April 21, 2025

052 - Gothic Horror with Jen From Literary Love 123

052 - Gothic Horror with Jen From Literary Love 123
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Season 2

Today I'm joined by Jen from the YouTube channel Literary Love 123. She brings her academic knowledge to discuss gothic horror with me and all it's elements. We discuss a lot of books and some movies, so you might want to listen with a pen and a notebook. 

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You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast.

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An extension of Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube.

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Welcome hello today.

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I am I am joined by one of my favorite

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book tubers. I gotta I gotta be careful because I

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when I go to say book two, book talk always

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wants to come out. Yau TikTok is so huge, and

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I watch a lot of book content on there too.

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But uh so I want to welcome Jen Jen from

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Literary Love one two three. I've been wanting to do

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this topic with you, Jen, since you were on my

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other podcast, Short Bites, a Stephen King podcast. Now that

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episode is out at the time of this recording, but

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we discussed the first short story in Stephen King's collection

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of short stories, night Shift, which is Jerusalem's Lot. It's

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a very Gothic and Lovecraftian story. And during that conversation

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you really taught me about the gothic genre. Things I

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didn't really like. I probably knew, but it didn't you know,

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register until you talked about it. And so I really

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appreciate you and for you coming on. I want to

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pick your brain about this topic somewhere, and so thank

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you for coming on and discussing this subgenre with me

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here on weird Reads.

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I'm excited to be here. I'm looking forward to our discussion.

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Awesome.

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So, just before we begin, I would like you if

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you want to tell us about your YouTube channel, Literary

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Love one, two three, and what it is you discussed there.

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I use my masters in English and my passion for

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the horror genre to you talk about the books that

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I read.

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Awesome. How long have you been doing.

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It a little over a year now, Nice?

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What do you do you like? First of all, do

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you enjoy doing it? And if so, what do you

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enjoy most out of doing your YouTube channel.

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I enjoy it, especially enjoy the community. I don't have

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a large subscriber number, but I have built some real

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relationships with people who watch my channel and I watched

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their channel, and this past weekend I actually got to

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meet two of the people I've met through book t

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in person. So I have really learned to not focus

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as much on the subscriber number, which is not to

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say it doesn't get to me sometimes. I mean it does.

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I'm human, but I am centering my you know, focus

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more so on the building of community and connection and

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just getting to talk about books with other people who

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love books.

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I've fallen down that rabbit hole of like us sing

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over subscriber numbers and how did you pull yourself out

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of that?

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By telling other people what I was feeling talking to

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other book tebers and saying, I feel like, why am

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I doing this? Nobody cares and they just reiterated to

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me about the community I've built and just trying to

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focus more on that. And then one of one of

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the book teevers that I actually met last weekend, Kat,

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from Kat's novel Adventures. I believe she said this is

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a quote from Mel Robbins, but Kat likes to quote

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it too, and she'll say, don't swim in the toilet

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bowl of comparison. So just that you know that statement there.

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I keep telling myself that and literally thinking about I

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don't want to be in, you know, the nasty toilet water.

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So I'm going to quick compare myself to other people.

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Do you do you suffer a lot from comparisons? I

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do a lot. I mean it's something I've had to

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over and I think I have.

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Yeah, I used to. It got really bad for me

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when I first got into my grad school program dealing

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with bath you know, compare myself to other people and

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then also imposter syndrome. But you know, again, I just

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talked to other people about it, and I talked to

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my therapist about it, and so she's, you know, also

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given me some tools about just focusing on what I'm

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doing and not letting myself look at other people, because

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most of us, anyway, are going to tend to cast

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ourselves in a less favorable way when we try to

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compare ourselves with other people. So for my mental health,

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I also have gotten very adept at saying nope, not

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going to do it, Yeah, going to do it.

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That's a good point because you can slip into doing

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that very very easily. I find myself doing it without

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even noticing. But I have learned to catch myself and say,

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you know, my own entity. I am my own thing,

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and they're their own thing. I don't need to compare

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myself to that. Do you find yourself catching yourself now

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when you slip into it?

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I will, because it's that tendency is still there. But

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I'm able to, you know, put it out of my

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mind and say exactly what you said, I'm doing my

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thing and nobody else is doing exactly what you're doing,

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and nobody else is doing exactly what I'm doing, So

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we have our area. You know, that makes us who

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we are. And some people will get on board with

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it and some won't, and that's okay.

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Yeah, I'm glad you're having fun with it. I've always said,

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even when I was obsessing over the numbers, and that

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I think the most important thing about doing videos or

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podcasting or anything is you can't be you can't be

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chasing the dream of you know, this being your main job.

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You have to you have to be having fun. If

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you're not having fun, then there's no point in doing it.

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And I think I actually talk to people out of

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doing their channels before by saying that, and it wasn't

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like an intentional thing, but if they weren't having fun,

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then then there's no point. If you're having fun doing it,

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then you know the sky's limit. Just don't obsess over

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that stuff exactly.

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Yeah.

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Now on the.

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Other side of the spectrum here, what's your least favorite

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part of doing your channel Editing?

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Yes, editing, Like I am, I've still got a lot

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to learn with editing, but I just get in there

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and do the best I can. I feel most self

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conscious about my vlogs. And I've done a lot of vlogs,

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but I look at some other people's vlog footage and

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it seems so seamless and very aesthetically pleasing, and mine

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is not always those things. But that's that's like, if

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I can hire somebody do my editing, I would do

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I would do it in a second, because I hate

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that part of things.

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Yeah me, you know what, me too?

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Uh?

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I hate.

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What I hate is putting the pictures in because it

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takes so much time getting them the right size and

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where you want them and everything, And it takes me

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up to an hour to two hours to edit a video,

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where editing a podcast takes me about maybe a half

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hour depending. It's it's it's it's incredibly annoying. So moving

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on here, What are some of the best books you've

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read since you started your channel that you probably would

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not have read if you weren't hosting literary love?

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That one is kind of a tough one for me,

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but trying to think of like some book club books

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I read and enjoyed that I might not have read

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otherwise like in other people's book clubs. One of them

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I read was I had no. Oh, no, I know.

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It was for Elizabeth Sagewood's channel.

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I like, I love Elizabeth.

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Yeah, she's great. It was a it was a Hesser

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Fox book, okay, and I cannot remember the name of it.

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But it talked about, uh, this murder mystery and they

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were all connected to different Edgar Allen Poe stories, and

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so I liked it for that reason. But I never

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would have necessarily picked up hester Fox. Even though she

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is Gothic, she doesn't exactly fit into the horror gothic.

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It might have been called the Widow of Pale Harbor,

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but I am not sure. I am not sure. I

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think it's Widow something.

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But yeah, you know what, I know exactly how you

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feel in My brain always goes blank on me.

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I hate that.

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It's like an aging thing too. It never used to

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happen quite this bad. But man, I even know what

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it is I want to talk about, and then I'll

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be like, oh, what.

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Was it again?

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Yes, So where do you see your channel going to?

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Say? Like the old five years from now?

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I am excited about doing more collaborations. I had my

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first collaboration and that video is going up later today.

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But there is a literary salon host. Her name is

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Marissa and you can find her at Less Salon Literary Discussions,

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and she lives in Canada, and she has a master's

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in English too, and she hosts literary salons, which is

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kind of diving deeper than a book club into the

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books that you read. And so I joined a couple

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of her literary salons. Joined hers for Frankenstein, which we'll

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talk about more in a minute. I joined for The

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Phantom of the Opera, which is what we're talking about

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in our collaboration video that will be up later today,

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and for We Have Always Lived in the Castle by

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Charlie Jackson. And then I've done a couple of more

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collaborations that should be coming out soon. So I really

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enjoyed that aspect of having people to get on with

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me and talk with them. So I'm hoping to do

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more of that and also hoping to do more video

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essays in the future too.

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Nice.

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Yeah, I remember you doing talking about Stephen King and

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your in books that influenced you video for you turning

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for your birthday right. Yes, I was like I want

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some of these because you mentioned in that video You're like,

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I could do some of these Stephen King books an

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essay for him on like a video essay, and I

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was like, yes, please do that.

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Yeah, I've got some in the work, so I'll prepare

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everybody ahead of for my video essay about Beverly from it.

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It's controversial to some, but you talk about.

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It controversy in the Stephen King world as an aside.

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Here is okay because I think Stephen King fans are

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the best fans in the world. You don't get too

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many trolls.

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Yes, I agree.

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Now you throughout this little Q and A here just

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getting to know Jen, You've You've brought up a lot

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of Gothic stuff here, so you're like, this is the

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one reason why I asked you to be here is

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because you're steep deep into the Gothic literature, and so

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I want to know what is it about Gothic fiction

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that speaks to you most.

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The themes of power and power dynamics, the present being

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haunted by the past, the delve into the sublime that

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I do of something that evokes both terror and all

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you fill that pull towards it. There's something appealing or

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beautiful about it, but at the same time there's also

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something terrifying about it. I like family, secrets, drama, ghosts, vampires,

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all the good good stuff.

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Whenever I see dead flowers, I can't help but think

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of the gothic. Okay, before we get into the actual

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fiction aspects that we break down a little bit, let's

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discuss some movies because we're both movie buffs and I

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rewatched one of these movies for this episode. So what

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are some of your favorite gothic core movies?

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Now?

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Want to I want to bring this one up first

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because we talked about this a little bit in messaging

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Instagram messages, and it's the one I re watched. It's

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not Sparatu. It's such a beautiful film, the four version

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that time. Yes, yeah, I love that movie. So that

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movie is is quite disgusting though, I mean it's slow moving,

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but everything about it it's either beautiful or it's absolutely

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gross and grotesque.

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I loved it, and I may get in trouble, but

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my husband, if he hears me, he already knows count

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Orlock being played by Bill Scarsguard. That's my hear me out,

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if you know what I mean, that is my hear

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me out. I absolutely loved Nosparati. I like the original

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The Silent Film alle me too. And I just think

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what Robert Eggers was able to deal with it, and

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the way that we really got such a spotlight on

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our main female protagonist, the way that she calls on

235
00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:06.360
his presence and just it was just perfect.

236
00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:09.799
Yeah, that movie brings up a lot of really like

237
00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:11.720
gothic themes in there. If you want to know what

238
00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:15.480
gothic horror is, I think this movie is like a

239
00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:18.759
poster child for that. It has like the family secrets,

240
00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:25.039
it has the grotesquer y stuff, it has the insanity.

241
00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:30.039
I mean, it's obviously it's an adaptation of sorts of

242
00:14:30.159 --> 00:14:34.679
Dracula as the original was. I think the original nineteen

243
00:14:34.919 --> 00:14:38.720
twenty film or whatever it was that was like an adaptation,

244
00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:40.759
like one of the first adaptations of Dracula.

245
00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:44.000
Yeah, and they got in trouble for it too, because

246
00:14:44.039 --> 00:14:46.960
it was not They did not get permission from the

247
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:51.960
estate of brown Stoker, and they were actually sued and

248
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:56.679
all of the copies were supposed to be destroyed of Nosvaratu,

249
00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.679
but obviously they weren't.

250
00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:02.919
Well thank god, because that would have been a travesty. Honestly,

251
00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:06.320
I get them wanting to you know, hey.

252
00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:07.879
You stole our story.

253
00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:12.039
But at the same time it's such a beautiful film too.

254
00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:15.120
It is and it does its own things. It really,

255
00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:20.200
to me is one of those that transgresses the gender

256
00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:23.360
dynamic because even though we have you know, I don't

257
00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:27.159
want to give spoilers for an old movie from nineteen

258
00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:31.279
twenty two, but I will say the main female has

259
00:15:31.559 --> 00:15:37.639
more autonomy and more of a powerful role in subduing

260
00:15:38.200 --> 00:15:43.600
the vampire Mina, and certainly not Lucy in the original Dracula.

261
00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:50.039
Yeah, what is it about Orlock that draws you to

262
00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:51.120
him in this version?

263
00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:57.480
It's probably because he's Bill Scarsguard partially, but also he

264
00:15:57.799 --> 00:16:02.440
just even though he is rotting and decaying, there's something

265
00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:06.919
very appealing about him. His voice too, and some of

266
00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:09.919
the things he says, like when he tells her I

267
00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:12.559
am an appetite, I'm like.

268
00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:19.000
Uh huh, yeah, yeah. That voice and the breathing. The

269
00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:23.679
breathing is like the I don't know being Jonathan Harker.

270
00:16:24.519 --> 00:16:26.120
Was that his name in the in the book or

271
00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:29.240
in the in the movie? I can't remember.

272
00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:34.879
The Mana's husband that goes first to the Yeah in

273
00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:36.559
Dracula Jonathan.

274
00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:39.159
But in Nosferato, I don't know if that's his name

275
00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:41.120
or not, but his I can't remember.

276
00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:44.200
I can't even remember what his name is. I think

277
00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:45.600
they did change his name.

278
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:47.080
Yeah, probably remember.

279
00:16:47.519 --> 00:16:49.840
But anyways, it's like, you know, he's he's he goes

280
00:16:49.879 --> 00:16:52.360
there to sign off an a state because he's buying

281
00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:54.720
an estate near where he lives, and he's like a

282
00:16:54.799 --> 00:16:57.799
you know, he's a lawyer or whatnot, so he's officiating

283
00:16:57.840 --> 00:17:00.960
it all for him, and I'd be questioning, are you

284
00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:04.000
sure you can make it there?

285
00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:08.680
Right? Because he's like old, you sound a little unhealthy.

286
00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:11.720
Yeah, but when he gets angry, you sure know it.

287
00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:15.960
Yes, Yes, he's a little moody a.

288
00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:19.319
Little bit, and that's probably the appealing party, like the

289
00:17:19.480 --> 00:17:21.960
bad boy appeal that some of us have.

290
00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:28.799
But yeah, like there's parts that are really just gross,

291
00:17:28.839 --> 00:17:34.160
like the ending, although even though it's gross, uh, it's

292
00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:38.720
still beautiful, like the very last shot of Dracula and uh.

293
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:40.920
Mina is it Mina?

294
00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:42.759
I'm terrible with the name.

295
00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:49.200
It is in Dracula in Baratu it is Ellen Ellie.

296
00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:49.519
Something like that.

297
00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:53.400
Yeah, but that last shot of them is like it

298
00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:57.599
looks like a painting by some Gothic artist and it's

299
00:17:57.640 --> 00:18:01.960
just absolutely beautiful with the grotesque and the beautiful parts.

300
00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:05.920
It's just a it's an incredible film all around. Very dark.

301
00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:07.200
Did you see it in the theaters?

302
00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:10.960
I did not. I had to wait for it to

303
00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:15.839
come out on streaming, mostly because I was not sure

304
00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:20.119
I'd be able to understand everything they said, because I

305
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:23.839
know with Robert Egger's films, a lot of times he's

306
00:18:23.880 --> 00:18:28.200
going to use the very authentic, you know, language, and

307
00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:31.519
so sometimes I would have trouble hearing it in a theater.

