The SFFaudio Podcast #889 – Travels With A Donkey In The Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (3 hours 51 minutes) read by Patrick Wallace for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion are Jesse and Maissa Bessada

Talked about on today’s show:
1879, blanked out on the Cévennes part, a CBC ideas, travel writing, a Mark Twain, couldn’t do the show, abandoned the book, sad sad story, travel literature, living in Egypt for two years, everything is different, letters home, describing what’s happening, bringing up baby, Bringing Up Baby (1938), exaggerate a little bit, Travels by Michael Crichton, private about a lot of the stuff, public about a lot of the stuff, travels with his sister, before he died, a bunch of things that happened to him, picked from earlier and later things, his parents, what income bracket they’re in, guessing, early stuff is all travel stuff, exotic locations, Spain, very good writer, extraordinarily thing to write down, scuba diving, the bends, not enough air, lucky to be alive, I had to resist that quite strongly, an incredible thing to say, in the desert, elide the relationship, some movie start, a spiritual retreat or something, not a super-spiritual guy, nobody understands, profound effects, hike Kilimanjaro, tall, weird, super-smart, a wealthy background, might have been CIA, lot of people’s dads were CIA it turns out, more like a memoir, not exactly travel, being in medical school, attitudes towards corpses, young horny guys who think they are able to cure all diseases, resisting that, The Terminal Man, writing on the side, instead of being a doctor, more of his stuff, that’s definitely true about him, travel incident, Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonia Express, Eric Idle, travel writing, A Year Off by H.P. Lovecraft, does this sound familiar, a grand tour, really?, a travel guy, so expensive to travel, it fits, the poetry of it, over the top, he’s so cheap, he’s a dreamer, the dream, an inheritance, a small budget, Let’s Go Europe, Let’s Go Central America, a cheap place to eat, you’ve got to if you can, travel broadens the mind, going everywhere, much cheaper: read about those places, we don’t always agree on everything, animal abuse, I’ve made Modestine my slave, it has to have been, he’s much softer that the average person, he felt guilty, he’s in love with her, he had the good manners to cry about it as he’s selling her, wait a minute, I’ll cry now, a new boss, locked herself out of the school, she had her bible group there, a rumor about Jesse, show a student something inappropriate, wallpaper, Mort Kuntsler painting, no nudity, a painting of a woman, offended a student years ago, Predator (1987), just 3 years older than me, go down the street to the bookstore and read the novelization, books don’t have literary restrictions on them the way games do, in this book there’s a scene where Robert Louis Stevenson after a cow, he calls them sluts, referring to Modestine, her faults are based on her race and sex, it’s hilarious, disparages women left right and center, a word for female women, [wench], other than a physical journey, a lot of religion, the least religious parts, going through time, donkey pilled, donkeys are cool, cat pilled, dog pilled, a she ass, a jenny would be the right word, jack and jenny, second in his estimation, even though the wife can read and the husband can’t, they’re inferior, second class citizens if even citizens, up and down stuff, catholic vs. protestant, non-christianness vs. christianness, geopolitical landscape, I’m a lame woman who can’t get out of bed, go next door, it’s like time travel, he’s alive while we’re reading the book, casual sexual partners, a woman with low standards of cleanliness, going into a monastery, not converting, very reasonable, finest set of wrinkles on her face, we won’t meet again because I’ll be dead, my man is completely ignorant of everything, these are all real encounters, shades of his interpretation, just 12 days, felt like months, the audiobook not in the original, it doesn’t fit the book very well, it is not the journey, and now the book is starting, reading with your eyes vs. reading with your ears, following characters, from moment to moment, a section that really caught me, some thoughts are the most beautiful things and then they vanish, wow I love that, so beautiful, “vanish”, more deeply, an atmosphere of pleasure, so disposed my spirit, in another country, in a different time, done me good, scan their features, a god travelling by our green highways, ope, the lighter about our business, I dined with a pair of Catholics, captivated by him, the one that everybody knows, Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde, a guy who’s one guy who’s two guys, transforms like The Hulk, all the superhero