witches – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #701 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #701 – The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen; read by Mark Nelson

This unabridged reading of the story (7 hours 3 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
1907, semi-autobiographical novel, he kills himself at the end, the Lord Dunsany introduction from 1954, narrating audiobooks, a writer of note himself, surprisingly lucky in a way that Machen was not (not just being born a lord), Machen made his money as a journalist, editor, a job here and there, inheriting money from relatives, that allowed him to write, how else do you get the time to write, Lovecraft’s struggles, walking, The Silver Key, ancient Greeks and Romans, The Watcher By The Threshold, the veil, the secret world behind the veil, the colour of that world (is red), the furnace and the fire, light and colour and emotion, a very odd book, this book is a real trip, maybe Machen’s masterpiece, bigger in scope but also very intimate, take out all the parts about the struggle of writing, if condensed down, what makes it into a novel, bounced off this book, what is going on in this book, no clear plot at the start, not having anybody support that, Mark Nelson: fantastic, Mark Nelson has good taste and picks good stuff to narrate, Machen is a tough writer, he’s dense, floating on a river and sensations happen, Mrs. Gibbon and Annie were more important than we thought, the faun on the hill, by the end you understand, the first reading through, the focus is strange, Ambrose Bierce is perverse, Mark Twain, the least understandable way is the best way, this book has its own reading list, Dream-Land by Edgar Allan Poe, this is my guy, Poe and me are best buds, making gold out of letters on pages, even Lovecraft is easier, Lovecraft doesn’t throw us red herrings, a series of red herrings (the troubles of life), significant as a life trauma (not a plot point), incidents from Lucians life, The Cosy Room, a lot of rooms, he really knows place, exhausting your body walking and coming to a space, he can’t look at certain things in the room, the level distance from the harsh realities, I’m an alien, I’m much higher above looking down, a nice coping mechanism, boys torturing insects, they don’t feel pain anyways, the puppy torture scene, kids are like that, Out Of The Earth, bloodlust of children causing WWI, strange connections, put on the button that says “current thing”, Russians are evil now, very interesting but very difficult, get your trigger warning out, how disassociated Lucian is, I wanted to shake him, he didn’t do anything, talking about it, he has to be aloof from these things, so disconnected from what was happening around him, considering the rest of this story, he is the puppy, he feels, he is a victim, the owner of the puppy, she is the one who comforts him, the girl that becomes his religion, the puppy scene is incredible,

The leader saw the moment for his master-stroke. He slowly drew a piece of rope from his pocket.

“What do you say to that, mun? Now, Thomas Trevor! We’ll hang him over that there bough. Will that suit you, Bobby Williams?”

There was a great shriek of approval and delight. All was again bustle and animation. “I’ll tie it round his neck?” “Get out, mun, you don’t know how it be done.” “Is, I do, Charley.” “Now, let me, gwaes, now do let me.” “You be sure he won’t bite?” “He bain’t mad, be he?” “Suppose we were to tie up his mouth first?”

The puppy still fawned and curried favor, and wagged that sorry tail, and lay down crouching on one side on the ground, sad and sorry in his heart, but still with a little gleam of hope; for now and again he tried to play, and put up his face, praying with those fond, friendly eyes. And then at last his gambols and poor efforts for mercy ceased, and he lifted up his wretched voice in one long dismal whine of despair. But he licked the hand of the boy that tied the noose.