308
00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:34.119
So I decided to wait till I could have my

309
00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:38.200
closed captioning because I ran into that with The Witch,

310
00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:40.519
which I know is one of your favorites, and that

311
00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:43.519
is my favorite, so yeah, you know what.

312
00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:47.160
I had that issue with The Witch too, But this

313
00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:49.680
this one is very like dark, like it's a dark

314
00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:53.720
film mood wise, but it's also very dark visually, and

315
00:18:53.720 --> 00:18:56.119
that was my biggest complaint. In the theater, you couldn't

316
00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:58.720
really even in a dark theater, you couldn't really see

317
00:18:58.799 --> 00:19:01.480
what was going on, so that that would be a

318
00:19:01.519 --> 00:19:04.440
good reason to wait for the streaming. But you know,

319
00:19:04.519 --> 00:19:07.720
having all the sounds and everything loud was just was incredible.

320
00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:09.240
I would have loved that part of it.

321
00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:12.000
Yeah, it was. It was a beautiful film all around.

322
00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:17.400
So The Witch shuts another Robert Eggers film, That one

323
00:19:17.720 --> 00:19:23.200
is really incredible. That that film just blew me away. Yes,

324
00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:26.920
I just love that film, especially the Goat.

325
00:19:28.079 --> 00:19:32.519
Yes, Black Philip, absolutely, yes. You know there's a lot

326
00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:38.599
of connection between Eggars Nosferatu and his The Witch when

327
00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:42.079
you think about the main character. And I just kept

328
00:19:42.119 --> 00:19:47.079
thinking about when Count Orlock said I am an appetite,

329
00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:51.720
and I started thinking about what Black Philip said to Thomason,

330
00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:55.960
dost thou like the taste of butter? Which thou like

331
00:19:56.119 --> 00:20:00.960
to live deliciously? So that connected to like the the

332
00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:05.960
woman's appetite and the desire to break away from the

333
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:11.079
oppressive society and pursue something that she chooses. Even though

334
00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:16.119
some would argue that Thomasin was just going into another

335
00:20:16.279 --> 00:20:20.400
subservient role, she had the choice. He didn't just demand

336
00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:23.480
that she fit into this the way you know, patriarchal

337
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:26.960
society and the Puritan society had demanded she fit into this.

338
00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:30.839
He asked her, dost thou like the taste of butter?

339
00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:34.920
Would'st thou like to live deliciously? And she said yes,

340
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.920
And she called on him too. She called on Black Philip,

341
00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:42.240
you know, and said, speak to me, and he did

342
00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:45.880
in the same way that at the beginning of nos

343
00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:50.319
Vatu Ellen and maybe that's her name, I don't know.

344
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:53.200
I can't remember her name, but she calls and says,

345
00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:58.039
come to me, you know. So they both called something forth.

346
00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:01.200
M oh one thing. I like, well, I like that

347
00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:05.000
aspect you said. There's the connection there where they're sort

348
00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.920
of breaking away from the patriarchy and they're calling for it.

349
00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:14.079
That to me is fascinating. It seems like maybe that

350
00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:18.400
it could be like a mission of Robert Egger's movie

351
00:21:18.440 --> 00:21:21.079
making is as I haven't I don't know if I've

352
00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:23.279
seen all his films, but is that a reoccurring theme

353
00:21:23.319 --> 00:21:23.839
in his films?

354
00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:24.160
Do you know?

355
00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:28.160
I have not seen The Northman. I have seen The Lighthouse,

356
00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:34.240
which of course is just with Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson,

357
00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:38.440
so you don't really have a main woman, like, you know,

358
00:21:39.079 --> 00:21:42.079
starring in that film. I would have to go back

359
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:45.119
and rewatch The Lighthouse and see if I can catch,

360
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:48.240
you know, anything similar taking place than it.

361
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:51.920
I love that film too. The one thing I find

362
00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:55.000
about his movies is how slow moving they are, and

363
00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:58.240
yet you're like captured by what's going on in the screen.

364
00:21:58.319 --> 00:22:02.079
It's it's often very weird and very dirk and it

365
00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:05.160
leaves you kind of questioning what it is you're watching often.

366
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:10.359
So what other films do you love in this genre?

367
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:12.400
Oh, I didn't want to pick any of the same

368
00:22:12.440 --> 00:22:13.960
ones you did, because I want to give you the

369
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:18.160
chance to talk about things. I love Crimson Peak. It's

370
00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:22.400
not a perfect movie, but it definitely fits into so

371
00:22:22.519 --> 00:22:27.640
much of the Gothic, including some family secrets, especially in

372
00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:32.359
the form of incest, which is another common theme recurring

373
00:22:32.519 --> 00:22:38.200
in Gothic words too. The Changeling from nineteen eighty that

374
00:22:38.319 --> 00:22:42.799
stars George C. Scott. I love Jack b Yeah, it

375
00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:44.359
is that red ball.

376
00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:47.440
Coming down the stairs yet.

377
00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:52.519
Bram Stokers. Dracula from nineteen ninety two. I do like

378
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:55.160
that one a lot, even though it's obviously takes some

379
00:22:55.240 --> 00:22:59.000
liberty from the source material to have an actual love

380
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:04.799
interest and connect action between Count Dracula and Mina, But

381
00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:07.279
I do love it. Some of it's over the top,

382
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:10.279
but I love the costumes. I love Lucy as the

383
00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:15.880
vampire in that. Just absolutely loved that movie. And then

384
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:19.799
like we talked about before the Witch nos Varatu. There

385
00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:24.799
is also a nineteen seventy something nos Varatu that I

386
00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:26.000
have not watched yet.

387
00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:27.640
I've seen it, yeah.

388
00:23:27.559 --> 00:23:29.519
Yeah, I want to see it because it has Isabella

389
00:23:29.559 --> 00:23:33.039
Johnny from Possession, and I will watch anything she's in.

390
00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:35.480
I love her. I love that movie. But I need

391
00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:38.000
to watch that one. Did you enjoy that one?

392
00:23:38.359 --> 00:23:38.759
I did.

393
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:41.680
I watched it a couple of times about I think

394
00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:45.319
about fifteen years ago now. I watched it a lot

395
00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:49.119
in a row. And coincidentally, it was when I created

396
00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:55.839
my Instagram account, and that's the picture for my Instagram account.

397
00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:57.680
I just kept it there because I think it's cool

398
00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:00.640
and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it.

399
00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:01.519
Why would you.

400
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:05.680
Write, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

401
00:24:05.720 --> 00:24:08.240
Some of my favorites are like Suspiria. I just love

402
00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:09.799
the weirdness of that film.

403
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:12.440
That is one of my favorites too. A lot of

404
00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:14.680
the ones you put I was like, see, we're all

405
00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:17.599
the same wave length. Yeah, I love Suspiria.

406
00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:22.119
Yes, Spiri is awesome. Yeah, I like both of them.

407
00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:24.839
The remake even I thought it was good, although I

408
00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:26.920
don't remember it much, but I've seen the old one,

409
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:29.279
like I don't know how many times, probably about ten times.

410
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:32.119
The new one I've only watched once, but I didn't

411
00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:35.680
eat it like a lot of people did. Yeah, of course,

412
00:24:35.880 --> 00:24:40.200
interview with the Vampire that that movie and the book

413
00:24:40.920 --> 00:24:43.480
like called some serious special spots in my.

414
00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:44.000
Heart for me.

415
00:24:44.599 --> 00:24:47.640
And we'll discuss a little bit why down below.

416
00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:49.680
The Woman in Black.

417
00:24:49.720 --> 00:24:53.359
I've seen that movie, the one with Daniel Radcliffe, and

418
00:24:53.440 --> 00:24:58.079
I've also seen the British, the BBC production that they

419
00:24:58.200 --> 00:25:00.480
that was like eighty nine or something like that. They're

420
00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:03.359
both very well done. I've seen the Daniel Radcliffe one,

421
00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:07.319
like I don't know, probably five times, and I've read

422
00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:09.880
the book like a good four or five times as well.

423
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:13.599
I just absolutely love that story. And of course, yeah,

424
00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:17.039
Sleepy Hollow is another favorite. I just love the atmosphere

425
00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:21.000
and Tim Burton's like set designs in that one. It's

426
00:25:21.160 --> 00:25:24.359
just so much fun to look at and to watch.

427
00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:27.640
I love it too.

428
00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:29.200
Yeah, so good?

429
00:25:29.559 --> 00:25:32.279
All right, So, how was about we get into some

430
00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:36.960
before we get into our top our honorable mentions in

431
00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:40.079
our top three? How about we break down the the

432
00:25:40.839 --> 00:25:44.240
subgenre here a little bit. I don't know it's a

433
00:25:44.359 --> 00:25:47.000
genre all its own, or is it a subgenre because

434
00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:51.319
Gothic isn't necessarily horror, right, I.

435
00:25:51.240 --> 00:25:54.799
Would like, the Gothic is a genre, but it's kind

436
00:25:54.839 --> 00:26:02.359
of complicated because the Gothic really is an offshoot of Romanticism,

437
00:26:02.839 --> 00:26:08.720
the Romantic movement that took place during the seventeen hundreds

438
00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:12.319
as kind of a pushback against the Enlightenment, which was

439
00:26:12.359 --> 00:26:14.519
the age of reason and science. And then you have

440
00:26:14.599 --> 00:26:18.880
the Romantics coming along pushing back against that, wanting to

441
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:23.759
bring to the forefront the idea of individualism and emotion

442
00:26:24.279 --> 00:26:28.119
and nature. So you started to have the Romantic poets

443
00:26:28.279 --> 00:26:32.240
like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and then your

444
00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:38.599
second generation like Percy Shelley, John Keats, Lord Byron, and

445
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:41.279
so you could kind of look at the Gothic as

446
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.680
a subgenre of Romanticism. And then, like you said, you

447
00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:48.680
have like the genre of horror, and then you have

448
00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:52.480
that subgenre of Gothic horror. But then you have the

449
00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:56.319
Gothic that kind of stands by itself too. So the

450
00:26:56.359 --> 00:26:59.079
Gothic gets kind of complicated in some ways.

451
00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:02.880
Yeah, but it also fits really well in the horror genre.

452
00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:07.359
You don't really get like any like crazy over the

453
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:11.440
top horror. In the Gothic fiction realm, you mostly get

454
00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:15.559
like the slow burning, haunted house or castle, you know,

455
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:19.599
Dracula type stories. Yes, Now, what are some of the

456
00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:23.400
aspects like broad overview of Gothic core, like just the

457
00:27:23.480 --> 00:27:24.559
main general.

458
00:27:25.279 --> 00:27:28.799
Like a simple definition that it was put forth by

459
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:34.000
Fred Bodding and he said, the Gothic is the past

460
00:27:34.440 --> 00:27:38.720
coming back to haunt the present. So that's kind of

461
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:41.880
like a real quick way of looking at the Gothic.

462
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:46.279
And then of course it's also connected to Gothic architecture,

463
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:48.960
which is why it's called Gothic in the first place,

464
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:53.160
because you had the you know, types of Gothic architecture

465
00:27:53.240 --> 00:27:55.279
that we know we see, you know, we can kind

466
00:27:55.319 --> 00:27:59.599
of tell the spires, the you know kind of ways

467
00:27:59.640 --> 00:28:02.400
we look at something that's a that's a Gothic building.

468
00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:05.519
So the literature kind of takes its name from that too.

469
00:28:05.720 --> 00:28:08.279
But some of the common things that we see, like

470
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:13.160
you talked about our settings and these castles or mansions,

471
00:28:13.160 --> 00:28:18.920
often they'll be you know, decaying, they'll be considered ruins.

472
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:22.400
So you've got again that idea of the past, you know,

473
00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:25.559
still being in the present, but there's something not quite

474
00:28:25.640 --> 00:28:32.119
right about it. It's it's decaying atmospheres of mystery and suspense.

475
00:28:32.279 --> 00:28:38.559
You've got ancient prophecies a lot of times, omens something

476
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.880
again kind of showcasing that you you have something in

477
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:44.799
the past that's going to come back to to haunt you.

478
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:45.799
Uh.

479
00:28:46.119 --> 00:28:51.160
You also have supernatural or some sort of inexplicable events.

480
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:55.119
So sometimes the question is is there really something supernatural

481
00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:59.279
happening or is this psychological you know, kind of what's

482
00:28:59.319 --> 00:29:02.599
going on a lot of times you have like very

483
00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:08.240
high emotions, sometimes melodrama, right, especially some of the earlier

484
00:29:09.079 --> 00:29:13.039
works of the Gothic, the damn Soul and distress. You

485
00:29:13.079 --> 00:29:18.720
see that a lot too. You see two you have also,

486
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:20.720
I'm just trying to make sure I don't skip anything.

487
00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:28.880
This kind of over arching metaphor of gloom you have

488
00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:30.759
a lot of times. Of course, like you talked about

489
00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:35.599
the fog, the storms, the rain, you just got this

490
00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:41.200
atmosphere of darkness, doom and gloom. So those are some

491
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:43.559
of the things that you kind of notice when you're

492
00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:45.359
getting like just a quick.

493
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:50.720
Overview speaking of the the like the setting setting often

494
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:55.519
plays like almost like a character role. I was wondering

495
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:00.359
in regards to symbolism. You know how in when there's

496
00:30:00.359 --> 00:30:03.880
a storm happening, like a thunderstorm appears in a book,

497
00:30:03.920 --> 00:30:05.960
that often means that there's going to be a change

498
00:30:06.039 --> 00:30:10.680
in the plot. Now, what does like decaying mansions, foggy moores,

499
00:30:10.759 --> 00:30:13.720
and claustrophobic villages, what do they kind of represent within

500
00:30:13.839 --> 00:30:14.559
this genre?

501
00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:18.960
So when we think about the decaying mansion, a couple

502
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:22.640
of words that kind of go with that are opulence

503
00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:26.960
and decadence. So you had this mansion that was at

504
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:32.640
one time very opulent, very luxurious, but decadent is going

505
00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:36.759
to be where that person kind of took their wealth

506
00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:42.200
and they overextended it. They overdid it, right, it became

507
00:30:42.519 --> 00:30:46.400
decadent to the point that it was too much. And

508
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:50.920
so when that starts to decay, it's just a symbol

509
00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:56.079
of that decaying power structure and the way that eventually

510
00:30:56.559 --> 00:31:00.359
everything and everyone decays.

