And yet sometimes its difficult to recall the exact details.
A few might be able to recall the likes of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, or John Candy. Who do you associate most with those films? My guess is that most people today would have trouble recalling the comedians who starred in those pictures, or what made them, for a time, a series of household names. Let's take the streak of Blockbuster Comedies that appeared during the 1980s. Let's take one other example of what I mean, before moving on to the main subject. What I've found is that it's an often slippery slope, one in which even the greatest of artistic names can fall through the cracks of cultural awareness and literacy if you're not too careful. What it helps the critic to discover is the actual limits of pop-culture memory. What I find so interesting about both sets of replies is what it can tell us about what might be termed the artistic awareness of the viewers and readers of stories Though they might be inclined to discount the idea that a guy like that would ever bother with something like outer space, or the Horror genre for that matter.ĭidn't he write something to do with a magical land behind some sort of locked door, or whatever? There may be a few fuzzy childhood memories about reading, or having such a storybook told to you and your long-forgotten elementary school friends out loud when you were little, and that's about it as far as any grand awareness goes.
The second response belongs to those who might have at least some passing familiarity with the author mentioned above. A great majority of the audience might have no clue at all who or what I'm talking about. It might not sound like much, yet it can be sometimes be like hitting the jackpot for any professional critic dedicated to doing the job well.
My reasons for enjoying these occasional, left field curve balls is because of what the responses to them can tell me about the mindset of the audience as a whole. Lewis? Would you be even more incredulous if I told you it was set in outer space, of all places? These are the type of questions that can sometimes be fascinating. Would you believe me if I said I'd found a Horror story written by C.S.
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