…

the core problem for all of us, we are the ones who inflict pain, monsters and boys, trying to be kind to everyone, in the city, that quality of generosity, the most beautiful, Annie, a servant girl, Master Lucian, when he meets her in the lane, reverse double leg cling, she caresses his head, the published book with stuff stolen from his book, once something is published, no one wants any of that, something we both do and something that we do to others, it’s amazing, here read my book, they cant see the garbage that they’ve written, they can only see , why would I bother that something isn’t published?, the worst baseball player ever, keep going johnny you can do it!, the cultural movement, late 90s, the rise of self-help, you can do anything, every person can be the best at something they are capable of being, liking to run, long legs and pain inside that can only be healed by having a gold medal around your neck, a horrible reality of the world, a coming of age story, realization of your own limitations is coming of age, a painful aspect, the pain of sexuality, the horniest boy ever, his fellow kids, him alone spinning up his own theories, lusting after almost ethereal objects, highly romantic sense of the world, working class people who don’t give a shit, let’s get trashed, the 12 year old and the 15 year old, going for long walks, idealizing women, under the surface, we don’t know him that well except where his actions bubble up against reality, there is feeling there, when he tries to share his book with people, do pretty flowers, some people are trying to help him, unwillingness to deviate, he’s gifted, he knows he’s gifted, a lot of alchemy symbolism, words are magical, the ability to provoke and control emotions, making people more subject to what they are, mostly used for evil, when he first sees that book with his stuff published in it, validated, apathetic, he’s proud of it, making it all about money, he needed the validation, a stage that a lot of authors get stuck in, the ideas are going to be stolen, Armageddon (1998) and Deep Impact (1998), you gotta sue, a Guy De Maupassant story was totally ripped-off, sold to weird tales, The Tortoise Shell Comb, An Apparition, a cavalry officer, comb my hair for me, if you were Guy De Maupassant, Banksy?, give your mom a book you wrote, a dishonesty of the known relationship, do the esoteric stuff not the commercial stuff, the anti-Edgar Rice Burroughs, kind of suceeds, it’s a victory?, a lot of Lovecraft in this character, the young writer, the particular personality type, unbending, committing to a vision, not compromising, he got that book, a funny line they always say about Lovecraft, so many beans, accentuates the victory, we can’t even read the fucking thing, and yet it’s a victory, who is it a victory for?, a victory for Lucian, overdosing on morphine, Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater, ladies of sorrow, horror movies, Suspiria (1977), a bestseller, How I Smoked Crack And Lived To Tell About It, that French guy who loved Poe, Les Fleurs Du Mal, Suspiria De Profundis, Charles Baudelaire, insight into his mind, an unreliable narrator?, he’s hiding something from us, he has the shakes, smoking a ton of tobacco, overdosed, an addict, emotionless, he probably doesn’t want to masturbate, doesn’t have the materials, burying thoughts in physical weariness, piercing his own body with burrs, a recognized mental illness symptom, cutting, hare shirts, impure thoughts, the fetish, unhealthy, complex organisms in a complex society, get a real job, follow my advice, very real, who’s to say they’re not right?, the middle road, Lucian chose complete dedication art, bending like a reed in the wind, no goals, getting you killed, going along with the current, part of the problem for individuals, living in a society with mass hysteria, why do we have to have that war on another continent, an alliance treaty with France and Russia, white chicken feathers, the current thing, almost a statement, Trevor Towers, Celephais?, sleepwalks off a cliff, a triumph but only from his point of view, capitalism’s threat: knuckle under or become homeless, peruse artistic endeavors, Machen survived where Lucian didn’t, another way he could have gone, this is what could have happened to me, idealistic, circumstances were slightly different, early 2000, Richard K. Morgan, conflict investment, Market Forces, caught up in Netflix deals, ultimately the opposite of the Stephen King/Lovecraft route, success can be something that can hurt you as well, The Bowmen, jotted off in five minutes, the Ghost of Kyiv, the Angel Of The Mons, attestations, Bryan Alexander, Colonel Tomb laughs at this from his grave, just has to be true stories, Vietnamese fighter pilot, Colonel Toon, WWII, Panfilov’s 28 Men (2016), War Thunder, how dare you say that, it’s important!, bullshit made of wholecloth, the rolling thunder of this truth being needed, if Machen had any kind of cultural impact, debunking it, it’s true that it would be good for morale, Rape Of Belgium, these brave Belgian boys, we need them to be hard done by, raped by the pre-Nazis, ginning up anger, encouraging recruitment, a fundamental lie at base, there’s a veil between reality and how we see reality, the veil is real, willful blinders, the noble lie, telling truths, from genuine situations, confabulating slightly, Philip K. Dick’s characters are autobiographical, Horselover Fat, A Scanner Darkly, putting himself on the list, sometimes we slip through, a very odd book, John Steinbeck, East Of Eden, magnum opus, frustrating and meandering, not page turners, ethereal feeling, the veil between reality, The White People, The Great God Pan, monologue about what is reality, investing the time and energy, it feels pretty long, Charles Dickens is very engaging, floating down a river, Machen loves his descriptions of nature, at the fort on the hill, descriptions of the trees and nature, crafted, did this actually happen to Machen as a boy?, ecstatic experience, on drugs, what makes you go back there, how small you are, connection, he tried it with a novel, alcohol, the invention of gin, counter-reaction, massive social impacts, China’s reaction to computer games, a three hour limit, internet games, solo game disconnected from the internet, single player games now require an internet connection, Civilization 2, Roblox, Minecraft, set in its period (late 19th century), love of literature and great texts, 18th century authors knew what was going on, Kublai Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats, knight vs. wight, Tolkien leftovers, because it’s archaic, a horny young man and an idealized woman, a femme fatale story, it destroys him, dissociates, his ideal woman, Annie as a person, as a part of his imagination, the Roman fort, being a Roman senator, the Roman temples of D.C., we are just as great (corrupt) as they were, a false reality, I’m wearing a business suit, folk horror, how women are depicted in folk horror, pagan motifs, witchcraft, blindsided, when Miss Gibbons died, a very fairy tale scene, he’s the wolf, Annie was a witch, unholy wedding, explicitly magical