511
00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:08.640
Awesome, Yeah, that's right there. The last five minutes is

512
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:11.599
the reason why I love Gothic core. Everything you just explained,

513
00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:15.519
But not all Gothic stories take place with you know,

514
00:31:15.559 --> 00:31:19.440
like the haunted Mansion, the decaying mansion. How does a

515
00:31:19.480 --> 00:31:22.519
Gothic story still work without like any of the fog

516
00:31:23.119 --> 00:31:26.240
or or the you know the foggy more is the

517
00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:30.559
all the thunderstorms and and you know dark mansions.

518
00:31:31.640 --> 00:31:35.519
That is a great question. I'd love to talk about it.

519
00:31:35.960 --> 00:31:40.440
So the idea again, if we think about just that

520
00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:44.400
simple definition of the past coming back to haunt the present,

521
00:31:45.039 --> 00:31:47.720
that can be seen in a lot of different ways.

522
00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:53.519
And one way is the suburban Gothic. And that's something

523
00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:57.720
I've become very interested in the past few years after

524
00:31:57.799 --> 00:32:01.079
reading The Haunting of Bell Could going to lynk Heist

525
00:32:01.279 --> 00:32:04.799
and then listening to your interview with her. But that

526
00:32:04.920 --> 00:32:09.759
kind of subverbs some of your Gothic trope, because that

527
00:32:09.960 --> 00:32:12.480
is a setting, you know, in suburbia when you started

528
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:16.039
to have suburbs, and they're in other places too, but

529
00:32:16.119 --> 00:32:19.400
I think most of the time they're associated with the

530
00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:23.559
United States, and they popped up, like in the nineteen

531
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:28.839
fifties after World War Two, these suburban communities, and so

532
00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:34.319
they look cookie cutter. Everybody's house, everybody's lawn looks the same,

533
00:32:34.519 --> 00:32:42.160
it's pristine. They were set up to welcome certain socioeconomic levels,

534
00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:45.880
certain racial dynamics. You know, they're predominantly going to be

535
00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:49.680
white neighborhoods and that was something that was intentional, and

536
00:32:50.039 --> 00:32:54.240
so you have what appears to be perfect, you know,

537
00:32:54.400 --> 00:32:57.039
so to speak, on the outside, but there can be

538
00:32:57.079 --> 00:33:01.680
a lot of sinister things going on on the inside,

539
00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:05.000
whether it is you know, something in the family where

540
00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:09.319
traumatic things are happening on the inside, but everything looks

541
00:33:09.359 --> 00:33:12.519
perfect on the outside. Then you have the underlying as

542
00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:15.920
I mentioned, the you know, pushing out of certain groups

543
00:33:15.960 --> 00:33:20.240
of people that don't fit into this middle to upper

544
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:24.519
class white, you know, family kind of ideal, and so

545
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:31.680
you have there the idea of something sinister link lurking

546
00:33:31.880 --> 00:33:36.799
beneath the surface. Charlie Jackson is another really good one

547
00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:40.920
with suburban Gothic, especially her novel The Way Through the

548
00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:43.960
Wall and a lot of her short stories deal with

549
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:48.000
that and deal with women trapped and confined in these

550
00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:53.000
suburban neighborhoods, like The Stepford Wives of all of that.

551
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:59.319
And then there's also like polar Gothic, which a couple

552
00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:02.599
of books that really fit that would be Dark Matter

553
00:34:02.720 --> 00:34:06.880
by Michelle Paver, The Terror by Dan Simmons. The idea

554
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:12.480
that you're in this sparse region of just ice and

555
00:34:12.599 --> 00:34:17.480
cold and nature has the power over you. And that's

556
00:34:17.519 --> 00:34:19.800
another thing that we see in the Gothic too, the

557
00:34:19.880 --> 00:34:25.039
idea that the natural world is more powerful than we are.

558
00:34:25.199 --> 00:34:29.239
And that also ties into this concept of the sublime

559
00:34:29.800 --> 00:34:34.639
that Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke right about, and the sublime

560
00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:40.639
is like that which evokes both terror and all. It's

561
00:34:40.679 --> 00:34:44.639
something that we find appealing but at the same time

562
00:34:44.920 --> 00:34:48.239
we are terrified of it. And he talked about that

563
00:34:48.280 --> 00:34:51.079
in terms of nature a lot like if you're in

564
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:54.559
the Arctic, for example, and all you see are these,

565
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:58.440
you know, just sheets of ice surrounding you, and so

566
00:34:58.679 --> 00:35:03.639
you feel very small, right and you think it's beautiful

567
00:35:03.639 --> 00:35:06.599
in a way, but it's also terrifying. Same thing if

568
00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:09.400
you look at the vast ocean or like a huge

569
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:13.039
tall mountain. So the Gothic can be seen in that

570
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:17.119
way too. And then you have like American or Southern Gothic,

571
00:35:17.320 --> 00:35:23.239
which deals a lot with family secrets, trauma injustices, the

572
00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:28.760
enslavement of people, fear the other, and those kinds of things.

573
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:35.440
I think my life becomes a polar Gothic story. Every

574
00:35:35.480 --> 00:35:37.880
time we get our first snowstorm.

575
00:35:40.199 --> 00:35:44.840
I can't imagine. I cannot imagine. We hardly ever get snow,

576
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.400
and we happen to get it this past January, like

577
00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:51.400
six inches where I am on your mobile, Alabama. That's

578
00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:53.519
a wild amount for us.

579
00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:55.519
That's a horror story for you guys, because you guys

580
00:35:55.559 --> 00:35:58.119
don't have the equipment can take care of it.

581
00:35:58.440 --> 00:36:01.360
No, we did, and everything shut down for two days

582
00:36:01.400 --> 00:36:04.360
because we don't have like like snowplows or the right

583
00:36:04.440 --> 00:36:10.320
kind of vehicles or any I don't even know salt trucks. Yeah,

584
00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:13.440
none of that. So it was funny because I was

585
00:36:13.559 --> 00:36:16.400
also reading The Terror at the same time, and I

586
00:36:16.519 --> 00:36:19.800
was like, well, the book gods and the weather gods

587
00:36:19.960 --> 00:36:23.960
have smiled down on me because now I feel this

588
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:27.360
and it got really really cold too, and I was like,

589
00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:28.559
this is amazing.

590
00:36:29.599 --> 00:36:32.920
I have a somewhat similar experience with The Terror. I

591
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:35.079
was listening to it on audiobook, and I had to

592
00:36:35.119 --> 00:36:37.840
treat well as you do travel back and forth to work.

593
00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:39.880
But my travel to this job was like a half

594
00:36:39.880 --> 00:36:43.079
hour long, and it was often at night when the

595
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:46.360
sun was down and it was winter, and there was

596
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:48.840
a few more than a few times because the audiobook's

597
00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:51.280
quite long, where I was driving through a storm. And

598
00:36:51.320 --> 00:36:54.079
so you're listening to this book, well, like you're seeing

599
00:36:54.119 --> 00:36:58.119
snow fly sideways down the road and it just looks

600
00:36:58.159 --> 00:37:00.639
like you're in you know, the Arctic while you're listening

601
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:03.440
to it. It was, it was, It was beautiful in

602
00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:06.320
a sense, the.

603
00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:08.639
Book and weather gods were smiling on you too.

604
00:37:09.039 --> 00:37:09.320
Yeah.

605
00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:12.239
Yeah, I mean it was quite the experience for sure.

606
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:14.000
Yeah awesome.

607
00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:14.800
Uh.

608
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:18.920
Now, you know, the polar Arctic stuff interests me because

609
00:37:18.920 --> 00:37:20.559
of what I just said about winter.

610
00:37:20.880 --> 00:37:21.519
I hate winter.

611
00:37:23.119 --> 00:37:28.039
It dredges up like serious dread within me. And but

612
00:37:28.519 --> 00:37:33.760
there's also the aspect of isolation that I like. It's

613
00:37:33.800 --> 00:37:36.239
like being on another planet. If you're way up north

614
00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:40.000
like that, there's nobody to help you, and that that

615
00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:48.960
that terrifies me. Yes so, but going on with isolation,

616
00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:53.760
isolation and madness are often themes in uh in Gothic fiction.

617
00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:58.320
I was wondering about the aspect of an ill or

618
00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:02.239
insane aunts or cousins, sister, mother, et cetera locked away

619
00:38:02.280 --> 00:38:05.280
in the attict This plays a big role in some

620
00:38:05.360 --> 00:38:08.039
Gothic fictions, such as Jane Eyre, which is one of

621
00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:11.280
my favorite of the classics. Why does this exist and

622
00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:12.320
where does it come from?

623
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:16.039
The root of the mad woman in the attic? Right,

624
00:38:16.559 --> 00:38:20.599
A lot of it has to do with hysteria, if

625
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:27.239
you know that term originally is connected to a woman's uterus,

626
00:38:27.320 --> 00:38:31.920
And there was the belief by doctors that anytime a

627
00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:39.840
woman experienced anxiety, depression, even physical you know, problems.

628
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:42.239
That it was or even just basic human emotions.

629
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:47.400
Yes, yes, how dare this woman be irritable today? She's hysterical.

630
00:38:48.239 --> 00:38:52.079
So it was like the idea of the traveling or

631
00:38:52.199 --> 00:38:57.760
wandering womb, which is even why now you have hysterectomies.

632
00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:01.679
All those hysteriere things connected to that. So a lot

633
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:03.960
of it had to do with the treatment and the

634
00:39:04.079 --> 00:39:06.559
view of women that if they were acting any sort

635
00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:10.639
of way, even things like disagreeing with their husbands, oh

636
00:39:11.320 --> 00:39:13.639
like of them in the attict, that's it. You have

637
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:18.400
no autonomy. Get out of here. So hysteria and you

638
00:39:18.519 --> 00:39:25.679
also had in the patriarchal societies, especially in England, but

639
00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:29.239
also this would go to other parts of Europe and

640
00:39:29.280 --> 00:39:32.639
even other parts of the world, this idea of the

641
00:39:32.679 --> 00:39:37.119
angel in the house versus the new or fallen woman.

642
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:39.639
So the Angel in the House was a poem by

643
00:39:39.760 --> 00:39:45.800
Coventry Patmore, and it idealized this so called perfect Victorian

644
00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:49.000
wife who is just the angel in the house. She

645
00:39:49.159 --> 00:39:51.840
makes sure the husband is happy, she makes sure the

646
00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:54.719
kids are happy, she makes sure the house is clean,

647
00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:59.400
she makes sure everything is perfect, and she smiles while

648
00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:02.679
doing all it and doats on her husband. And so

649
00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:05.760
if she didn't do that, then she was considered to

650
00:40:05.760 --> 00:40:09.800
be this other extreme, a fallen or a new woman

651
00:40:10.239 --> 00:40:13.559
if she dare to speak her mind or leave the

652
00:40:13.639 --> 00:40:16.880
house too. That's another idea, the angel in the home.

653
00:40:17.480 --> 00:40:19.800
They weren't supposed to leave their homes. They were supposed

654
00:40:19.840 --> 00:40:22.480
to be happy and do everything in their homes and

655
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:26.320
not be anywhere else. But don't get upset about that,

656
00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:28.719
right because then you'll be hysterical and you could end

657
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:31.039
up and then Sana solomn or you could end up

658
00:40:31.039 --> 00:40:34.119
in the attic. And they also had this like Madonna

659
00:40:34.280 --> 00:40:38.320
versus horror complex. You can really see that in Dracula

660
00:40:38.480 --> 00:40:42.079
with Mina, she would be considered more of the Madonna

661
00:40:42.159 --> 00:40:45.360
type and Lucy would be considered more of the whore

662
00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:48.519
because she has three men interested in her, and she

663
00:40:48.599 --> 00:40:51.039
even says at one point, well, I wish I could

664
00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:53.599
just marry all three of them. And then of course

665
00:40:53.639 --> 00:40:58.960
she's the one who is you know, really pulled into Dracula,

666
00:40:59.480 --> 00:41:03.079
seduced by Dracula, ends up being staked at the end

667
00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:06.960
of course state there's phallax stuff there, but we won't

668
00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:10.840
get too Freudian today. But you know, anytime a woman

669
00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:15.840
transgressed those boundaries, she you know, would be put away.

670
00:41:16.440 --> 00:41:20.599
And I especially get very upset about Bertha Mason and

671
00:41:20.679 --> 00:41:25.920
Jane Eyre and Lucy too, speaking like we did a

672
00:41:25.960 --> 00:41:30.199
moment ago. Gwendolen Kist this if you know me, I'm

673
00:41:30.239 --> 00:41:33.920
like a huge fan of gwendolen Kaist. If she has

674
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:38.599
her novel Reluctant Immortals where she retold the stories of

675
00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:42.920
Bertha and Lucy. And I was so moved by that

676
00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:46.119
novel that I wrote a paper in grad school about

677
00:41:46.159 --> 00:41:50.519
this so called bad women, you know, Bertha and Lucy.

678
00:41:51.039 --> 00:41:54.280
But when you dive deeper into Bertha and Jane Eyre,

679
00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:02.320
she did not fit into what Rochester wanted. She came

680
00:42:02.360 --> 00:42:06.320
over with her own ideas, her own culture, her own

681
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:09.840
way of doing things, and she didn't want to fit

682
00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:13.079
in and be this perfect, you know, angel in the house.

683
00:42:13.239 --> 00:42:15.519
And so that's a lot of the reason why he

684
00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:18.159
locked her away and then said that she, you know,

685
00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:21.679
was a mad woman, But I would have been mad too.

686
00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:24.519
She didn't want to talk about the things he wanted

687
00:42:24.559 --> 00:42:27.559
to talk about. So a lot of times it is

688
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:32.079
just that, just that transgression and not fitting into that

689
00:42:32.400 --> 00:42:37.159
ideal of patriarchy. And I probably got real passionate about

690
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:40.280
that because I get real, I get real mad about it.

691
00:42:40.320 --> 00:42:43.239
I'm the mad woman, honestly, not put me in an attic.

692
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:48.480
Yeah, it angers me too. It's just it's a crazy way.

693
00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:51.000
I mean, the way we live now I think is crazy,

694
00:42:51.079 --> 00:42:53.440
but with her, you know, power.

695
00:42:54.920 --> 00:42:55.559
Obsession.

696
00:42:56.679 --> 00:42:59.400
But back then it was so much worse. And there's

697
00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:02.760
people to bring that kind of thing back, and it's

698
00:43:03.079 --> 00:43:04.760
it's insane and it's frustrating.

699
00:43:05.119 --> 00:43:09.199
Yes, unfortunately all of that. I would have been passionate

700
00:43:09.239 --> 00:43:11.760
about it for a long time. But the past few years,

701
00:43:12.039 --> 00:43:17.280
especially this year, absolutely it feels very much gothic. The

702
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:21.639
past is coming back to haunt the present and absolutely

703
00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:25.760
very very relevant right now.

704
00:43:26.360 --> 00:43:26.679
Yeah.