stories are derived from older stuff, nothing that isn’t, Silver Surfer, Galactus is god, Spider-Man, Superman is the most simple, he has no characteristics, he’s from space, his wife didn’t like it, he threw it in the fire, you could have fixed it, he wrote it again, the sparks of his wife, it was supposed to be a surprise, go in with no spoilers, The Sixth Sense (1999), oh he’s a ghost, not art films, fell asleep while watching the movie, the little boy’s saying: I see dead people, Bruce Willis and the kid, it’s dark, slow paced, a build up, the whole point of the movie, so heavily on the twist being the thing that makes it good, you know who the hulk is right away, the origin story is just to get to the thing, unassuming New Yorker, tension there, with great power comes great responsibility, they’re the same guy, that was the sensation of the book, doing something nobody had really done before, reading Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat, axes his wife and burns down the house, The Tell-Tale Heart, murders in the domestic sphere, it’s a parody, he’s making fun of something, a guy who drinks too much, out of perversity he kills his cat, the cat comes back the very next day, a curious colouration, who owns this cat, he kills the cat a second time, that’s the question: why does all this stuff happen, you drink too much, it’s about teetotalling, what is The Tell-Tale Heart about?, feeling so guilty, the narrator, he’s so upset about what he’s done, he’s hearing the heart under the floorboards, a powerful piece, we interpret him at the end, they can hear the sound of the beating heart under the floorboards, nervous very dreadfully nervous, the hidden thing inside of Poe, late last year, it’s about his adopted father, disowned him, John Allan, Poe and his older brother, orphaned, father disappeared, mother died, this one child, they broke up the kids, explains so much, of this famous actor pair, stage actors, adopted mother who loved him, was jealous of him?, win back their relationship, the richest guy, fucking around with Poe, Poe was a handful, a lot of stress, a great artist, I have to be forgiving, a professional writer, they traveled to Scotland when he was a child, early 19th century, wouldn’t fund his education, gambling debts, why the psychology is so awesome, he has massive passions, gave nothi9ng to Poe, his illegitimate children, enmity, some trauma, The Cask Of Amontillado, revenge for something never stated, people’s interpretation, all coming from the personal, hwy he’s going anywhere, an affair with a married woman, trying to walk it off, still living with his parents, get some life experience, Fanny Osborne, adopted the son, Jack London revered Robert Louis Stevenson, makes total sense, Jerry Of The Islands, Call Of The wild but in the South Pacific with a Terrier, boat life, Brother Of Jerry, a Pacific guy, Japan’s invasion of Korea, massive success, big career, very short, Wolf ranch, he buys a boat, many other science fiction stories, he goes to where RLS is buried, Tahiti/Samoa, traveling for his longs, a weak constitution, consumption, photos of him old, 44, brain hemorrhage, a lot of coughing, not good for ya, he wrote a ton, a few famous things, A Child’s Garden Of Verse, age 7, young man, wearing a fez, huge 20 hour biography, précis it, Requiem, by Robert A. Heinlein, the starry sky, poetry of them, almost the people were the problem, sleeping inside, outside with his stars, oh here’s the desk, we don’t use it, the horror of this book, causing so much strife, strife between people, an ultra-right wing, crazy woke leftist, not religious at least in clothing, 1 protestant region, a lot of governesses, their religions are compatible, peaceably together, exporting their people, the means of dividing people, the one paradigm, things are happening in the world, that guy is a demon, he’s just demonic, doing demonic things, if you literalize things too much it clouds your thinking, the way to escape this, alternative points of view, not hiding things from your kids, not allowed to DM any more, keeps kids out of trouble, creates love of vocabulary and reading, positive things, explore morality in ways that are safe, ruinous, never lie to them, tell the kids about stuff, etymology, pencil, pen, peninsula, a male body part, that’s the root of it, penne pasta, it is cool, whenever we’re talking about vocabulary, not bird or bark, metaphor roots, understand, misunderstand, not as things to memorize, a list of SAT words, not designed to last, inscribed, cut into written into, epitaph, euphemism, Phemie’s not a name, well spoken, a name from 6000 years ago, number one and number, I gotta go, misinterpret, the word piss pisses people off, the letter, the letter p has now become a word, caca, don’t mention the t word, the trump