小説作法 [単行本]

   スティーヴン・キングの『On Writing』（邦題『小説作法』）は簡潔で切れのよい作品だ。愛と皮肉を込めた自伝と、向上心に燃える小説家へ贈る厳しくも愛情こもった教訓という、2冊の本を合わせたような構成である。

   回想部分は実に驚くべき内容で、無作法だった子どもが作家へと成長していく過程を克明に描いている。著者を苦しめたツタウルシ、おなら攻撃をしかけてくるベビーシッター、厳しい教師たち、ジャック・ロンドンの体験を上回る汚さの洗濯工場の仕事。これらを読むと、読者は若き日のキングのそばにいるような気分になる。このウソのようなとんでもない話は、キング作品を読み解く際の大きなヒントだ。そこにいるのは、かわいい声で人気のあったサンドラ・ディーンではなく『Attack of the Giant Leeches（邦題『吸血怪獣ヒルゴンの猛襲』）』のイヴェット・ヴィッカーズを気に入るような子どもだった。「すべての都市を食べてしまう怪物や、海から現れてサーファーを飲み込んでしまう放射性物体、頭が悪そうに見える黒いブラをつけた女の子たちが好きだった」

   しかし、こと読書に関しては、困難なことであるにもかかわらず、あらゆる文学作品を読みあさることへの欲望に渇いていた。キングは「I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber」を発表する。トレーラーハウスに住んで家族を養っていた若かりしころ、高校の女子更衣室の清掃員として働いた経験にヒントを得て物語を書きはじめたものの、原稿を丸めて捨ててしまうが、それを作家である妻がごみ箱から拾い出す。そして、主人公である少女の設定を見直してみてはどうかという妻の助言を得て、さらに若くして死んだ、いじめられていた2人のクラスメートのことを思い出から掘り起こして、『Carrie』（邦題『キャリー』）を産み落としたのである。

   キングは彼の人生と作品に関する意外な事実をいろいろ明かしている。『Misery』（邦題『ミザリー』）の誘拐犯、『Tommyknockers』（邦題『トミーノッカーズ』）の心を奪い去る怪物、『The Shinning』（邦題『シャイニング』の酔った小説家にとり憑く霊は、キング自身のコカインとアルコール中毒（彼によると、妻の援助おかげで克服したそうだ）の象徴だった。「もう1つ、あまり覚えていない『Cujo』（邦題『クージョ』）という小説もある」。ほかにも、大学時代のこと、命の危機にさらされたワゴン車衝突事故からの生還についても触れているが、話の焦点は常に、それらのできごとが作家としての職業にどのように結びついているかに置かれている。

   キングは、作家に必要な「道具一式」を読者に提供している。たとえば、読書リストや執筆課題、修正した作品、金銭上の基本的なアドバイス、プロットと登場人物、パラグラフの基本構造、文学上のモデルなど。また、H・P・ラヴクラフトの難解な表現技法、ヘミングウェイの引き締まった文体、事実に基いて仕事をするグリシャムの信憑性、リチャード・ドゥーリングの巧みなわいせつ表現、ジョナサン・ケラーマンの断片的な文から学べることがらを教えている。なぜ言語感覚の鈍い対話劇が『Hart's War』をだめにしているか、エルモア・レナードの『Be Cool』がなぜ癒しの作品となり得るかを、キングは解説している。キングは作家であるだけではなく、正真正銘の教師でもあるようだ。 --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

●　小説の書き方だけの本ではない！

物書きとは、孤独な仕事である。
私が育った環境や、貴重な文章修行の場について、
母、兄、学校、教師時代、貧しかったころ、
処女作『キャリー』が誕生するまで、良い編集者、良い文章とは…。
私が小説家として学んだすべてのことを伝えたいと思う。

●　私はどのようにして書くか？　　技法の紹介

*文書の極意について　　　　　　　　*ビート・リズム
　 *小説を書くうえでの大切な小道具　　*類比、直喩、暗喩の使い方
*語彙を使う時の鉄則　　　　　　　　*主題とは
*知識は材料でしかない　　　　　　　*退屈な文章にならないコツ
*会話の描き方　　　　　　　　　　　*原稿をどれだけ寝かせるか
*小説の三つの要素　　　　　　　　　*推敲のやり方

その生い立ち、ベストセラー作家として成功する秘訣、文章の極意、小説の大事な三つの要素等々、キング20年ぶりの書き下ろしノンフィクション。

世界的ベストセラー作家のスティーヴン・キングが、その生い立ち、ベストセラー作家として成功する秘訣、文章の極意、語彙を使う時の鉄則、小説の大事な三つの要素など、小説家として学んだすべてのことを伝える。

Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.