705
00:43:27.559 --> 00:43:32.199
Yeah, And it's enraging. It's enraging. It's happening every It's

706
00:43:32.239 --> 00:43:36.079
not just in America, it's in Canada too, It's in

707
00:43:36.199 --> 00:43:39.960
European countries. All the first world countries are facing like

708
00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:41.800
a serious dilemma.

709
00:43:41.400 --> 00:43:45.239
And the recent UK like ruling too just has me

710
00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:46.920
absolutely enraged.

711
00:43:46.960 --> 00:43:51.719
Also, yeah, absolutely, it's just disgusting.

712
00:43:52.079 --> 00:43:53.039
It is it is.

713
00:43:53.719 --> 00:43:59.280
So, how are gender rules reinforced or subverted in Gothic chor.

714
00:44:00.400 --> 00:44:02.159
Like we kind of talked about a moment ago with

715
00:44:02.280 --> 00:44:08.440
Lucy versus Mina that really reinforced the idea of Mina

716
00:44:08.599 --> 00:44:12.400
is the one who gets saved right, and Lucy, because

717
00:44:12.719 --> 00:44:15.320
she had the three men interested in her, and she

718
00:44:16.480 --> 00:44:19.599
kind of was interested in all three of them, she

719
00:44:19.760 --> 00:44:25.280
gets staked. There's no hope for her. Bertha gets you know,

720
00:44:25.320 --> 00:44:29.519
in the attic, and then you know, spoiler dies so

721
00:44:29.559 --> 00:44:33.880
that Jane and Rochester can end up together. So there's

722
00:44:34.679 --> 00:44:37.960
one book, I would say a classic that subverts that

723
00:44:38.119 --> 00:44:42.480
kind of gender role, and that is Carmela by Joseph

724
00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:47.920
Sheridan Lafaneu, which actually predates Dracula. Ram Stoker drew a

725
00:44:47.960 --> 00:44:52.519
lot from that novella for the character of Dracula and

726
00:44:52.599 --> 00:44:57.480
the elements of vampirism. But in Carmeila you have a

727
00:44:57.760 --> 00:45:03.760
woman vampire who is doing the seducing, and not only

728
00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:07.960
is she doing the seducing, but she's seducing another young woman.

729
00:45:08.559 --> 00:45:14.679
So that really pushed back against heteronormative and patriarchal ideals.

730
00:45:15.119 --> 00:45:17.800
And then, like in a recent book that I read

731
00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:22.639
that's like a reimagining of Carmela called Hungerstone by Kat Dunn,

732
00:45:22.800 --> 00:45:28.639
I recommend that totally because that takes Carmela's character and

733
00:45:29.320 --> 00:45:33.840
pairs her with a woman who has more autonomy than

734
00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:37.400
Laura did and Carmela and the way that those two

735
00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:43.119
end up, you know, in a passionate affair and taking

736
00:45:43.159 --> 00:45:49.000
the reins back from patriarchy is very, very empowering. So

737
00:45:49.199 --> 00:45:53.559
that's a recent a recent book I've read that really

738
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:55.639
subverts those gender roles.

739
00:45:56.199 --> 00:46:00.639
I'm pretty sure. I recently put Hungerstone on my wish

740
00:46:00.679 --> 00:46:03.760
list for my Cobo, but I have to double check

741
00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:05.679
that just in case it's not there.

742
00:46:05.679 --> 00:46:06.280
I want to go out.

743
00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:07.440
I think you'll like it.

744
00:46:07.719 --> 00:46:10.480
I love Carmela. I forgot to add it, and I'm

745
00:46:10.480 --> 00:46:12.360
glad you brought that up because I forgot to add

746
00:46:12.360 --> 00:46:15.360
it into at least my honorable mentions. But there it is,

747
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:18.760
right there. It's very I mean, I don't know if

748
00:46:18.760 --> 00:46:23.119
people maybe didn't understand it back then, or maybe we

749
00:46:23.199 --> 00:46:25.800
look at it differently now, because there was never as

750
00:46:25.840 --> 00:46:29.360
far as I'm that, I know there was never an outrage.

751
00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:32.480
No that book was there, No, not that I know

752
00:46:32.559 --> 00:46:33.039
of either.

753
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:35.639
You think there would have been, like way back in

754
00:46:35.679 --> 00:46:38.880
the eighteen hundreds, right, I mean today it would probably

755
00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:40.719
be banned in some places.

756
00:46:42.199 --> 00:46:45.719
I guess I'm thinking, like maybe the way they possibly

757
00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:50.440
got around it was by casting Carmilla as a vampire,

758
00:46:50.679 --> 00:46:54.480
making her the bad so to speak, person in it

759
00:46:54.599 --> 00:46:57.480
and saying, look, this is this is what happens with

760
00:46:57.599 --> 00:47:03.440
female sexuality. You know, if they transgress, they're vampires.

761
00:47:03.679 --> 00:47:03.880
Right.

762
00:47:04.119 --> 00:47:06.559
But at the same time, you would still think it

763
00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:09.599
would have possibly caused more controversy than it did.

764
00:47:10.280 --> 00:47:13.079
Maybe it's because it wasn't looked at in a positive

765
00:47:13.159 --> 00:47:16.199
light on their end, like this is all poisoned, right,

766
00:47:16.360 --> 00:47:18.760
and so that's the point of the novel, right right.

767
00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:20.719
I don't know.

768
00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:24.760
Speaking of vampires though, I there's a lot of vampires

769
00:47:25.039 --> 00:47:28.760
and not all of course, I mean, there's some vampires

770
00:47:28.760 --> 00:47:32.519
in Gothic fiction, and so I'm I'm curious. I think

771
00:47:32.519 --> 00:47:34.920
we covered a lot of it because vampires are often

772
00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:40.719
the grotesque and whatnot, But why are vampires often considered gothic?

773
00:47:41.880 --> 00:47:46.400
They also really embody this idea of the sublime in

774
00:47:46.440 --> 00:47:51.719
that they evote both your fear but also you're a

775
00:47:51.719 --> 00:47:55.519
little bit in awe you fill that pull towards them.

776
00:47:55.960 --> 00:47:59.159
That's something that romantics actually wrote about a lot too,

777
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:01.960
is that I do of the vampire as a sublime

778
00:48:03.280 --> 00:48:09.239
in poetry like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Crystabelle, which has some

779
00:48:09.360 --> 00:48:15.119
influence on Carmila, and you also have John Keats Lamia,

780
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:21.079
and you have another the vampire type poem, but I

781
00:48:21.079 --> 00:48:24.039
can't think of it at the moment, But that idea

782
00:48:24.199 --> 00:48:28.280
of embodying both something beautiful and seductive but something that's

783
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:33.960
terrifying to And also because folklore ties a lot into

784
00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:37.800
the Gothic with the idea of the past haunting the present,

785
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:41.960
and there was a great deal of vampire folklore and

786
00:48:42.039 --> 00:48:46.119
mythology from different parts of the world. So pulling up

787
00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:49.480
those kind of ancient elements of folklore and bringing them

788
00:48:49.519 --> 00:48:53.880
into the present also is connected to the Gothic. And

789
00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:59.159
then of course they also embody forbidden desire and destruction

790
00:48:59.400 --> 00:49:01.400
of in a sense. Right, if we think about the

791
00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:07.039
damsel in distress, we have, you know, endraculated damsel on distress.

792
00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:13.000
You have the woman that's being pursued by this evil vampire.

793
00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:20.079
Now, is there any elements of like repressed sexual desire

794
00:49:20.679 --> 00:49:23.400
like things that you know, because like back in the

795
00:49:23.400 --> 00:49:26.159
eighteen hundreds, women weren't supposed to be having these thoughts

796
00:49:26.599 --> 00:49:30.320
that was uncouth right now, But is there maybe an

797
00:49:30.360 --> 00:49:35.440
element of that, like a vampire awakening those repressed desires.

798
00:49:36.079 --> 00:49:41.079
Yes, exactly. It was a way to explore the taboo

799
00:49:41.199 --> 00:49:45.599
right to let a woman feel those things. But then

800
00:49:45.639 --> 00:49:48.480
they could also blame it. Well, you know, it's because

801
00:49:48.480 --> 00:49:51.840
of this influence of this evil creature, and that's why

802
00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:57.159
this woman gave in to those sexual desires. But like thinking,

803
00:49:57.280 --> 00:50:02.400
like we've talked about with the Nosfarati of twenty twenty four,

804
00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:08.039
she called on something, right, She was pushing back against

805
00:50:08.079 --> 00:50:12.840
the patriarchy and calling on that, so to speak, forbidden.

806
00:50:13.079 --> 00:50:15.519
And there's a really great image in the movie too

807
00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:18.480
of that idea of pushing back against that when she

808
00:50:18.639 --> 00:50:22.800
literally like rips, you know, rips her dress and her

809
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:26.039
course at saying you know, here I am, I'm not

810
00:50:26.039 --> 00:50:29.079
gonna be repressed anymore. Come and even at the end

811
00:50:29.239 --> 00:50:34.239
when everything's happening, she tells, you know, count orlock more.

812
00:50:34.639 --> 00:50:40.079
More so, there's definitely something about exploring the sexuality that

813
00:50:40.159 --> 00:50:41.000
women feel.

814
00:50:42.199 --> 00:50:47.800
Yeah, and you know, we've touched upon this before and

815
00:50:49.199 --> 00:50:50.679
I'm dumb, so I don't get it.

816
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:51.400
But what is it?

817
00:50:51.679 --> 00:50:56.159
What is it about the grotesque such as rotting vampire bodies,

818
00:50:57.159 --> 00:51:01.840
seducing young women. It's like, I just don't understand the

819
00:51:01.920 --> 00:51:06.480
desire when I when I translate it to my own desires,

820
00:51:06.239 --> 00:51:12.880
it's well, I guess there's a big difference, but yeah.

821
00:51:11.079 --> 00:51:14.679
It I think it has to do with power too,

822
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:19.159
because if you're looking at a vampire, they are powerful,

823
00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:23.599
they're immortal, they have been around for quite some time,

824
00:51:23.639 --> 00:51:26.719
which that sometimes brings up an issue that people have

825
00:51:26.880 --> 00:51:29.639
with you have a two hundred year old man and

826
00:51:29.679 --> 00:51:33.440
this twenty year old you know. But I think it

827
00:51:33.639 --> 00:51:37.719
all ties into that forbidden and at the same time

828
00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:43.679
that threat of death and destruction, but it also is

829
00:51:43.760 --> 00:51:50.519
offering the potential for eternal life. So I think there's

830
00:51:50.559 --> 00:51:53.639
that push pull that we have of what would I

831
00:51:53.719 --> 00:52:01.320
do for immortality? And also just I don't know, there's

832
00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:03.119
part of me that can't explain it, Like I don't

833
00:52:03.159 --> 00:52:05.320
even know if I can exactly explain, Like we talked

834
00:52:05.320 --> 00:52:09.679
about earlier, Well, I can't overlock, is my hear me out?

835
00:52:14.039 --> 00:52:17.480
Yeah, I guess maybe it's the authoritativeness. Maybe there's comfort

836
00:52:17.519 --> 00:52:20.079
in that, like he would take care of you. Mm hmm,

837
00:52:20.719 --> 00:52:26.880
like you wouldn't have to worry about a damn thing exactly. Okay,

838
00:52:26.920 --> 00:52:29.239
I have a silly question here, and mostly because I

839
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:31.719
was obsessed with this when I was a teenager. But

840
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:34.079
when I was a teenager, a late teenager, I was

841
00:52:34.119 --> 00:52:37.719
reading on racist vampire chronicles and I seriously wanted to

842
00:52:37.760 --> 00:52:38.800
become a vampire.

843
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:40.599
Did you have this too?

844
00:52:41.239 --> 00:52:45.000
Oh? Yes, I still do. To be honest, I still do. Yes,

845
00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:48.519
I would. I would love it. I would love to

846
00:52:48.559 --> 00:52:52.639
be a vampire. Actually, this past weekend, when I was

847
00:52:52.679 --> 00:52:56.320
in New Orleans, I went to the Vampire Cafe and

848
00:52:56.639 --> 00:52:59.519
sometimes they'll give you a little card and you can

849
00:52:59.559 --> 00:53:02.199
take it like later that night and get into the

850
00:53:02.320 --> 00:53:07.920
secret vampire speakeasy. So we did that and we were

851
00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.320
let in by a vampire. I mean he was like

852
00:53:12.400 --> 00:53:15.519
he went all out. He had the file teeth for fings,

853
00:53:15.559 --> 00:53:19.039
he had long fingernails that were I'm pretty sure those

854
00:53:19.039 --> 00:53:23.079
were actually his. He had contacts in he was dressed

855
00:53:23.119 --> 00:53:28.800
all in black and just looked very vam vampire and

856
00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:32.440
very appealing. So when we got up to the speakeasy,

857
00:53:32.639 --> 00:53:38.000
we could have drinks in blood bags, so like a

858
00:53:38.079 --> 00:53:43.320
red Sangria and a blood bag. So, yes, I have

859
00:53:43.519 --> 00:53:47.039
wanted and still want to be a vampire that has

860
00:53:47.079 --> 00:53:47.840
not gone away.

861
00:53:48.400 --> 00:53:49.840
Yeah, I guess I still do too.

862
00:53:50.320 --> 00:53:53.440
Yeah, but I'd want to be a younger body again

863
00:53:53.480 --> 00:53:53.960
at least.

864
00:53:55.079 --> 00:53:57.280
Yeah, I should have done it if you were in

865
00:53:57.440 --> 00:53:59.519
years earlier, since I just started faking.

866
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:02.079
Yeah, welcome to the club. By the way, I turned

867
00:54:02.079 --> 00:54:08.920
fifty in September, so happy birthday. Yes, all right, So

868
00:54:09.480 --> 00:54:12.039
we talked a lot about vampires and that was one

869
00:54:12.079 --> 00:54:14.400
reason for that. I'm I used to be and still

870
00:54:14.440 --> 00:54:18.400
I'm obsessed with vampires. But there's also a lot of

871
00:54:18.400 --> 00:54:23.159
ghosts in Gothic Corr I said here in my notes.

872
00:54:23.239 --> 00:54:25.880
Got the horror fiction is filled with ghosts, even in

873
00:54:25.920 --> 00:54:29.519
the vampire stuff, even in the non horror stuff. There's

874
00:54:29.559 --> 00:54:33.199
like John Irving story that's somewhat Gothic and it has

875
00:54:33.280 --> 00:54:38.079
ghosts in it. So what do the ghost What do

876
00:54:38.280 --> 00:54:41.719
ghosts represent? Do they represent something internal like guilt, grief,

877
00:54:41.800 --> 00:54:44.639
unprocessed trauma, that past coming back to haunt you.