word, manupulae comprehension, banning words, banning speech, correcting people’s speech, without censorship, the word “nigger”, the offensive word, changed it, censorship is a kind of manipulation and control of people, a good person in a weird time, in the religion discussions, changing words for other words, that was beautiful, he’s insightful, I learned a lot about a dead donkey, her and her personality, she’as pretending it is too heavy, giver her a switch, times in the book where she’s running, approaching something, sharing his meals with her, not just master and slave, words in the book, horses react to spurs, that’s why spurs exist, give it the heel, the programming that you want to communicate, they enjoy running, if Will were here, girls love being chased more than boys love being chased, little girls, “chase me”, why?, boys want to hit each other with sticks, jungle gym, jumping over rivulets, not going to disagree, it’s built in, knows how to stand up, books allow us to communicate not just by modelling our parent’s but with the ancients through codexes, naughty girls, in the context of it, tripwires for people, how much has things changed, I have a goad!, a pinpricking stick, that’ll make it go, almost nobody rides horses anymore, a famous streamer shocking his dog, shock collar, it wasn’t, it’s not a shock collar!, to stay on the bed, part of the set, a very horrible person, those shock collars are legal, enough pressure, relatively unpowerful, animal abuse, shocking part, for training, prevent them from doing damage with their teeth, contemptible, dogs are tools, protection for our animals, comfort creatures, we are in a strange relationship with animals, 1878, definitely different, haven’t touched a real animal, Alex (Cirsova), the farm animal part of the zoo was the most popular, books about cows and pigs and chickens, that screen, a farm in the middle of Toronto, kids want to see these things, we live in light pollution, behind screens, screens and screens and screens, a donkey braying, go to the feed store and pet the cat, we need to and we don’t, most of them don’t have pets, most people didn’t have pets until the 20th century, menageries, a collection of pets, Poe in The Black Cat, monkey, birds, a cat, an attack on teetotalling, drinking is bad, the love of animals, central, cat moms, fur babies, a little overboard, oh yeah, Cévennes, not super far from Spain, what we know about the world, only partially correct, French wasn’t one language for a thousand years, small languages that came together, English has changed significantly in that same time frame, England invaded by the French, Norman French, right near Paris, the borderlands, North of Nice, more towards Andorra, a country between Spain and France, a valley, a little valley, kinda related, the first modern nation state, the borders of France as they are today, let’s get everybody on the same system, meterize gods, the god of justice, the French Revolution, a pretty simple language, a funny thing early on in the book, in the Scottish, answer a question with a question, a hippopotamus or a alligator, I just need to know where I’m going, the water your swimming in, the people of Quebec, still a colony, evolved somewhat, old France, not wholly frozen in time, a time capsule, a colony cut off from the empire, when they import French teachers to be their tutors, also twice removed, the Acadians, regular French, the accent’s going to be different, the culture, an effort to rationalize French, that French rationalization was much harsher, a fashion to add new words all the time, kids fighting against that, the official discipline of it is pretty strong, recreate his his journey, the prequel part, floundering, the kind of book you need to be with it, nice and short, more and more and more, I really like this book, went on a journey with it, probably should be excised, why some things should be excised, The Sinking Ship by Robert Louis Stevenson, Fables, half shaved, to the philosophic eye, she is settling fast, the expression is a strange one, time is only relative, in Davy Jones’ Locker, by parity of reasoning, the position of the ship, spoken like a good officer, the spirit room, there is nothing new in our position, he’s predicting his own death, struck by lightning, something inside you might burst, eating dinner, money in the savings bank, too far gone, or whatever it is, getting drunk since they came aboard, an old salt, good god cried the captain, as she were going down, nothing new in our position, a man’s handsome fashion, hope to be eternal, omit to take a pill, or doing anything at all, perfectly conclusive give me a cigar, a glorious detonation, really really really great, his parents get a doctor, might as well start digging his grave now, find a lady to like me, to lie under the