aspects, seduction, the magic is in the men, brain chemicals, the shapely waist, her skin, the Platonic ideal, in the air in the period, Mr. Skelmersdale In Fairyland by H.G. Wells, I’m ruined now, transformed him, it isn’t played for laughs, The New Accelerator, The Invisible Man, comic possibilities everywhere, bittersweet, a triumph as a tragedy, a silk purse of a sow’s ear, lemonade from lemons, the slippery idea of the ideal world or woman, when we read Lovecraft that’s the absent part, Edgar Allan Poe, the ideal woman is the dead woman, she can never be limited by reality (growing old, not being smart enough, fighting), the Baudelaire way, beautiful cruelty, life is cruel, damaged people managing their trauma (in ways other than alcohol), a moment later, joy and happiness, drunk on love, bronze hair, come for a walk with me, a statue, very Greek, his visions, there was death in the woman’s face, she had indeed, the brink of utter desolation, a sex scene too, the carpet matches the drapes, a very sexual novel for a guy who’s so chaste, he falls asleep on the hill, none of them are real and all of them are, is this kid mentally ill?, the end of Dagon, he’s seeing the thing he’s fearful of in himself and not recognizing it, a troubled kid, maybe it’s like he has down syndrome or he’s autistic, kindness, the world is retarded and not him, he’s so extreme in his uncompromisingness, expressed as greatness, isolation, pushes him to the brink, again he was astray in the mist, splendid as Rome, terrible as Babylon, the place of eternal gloom, ring within ring, circle within circle, high writing, the sanctuary of the infernal right, wresting, muscles that could throw down mountains, a flaring street, naphtha fires, pure poetry, dusky figures, a noise like a chant of the lost, orgy, bronze hair, a gulf of darkness, all symbolism, precious robes, the room!, a vapour of the grave, horrible caresses, the matted thicket, the desire rose up like a black smoke, amazing, she lures him, he forces himself upon her, she turns into a very bad trip, exaltation to pain and torture, the elm tree was riven, Lucian is a good name, the tumult and the shock came as a sudden murmur, he overdosed, is he chasing the dragon?, are all of these dreams on the hill?, his dependence on tobacco, a symbol for a later addiction, walking to get rid of his energy, thick black tobacco to cloud his mind, he chases her across a landscape that is not a city, a difficult triumph, no one else is wealthier for it, a vast silence overwhelmed him, Ex Oblivione, dissolving into the Realm of the Forms, a temporary escape from reincarnation, The Novel Of The White Powder, going to seed or dissolution, a continuous issue, Lovecraft was a teetotaler, the other way you can go, morphine?, The Green Meadow, ecstatic states, walking to exhaustion, a difficult topic, there’s truth everywhere in it, sloppy racism, the primitives being in touch with sensations and sense, barbarian hating civilization, Robert E. Howard, nine times, barbarians, pleasantly, prigs perfected, joyous manly young fellows, raped?, devious backstreets, the respectable inhabitants are barbarians, The Lost Club, a Weird Tales reprint, The Lost Room by Fitz James O’Brien, places that go missing, The Music Of Erich Zann, The Lost Street [by ], a strange experience, experiencing weirdness, N, a more definite divide between fantasy and reality, a magical world intruding upon London, The Wonderful Window by Lord Dunsany, does he go through it?, Golden Dragon City, Game Of Thrones, the only guy with HBO in 1902, Dunsany had it much easier, a crazy man confronts Dunsany in a restaurant, I just make them up you see, the story that is described is one Dunsany wrote, as extreme as Dunsany gets, not quite on the level of Guy de Maupassant, rigid principles, flowery words and a suit, a lifestyle that could so endanger them, is N unfinished?, a warning story, prurient interest in seeing how far one can descend, reality TV shows, I’m not that depraved, morbid curiosity, not edifying curiosity, The Cosy Room And Others, Hippocampus Press, The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft, nothing of Lovecraft is copyrighted, you don’t know how many letters he wrote where he put a poem in for a newborn baby’s birthday, so nested and so rich with vocabulary, a werewolf story, Psychopompos, exhausting a sonnet, more time invested in reading Clark Ashton Smith is a good thing, if this is Machen’s worst I want to read more, difficult, The Shining Pyramid, tiny details that fly by, The Unknown World, May 15 – June 15, 1895, Robert E. Howard wrote way more than H.P. Lovecraft did, the vastness of his other work, popular for his supernatural stories, Robert W. Chambers flips a switch, the opposite of what Lucian does, The Secret Glory, The Three Impostors, a fix-up, chasin a dragon out of the window, spent it all on insane asylums, The Horla, Maupassant rented a hot air balloon to promote a book, before airplanes, The Troop by Nick Cutter, trained up and fought a poet to promote his book, Uwe Boll, Ed Wood, completely talentless, maybe he just got past it, self-awareness is a stumbling block, Ed Wood (1994), found family, he has an eye and no talent, as innocent as a war veteran could be, a go getter, $5, Golan Globus Theatre podcast, the Tijuana Bible, historical records we need to have preserved, what Julian needed (was printed pornography), Conquering Goddess, it needs to be fully illustrated, BDSM, Robert E. Howard, nudy pulps before Playboy, the first Playboy with Marilyn Monroe, weird repression, Penthouse, happening but hidden away, human nature never changes, more evidence that this is how we have always been, embarrassing, left out in the woods, pre-WWII, this is somebody’s great grandma, challenged one of his critics to a boxing match, if he won the boxing match, you won the fight therefore, dueling, humour was our way of escaping bullies, laughter is disarming, intellectual overpowering, more than halfway through (life), a very thinly veiled autobiography, drawing on his own experience, a lot of philosophy, writerly philosophy, more about writing than it is about mysticism, why Maupassant wrote weird fiction, Maupassant’s career, A Piece Of String, A Ball Of Fat, a Star Trek episode [The Galileo Seven], hypocrisy, my servants are stealing from me, I am my servant, these terrible experiences he must relate, very healthily not on Twitter, No Man’s Land by John Buchan, Esteban Maroto, Australian youtube audiobook narrator, Steve Parker audiobooks, simple guy: likes audiobooks, iPads, Randall’s Round, you should always record, The Wind In The Portico, The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson, 23 temples, spread out the Buchan, doing the same authors but not back to back, The Horror Horn by E.F. Benson, a yeti story in Switzerland, The Inn by Guy De Maupassant, the horror of being alone, afraid of a lot of stuff, The Terror, Who Knows?, the little shop dwarf, his homunculus, “oh monsieur, all your furniture is gone”, this is alarming, the furniture is the faculties of his mind, all metaphorical, symbolist, a good discussion of a complex book.