878
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:49.719
Yes, definitely, they do all all of those things. Again,

879
00:54:49.840 --> 00:54:52.679
like you said, with that idea of the past coming

880
00:54:52.719 --> 00:54:56.440
back to haunt the present, whether it's literal or figurative.

881
00:54:57.440 --> 00:54:57.920
Awesome.

882
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:00.760
How do the ghosts tie in to the history of

883
00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:02.840
stories or setting of family?

884
00:55:04.119 --> 00:55:05.920
A lot of times with that setting, of course, we

885
00:55:06.039 --> 00:55:10.280
know will have haunted spaces, whether it's a haunted house

886
00:55:10.679 --> 00:55:14.280
or whether it's a haunted neighborhood, like in the Haunting

887
00:55:14.320 --> 00:55:18.159
of Elkwood. Again, just that idea of ghost being a

888
00:55:18.280 --> 00:55:22.840
representative of a haunted space. You think about spaces where

889
00:55:22.920 --> 00:55:27.559
horrible things happened, the idea that that setting itself can

890
00:55:27.599 --> 00:55:32.320
be evil because it's holding on to something from the past,

891
00:55:32.880 --> 00:55:36.000
or someone had a secret, something happened to them there,

892
00:55:36.360 --> 00:55:38.760
and so in that setting, when you go in it,

893
00:55:38.840 --> 00:55:45.079
you feel that past whatever occurred there. And then like

894
00:55:45.199 --> 00:55:50.159
with family, of course, you have ghosts being the embodiment

895
00:55:50.519 --> 00:55:54.880
of some sort of ancestral curse or like a lingering

896
00:55:54.960 --> 00:55:59.360
presence of injustice, especially when we think about Southern Gothic

897
00:55:59.519 --> 00:56:04.079
and the green presence in the South of enslaved people

898
00:56:04.159 --> 00:56:11.800
and oppression, trauma, repressed emotions, hidden truth, the inability to

899
00:56:11.960 --> 00:56:15.039
reconcile with the past, something that happened in the past,

900
00:56:15.039 --> 00:56:18.599
and you're still dealing with it, so it's still very

901
00:56:18.719 --> 00:56:24.079
much present. Can be you know, embodying in a ghost.

902
00:56:24.639 --> 00:56:29.400
Then also like psychological horror, and then the fear, like

903
00:56:29.480 --> 00:56:35.920
your existential fear of death for yourself. And then explorations

904
00:56:35.960 --> 00:56:40.800
of the uncanny are unsettling that which is familiar, but

905
00:56:40.880 --> 00:56:44.840
there's something not quite familiar about it, something's a little

906
00:56:44.840 --> 00:56:45.519
bit wrong.

907
00:56:47.519 --> 00:56:50.559
And one thing I love about horror, and this seriously

908
00:56:50.599 --> 00:56:54.440
applies to gothic fiction of all sorts, is and I

909
00:56:55.239 --> 00:56:57.480
I forget who said this the first time. I didn't

910
00:56:57.519 --> 00:57:02.400
come up with this myself, but somebody said that reading

911
00:57:02.480 --> 00:57:08.159
horror is often like a suburban town where everything looks perfect,

912
00:57:08.199 --> 00:57:11.039
but there's a rock in somebody's front yard and you

913
00:57:11.079 --> 00:57:13.719
lift that rock up and beneath it there's worms and

914
00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:18.000
gross things, right, and some people like me become kind

915
00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:21.719
of obsessed with what's beneath that rock. Yes, I'm wondering

916
00:57:21.760 --> 00:57:25.639
what is Gothic horror's obsession with mortality, decay and the

917
00:57:25.679 --> 00:57:27.239
boundary between life and death.

918
00:57:28.719 --> 00:57:31.679
A lot of it is like the inevitability of decay,

919
00:57:31.880 --> 00:57:37.079
Like if you see a castle, for example, that's decayed.

920
00:57:37.679 --> 00:57:43.320
Then you know you yourself, you know you're going to decay too,

921
00:57:43.519 --> 00:57:48.039
So you kind of are processing the fear of death

922
00:57:48.239 --> 00:57:52.760
and the fear of rotting, you know, in your own again.

923
00:57:53.039 --> 00:57:56.519
Kind of back to that existential fear and existential dread,

924
00:57:57.800 --> 00:58:04.039
the idea of like the resurface of the dead, those

925
00:58:04.159 --> 00:58:06.760
kind of things with the decay part of it.

926
00:58:07.960 --> 00:58:10.960
I love that. I absolutely love that. All right, So

927
00:58:11.840 --> 00:58:14.239
I think we've made it. I think we've dissected this.

928
00:58:14.360 --> 00:58:17.880
Is there anything else about the Gothic genre that you

929
00:58:17.880 --> 00:58:21.239
would like to express that maybe we didn't touch upon.

930
00:58:22.440 --> 00:58:25.639
One of the things I like to talk about too,

931
00:58:25.840 --> 00:58:29.559
is this idea of the liminal space, this in between space.

932
00:58:30.280 --> 00:58:34.760
That's why a lot of times nature versus civilization you

933
00:58:34.800 --> 00:58:37.039
see that and the Gothic because you are kind of

934
00:58:37.519 --> 00:58:42.440
bordering sometimes on what civilized and then over here this

935
00:58:42.519 --> 00:58:49.719
is the wooded area, it's not civilized yet. Dracula does

936
00:58:49.760 --> 00:58:53.159
that very very well at the beginning brown Stoker when

937
00:58:53.159 --> 00:58:59.480
he writes about Jonathan leaving England to go to Transylvania

938
00:58:59.559 --> 00:59:03.280
and see Count Dracula when he's traveling through the Carpathian

939
00:59:03.320 --> 00:59:11.199
Mountains Bramstoker is continuously talking about how now he you know,

940
00:59:11.440 --> 00:59:14.679
Jonathan has left the city and now all he's seeing

941
00:59:14.760 --> 00:59:18.960
are woods and mountains, and he also has things written

942
00:59:18.960 --> 00:59:22.719
in there like the trains don't run exactly as well

943
00:59:22.760 --> 00:59:26.800
as they do in England, and everybody over here is

944
00:59:26.880 --> 00:59:32.960
all superstitious and uncivilized. So that kind of a pushback

945
00:59:33.079 --> 00:59:39.440
from civilization versus barbarianism as they would have termed in

946
00:59:39.519 --> 00:59:43.599
that day, people who weren't you know, Western European.

947
00:59:44.559 --> 00:59:48.760
Yeah, it's interesting, like the paranoid village, you know, the

948
00:59:48.840 --> 00:59:52.440
villagers in Dracula, they try to warn Jonathan Herker off,

949
00:59:53.559 --> 00:59:55.920
you know, going to that castle. The same thing happens

950
00:59:55.920 --> 01:00:00.400
in Susan Hills. The woman in black Y something I

951
01:00:00.400 --> 01:00:02.039
wanted to ask, but I didn't know how to ask it.

952
01:00:02.079 --> 01:00:03.800
But I think this is the perfect time to ask.

953
01:00:04.199 --> 01:00:08.559
I think that slasher fiction, like slasher movies, especially like

954
01:00:08.679 --> 01:00:12.119
Friday the Thirteenth and whatnot, I think they borrowed and

955
01:00:12.199 --> 01:00:15.719
their kind of gothic stories in their own because you

956
01:00:15.760 --> 01:00:18.320
get you often get the gas station attendant in that

957
01:00:18.559 --> 01:00:21.000
small town that warns them off, like don't go down

958
01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:23.320
in them woods. You won't take it back and they're

959
01:00:23.360 --> 01:00:25.159
all like a crazy old.

960
01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:28.000
Man, right, the Harbinger, Right.

961
01:00:28.320 --> 01:00:30.679
Yeah, but then you also have the past coming back

962
01:00:30.719 --> 01:00:36.119
to present with these killers like represented as the killers. Yeah, yeah,

963
01:00:36.159 --> 01:00:38.079
that's interesting. I love that idea.

964
01:00:38.360 --> 01:00:40.440
And then the wooded area too. If you think about

965
01:00:40.519 --> 01:00:43.239
Camp Crystal Light, right, the camp, they're out there out

966
01:00:43.239 --> 01:00:47.679
in the woods, kind of left everyday civilization to be

967
01:00:47.760 --> 01:00:48.519
out in nature.

968
01:00:49.159 --> 01:00:49.800
Absolutely.

969
01:00:50.559 --> 01:00:54.599
All right, So we've reached the end of that. Now

970
01:00:54.679 --> 01:00:57.199
how about we get into our favorite books.

971
01:00:57.719 --> 01:01:00.599
Yeah, before we get into a top three, I limited

972
01:01:00.679 --> 01:01:04.599
at top three because we could probably talk for it,

973
01:01:04.639 --> 01:01:07.559
like when I did the Vampire episode, I could have.

974
01:01:07.480 --> 01:01:08.840
Went on and on and on, and.

975
01:01:08.719 --> 01:01:11.639
You know what, picking just three is hard because next

976
01:01:11.639 --> 01:01:15.639
week this list could be different. But yes, there's a

977
01:01:15.639 --> 01:01:17.920
bunch of honorable mentions here. I have four, and you

978
01:01:17.960 --> 01:01:20.679
said you had more than four, which is fine, But

979
01:01:20.719 --> 01:01:22.800
I thought we'd discussed maybe a little bit of the

980
01:01:22.840 --> 01:01:25.840
honorable mentions too, So if you would like to go first,

981
01:01:26.039 --> 01:01:27.559
that would be good.

982
01:01:28.079 --> 01:01:31.079
All right. One of my honorable mentions is The Good

983
01:01:31.119 --> 01:01:32.599
House by an Honorie.

984
01:01:32.840 --> 01:01:33.800
Well, that is so good.

985
01:01:33.800 --> 01:01:34.639
I should have added that.

986
01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:38.320
Yeah, it's so good. So you have your main character

987
01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:42.440
who is going back to her childhood home where she

988
01:01:42.559 --> 01:01:50.239
experienced trauma. Her grandmother was kind of a magical sort

989
01:01:50.239 --> 01:01:52.719
of woman who took care of for you know, you

990
01:01:52.800 --> 01:01:54.559
took care of a lot of things in the village.

991
01:01:54.760 --> 01:01:59.559
And then also our main character's son died in a

992
01:01:59.639 --> 01:02:03.320
very tragic way in that house. So she goes back

993
01:02:03.400 --> 01:02:08.599
to confront her own past, but also this evil entity

994
01:02:08.719 --> 01:02:13.320
which is coming back not only to haunt her family

995
01:02:13.400 --> 01:02:15.800
but other people in that town.

996
01:02:16.920 --> 01:02:19.239
I absolutely love that that story. I didn't even think

997
01:02:19.280 --> 01:02:21.480
of it, but you can add that to my honorable

998
01:02:21.559 --> 01:02:26.159
mentions as well. One of mine is Inheriting Her Ghosts

999
01:02:26.159 --> 01:02:26.679
by s. H.

1000
01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:27.119
Cooper.

1001
01:02:27.280 --> 01:02:30.039
And one reason why I love this story so much

1002
01:02:30.119 --> 01:02:33.639
is it really reminds me of The Woman in Black

1003
01:02:33.960 --> 01:02:38.760
by Susan Hill. It has it's a different story altogether,

1004
01:02:39.519 --> 01:02:41.519
but it has some of the same elements, which are

1005
01:02:41.679 --> 01:02:44.400
just Gothic elements, but it's presented in a sort of

1006
01:02:44.440 --> 01:02:46.480
Woman in Black sort of way. It's a by a

1007
01:02:46.519 --> 01:02:50.039
young woman who's I forget if it's her mother or grandmother.

1008
01:02:50.079 --> 01:02:52.639
I think it's like a distant relative who dies and

1009
01:02:53.280 --> 01:02:58.079
leaves her the house, and it's a giant mansion, and

1010
01:02:58.119 --> 01:03:01.480
she doesn't initially want to go there, but she decides

1011
01:03:01.519 --> 01:03:04.960
to move in because it's bigger and it's more spacious,

1012
01:03:04.960 --> 01:03:07.079
and she has these two giant dogs. I don't know

1013
01:03:07.119 --> 01:03:09.320
if you've seen the cover, but it shows the two

1014
01:03:09.360 --> 01:03:12.400
giant dogs on it. Anyways, so when she moves in there,

1015
01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:15.639
Inheriting Your Ghosts quite literal to the story because the

1016
01:03:15.639 --> 01:03:18.920
house is haunted and these ghosts, they're not shy, they're

1017
01:03:18.920 --> 01:03:19.800
gonna try.

1018
01:03:19.559 --> 01:03:20.280
To destroy you.

1019
01:03:22.039 --> 01:03:24.800
And also there's a secret room that she can't get into.

1020
01:03:25.320 --> 01:03:28.920
It's just it's fun, first of all, and it's got

1021
01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:33.119
like all the elements. And I absolutely adore this story.

1022
01:03:33.320 --> 01:03:36.400
I think more people need to talk about Inheriting Your

1023
01:03:36.440 --> 01:03:37.880
Ghosts by a She Cooper.

1024
01:03:38.400 --> 01:03:40.559
Well, I'm glad you put that one on my radar

1025
01:03:40.599 --> 01:03:42.480
because I have not heard of that, but it is

1026
01:03:42.559 --> 01:03:44.599
going right to the top of my TVR.

1027
01:03:44.960 --> 01:03:48.679
It's good. I think you'll like it. What do you got?

1028
01:03:49.400 --> 01:03:52.039
We talked about Carmela already and that that's one of

1029
01:03:52.079 --> 01:03:56.519
my honorable mentions. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver And now

1030
01:03:56.559 --> 01:03:59.079
I'll let you go before I talk about other ones,

1031
01:03:59.079 --> 01:04:00.760
because those we are already talked about.

1032
01:04:01.840 --> 01:04:04.239
I have Dark Matter, but I haven't read it yet.

1033
01:04:04.239 --> 01:04:07.480
I want to read it. My next one is I'm

1034
01:04:07.519 --> 01:04:08.960
not going to talk too much about this because I

1035
01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:13.199
talked about it already and at least the movie version,

1036
01:04:13.760 --> 01:04:16.039
and I talked about it in the Vampire episode, and

1037
01:04:16.079 --> 01:04:18.800
that's of course the Vampire Chronicles. I'm adding all the

1038
01:04:18.840 --> 01:04:23.920
books here, but you know, it's just that it's a

1039
01:04:23.960 --> 01:04:27.239
different sort of vampire. They're still creepy. Theyre's still kind

1040
01:04:27.239 --> 01:04:30.920
of grotesque in areas, depending what state that vampire is in.

