kind. In this field too, as always I feel that the book is usually better than the movie.Granted, horror movies provide visual effects and sounds which a book can't give outright. But with a book, its not what's given to us, its what we invoke using our imagination and hence, all the more frightening. Don't believe me? Try it. Take up a horror novel. My advice is to start with a Stephen King, whose film you haven't already seen. I had first read 'The Shining' when I was fifteen. All I remembered of that adventure was a vague plot of the story and the fact that I had never read the book after nightfall. Suddenly I felt thre urge to read it again. I started yesterday evening, read through the night until a power cut stooped me at eleven, and picked it up again this morning. What surprised me is that I was scared this time, just like I was scared at 15. I didn't shy away from reading at night (I'm a big girl now, to resort to such childish non-actions), but when the power got cut off, I remember making my bed and climbing into it rather quickly than usual, as though I wanted to evade whatever monster was out there in the dark.
My love for scary books started when I was 14 with the Goosebumps series. In one year I was reading Stephen King. Quite a leap. I was watching scary movies and geting frightened out of my wits ever since I was a little girl. Once when I was seven (I think) I thought that the profile of my Dad sleeping looked like a dormant Frankenstein. I was terrified to tears by the older neighbouring girls about the elevator-using-ghost of the late actress Divya Bharati. When I started going to PU, I watched a slew of scary movies, some truly frightening and some lame duds. ('The Exorcist' is an example of the former, 'I know what you did last summer' is for the latter) I rememeber raving about the plot of 'The sixth sense' months after watching it.
All Stephen King books, whether good or bad, bring out the child in me. I was, for example, paralyzed with fear as I read the part where 5 year old Danny Torrance thinks that the fire hose is a snake blocking his path, even though I should know better. And after I finished the book, all the common sounds of an empty(except for me) house seemed new and disconcerting to me. And of course, there was the plot of the story, to add to the tension and suspense. Wouldn't you empathise with the plight of a son running from his own insane father, who wants to bludgeon him to death? 'The Shining', 'Cujo', 'Cell', all these books have similar plot concepts. The lonely mother and toddler son trapped inside a useless car in a deserted farmhouse, compeletely under the mercy of a huge, rabid dog. The small, brave army of strangers against a multitude of reptilian human zombies. The father-mother-son trio trapped in a haunted hotel. Themes which evoke the most fear are the ones which have the love/family element in them.
Enough of this delightful banter. I end this blah with two things:
1)I typed this post using MS dos! Yes! Its nice to know that one still remembers one's high school computer lessons. Oh, one must stop sounding so British!
2)I subscribe to A Word A Day. A few days ago the word of the day was 'divers'. Sure, its the plural form of diver. But did you also know that divers is another word for diverse? If you did, kudos for you.
Anyway, the following Sunday, yesterday actually, I received another mail, publishing the comments that the subscibers had sent about the words of that week. This was what one sent:
My love for scary books started when I was 14 with the Goosebumps series. In one year I was reading Stephen King. Quite a leap. I was watching scary movies and geting frightened out of my wits ever since I was a little girl. Once when I was seven (I think) I thought that the profile of my Dad sleeping looked like a dormant Frankenstein. I was terrified to tears by the older neighbouring girls about the elevator-using-ghost of the late actress Divya Bharati. When I started going to PU, I watched a slew of scary movies, some truly frightening and some lame duds. ('The Exorcist' is an example of the former, 'I know what you did last summer' is for the latter) I rememeber raving about the plot of 'The sixth sense' months after watching it.
All Stephen King books, whether good or bad, bring out the child in me. I was, for example, paralyzed with fear as I read the part where 5 year old Danny Torrance thinks that the fire hose is a snake blocking his path, even though I should know better. And after I finished the book, all the common sounds of an empty(except for me) house seemed new and disconcerting to me. And of course, there was the plot of the story, to add to the tension and suspense. Wouldn't you empathise with the plight of a son running from his own insane father, who wants to bludgeon him to death? 'The Shining', 'Cujo', 'Cell', all these books have similar plot concepts. The lonely mother and toddler son trapped inside a useless car in a deserted farmhouse, compeletely under the mercy of a huge, rabid dog. The small, brave army of strangers against a multitude of reptilian human zombies. The father-mother-son trio trapped in a haunted hotel. Themes which evoke the most fear are the ones which have the love/family element in them.
Enough of this delightful banter. I end this blah with two things:
1)I typed this post using MS dos! Yes! Its nice to know that one still remembers one's high school computer lessons. Oh, one must stop sounding so British!
2)I subscribe to A Word A Day. A few days ago the word of the day was 'divers'. Sure, its the plural form of diver. But did you also know that divers is another word for diverse? If you did, kudos for you.
Anyway, the following Sunday, yesterday actually, I received another mail, publishing the comments that the subscibers had sent about the words of that week. This was what one sent:
I remember being puzzled as a child in Sunday School by a Bible story which told of Jesus healing those with "divers diseases". Why did he only heal the divers, I wondered, and what kind of diseases did they have? Rashes from the water? Other sicknesses from germs in the water?(I don't think I knew about the bends in the 1930s). No one else seemed to find it strange, and I was too shy to ask. It was the KingJames version, of course (Mark, 1:34).
Amazing isn't it?
Amazing isn't it?