The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #342 – The Tinder-Box by Hans Christian Andersen

Reading, Short And Deep #342

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Tinder-Box by Hans Christian Andersen

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Tinder-Box was first published in Fairy Tales Told For Children, 1835.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #674 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #674 – The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft – read by Steve Mann. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (8 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Trish E. Matson, and Jason Thompson

Talked about on today’s show:
The Tryout, November 1920, Weird Tales, Fantastic Novels, Hannes Bok, a girl or a young woman, cats looking very satisfied with themselves, 3 pages or 8 minutes, 88 shows mentioning The Cats Of Ulthar, most of them are not in English, the best introduction to Lovecraft, a lot of little things that work as an introduction, witches, wandering weirdos, foreigners, geographies, are the couple witches?, they’re witch-ish, ogres, frightening, can this be read subversively, sorry Trish, why is this such a popular story, the narrator is present, a murder mystery, The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft, popular to least popular, At The Mountains Of Madness, this fictional list, Old Bugs, The Wicked Clergy Man, a scultping contest, this story sucks, the sound of the bees, the beekeeper tells the narrator, who tells the story, we know, what do you remember?, the reason people don’t like that story is they don’t get it, telegraphed from the beginning, the wrath of Bast, super-simple, people love cats, has cats in the title, not that much racism in it, the mysterious dark foreigners are the good guys sort of, catskins nailed all over the wall, eating them?, a meanspirited old couple, what people in the town are saying, hiding the truth, we gotta burn these manuscripts, a push pull, the beetles, scarabs, Dreamlands, what of their spirits?, did the cats steal their souls?, sucking the baby’s breath, activating the cats, the circularity, who is the narrator?, purring before the fire, the last image of the story (in Jason’s adaptation), sexily vs. hungrily, the dog lies patiently until it starves to death, the cat will eat you, a village full of cats ate a couple, the heroes are the cats, the moral simplicity of an EC comic, questioning the validity of the human eating cats, all he did was jaywalk, The Terrible Old Man, home invade a pirate from 3 centuries ago, gypsies vs. travelers, the Roma people of Europe, India and Alexander the great, the India connection, where the word Egypt comes from Menes, pre-Egyptian, another possible source, the dark wanderers in Idle Days On The Yann by Lord Dunsany, turban wearing, such frightened and passive people, live in a hovel, they’re treated like witches, The Witch-Cult In Western Europe by Margaret Murray, Christians who believe in , a fairy tale, Diodorus Siculus heard it from some crocodile god priests, all the things that are being described, not only Bast, their quiet mien, the referent is missing, the mother of all these cats?, before and beyond human Earth history, definitely (kind of) in the Dreamlands, Polaris on its own, Meroe, Nubia, a lost port mentioned in the Bible, the connections come later, ex post facto in the Dreamlands, resurrect them?, every cat was back, dead or busy feasting, telling fortunes, investigate the cotter’s cottage, still extant cats, cats on a mission, dream like, dream logic, reason to be skeptical, the villagers are always getting it wrong, sacrificed, coyotes are a serious issue, real life experience, gossip, baseless, the villagers sicced this little boy and his magic on that couple and got even though they are innocent, gullible gods, tricking the gods, they show up in the sky, Scooby Doo, no Nancy Drew activities, the follow up to the Cats Of Ulthar, the gods fucked up, the fallibility of the divine, the Greek gods every day of the week, I want vengeance, a devotee, his parents are already dead, almost like a storm, the gods are obedient to those who are believe in them, vernacular tradition, non-institutionalized beliefs, passed on by spoken words, the common people know about it, the Esoteric Order Of Dagon has some metal plates they pass around, folktales before they get written down, the opening sentence, Skai, the Yann river, no man may kill a cat, the species is male?, who are we?, retconned around Kadath time, the past vs. a dream, if only the dream had been set not in ancient Greece, the fairytalishness, the realm of myth, long ago and far away as many fairy tales say, who the narrator is usually matters, the wagon leaving the town, a tour of Innsmouth, the burgers, why are you telling me all their names, look at the list of characters who show up, sustaining a mood, he’s trying to tell us about the purpose of this law is, why?, the burgers pass a law, it becomes a folk belief, mouths to feed, bag in the river, the story of Moses, this Egyptian quality, Egypt is the breadbasket for Rome, food is wealth, the mousers vs. the pets, eatin the rodents that will eat your grain, myth vs. propaganda, what a stan is, Lovecraft is a cat stan, not the dogs of Ulthar, what do dogs do, dogs bark, bears three days a week, there to protect to the property, hungry bears, many many odes to cats, cat love, propaganda for cats, a wish fulfillment story, that tiny black kitten, cat lives are worth more than human lives to Lovecraft, the roving folk, Egyptians in all but name, their magic, their magic show, Evan’s story about losing his cat, knowing how devious Lovecraft can be, The Rats In The Walls has a cat, Delapore eats another man, still defending them, a swarm of rats, the cat is the hero, you’re crazy man, “I, as a cat, will not support this cannibalism”, Jesse derailing, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, your house burned down because of a cat, The Raven, working on a psychological level, why does it take so long to get to the point, so obviously put together that way, an untrustworthy story, Evan is neutral, the townspeople are dumb, no police arresting people for killing cats, what scarabs were, we don’t know what scarabs are, amulets placed in the wrappings, tradable items, we don’t know why they’re there, Egyptology, Egytpomania, another Egypt-ism, eating of the dead, a cleansing of the evil of what they did, the cleansing mechanism, not a memorable story,

On a verdant slope of Mount Maenalus, in Arcadia, there stands an olive grove about the ruins of a villa. Close by is a tomb, once beautiful with the sublimest sculptures, but now fallen into as great decay as the house. At one end of that tomb, its curious roots displacing the time-stained blocks of Pentelic marble, grows an unnaturally large olive tree of oddly repellent shape; so like to some grotesque man, or death-distorted body of a man, that the country folk fear to pass it at night when the moon shines faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount Maenalus is a chosen haunt of dreaded Pan, whose queer companions are many, and simple swains believe that the tree must have some hideous kinship to these weird Panisci; but an old bee-keeper who lives in the neighboring cottage told me a different story.

a shared studio, the townspeople report, such good friends, the story of the fall,

However, the Syracusans obtained after a while a very splendid statue in Athens, and the Tegeans consoled themselves by erecting in the agora a marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues, and brotherly piety of Musides.

city vs. country, one is better than the other,

But the olive grove still stands, as does the tree growing out of the tomb of Kalos, and the old bee-keeper told me that sometimes the boughs whisper to one another in the night wind, saying over and over again. “Oida! Oida!—I know! I know!”