King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You are right there with the young author as he is tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing baby-sitters, uptight schoolmarms and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash". But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber". As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a caretaker cleaning a high-school girls' locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolised his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing".

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph and literary models. He shows what you can learn from HP Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Kellerman's Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote. King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo, Amazon.com --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

As his diehard fans know, King is a member of a writers-only rock 'n' roll band (Amy Tan is also a member), and this recording starts off with a sampling of their music. It may sound unsettling to some, but King quickly puts listeners at ease with his confident, candid and breezy tone. Here, King tells the story of his childhood and early influences, describes his development as a writer, offers extensive advice on technique (read: write tight and no bullshit) and finally recounts his well-known experience of being hit by a drunk driver while walking on a country road in 1999 and the role that his work has played in his rehabilitation. While some of his guidance is not exactly revolutionary (he recommends The Elements of Style as a must-have reference), other revelations that vindicate authors of popular fiction, like himself, as writers, such as his preference for stressing character and situation over plot, are engrossing. He also offers plenty of commonsense advice on how to organize a workspace and structure one's day. While King's comical childhood anecdotes and sober reflections on his accident may be appreciated while driving to work or burning calories on a treadmill, the book's main exercise does not work as well in the audio format. King's strongest recommendation, after all, is that writers must be readers, and despite his adept performance, aspiring authors might find that they would absorb more by picking up the book. Based on the Scribner hardcover (Forecasts, July 31, 2000).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

"If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write."

In 1999, Stephen King began to write about his craft -- and his life. By midyear, a widely reported accident jeopardized the survival of both. And in his months of recovery, the link between writing and living became more crucial than ever.

Rarely has a book on writing been so clear, so useful, and so revealing. On Writing begins with a mesmerizing account of King's childhood and his uncannily early focus on writing to tell a story. A series of vivid memories from adolescence, college, and the struggling years that led up to his first novel, Carrie, will afford readers a fresh and often very funny perspective on the formation of a writer. King next turns to the basic tools of his trade -- how to sharpen and multiply them through use, and how the writer must always have them close at hand. He takes the reader through crucial aspects of the writer's art and life, offering practical and inspiring advice on everything from plot and character development to work habits and rejection.

Serialized in the New Yorker to vivid acclaim, On Writing culminates with a profoundly moving account of how King's overwhelming need to write spurred him toward recovery, and brought him back to his life.

Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower -- and entertain -- everyone who reads it.
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

キングといえば、ホラー系娯楽作家。しかし、この本はその認識を180度覆すことになるだろう。“文章とは血の滲むような一語一語の積み重ねである”とキングは言う。どのようにして書くのか。どうしたらベストセラー小説が書けるのか。作家としての姿勢から、文章を書くうえで必要となる重要な要素がすべてつめ込まれている。作家、翻訳家、編集者のみならず、何かを作り出すことに携わるすべての人々に読んでほしい一冊だ。

Stephen King is the author of more than thirty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Bag of Bones, and The Green Mile. On Writing is his first book of nonfiction since Danse Macabre, published in 1981. He served as a judge for Prize Stories: The Best of 1999, The O. Henry Awards. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
--このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

キング,スティーヴン
1947年アメリカ合衆国メイン州ポートランド生まれ。デビュー作『キャリー』以来30年間、世界中の読者を魅了し続けているベストセラー作家。現在、小説家でもある妻、タビサ・キングとともにメイン州バンゴアに在住

池 央耿
1940年東京生まれ。翻訳家。’64年、国際基督教大学人文科学科卒(本データはこの書籍が刊行された当時に掲載されていたものです)