1041
01:04:31.519 --> 01:04:34.800
But there's also like the drama, the family drama and whatnot,

1042
01:04:34.880 --> 01:04:40.239
the friendships, the relationships. It just it completely seduced me

1043
01:04:40.400 --> 01:04:43.519
when I was younger, and I recently reread them, not

1044
01:04:43.639 --> 01:04:46.960
all of them, but like the main ones, and it

1045
01:04:47.079 --> 01:04:49.679
still did that to me. You know, It's like you

1046
01:04:49.760 --> 01:04:51.519
kind of wish you had that kind of rush and

1047
01:04:51.639 --> 01:04:55.840
rich history. Never mind, you know, the blood sucking. I

1048
01:04:55.880 --> 01:04:58.559
would probably be like Louis, you know, feeding on the rats.

1049
01:04:59.119 --> 01:04:59.719
Yes, but.

1050
01:05:01.920 --> 01:05:04.199
But that's another aspect I love about it.

1051
01:05:04.199 --> 01:05:05.039
It's like the.

1052
01:05:05.239 --> 01:05:09.519
Overall melancholy of it speaks to me because I have

1053
01:05:09.920 --> 01:05:13.760
depression and it's something I've had pretty much my entire life,

1054
01:05:14.400 --> 01:05:19.840
and those books, without ever saying the word, are really

1055
01:05:19.880 --> 01:05:20.719
steeped in that.

1056
01:05:22.760 --> 01:05:25.320
State of mind. Yes, and.

1057
01:05:26.639 --> 01:05:29.039
I absolutely adore those books. They're some of my favorite

1058
01:05:29.320 --> 01:05:32.079
vampire books altogether. I didn't add them to my top

1059
01:05:32.079 --> 01:05:36.000
three because of the whole Vampire Episodes episode that I

1060
01:05:36.039 --> 01:05:38.760
did previous to this one, so I just put it

1061
01:05:38.760 --> 01:05:39.800
as an honorable mention.

1062
01:05:41.119 --> 01:05:44.639
I love Interview with a Vampire very much, like you said,

1063
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:50.320
identify with Louis because I too have depression and just

1064
01:05:50.639 --> 01:05:53.960
so much of what he feels as a vampire and

1065
01:05:54.159 --> 01:05:57.880
like not want to live that way. Like you said,

1066
01:05:58.000 --> 01:06:03.199
it does just feel it feels very cathartic to go

1067
01:06:03.320 --> 01:06:04.800
through that with him.

1068
01:06:05.440 --> 01:06:07.679
I remember when I was first reading it, I read

1069
01:06:08.039 --> 01:06:10.679
Interview with Vampire first, of course, and then I went

1070
01:06:10.840 --> 01:06:12.440
to read The Vampire Less stat and.

1071
01:06:12.400 --> 01:06:13.400
Louis hardly in that.

1072
01:06:13.559 --> 01:06:18.559
He's like maybe maybe twenty pages somewhere in the later parts, and.

1073
01:06:18.519 --> 01:06:20.239
I was like, Oh, that's no.

1074
01:06:20.639 --> 01:06:24.440
Where's I want my Louis.

1075
01:06:25.199 --> 01:06:26.039
What else do you have?

1076
01:06:27.159 --> 01:06:31.480
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde's one of

1077
01:06:31.480 --> 01:06:37.920
my favorite classics, and it really dives into this idea

1078
01:06:37.960 --> 01:06:42.559
of youth versus old age and what makes a person beautiful,

1079
01:06:43.280 --> 01:06:47.119
is it their outer appearance or is it what is

1080
01:06:47.159 --> 01:06:49.800
taking place on the inside. Because you have a young

1081
01:06:49.880 --> 01:06:55.079
man who is told you, should you wish to stay

1082
01:06:55.679 --> 01:06:58.519
the way you are now because you're so beautiful, and

1083
01:06:58.599 --> 01:07:01.639
one day you're going to be old, and so he just,

1084
01:07:01.760 --> 01:07:05.239
you know, kind of makes this wish about I wish

1085
01:07:05.280 --> 01:07:08.000
somebody would just paint my portrait and it could grow

1086
01:07:08.079 --> 01:07:12.280
old and I could stay young. So that's what happens.

1087
01:07:12.360 --> 01:07:16.599
It's only that as time goes on, he really starts

1088
01:07:16.639 --> 01:07:21.239
to delve into some deep desires and to act in

1089
01:07:21.280 --> 01:07:24.679
some very unsavory ways, and every time he does, his

1090
01:07:24.840 --> 01:07:29.199
portrait shows all that ugliness on it. And it's just

1091
01:07:29.239 --> 01:07:36.079
a really fascinating study of human nature and desire and

1092
01:07:36.320 --> 01:07:40.960
what it means to grapple with those things.

1093
01:07:41.280 --> 01:07:43.639
I love that story too, but I haven't read it

1094
01:07:43.679 --> 01:07:46.039
in about fifteen years. I got to remedy that and

1095
01:07:46.039 --> 01:07:50.639
give it a reread. Going back to an end, I

1096
01:07:50.719 --> 01:07:53.000
just read this one. It's another indie book and its

1097
01:07:53.039 --> 01:07:57.239
a Shadow Manner by Candice Nola. This this story is interested.

1098
01:07:57.239 --> 01:07:58.800
I didn't like it at first because it was kind

1099
01:07:58.800 --> 01:08:02.639
of weird. It's about this young woman who her jerk

1100
01:08:02.679 --> 01:08:06.239
of a boyfriend leaves her stranded in the middle of nowhere.

1101
01:08:07.039 --> 01:08:09.320
So she's walking in the rain is pouring out, so

1102
01:08:09.719 --> 01:08:12.800
she comes across this old mansion and she decides to

1103
01:08:12.840 --> 01:08:15.159
take refuge in there. And that was the part I

1104
01:08:15.159 --> 01:08:18.319
didn't like. It just didn't seem overly realistic to me

1105
01:08:18.359 --> 01:08:21.560
about her, just like getting into the mansion and deciding

1106
01:08:21.600 --> 01:08:25.119
to stay there. But you know, thinking when I say it,

1107
01:08:25.119 --> 01:08:28.239
it's like, yeah, of course you would, right Like, you're

1108
01:08:28.279 --> 01:08:31.239
in the middle of nowhere, you don't know where you are.

1109
01:08:31.319 --> 01:08:34.199
You going to stay in this abandoned place and try

1110
01:08:34.239 --> 01:08:36.760
to contact your mom to come pick you up. And

1111
01:08:36.800 --> 01:08:39.039
what she doesn't realize is that the place is seriously

1112
01:08:39.079 --> 01:08:43.520
haunted and it's haunted by secrets and of what happened there.

1113
01:08:43.640 --> 01:08:46.079
And it's a really good book.

1114
01:08:46.159 --> 01:08:49.199
I was surprised by it's very short too. It's a novella,

1115
01:08:50.000 --> 01:08:53.760
and it's by Candas Nola. Candace Nola is pretty hot

1116
01:08:53.840 --> 01:08:57.319
right now. I would recommend it.

1117
01:08:57.319 --> 01:09:00.000
It's it's a lot of fun.

1118
01:09:00.800 --> 01:09:03.600
I haven't read that one either, so I'm so excited

1119
01:09:03.640 --> 01:09:05.079
to add that one to my list.

1120
01:09:05.720 --> 01:09:07.840
Absolutely what else you got?

1121
01:09:08.399 --> 01:09:10.840
The Haunting of Belkwood. I know I've mentioned it a

1122
01:09:10.880 --> 01:09:14.720
few times, but it is by gwendolen Kist and it

1123
01:09:14.800 --> 01:09:18.479
is about an entire neighborhood that's haunted, and it is

1124
01:09:18.560 --> 01:09:23.199
so unique in the way that it explores the past,

1125
01:09:23.439 --> 01:09:27.600
and it explores this idea of being trapped in the

1126
01:09:27.640 --> 01:09:31.720
past because our main character and two of her best friends,

1127
01:09:31.840 --> 01:09:36.600
they grew up in this suburban neighborhood and they are

1128
01:09:36.720 --> 01:09:42.039
leaving for college one night, and this veil encapsulates the

1129
01:09:42.199 --> 01:09:44.840
entire neighborhood and no one can get out of the

1130
01:09:44.840 --> 01:09:47.520
neighborhood and no one can go back into it except

1131
01:09:47.560 --> 01:09:50.920
for the main character and her two friends, and so

1132
01:09:51.000 --> 01:09:55.239
she eventually goes back to it and has to confront

1133
01:09:55.800 --> 01:09:59.880
her past and come to terms with who you know,

1134
01:10:00.199 --> 01:10:03.359
who she is and who she wants to be, and

1135
01:10:03.520 --> 01:10:06.560
just the way that gwynol and Kiss writes about different

1136
01:10:06.560 --> 01:10:09.760
ways of dealing with trauma. Because one of the main

1137
01:10:09.840 --> 01:10:13.920
character's best friends has completely shut down because of what happened,

1138
01:10:15.039 --> 01:10:18.720
her other best friend has pushed forward in life, almost

1139
01:10:19.039 --> 01:10:23.880
repressing everything that happened and just moving on with it.

1140
01:10:23.920 --> 01:10:26.840
And it's like our main character kind of has her

1141
01:10:26.920 --> 01:10:30.880
feet in both of those ways of dealing with trauma,

1142
01:10:30.920 --> 01:10:35.920
because she deals with some repression, but she also deals

1143
01:10:35.920 --> 01:10:37.960
a little bit with trying to move forward, but she

1144
01:10:38.159 --> 01:10:43.159
neither fully you know, represses and moves forward, and she

1145
01:10:43.319 --> 01:10:48.279
doesn't fully break down. She just kind of stagnant. But

1146
01:10:49.760 --> 01:10:52.640
she goes back to deal with all of that and

1147
01:10:52.840 --> 01:10:55.439
may or may not have a happy ending. I wouldn't

1148
01:10:55.439 --> 01:10:58.880
want to spoil it for anybody, but I just love

1149
01:10:59.079 --> 01:11:01.479
that book so much. But it was my favorite book

1150
01:11:01.600 --> 01:11:02.760
of twenty twenty four.

1151
01:11:03.359 --> 01:11:03.760
I love that.

1152
01:11:04.079 --> 01:11:06.600
Twenty twenty three, No, twenty twenty four.

1153
01:11:07.520 --> 01:11:09.039
I think it was early twenty twenty four.

1154
01:11:09.119 --> 01:11:10.640
Yeah, yeah, twenty twenty it was.

1155
01:11:10.560 --> 01:11:11.079
Just last year.

1156
01:11:11.119 --> 01:11:13.119
I'm pretty sure when I talked to her about dex

1157
01:11:13.479 --> 01:11:16.680
and if anyone listening wants to check that out, it's

1158
01:11:16.720 --> 01:11:19.039
in an earlier episode. I don't have the number, but yes,

1159
01:11:19.079 --> 01:11:22.319
I talked to gwendolen Kist about that, and it was

1160
01:11:22.359 --> 01:11:26.800
such a awesome reading experience. I have a bad memory, and

1161
01:11:26.880 --> 01:11:28.840
a lot of books after I read them, they kind

1162
01:11:28.840 --> 01:11:33.239
of disappear, but that one doesn't. I still think about

1163
01:11:33.279 --> 01:11:34.000
it occasionally.

1164
01:11:34.359 --> 01:11:35.239
Uh huh.

1165
01:11:35.279 --> 01:11:36.199
I love that.

1166
01:11:36.359 --> 01:11:39.520
I love gwendolen Kist. She's one of my favorites, and

1167
01:11:40.119 --> 01:11:42.359
I'm glad you mentioned it because that's another one i'd

1168
01:11:42.439 --> 01:11:44.960
like to add to my You know what, I made

1169
01:11:44.960 --> 01:11:47.119
my own mind go blank when I was like, Okay,

1170
01:11:47.159 --> 01:11:48.239
what are my favorites here?

1171
01:11:50.399 --> 01:11:51.560
That one it's hard.

1172
01:11:52.199 --> 01:11:54.640
Yeah, that one could actually be in the top three.

1173
01:11:55.439 --> 01:11:57.399
Like I said, though, if we were to do this

1174
01:11:57.439 --> 01:12:00.880
again next week, my top three in my honorable mentions

1175
01:12:00.880 --> 01:12:03.760
would probably have additions that I forgot or whatnot and

1176
01:12:04.600 --> 01:12:08.920
and or be real organized. So there you have it.

1177
01:12:09.880 --> 01:12:11.840
No, it's hard. It's hard.

1178
01:12:13.279 --> 01:12:14.079
Now there's one.

1179
01:12:14.800 --> 01:12:17.960
My last honorable mention here is one that kind of

1180
01:12:17.960 --> 01:12:22.600
confuses me because I don't understand the intention behind it,

1181
01:12:22.640 --> 01:12:25.720
because well, it's Rebecca by deaf Neeed de Maurier. Now

1182
01:12:26.520 --> 01:12:29.520
there's I don't know if I want to go into

1183
01:12:29.600 --> 01:12:33.960
what it's about. Okay, spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't

1184
01:12:33.960 --> 01:12:37.600
read it, maybe move ahead ten ten five to ten

1185
01:12:37.640 --> 01:12:41.800
minutes in the future. But in deaf need Damury de

1186
01:12:41.920 --> 01:12:45.199
Maurier's Rebecca, it's about a young woman who kind of

1187
01:12:45.199 --> 01:12:48.239
falls for a rich dude and they decided they're going

1188
01:12:48.239 --> 01:12:50.880
to get married, and along the way they learn that

1189
01:12:51.279 --> 01:12:55.720
he killed his ex wife and uh, you know, disposed

1190
01:12:55.760 --> 01:12:57.640
of the body, but the past is coming back to

1191
01:12:57.680 --> 01:13:01.079
haunt them, and they both work together to try to

1192
01:13:01.159 --> 01:13:04.359
hide this. And that's that's what confuses me. It's like,

1193
01:13:04.399 --> 01:13:07.359
who am I like? I get it, you don't always

1194
01:13:07.399 --> 01:13:10.600
have to root for the main character, but this one

1195
01:13:10.640 --> 01:13:12.479
confused me because I felt like I should be rooting

1196
01:13:12.479 --> 01:13:13.760
for them, you know.

1197
01:13:13.720 --> 01:13:17.760
What I mean? Have you read that book? And yes,

1198
01:13:18.239 --> 01:13:19.399
can you? Can you teach me.

1199
01:13:20.840 --> 01:13:20.920
It?

1200
01:13:21.439 --> 01:13:24.039
You know it is it's kind of complicated. I mean,

1201
01:13:24.039 --> 01:13:27.560
we do find out that, you know, at least according

1202
01:13:27.680 --> 01:13:32.279
to mister Dewinter, that his ex wife Rebecca is a horrible,

1203
01:13:32.319 --> 01:13:38.399
horrible person. Uh. And so I think getting that kind

1204
01:13:38.399 --> 01:13:41.840
of view of her and then following the protagonist, the

1205
01:13:41.960 --> 01:13:45.479
second Missus do winner the rest of the time that

1206
01:13:45.680 --> 01:13:50.560
you you just tend to want to see her be victorious.