stars with me, where did this person come from?, all of my eggs when I was born, she came into existence around the time of the big bang, I don’t think you take my meaning, the captain has a philosophic eye, his trainee, the wine dark sea, the new day is always rosy fingered dawn, a mental trick to fill time and remember what happens next, Homer is not the author, a beautiful morning, the next day, once upon a time, Brothers Grimm world, When tigers smoked, bad arguments, greeks not having the colour blue, a metaphor, the sea tosses you left and right and makes you a drunkard, when you drink too much you vomit, it’s all metaphor, the effect of drinking unmixed wine, drink wine at parties, put a lot of water in it, tipsy and fall over, snoring on the couch, the host’s duty, mix the wine at the right amount, fell out of fashion, drinking as a vice, a way to make your water purer, we can’t have nice things, when gin came into the UK, blasted drunk, small beer, reading something a little bit older, a lot wiser, bible study, you need read to more than one book, don’t just listen to the one guy’s interpretation, stories from the bronze age and a little later, stories about Spider-Man and Batman, a really good character, trouble in the world, Superman, good hearted, pay your taxes, circumspect, your relationship to the good, old books making think good thoughts, out of the horror of the current thing they want you to care about, a way of engaging, be honest all the time and damn the torpedoes, a man condemned to death, I’m still gonna be me, blowing up early, fits both ways, or do anything at all, convinced by the argument, everything is shaped by what you know, don’t know what cancer is, making really scary faces, smoking causes cancer, the propaganda was, the message little Jesse received, misinformed, skin cancer, what you put into the minds of little boys, looking at it for a long time, schizophrenic, in order to make him less schizophrenic, calmed it down?, afraid of it, a little shaky, gives us a little buzz, a little speedup, largely afraid of alcohol, mothers against drunk driving ads, be a control freak about things, addictive and expensive, if you mix your wine properly, heavy marijuana users, positive effects, chill me out, medical marijuana, stop vomiting, you can sue when they spike your shit, a grow house, filters on cigarettes, a half measure, tar in cigarettes, the disease was solved by having woodsmoke in your home, peanut allergies, exactly, celiac disease, gluten intolerance, glyphosate, why you can’t have any bread, the poison they put on it, our food is contaminated, if you go to Italy, genetically modified wheat, blame autism on Tylenol, when your baby is growing inside of you, folic acid, a good diet to begin with, how did people survive without all the supplements, sold a bill of goods, what happened to consumption, name a guy who isn’t Doc Holiday or Edgar Allan Poe’s wife, the diseases get less worse, at Christmas, with this last name, alcohol drinkers, smokers, 6 uncles, drinking was dangerous, smoking was a bad idea, sailors smoke, everything is explained by looking at the backstory, abstinence from alcohol, get rid of this scourge, husbands to beat wives, cheap alcohol is a tech, fix itself by giving it enough time, China was addicted to opium, a revolution against their occupiers, fentanyl, smaller, cheap spirits were the problem, from too much gin, alcohol poisoning, nobody’s going to be talking about it in 1000 years, maybe we’re talking about, teams and brave talk, our telepathy works fine, cursing you, had faith, chose right, in 2 weeks for a Dortmunder book, space brain, Misha Burnett, Killing Time, this book is great, reading it again, so easy to read Westlake, see the hands spreading apart, audio drama, aphantasia, do you think the way I think, in dreams, see when I’m dreaming, look at the blue ocean, there is a sea, an ocean, rosy fingered dawn is just breaking over the horizon, the sea is wine dark, what colour is the sea, imagine it, good at drawing?, draw a boat, a rowboat, a dinghy, a fantastic artist, another guess, no, do you see things in dreams, the same part of your head, you don’t have conscious access, pink, the colour of wine, the darkness, its deep, hiding its contents from you, why it is evocative, Pulpcovers recorded Rogues In The House, full of colour, a very angry gorilla, takes his cape, I am the master now, monkey see monkey do, a red caped monkey, why is it a red cape?, little red riding hood, all subject to metaphor, monkey men are men who act like monkeys, what’s the difference between us and an animal, a Simak recently, The Visitors, kinda like War Of The Worlds, the invasion of the Earth by slabs from 2001, obelisks, colonizing the planet, bales of cellulose, have a fantastic day.

Posted by Jesse Willis