hiding the truth The White Ape The Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, to hide the truth, his grandma was a monkey, there’s sometimes a key, sometimes they are straightforward?, half more again as complex as this one?, The Street, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, The Whisperer In Darkness, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Lurking Fear, pay attention, beefy guys, he needs a lot of meat, The Strange High House In The Mist, a lot of weird stuff happens, not straightforward but simple, this outside frame, we’re not supposed to trust, picky about his own work, Philip K. Dick, a personal favourite, S.T. Joshi, walks in the forest, letters about cats, the College Street address, a gang of feral cats living on his roof, if Lord Dunsany the dog guy meets the cat guy, Dean Spanley, a great sense of humour, The Book of Wonder, a randy centaur, Bride Of The Man-Horse, its the getting there that’s fun part, how men should court women, how centaurs get their brides, a Dunsany imitation in terms of style, 7-10 minutes to read, ebullient detail, once per week, The Idler, filling pages for the idle rich, not the ideal Weird Tales story, a Clark Ashton Smith adaptation, The Dreamquest Of Unknown Kadath, a retconned cosmology, The White Ship and Celephais, a cats themed comic anthology, a comic twist at the end, these smiling cats, ambiguous intent, lest they kill us, who is this law for?, how the Ultharians feel about it, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, the most dreamlandsy one, chronologically, its before people, almost like he’s talking to Robert E. Howard in that one, the psychology is implicit, sometimes a story is just a story, readers in the 1920s, that level of morbidity is day to day for us, extra gross for 1920s readers?, Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe, too gross, Wastelands by W. Scott Poole, horror has its birth after WWI, the symbolists, The Troop by Nick Cutter, PG-13, this is not supposed to be a horror story, folktales and household tales, more than humans, add more magic to the story, drag out linger, so much detail, Sergio Aragonés, some guy with nemes on, a German beer stein, there’s beer, what they’re making with those crops, a pseudo Germanic look for Ulthar, the curls of an Egyptian, ankh everywhere, two gods, Ibis, the staff is an open mouth with teeth, Lovecraft foreshadows with a magic spell, repetition a symmetrical thing, all the animals are playing cutesy roles, a wellness check, a kind of horror, a mode, terrible youth trauma, return to the Dreamlands role playing game, their giant noses and their blank eyes and their implements, for the people are simple, four cats suckling, a sphinx, all ayres book of dallaire book of Greek and Norse myths, Echidna the mother of monsters, weird slug woman, the baby hydra and the baby sphinx, exiled to a cave, Cerberus is a they, tentacles, gimme milk gimme milk, added blood, you have to love them anyways, licking their genitals, motherhood is difficult for humans!, firm but gentle, the cats of Saturn, a gamification thing, Jason’s drawing game, Mangacon Cartooner, like Pictionary but producing comics, get the most fame points possible, you have to sell out to whatever trend, so meta, Evan made a huge mistake, fan service, obsession cards, giant sword, three point landing, gamifying his own letters, worldbuilding, the Lovecraft industry is a huge industry, uncountable unnameable, you play dreamers, drawn from Dunsany, The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, the sanity mechanism, go mad or die, memory resources, spend memories, performing marvels, Randolph Carter lost his memories of Providence, creating monsters out of the air, dream logic, Carter remembers he can speak nightgaunt, he always spoke nightgaunt, coincidental magic, conjuring cats, what’s the core activity?, go on dream quests, fairy tale style quests, breaking the pillars of Dreamland, as a responsible dreamer, a plague of fairies, word currency, 300 word cards, make little speeches, blasphemous, wonder, and road, an excuse to be eloquent, the Jack Vance role playing game, The Dying Earth, interesting and fun, dialogue with each other, why don’t you try to make friends with these ghouls?, Horror On The Hill, charisma rolls, neanderthals on the team, DREAMRPG.com, look at this art, its stunning!, that lady with a mask, the watchseller selling digital clocks!, The Call Of Cthulhu: Dreamlands, modern tech doesn’t work, its infinite, continually expanding, the distance between spaces grows greater and greater, like the distances between the stars, low tech vs. modern tech, in Jason’s headcanon…, stuck in the Dark Ages, an existential ramble, a zoog hiding in curtain by the hookah, some lich guy hanging out, the attention to tiny details, “yeah, she’s a medusa what of it?”, where I go to get my equipment for my dreamquest, this is awesome awesome dreamstuff, semi-announced, an Edgar Allan Poe module, an Oz module, Dreamland, Ulalume, a list of dreamers and stats for them, outside of time, they’re dreamselves, established in Celephais, a message in a bottle from two centuries later, Fungi From Yuggoth: Continuity, dream psychiatrist stories, Dreamscape, Inception, trying to tap into deep time (eternity), the Jungian dreamlands, Lovecraft’s conception of the cosmos as an eternal machine, mechanistic, grinding towards the heat death, paradoxes, all night and all day, Jamieson by Margaret St. Clair, just happy to be there, a kind of a Jorkens style story, through the hole in the wall, tiny little grape press, forever cursed to walk the earth, basuto wood and moon grapes for the moonwine, straight out of dreamquest, Dunsany style, epic mythological vs. Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman goofy, Paul’s play by email diceless RPG: Strange Bedfellows, set in the world of Roger Zelazny, expanding into a dreamspace, stealing shamelessly, contact the dreamer, Kij Johnson’s Dream-Quest Of Vellitt Boe, a complete stylistic pastiche, The Riverbank by Kij Johnson (a stylistic doppleganger of The Wind In The Willows), when those letters come out, his family is very rich, what dirt he has, is there anybody that’s better documented than Lovecraft?, thank you, kid oriented D&D stuff.

The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft

Hannes Bok - The Cats Of Ulthar

Jason Thompson - The Cats Of Ulthar

Echidna

Jason Thompson - The Cats Of Ulthar

Frej Agelii- The Cats Of Ulthar

Jesse Willis - The Cats Of Ulthar

-Seo Yung - The Cats Of Ulthar

Jacen Burrows - The Cats Of Ulthar

Jason Thompson - Gathering Of Beasts

Jason Thompson - Dreamland City

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Reading, Short And Deep #219 – In Thessaly by Clark Ashton Smith

Podcast

Reading, Short And Deep #219

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss In Thessaly by Clark Ashton Smith

Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.

In Thessaly was first published in Weird Tales, November 1935.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

The SFFaudio Podcast #529 – READALONG: Typee by Herman Melville

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #529 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Typee by Herman Melville