1207
01:13:50.600 --> 01:13:54.800
And you also have that really wicked, wicked housekeeper, Missus Danvers,

1208
01:13:54.880 --> 01:14:00.159
who was very much in league with the with ba.

1209
01:14:00.840 --> 01:14:03.479
We don't ever get the name of our main character

1210
01:14:03.840 --> 01:14:06.600
is just the second Missus de Winter. So I think

1211
01:14:06.640 --> 01:14:10.600
that's why it's easier to pull for, you know, them

1212
01:14:10.640 --> 01:14:13.720
to be able to cover up what they did, and

1213
01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:18.399
the language in that book is just absolutely beautiful. I

1214
01:14:18.520 --> 01:14:21.359
love Dafneed beautiful. Yeah, fantastic.

1215
01:14:22.640 --> 01:14:25.880
I was listening to a podcast that discussed that book recently.

1216
01:14:26.479 --> 01:14:28.760
It was kind of a surprise because it wasn't like

1217
01:14:28.760 --> 01:14:30.720
part of the title. They were just talking about books,

1218
01:14:30.800 --> 01:14:33.000
a bunch of different books, and that one came up,

1219
01:14:33.600 --> 01:14:36.359
and one of the person who brought it up as

1220
01:14:36.359 --> 01:14:37.880
a woman, and she was like, you know, I read

1221
01:14:37.880 --> 01:14:41.000
this when I was a kid, like teenager, and when

1222
01:14:41.079 --> 01:14:43.760
she read it then she was like, oh, to be

1223
01:14:44.359 --> 01:14:48.600
you know, the second Missus Winter, that would be great, right,

1224
01:14:48.920 --> 01:14:51.039
But then she reread it as an adult and she

1225
01:14:51.199 --> 01:14:53.199
was had a completely opposite reaction.

1226
01:14:53.319 --> 01:14:55.359
She was like, why did I ever think that?

1227
01:14:58.560 --> 01:15:01.399
Yeah, it's it's kind of it is similar to Jane

1228
01:15:01.479 --> 01:15:04.920
Eyre when you think about Jane and her ending up

1229
01:15:04.960 --> 01:15:08.920
with Rochester and you kind of have different views of

1230
01:15:09.479 --> 01:15:12.680
these men and women when you get older.

1231
01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:15.960
Yeah, it's it's interesting how that happens, just like reading

1232
01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:22.359
pet cemetery before you have children. Yeah, all right, do

1233
01:15:22.359 --> 01:15:23.880
you have any more you'd like to discuss?

1234
01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:29.600
Just quick honorable mentions I could not ignore Stephen King,

1235
01:15:29.960 --> 01:15:32.279
I do you want to talk about just a little

1236
01:15:32.279 --> 01:15:35.439
bit about the Shining because that is Gothic. You've got

1237
01:15:35.439 --> 01:15:39.319
the haunted hotel, the past haunting the present in both

1238
01:15:40.039 --> 01:15:42.600
the events that have taken place at the hotel, but

1239
01:15:42.720 --> 01:15:47.920
also in Jack himself, his past haunting him, haunting his family.

1240
01:15:48.600 --> 01:15:54.880
And another Stephen King novel, Delores Claiborne, that can be

1241
01:15:55.000 --> 01:15:57.760
read as Gothic, and I had never thought about reading

1242
01:15:57.800 --> 01:15:59.960
as Gothic, so I want to give the proper credit.

1243
01:16:00.479 --> 01:16:04.560
But Willow over at her book TIF channel Willow Talks Books,

1244
01:16:04.840 --> 01:16:09.680
she did a video about reading Dolores Claiborne as Gothic,

1245
01:16:09.840 --> 01:16:13.359
and it was fantastic because she brought out points about

1246
01:16:13.720 --> 01:16:17.520
the past haunting the present, family secrets like I won't

1247
01:16:17.520 --> 01:16:20.359
give away what those are, but there are some heavy,

1248
01:16:20.960 --> 01:16:25.840
heavy family secrets in Dolores Claiborne. And you also have

1249
01:16:26.000 --> 01:16:29.119
isolation and confinement, which is another part of the Gothic

1250
01:16:29.199 --> 01:16:32.640
because there's the island that the story takes place on,

1251
01:16:32.680 --> 01:16:34.960
which is isolated from the rest of the world. And

1252
01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:41.119
then Dolores in her experiences with an abusive husband and

1253
01:16:41.199 --> 01:16:44.600
what she finds out about him that makes her very

1254
01:16:44.680 --> 01:16:50.359
isolated and confined. She's a damsel in distress. Her daughter's

1255
01:16:50.399 --> 01:16:53.520
a Damsel in distress, and I was just like, that's

1256
01:16:53.680 --> 01:16:57.199
fantastic to read Dolores Claiborne as Gothic. So I was

1257
01:16:57.239 --> 01:17:00.760
really excited when Willow did that video. So those are

1258
01:17:00.800 --> 01:17:03.159
just two quick things I want to mention, and.

1259
01:17:03.079 --> 01:17:04.960
That's Willow Talks Books.

1260
01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:06.239
Willow Talks Books.

1261
01:17:06.640 --> 01:17:09.119
I'm going to check that out because holy cow, I

1262
01:17:09.119 --> 01:17:09.520
didn't know.

1263
01:17:09.920 --> 01:17:12.960
She will blow you away with her stuff. I mean,

1264
01:17:13.079 --> 01:17:15.680
every time I watch one of her videos, I feel

1265
01:17:15.680 --> 01:17:19.079
like I've attended a grad school session but had a

1266
01:17:19.079 --> 01:17:21.439
lot of fun with it. She's great.

1267
01:17:21.840 --> 01:17:25.319
Yeah, you know, you bring up Stephen King, and I

1268
01:17:25.319 --> 01:17:27.920
think a lot of Stephen King books could be discussed

1269
01:17:27.960 --> 01:17:31.720
as Gothic, not all of them entirely, but like, have

1270
01:17:31.800 --> 01:17:37.039
you reads novella nineteen twenty two? Yes, that's like very gothic,

1271
01:17:37.239 --> 01:17:39.600
and oh my god, I love that story.

1272
01:17:40.359 --> 01:17:42.079
Have you seen the movie adaptation for that?

1273
01:17:42.600 --> 01:17:46.319
I have many talk about a movie having where you

1274
01:17:46.319 --> 01:17:52.960
have trouble hearing what they're saying. Yeah, all right, So

1275
01:17:53.199 --> 01:17:55.720
is that it for the honorable mentions?

1276
01:17:56.359 --> 01:18:01.199
Just a couple more. You want to read the novel

1277
01:18:01.239 --> 01:18:05.359
that's considered to be the first Gothic novel, The Castle

1278
01:18:05.439 --> 01:18:12.039
of Otronto by Horace Walpole is absolutely ludicrous. It's ridiculous.

1279
01:18:12.279 --> 01:18:15.640
It's way over the top. If you want to have

1280
01:18:16.640 --> 01:18:19.720
your little bingo card or or a drinking game or

1281
01:18:19.720 --> 01:18:23.479
something to do something every time a Gothic trope comes on,

1282
01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:26.279
I wouldn't advice to do the drink it game. You'd

1283
01:18:26.279 --> 01:18:30.319
be smashed. But it's ridiculous, complete with like a giant

1284
01:18:30.600 --> 01:18:34.279
knight's helmet falling out of the sky and landing on people.

1285
01:18:35.039 --> 01:18:41.399
But Wild, Wild and other earlier Gothic what is it hallucinatory?

1286
01:18:41.479 --> 01:18:41.920
Almost?

1287
01:18:42.239 --> 01:18:47.920
Yeah, it's it's it's wild. Anne Radcliffe The Mysteries of

1288
01:18:48.039 --> 01:18:54.720
Udolpho is another early early Gothic, and she has a

1289
01:18:54.760 --> 01:18:58.800
really great quote about terror versus horror, and I'm just

1290
01:18:58.800 --> 01:19:03.039
gonna paraphrase that, but she talks about how terror is

1291
01:19:03.079 --> 01:19:07.800
the anticipation, the dread, the build up of the feeling,

1292
01:19:08.359 --> 01:19:12.199
whereas horror is when the horrible thing happens, and it's

1293
01:19:12.279 --> 01:19:15.840
more of your visceral reaction. And she talks about your

1294
01:19:15.880 --> 01:19:20.720
emotions being heightened and awakened when you experience terror, but

1295
01:19:20.880 --> 01:19:25.640
when you experience horror, that is an annihilation of your

1296
01:19:25.680 --> 01:19:31.039
emotion and you just cringe or you just shriek or whatever.

1297
01:19:31.920 --> 01:19:33.800
But it's just interesting to me the way that she

1298
01:19:33.920 --> 01:19:35.880
talks about terror versus horror.

1299
01:19:37.159 --> 01:19:37.520
Awesome.

1300
01:19:37.560 --> 01:19:39.000
I got to check those out because I haven't. I

1301
01:19:39.039 --> 01:19:43.479
haven't read those. Yeah, so thank you so much for that.

1302
01:19:43.880 --> 01:19:46.720
So if you're ready, I'm ready. We can go into

1303
01:19:46.760 --> 01:19:50.479
our top three here, Yes, would you like to lead

1304
01:19:50.560 --> 01:19:50.920
us off?

1305
01:19:52.000 --> 01:19:57.239
I will. We'll start with Weathering Heights by Emily Bronte,

1306
01:19:57.439 --> 01:19:59.640
which some people would say, oh, that's just God, that

1307
01:20:00.199 --> 01:20:03.359
not horror, but I would advise you to think about

1308
01:20:03.439 --> 01:20:08.039
that and read it again, because I say, yes it is.

1309
01:20:09.279 --> 01:20:13.079
You have the sublime and the form of nature, you

1310
01:20:13.159 --> 01:20:17.239
have the wildness of the moors, you have the tragedy

1311
01:20:17.560 --> 01:20:21.319
of Heathcliff and Catherine. These are not people that you

1312
01:20:21.359 --> 01:20:25.760
will like. You will not necessarily root for them. But

1313
01:20:27.279 --> 01:20:31.199
it is a romantic story in the terms of like

1314
01:20:31.399 --> 01:20:35.039
upper case romantic. It's not a romance like people. I

1315
01:20:35.079 --> 01:20:38.479
don't read romance, but I know that romance books are

1316
01:20:38.520 --> 01:20:42.520
supposed to have a happy ending. It's not that kind.

1317
01:20:42.880 --> 01:20:46.600
But it will rip your heart out. It has just

1318
01:20:46.640 --> 01:20:50.680
some of the greatest lines of literature where you know

1319
01:20:50.800 --> 01:20:53.680
spoiler alert for one hundreds and hundred years old. But

1320
01:20:54.279 --> 01:20:58.920
Catherine after she dies and Heathcliff is mourning and he

1321
01:20:59.039 --> 01:21:02.600
says something like you killed me, you say, or you

1322
01:21:02.640 --> 01:21:05.399
say I killed you will haunt me? Then you have

1323
01:21:05.680 --> 01:21:10.199
just it's just so good, so good weather heights.

1324
01:21:10.439 --> 01:21:11.239
Awesome choice.

1325
01:21:12.039 --> 01:21:14.680
You know, I do have a classic on mine, but

1326
01:21:14.800 --> 01:21:17.000
I'm thinking I probably should have. I mentioned one like

1327
01:21:17.039 --> 01:21:19.760
the Jane Eyre that's one of my favorites of the classics,

1328
01:21:19.800 --> 01:21:22.800
and that could definitely go in an honorable mention, And

1329
01:21:22.840 --> 01:21:25.279
if I were to reread it, because I don't remember

1330
01:21:25.279 --> 01:21:27.760
it too well, it could end up in my top three.

1331
01:21:28.079 --> 01:21:30.600
But the first one I have is one I've probably

1332
01:21:30.640 --> 01:21:33.199
reread the most, and that's The Woman in Black by

1333
01:21:33.199 --> 01:21:37.199
Susan Hill. This kind of this story kind of reminds

1334
01:21:37.239 --> 01:21:41.279
me a little bit of Dracula itself in regards to

1335
01:21:42.439 --> 01:21:46.920
the protagonist going to take care of the affairs of

1336
01:21:46.960 --> 01:21:52.359
the old house where the woman recently passed away, and

1337
01:21:52.479 --> 01:21:54.319
you have the villagers who are like, yeah, don't go

1338
01:21:54.359 --> 01:21:56.199
in that house. It's terrible house, and they kind of

1339
01:21:56.199 --> 01:21:59.600
turn on them too, right like they did in Dracula,

1340
01:21:59.760 --> 01:22:02.680
And I just love that aspect about it. But I

1341
01:22:02.680 --> 01:22:04.720
al still love when he's in the house. You know,

1342
01:22:04.760 --> 01:22:08.079
it's just it's a very haunting story and it's full

1343
01:22:08.119 --> 01:22:11.680
of secrets, and it's uh, it's it's quite dark, and

1344
01:22:11.720 --> 01:22:14.680
it's very lyrical. The book itself is very lyrical, and

1345
01:22:14.720 --> 01:22:17.479
I love all the adaptations I've seen of it so far.

1346
01:22:18.319 --> 01:22:20.279
It's just one of my favorite stories of all time.

1347
01:22:20.640 --> 01:22:23.039
And that's The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

1348
01:22:24.159 --> 01:22:25.960
It's so good. I love it too.

1349
01:22:26.439 --> 01:22:28.840
Yeah, what do you got next?

1350
01:22:29.600 --> 01:22:32.960
Of course I had to mention my man Poe. Uh,

1351
01:22:33.319 --> 01:22:37.319
I have I have an entire stran to him over there.

1352
01:22:37.359 --> 01:22:39.279
I'm not kidding. I have a life size cut out

1353
01:22:39.520 --> 01:22:44.079
of Poe. So really, any and you know, any of

1354
01:22:44.159 --> 01:22:47.640
Poe's stories. But I'm gonna go with the fall of

1355
01:22:47.640 --> 01:22:53.600
the House of Usher because you have the decaying Usher Mansion,

1356
01:22:54.000 --> 01:22:59.399
you have nature encroaching upon the Usher Mansion, you have

1357
01:22:59.640 --> 01:23:07.399
family secrets, family drama potential like doppelganger or doubling of

1358
01:23:07.960 --> 01:23:16.920
Roderick and Madelon questions about their psyche's Is something supernatural happening?

