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Fw: Stephen King & Nabokov
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EDNOTE. MAry Bellino, Associate Editor of NABOKOV STUDIES, responds to my
query "If you have THE NEW YORKER of June 30 at hand, take a look at Stephen
King's short story "Harvey's Dream". Does it remind you of something? Does
anyone have King's e-mail address?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (31
lines) ------------------
> Yes, I had the same thought -- that the Stephen King story
> "Harvey's Dream" (in the June 30th New Yorker) has some
> resemblance to VN's story "Signs and Symbols." Besides the
> more superficial similarities (main character suffering from
> a mental illness that may or may not give him clairvoyant
> powers, ringing phone at the end of the story) both stories
> have endings that may be said to be overdetermined, in that
> by the time you get to the end you feel that there is really
> no place else for the plot to go. In VN's case, of course,
> this was a deliberate strategy used to make a metafictional
> point by manipulating a reader who has learned to look for
> "signs and symbols" in a literary text. With King, though,
> it seems to me that in his New Yorker stories he's trying to
> show that the pulp-fiction horror genre can be elevated to
> the status of serious lit-rachure. Whether or not he's been
> successful at this is another question.
>
> I also wondered whether King had in mind the 1950 movie
> "Harvey," starring James Stewart (directed by Henry Koster,
> screenplay by Oscar Brodney from a 1944 play by Mary Chase;
> synopsis at
> http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Harvey-1009261/about.php).
> The film is sufficiently well-known that the King story
> brought it to my mind even though I've never actually seen it.
>
> And speaking of horror, an internet search turned up the
> news that "Harvey" is going to be remade, starring . . .
> John Travolta. No word on whether he's going to play the
> James Stewart character or the imaginary rabbit.
>
> Mary
query "If you have THE NEW YORKER of June 30 at hand, take a look at Stephen
King's short story "Harvey's Dream". Does it remind you of something? Does
anyone have King's e-mail address?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (31
lines) ------------------
> Yes, I had the same thought -- that the Stephen King story
> "Harvey's Dream" (in the June 30th New Yorker) has some
> resemblance to VN's story "Signs and Symbols." Besides the
> more superficial similarities (main character suffering from
> a mental illness that may or may not give him clairvoyant
> powers, ringing phone at the end of the story) both stories
> have endings that may be said to be overdetermined, in that
> by the time you get to the end you feel that there is really
> no place else for the plot to go. In VN's case, of course,
> this was a deliberate strategy used to make a metafictional
> point by manipulating a reader who has learned to look for
> "signs and symbols" in a literary text. With King, though,
> it seems to me that in his New Yorker stories he's trying to
> show that the pulp-fiction horror genre can be elevated to
> the status of serious lit-rachure. Whether or not he's been
> successful at this is another question.
>
> I also wondered whether King had in mind the 1950 movie
> "Harvey," starring James Stewart (directed by Henry Koster,
> screenplay by Oscar Brodney from a 1944 play by Mary Chase;
> synopsis at
> http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Harvey-1009261/about.php).
> The film is sufficiently well-known that the King story
> brought it to my mind even though I've never actually seen it.
>
> And speaking of horror, an internet search turned up the
> news that "Harvey" is going to be remade, starring . . .
> John Travolta. No word on whether he's going to play the
> James Stewart character or the imaginary rabbit.
>
> Mary