Talked about on today’s show:
a peep at Polynesian life, 1846, in which the protagonist is eaten, the island itself is non-fiction, Paul’s theory, Melville wanted to talk about the non-fictional aspects, how horrible western society was treating the islanders, this is not right, his most popular book (in Melville’s life), drawn from life, no one liked his imaginative stuff, the introduction, it proved to be popular on board ship, doth he protest too much?, the appendix, what the French are doing, what’s going to happen?, Evan’s first three podcasts episodes, his time amongst the cannibals, improved style (not improved microphone), writing scripts, 200 episodes, starting with the Lovecraftian element, the South Seas as a place where the Deep Ones made a deal, Dagon, biographies of Melville, lifestyle, wealthy families in decline, Edgar Allan Poe, a genetic East Coast elite white guys, a history of whaling, a literary genetic connection, Chapter 21, one day in returning…, Stonehenge, the druids, peculiar construction, so profound is the shade, he doesn’t believe the natives built these constructions, divine origins, an extinct and forgotten race, musing at the pyramid of Cheops, built upon massive stone foundations, the burying grounds, the race has deteriorated, habitual indolence, incontestable marks of great age, under the direction of Monu, dedicated to the immortal wooden idols, are there stone foundations all over the Marquesas?, this is a book about labour, Pierre and Confidence Man, Herman Melville Wants You To Quit Your Job, Bartleby, The Scrivener, one of the last places colonized by humans, a metaphor?, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the white Sphinx is a symbol for us, it baffles us, deep time, a post scarcity society, Hawaii, ravaged by colonialism, breadfruit, the mom, no resentment, profiting from previous generations, universal basic income, young people like tattoos!, colonial gaze, work is going on, not the work we’re used to, alien, salmon runs in the Pacific North West of North America, how much of this story is true?, only there for four weeks vs. four months, why do they want to keep Tomo?, endo vs. exo eating, cannibalism is real, the parallels between the beginning and the middle, Melville is so funny, a delight to read, the lack of food on the ship, poor Pedro the one rooster who ends up in a coffin under the Captain’s vest, all the French ships, taboo, Tomo and Toby, fleeing servitude, fleeing their tribe, deserters, why don’t they want them to flee?, no lack of food, pig and breadfruit and coconut, a long history of indigenous history taking in runaway slaves, John Jewitt, Maquinna, Nootka Sound, the Mourning Wars, Iroquois, you are now uncle Joe (who died), the same phenomenon, all the attention he gets, seen in relief, character list, bathe his body, a local celebrity, in a post scarcity environment, novelty and celebrity, social capital, I know Wayne June!, flee my tribe, all his fears of being cooked, Moby-Dick, Queequeg, selling his heads, essentially married, a delight, Fayaway, tattoos, do your face, in the tribe, becoming one of them, he can never go back, hilarious, a blank canvas, they’re not going to eat him, pantomime, the valley of the Hapars, they’ll eat you, they can’t be trusted, maybe that was Toby, an equivalent of Toby, endocannibals, preserving the spirit and the flesh, the cracker and the wine, she Jesse fear Paul, transubstantiation, concretized, perpetuated dogma, an innate sense of the value of humans, preserving your relationship to your loved ones, a beautiful thing, had the captain kept on his journey, the raft of the Medusa, what happened to the other guys?, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, the narrator ate one of the survivors of the shipwreck, cannibal sailors, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger In A Strange Land, a sacrament, Mike broth, journeys in the Pacific, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Chapter 26, the descriptive chapter titles, the marriage system on Nuku Hiva, popping the question, tedious courtships are unknown, a very tender age, a frolic of the affections, of graver years, as harmonious as so many turtles, supplementary husbands, no wife has less than two husbands, the matrimonial yoke, Marissa VU, 1970s, the roots of Science Fiction, a Silverberg story, a month-wife, what gender relations will be like when you get down the road from birth control, if you don’t like your husband…, a house-raising, this Garden of Eden, a fucking warship, thinking long and hard, as soon as the missionaries come, prostitution, a metaphor for transition, corrupted and twisted, the missionary gaze, the material reality of colonialism, the mosquitoes, flies, not utter heaven, it probably gets hot, a foil for European sexuality, Denis Diderot’s The Supplement For The Voyage Of Bougainville, French and Tahitan societies, women are not considered property, 1780s, those Enlightenment people, Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead, no property transfer, the slaving system, exogamy, no formal manumission, fix the guns, make the pop-guns, a novelty, an exciting item, the humans have great value in themselves, what’s really going on there, roving feet, greener grasses everywhere, Omoo, his name is Typee, taken to the court of a Polynesian princess, I’ll just be your dude, white people hanging out, behold the glorious result, Christian worship, Honolulu, draught horses, evangelizing beasts of burden, your money, you in your salons, Christianize the Pacific, not doing any good, you’re doing wrong here, the devestation of the pacific, what’s about to happen, six French warships, claim it for the Republic, Liberty, enslave and make an empire, middle 1840s, Empire’s on the books now, The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War Paperback by Gerald Horne, the sea-otter fur trade, claims to have eaten Captain Cook’s big toe, white people parties, the flavour of Captain Cook’s toe, the full barrel, a great adventurer, what a shame, fantasize about writing, Magellan killed by the Filipinos and Cook killed by the Hawaiians, Captain George Vancouver, a feat of imposture, medieval relics, the effect of this book, the heads, The Red One by Jack London, the ancient astronauts idea, New Guinea, oral cultures, flexible stories, losing the knowledge of what was known, but gaining value, Bros. Grimm, ossified or concretized, creepy pastas, taking away the sharp edges, Tangled 2, Frozen 2, Moana (2016), for kids, if you’re interested in the frontier, how do the women get anywhere, an arbitrary tabu, [Jesse was thinking of a story entitled The Victim from Space by Robert Sheckley] Robert Silverberg’s Worlds of Wonder, Science Fiction 101, the narrator’s from Earth, giant paws, second pulse of migration, The Monsters by Robert Sheckley, Don’t Forget To Kill Your Wife by Robert Silverberg, a satire of conventions, Colony by Philip K. Dick, I Trusted The Rug Completely by Robert Silverberg, the Pacific is the vastness of space, an alien culture, as alien as anything we’ve ever seen (that’s sentient), first contact, Beyond Lies The Wub, Martian go-birds, the consequences of eating wub, rocket ships and technology, the ideas that are being explored, The Bones Of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan, the vastness of time and space, King Kamehameha, this nice tourist place, The Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii, a cursed idol, Uncle Tom’s Planet, one thing we know about science fiction writers (they were readers at one time), James P. Crow by Philip K. Dick, dealing with the past in their own stories, as close to Philip K. Dick as you can find, a pretty weird guy, how many stages the rocket has, just a guy who likes writing and likes ideas, not as obsessed with boobs, the sociology of what’s going on in a culture, Bring Me The Head Of Prince Charming, Roger Zelazny, Human Man’s Burden, The Native Problem, distant seas of talking, one of Evan’s favourite passages, climate change, China, Taiwan, not having a job is a humiliating state, make peace with consumption, a lot of moralism, anxiety about consumption, have fewer people, abolish the suburbs, Chapter 31, the girls again, dressing their fair and abundant locks, bathing five times a day, coconut oil, hair gel, the wages of living in this kind of world, not even a podcast even, or writing a book, or writing music, what will we do when we don’t have work?, the Puritan work-ethic, the Green New Deal, people need a job, people need meaningful work, a lot of nail salons, pet stores, pet waxing, no bookstores, a little puppy time, what kids want to do, some girls just don’t go outside, a local dude who wanted to look really fair, Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1957, restless blue-grey seas, a secret desire to be dead, a woman who loves truly and well, I’m through wasting my time, the sin against her father, the most precious thing a woman can give a man (a painful death), the ethos you’ve stepped into, long-pig (human meat), a Warner Bros. cartoon, the volcano god, Strange Eden by Philip K. Dick, Circe, transforming men into animals, why pigs?, the point of that story, other animals mentioned, lions, big cats, wolves, Brent is served meat and bread, is Circe turning men into pigs so she could eat them?, tastes like pork, Silverlock by John Myers Myers, what would have happened to Odysseus?, a fox, trickster, working out his own ideas, such a weird story, a fantasy with a science fiction setting, Piper In The Woods by Philip K. Dick, it could never work as an Electric Dreams episode, Evan is obsessed with work, maybe its a very Melville story, indigenous person, something very appealing about this, that colonial gaze, academic-y terms, Orientalism by Edward W. Said, witches, forming covens, In Thessaly by Clark Ashton Smith, The Golden Ass, transformation into animals, from the 2nd Century, inset tales, Scheherazade, Chaucer, story with the story, Borges, we’re lucky to live in such times, Evan needs to escape work, guaranteed basic income, too hung up on work, rich people bore Evan, Evan’s students resist it, sailor in a land full of Typees, in Marseilles the men are just sitting around drinking coffee all day, the labour movement, 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will, working three jobs, she’s not bragging, the fundamental disconnect, industry, economy, hard work, saving, the more moral meaning, these have to be abolished, a cultural revolution, back in China, picking on the Buddhist monks, post scarcity communism, the clock and the time discipline, knights fighting snails, The Myth of the Machine by Lewis Mumford.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #492 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Morella by Edgar Allan Poe