1359
01:23:17.319 --> 01:23:23.800
Is this just Roderick's illness, Madeline's illness, And it's just

1360
01:23:23.880 --> 01:23:28.359
got all of those lovely, lovely Gothic elements that pay

1361
01:23:28.560 --> 01:23:29.159
was known for.

1362
01:23:29.680 --> 01:23:33.640
Yes, I love Poe. I haven't really read them though

1363
01:23:33.680 --> 01:23:36.039
since like my twenties, and so I need to. I

1364
01:23:36.079 --> 01:23:37.960
need to fix that again too. I even have like

1365
01:23:37.960 --> 01:23:40.279
an Edgar Allan Poe shirt where it's just like a

1366
01:23:40.319 --> 01:23:44.000
picture of his face on it. I just absolutely love

1367
01:23:44.079 --> 01:23:46.640
that shirt. But I love his work though. It was

1368
01:23:46.640 --> 01:23:49.399
funny once I was at the beer store. I was

1369
01:23:49.439 --> 01:23:51.439
buying some beers like ten years ago, and I was

1370
01:23:51.439 --> 01:23:55.399
wearing my po shirt and the cashier started quoting Poe

1371
01:23:55.399 --> 01:23:57.399
to me, and it was from a story that I

1372
01:23:57.439 --> 01:24:00.399
hadn't read, and so I was just like looking at him,

1373
01:24:00.399 --> 01:24:03.640
like what And he was like said, girl, and Poe

1374
01:24:03.680 --> 01:24:07.680
like your shirt. I'm like, oh, okay, which one? And

1375
01:24:07.680 --> 01:24:09.439
then he told me which one. I don't remember what

1376
01:24:09.520 --> 01:24:11.319
it is now, but I felt like such an idiot.

1377
01:24:11.439 --> 01:24:11.600
You know.

1378
01:24:12.720 --> 01:24:15.640
Yeah, I'm the poser wearing the Edgar Allen poecher.

1379
01:24:17.279 --> 01:24:18.159
The pose er.

1380
01:24:18.319 --> 01:24:21.920
Yeah.

1381
01:24:22.000 --> 01:24:25.560
Yeah, it's total favorite of mine too. My next is

1382
01:24:25.600 --> 01:24:28.319
that classic I was talking about, and that's Dracula by

1383
01:24:28.319 --> 01:24:30.439
Bram Stoker. I think we covered a lot about that

1384
01:24:30.520 --> 01:24:35.159
story with Nosferatu and whatnot, but you know the story

1385
01:24:35.199 --> 01:24:37.560
has been redone over and over again, but it never

1386
01:24:37.560 --> 01:24:41.560
seems to capture what the what the novel has.

1387
01:24:41.920 --> 01:24:45.000
And I adore this book. It's beautiful.

1388
01:24:45.119 --> 01:24:51.199
I like the epistol pistolatory style of it, and uh,

1389
01:24:51.760 --> 01:24:53.760
but everyone knows what the story is, so I'm not

1390
01:24:53.800 --> 01:24:56.039
going to go too much into that. But yeah, Dracula

1391
01:24:56.119 --> 01:24:57.159
by Bram Stoker.

1392
01:24:57.520 --> 01:25:01.720
Absolutely, it's a classic for reason. I love it to you.

1393
01:25:02.199 --> 01:25:06.720
Very well done, very well done. And what is your number? One?

1394
01:25:07.000 --> 01:25:14.960
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Adore Frankenstein. I have like I

1395
01:25:15.039 --> 01:25:19.039
collect different editions when I see them, so I have

1396
01:25:19.159 --> 01:25:21.800
like seven now, and every time I see an addition,

1397
01:25:21.880 --> 01:25:25.560
I don't have them, like gotta get that one. But

1398
01:25:25.720 --> 01:25:29.560
I just I love Frankenstein. I love that Mary Shelley

1399
01:25:29.880 --> 01:25:31.760
was only nineteen when she wrote.

1400
01:25:31.479 --> 01:25:33.479
It, and which is incredible it.

1401
01:25:33.359 --> 01:25:37.319
Is she won the contest, you know, she beat out

1402
01:25:37.479 --> 01:25:41.399
Lord Byron, the bad boy of you know, of the

1403
01:25:41.520 --> 01:25:47.039
Romantic era, she beat out Percy, her husband, and just

1404
01:25:47.199 --> 01:25:54.800
wrote the scariest story. But I love it for it's

1405
01:25:54.840 --> 01:25:58.960
depth and richness that goes beyond just the surface, like

1406
01:25:59.000 --> 01:26:02.239
if you've only seen the movies which they're you know, hey,

1407
01:26:02.680 --> 01:26:05.720
they're great, and they're they're fun. But the novel goes

1408
01:26:05.760 --> 01:26:12.239
into so much more about the creature and about creators

1409
01:26:12.640 --> 01:26:15.960
and leaving you know, creating something and then leaving it

1410
01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:20.520
to flounder on its own, questions about nature versus nurture,

1411
01:26:20.800 --> 01:26:27.439
about what makes someone human. Just there's so much there,

1412
01:26:27.479 --> 01:26:30.119
and I just love love Frank.

1413
01:26:29.920 --> 01:26:34.840
Has Son and talk about existential crisis. Yes, this book

1414
01:26:34.920 --> 01:26:38.239
is filled with that, and that's one thing I like

1415
01:26:38.279 --> 01:26:42.800
about it most. I identify with Frankenstein Monster mostly in

1416
01:26:42.840 --> 01:26:45.960
the movies because I've always been somewhat of a you know,

1417
01:26:46.039 --> 01:26:49.239
that person that nobody really It's different now than I'm adult.

1418
01:26:49.279 --> 01:26:51.359
Now that I'm an adult, I'm in like the workforce

1419
01:26:51.399 --> 01:26:53.800
and whatnot. You know, I'm fifty. People seem to like

1420
01:26:53.840 --> 01:26:55.399
me a lot more than when I.

1421
01:26:55.359 --> 01:26:55.800
Was a kid.

1422
01:26:55.840 --> 01:26:57.640
But when I was a kid, nobody talked to me,

1423
01:26:57.760 --> 01:27:00.880
nobody was really my friend, and sometimes they just outright

1424
01:27:00.920 --> 01:27:04.159
hated me for no reason. Right, And so I always

1425
01:27:04.159 --> 01:27:07.359
identified with Frankenstein Monster in the movies. Maybe not so

1426
01:27:07.439 --> 01:27:10.119
much the book, But I love the book too. It's

1427
01:27:10.159 --> 01:27:12.680
absolutely beautifully written and.

1428
01:27:14.039 --> 01:27:14.840
It's incredible.

1429
01:27:14.920 --> 01:27:17.159
Like you mentioned, she was only nineteen when she wrote

1430
01:27:17.199 --> 01:27:20.880
that it seems like it's way far older like most

1431
01:27:20.960 --> 01:27:24.239
nineteen year olds I know, which admittedly aren't many, but

1432
01:27:24.279 --> 01:27:28.439
the ones I do know there they could not possibly

1433
01:27:28.840 --> 01:27:31.520
write this kind of book with the depth and the

1434
01:27:31.560 --> 01:27:34.800
wisdom that's it. It's incredible.

1435
01:27:35.319 --> 01:27:39.039
And she had been through so much with you know, miscarriages,

1436
01:27:39.239 --> 01:27:43.199
loss of babies. You know, her mother died, Mary Wolstoncraft,

1437
01:27:43.199 --> 01:27:46.840
who was a feminist writer, died when Mary was only

1438
01:27:46.880 --> 01:27:50.239
a few days old, and so she's grappling with all that,

1439
01:27:50.760 --> 01:27:56.439
and then with Percy, who was very moody and temperamental.

1440
01:27:57.000 --> 01:28:02.079
So possibly in the character Victor Frankenstein, she's working out

1441
01:28:02.319 --> 01:28:09.199
some of her issues with the creative, genius, moody, Romantic

1442
01:28:09.239 --> 01:28:13.279
era husband of hers. There's just so much in there

1443
01:28:13.359 --> 01:28:16.039
when you really start to unpack it. And I don't

1444
01:28:16.039 --> 01:28:17.920
even know how many times I've read it, and I

1445
01:28:17.960 --> 01:28:20.720
know this is cliche to say, but every time I

1446
01:28:20.760 --> 01:28:24.000
read it, I do find something new or see something

1447
01:28:24.000 --> 01:28:27.640
in a different light. And that also is one of

1448
01:28:27.720 --> 01:28:30.840
the things that makes me pick something as one of

1449
01:28:30.920 --> 01:28:33.920
my favorites is that it can always bring something new

1450
01:28:33.960 --> 01:28:34.199
to me.

1451
01:28:35.079 --> 01:28:39.000
Awesome, all right, So my number one is The Haunting

1452
01:28:39.039 --> 01:28:42.039
of Hillhouse by Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is one of

1453
01:28:42.079 --> 01:28:46.000
my favorite authors, and this I was debating between this

1454
01:28:46.039 --> 01:28:48.920
one and what's the other big.

1455
01:28:48.760 --> 01:28:51.880
One that she is We have always lived in the castle.

1456
01:28:51.720 --> 01:28:52.079
That's it.

1457
01:28:52.319 --> 01:28:54.640
I was debating between those two. But when I thought

1458
01:28:54.680 --> 01:28:57.840
about it, I don't really remember castle very well, like

1459
01:28:58.119 --> 01:29:00.680
what happens in that, So this one I do remember.

1460
01:29:01.319 --> 01:29:05.479
And it's just one of those stories that it's got that,

1461
01:29:06.479 --> 01:29:10.960
you know, unreliable narrator. You don't know if what she's

1462
01:29:11.039 --> 01:29:14.520
experiencing is real or not as they go into this

1463
01:29:14.560 --> 01:29:18.520
house for their little experiment, and it doesn't end happily.

1464
01:29:20.359 --> 01:29:24.000
But I like the character of eleanor she that's her name, right.

1465
01:29:24.760 --> 01:29:27.159
She's a very interesting character. She's been through a lot

1466
01:29:27.199 --> 01:29:30.119
in her life and she's basically a prisoner to her

1467
01:29:30.600 --> 01:29:33.760
to her family, her mother, I believe it was, and

1468
01:29:33.800 --> 01:29:36.560
now she's finally free of her and she almost doesn't

1469
01:29:36.560 --> 01:29:39.159
know what to do, and she's you can kind of

1470
01:29:39.199 --> 01:29:43.159
believe that maybe what she's experiencing in this house is

1471
01:29:43.520 --> 01:29:47.840
a figment of her imagination because of how frail she

1472
01:29:47.960 --> 01:29:52.000
seems mentally. And like I said, it doesn't end well

1473
01:29:52.119 --> 01:29:55.239
and it's just it's one of those like Shirley Jackson

1474
01:29:55.279 --> 01:29:58.640
has a way of hypnotizing you with her writing, and

1475
01:29:58.760 --> 01:30:01.359
there's I wouldn't s say there's no other writer, because

1476
01:30:01.359 --> 01:30:03.359
there's other writers I feel the same about. But her

1477
01:30:03.399 --> 01:30:08.800
style is like completely her own, and she just blows

1478
01:30:08.840 --> 01:30:10.960
me away every time I read a new story by her,

1479
01:30:11.359 --> 01:30:14.760
and so that one will probably remain in the top

1480
01:30:14.800 --> 01:30:17.199
three forever for me. I need to reread We Have

1481
01:30:17.199 --> 01:30:22.520
Always Lived in the Castle because I need to remember it.

1482
01:30:22.600 --> 01:30:27.039
I only remember the sisters and the question of whether

1483
01:30:27.159 --> 01:30:30.359
or not they poisoned their family, and that's that's all

1484
01:30:30.399 --> 01:30:30.960
I remember.

1485
01:30:31.319 --> 01:30:33.119
But but this book.

1486
01:30:32.880 --> 01:30:36.520
It for some reason, it sticks and.

1487
01:30:37.520 --> 01:30:38.119
I love it.

1488
01:30:38.119 --> 01:30:43.560
It's an all time favorite of mine. And that first paragraph, Yeah,

1489
01:30:43.039 --> 01:30:48.479
it's it's that that first paragraph is immortal. Even after

1490
01:30:48.600 --> 01:30:52.279
the our son becomes a red giant engulfs the earth,

1491
01:30:52.800 --> 01:30:54.319
that sentence is going to survive.

1492
01:30:54.399 --> 01:30:59.920
That, I agree, because I mean, just everything that she

1493
01:31:00.199 --> 01:31:05.159
packs into that opening, it just is the perfect like

1494
01:31:06.079 --> 01:31:10.720
example of a place that's haunted, a place that is off,

1495
01:31:10.800 --> 01:31:12.640
something's a bit wrong with it.

1496
01:31:13.239 --> 01:31:16.319
Yeah, it's especially that last part of it. Whatever walked

1497
01:31:16.319 --> 01:31:18.600
in there walked alone? Yes, it's like, my.

1498
01:31:18.640 --> 01:31:20.920
God, that just hits you know, like what it does?

1499
01:31:23.079 --> 01:31:25.079
All right, So that's it, we did it.

1500
01:31:26.760 --> 01:31:29.199
I want to thank you Jen so much for coming

1501
01:31:29.199 --> 01:31:31.920
on and discussing this with me. I knew it was

1502
01:31:31.960 --> 01:31:34.159
going to be good and fun, but I didn't think

1503
01:31:34.159 --> 01:31:36.039
it was going to be this much good and fun,

1504
01:31:36.560 --> 01:31:39.159
and so thank you so much for bringing your expertise,

1505
01:31:39.520 --> 01:31:44.520
your education, and your intelligence to this one of my

1506
01:31:44.560 --> 01:31:45.359
favorite topics.

1507
01:31:46.000 --> 01:31:49.239
Well, thank you, Jason. I've had a lovely time every

1508
01:31:49.319 --> 01:31:52.520
time that we've conversed, So thank you so much for

1509
01:31:52.960 --> 01:31:55.840
asking me to come on and talk about the GOTHE

1510
01:31:56.039 --> 01:31:56.399
with you.

1511
01:31:57.319 --> 01:31:59.880
Is there any anything you'd like to.

1512
01:32:02.119 --> 01:32:04.680
Pimp before we go? Anything you want people to know?

1513
01:32:06.239 --> 01:32:11.000
You can follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and threads at

1514
01:32:11.159 --> 01:32:17.520
Literary Love one two three, and I'm occasionally on Blue Sky.

1515
01:32:17.840 --> 01:32:20.560
You may find me there if I figure out more

1516
01:32:20.600 --> 01:32:25.680
about how to work it. But that's about it, all right.

1517
01:32:25.720 --> 01:32:28.000
Well, thank you again and we will talk to you

1518
01:32:28.039 --> 01:32:28.920
again soon.

1519
01:32:29.800 --> 01:32:30.680
Thank you, Jathon