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #492 – Morella by Edgar Allan Poe – read by the great and powerful Wayne June. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (17 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Mr Jim Moon, and Wayne June!

Talked about on today’s show:
A Tale, The Southern Literary Messenger, April 1835, Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1839, you will not believe how Lovecraftian it is, very Edgar Allan Poe, The Thing On The Doorstep, Hypnos, turns of phrase, Cool Air, shall I say it was gelatinous?, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, the moment of Morella’s decease, its tenement of clay, an interest in a woman, there’s nothing more romantic than the death of a beautiful woman, The Philosophy Of Composition, Berenice, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, Elenora, Morella, berry-nice, Ligeia, a ghost, I’m gonna burn the house down, The Raven, crack the house open, the movie adaptations, Roger Corman’s Tales Of Terror (1962), Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Haunted Palace is an H.P. Lovecraft story, redeeming value, interesting, shedding what doesn’t happen in the story, what is the name of the main character, the unnamed narrator, get shocked, the narrator is passive participant in the events around him, active in his twisted perspective, an unreliable narrator, statements based on assumptions, The Black Cat narrator is 100% a liar, a victim, he’s nuts, a weird lifestyle, a weird lifestyle, reading German philosophy, this text is hard to read, a comic book version, an adaptation of the 1962 movie, Amicus anthology film, Elenora, Leonora, “hey you, child!”, “my beloved”, Gideon Locke, more like the The Fall Of The House Of Usher without the friend, The Haunting Of Morella (1990), Countess Elizabeth Báthory, bathing in maiden’s blood, lots of nudity, lots of lesbianism, scared topless, Busty Coeds vs. Lusty Cheerleaders, Gothic romanticism, Richard Corben’s adaptation, 19th century education, familiarity with Plato’s Symposium, personal identity, a nodding acquaintance with Fichte’s accused pantheism, Pythagoreans, Wayne did so much research on this story, it’s no wonder that people don’t get it, this is amazing, its beautiful, high level vocab words and giant sentences, it is creepy too, the epigraph, in vino veritas, in praise of Eros, he didn’t find her sexy, erotic love, a phenomenon capable of vanquishing man’s natural fear of death, conquering death itself, preserving her consciousness in reincarnation, forbidden books, those Pressberg chicks, the mere dross of early German literature, Locke, John Locke, Poe says: “Wow, this is some heavy shit!”, a witch, a lich, a way to renew life, the motifs that are in here, none of this is translatable to film in a non-commercial style, plant growth, the flowers and the vine, the hemlock and the cypress, persistent, frequently planted in graveyards, funeral decoration foliage, The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft, an olive tree of oddly repellent shape, autumn, a metaphor of renewal, there’s a lot to it, life after death, her disappearance from the tomb, as Morella lost life her daughter takes her first breath, a sense that Morella is not evil but rather she is mistaken, not addressed, the all importance of personal identity and survival of the consciousness, replace or become, the self-same person as her daughter?, displacing her daughter’s identity?, theological ideas, Catholic dogma, morally gray, light grey, dark evil, Poe was a reviser, laid vs. placed, tinged with tainted, subtle polishing, these vs. those, this and that, a way of pushing things away, a whole omitted section to do with Catholicism, a rainbow from the firmament, Sancta Maria, it totally changes the story, that makes her a monster, pushed into the evil camp, comparison to Mary, Hail Mary (1985), your daughter, her daughter, parthenogenesis, Jesus is a girl dressed as a guy, she looks identical to her mother, making a clone, your own genetics, a fantasy story, a science fiction story, the Catholic stuff distracts, a failed experiment, it really changes the tenor of the story, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, health problems with the clones, the naming, the true name, speaking the name breaks the spell and kills the child, Wilbur Whateley style, a tale of possession, Doctor John Dee, philosophy, alchemy, why is he doing that?, a symbolic story, how hard grief is, seeing a dead relative in the next generation, a symbolist story rather than a Gothic one, mysticism vs. science, Lovecraft as a science fiction writer, instead of characterizing her as a witch he characterizes her as advanced arcane philosophy and science, lower as in closer to the ground, what is identity?, how he talks about his daughter, two lustrums (ten years), my child and my love, now he’s the father, a mother figure, guiding his hand in his reading, enkindling and disquisitions, he become that for her, like Alia the brother of Muadib from Frank Herbert’s Dune, imbued with the mind of a reverend mother, someone much wiser than she, Annabelle Lee, there’s no visualization of their home, they have their own family tomb, the black slabs of our ancestral vault, baptism/christening, a cemetery connected to a church, fate, like flitting shadows, the wind in the firmament, a very Poe-ism, a semi-manorial estate, a big library, an isolated or cloistered life, Miranda, The Tempest, sexy times, it has to be symbolic, a witch or a litch, hot vs. beautiful, curly black hair, a broad white forehead, to encompass all those brains, her erudition made her happy, the art in Wayne June’s YouTube video, a wild interpretation, what if this is a gender flipped story?, what if Morella is Poe, he was a wooer, wooing with poems, devotion, vocab, she represents his respect for erudition, deep thought and philosophy, immortality, 178 years later, a powerful set of images, oblique quick references, losing his fascination with Morella, being fearful of Morella’s studies, the promised land, Hinnon became Ge-Henna, sacrifices to Baal and Moloch, a huge oven, not milk and honey but burning babies, Heaven and Hell, son of Dagon, God’s not the only god around, as to the nature of our studies, terrible studies, reluctant fascination, Warren always dominated me and sometimes I feared him, firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years, some heavy shit, where is this text from?, when is he telling the story in relation to the events?, is he telling his doctor, I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, The Hound, an unequal partnership, the whole Poe as Morella thing, strange meaning, like Poe and Lovecraft’s intertextuality, full of references, a deep dive to uncork meaning, the pinnacle of the educational stuff, this is an audiobook story!, then then, when pouring over the forbidden pages, a Roof Bear Morella drawing, inhabiting him, a forbidden spirit, her cold hand, rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy, hour after hour I would linger at the music of her voice, those two unearthly tones, reading like a woman and slowly the voice changes to that of Wayne June, two unearthly tones, too unearthly, so far from the Earth, hypnotizing him, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Parasite, voodoo town, Jamaica, it’s a whole thing, Metzengerstein, Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar, how to get girls by hypnosis, 3D glasses, hernia supports, that’s how Poe gets girls, the girl does that to him, he’s gender flipped it, the object of mourning rather of action, disabuse Jesse of this, Jim’s up, Jesse convinces Mr Jim Moon of his crazy theory, hard to get, The Cask Of Amontillado, The Masque Of The Red Death, so straightforward and so beautiful, adding poems, The Conqueror Worm, Poe was canny with getting sales, booze doesn’t buy itself, paper to write to girls, The Island Of The Fay, The Science Of Kissing!! by Charles Peterson, super metoo movement, it’s great to be Turkish because they really know how to kiss, as practical as that, foreseen to foretold, what demon urged me, ebb and flow, the repeat, horrible horrible death, knell to fell, a tiny little polish, an iterative process of refining, the definite version, all in Greek, pronouncing the Greek phonetically, a maniac on style and form, The Philosophy Of Composition, that certain sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me, except for Hawthorne, Poe’s nickname was Tomahawk Poe, hated by his peers (those who didn’t admire him), collected a lot of scalps, “Itself, by itself solely, one everlastingly, and single.”, the ability to establish personal… identity, what the French call an orgasm, la petite mort, Aristophanes, hermaphrodite, lesbians belong to this category, the different kinds of attraction, nothing is off limits for the Greeks, wanting to grow together, Plato’s theory, being a hermaphrodite sphere was cool, love and eros, the beast with two backs, why we seek a soul mate, my better half, what is the it in “itself”?, if you achieve perfection of appreciation of beauty you will be unifying your existence with that which is the beautiful, she has a beautiful mind (but not face or body), she lives only in the regard of the narrator, Poe is immortal but only as long as there are people to read his stuff, denuded, existence is not continued, sad and sad about the lost of a loved one, the ghost comes back and says “it’s okay”, a suicide note, this is why I did it, Poe loves to play with the formatting, The Oval Portrait, how the narrator came to be wounded, it doesn’t add to the symbolism, its a beautiful message, the events are less important than the creation of that beautiful images, undiscussed details, up to the reader to decide, what demon urged me to breathe that sound?, literal?, daemon, a personal spirit, his muse, a program running in the background, the Greeks knew it all,

What fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul, when, amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man the syllables—Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of my child, and overspread them with hues of death, as starting at that scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and, falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault, responded—”I am here!”

what a shocker!, she had her eyes on the Earth, falling backwards, ending in the last seconds, what happened to the body?, a stupid ghost story, the vegetation, planted from a seed, growing up, the roots going deep into the cellar, who knows what horrible juices they suck, as the second Morella has grown, the end of the cycle, she’s a lich who failed, the new body lives until the point that she’s named, women jr., Ivanka, a secondary world society, the right name for her, a terrible dad, she lives longer but she doesn’t have a full life, oops she died, foiled again, given her another name, Dude, you have to name me something else, a lich story, a fabulous story, how concise it is, this much work, very few, very dense, so effective, exactly as long as it has to be, Gothic romance,

German gothic fiction is usually described by the term Schauerroman (“shudder novel”). However, genres of Gespensterroman/Geisterroman (“ghost novel”), Räuberroman (“robber novel”), and Ritterroman (“chivalry novel”) also frequently share plot and motifs with the British “gothic novel”

a nun in New York who wrote about haunted castles on the Rhine river, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Undine, Lorelei, mere dross, worthless, rubber, dregs, those mystical writings, her favourite and constant study, the philosophy of the day, Shelling, the dross of philosophy, presuppositions, authority, it goes against the Ship of Theseus, every cell and molocule and atom is replaced, eating and breathing and pooping changes, carbon dating, when the ship returns home no part of it is the same piece but all the pieces resemble the same thing, attains or regains, like Plato would have us do in the Realm of the Forms (The Republic), suddenly she gets that last little piece of the puzzle, overload, you get the impression she died right then and there at her baptism, the exact wording, they’re just rich, murmured ever more, the opposite of the adaptations, a different sort of feel, her from the moment of birth or earlier, the breath thing is so important, spirit, undfeatable, a thesis for the ages!

Morella - illustrated by by Frederick Simpson Coburn, 1902