The SFFaudio Podcast #826 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Aeneid by Virgil (Books I to IV)

The SFFaudio Podcast #826 – The Aeneid by Virgil [Books I – IV] read by George Allen (for LibriVox) and translated by John Dryden. This is the first third of the epic poem, books I to IV (comprised of XII Books) running 3 hours 52 minutes, followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
books 1 to 4, a humanities course, misspoke, The Iliad, a hard downshift to reading the Aeneid vs. living on twitter, opposite end of the spectrum, young people don’t watch a lot of movies anymore, even TV shows are generally for old people, The Only Murders In The Building, boomers or slightly younger, bet money, this didn’t actually happen, invited Virgil over for dinner, it’s 9 hours, bro, people would and could do it, you’re in a different headspace, a different mode, the material is familiar, reading this on paper, easy reading on paper, following along in print, Robert Fagels, John Dryden, the footnotes, sometimes the footnotes contradict Jesse, who is Aeneas’ mom, the goddess Venus, she’s a huntress, dressing up like Diana, sometimes they’re not behaving in the way that is most stereotypical, reflecting, the opening, the retelling, mapping The Odyssey, book 3 especially, one to oney, Homer, Virgil was a real dude, 100% known, a merging of some things, existing myths about Aeneas, crafted an overarching story, popular myths, strikingly different, a work of art by a particular individual, all about prophecy, just Roman history, subsumed by the Roman Empire, a national epic done folk hero style, Robin Hood, national epic propaganda style, saying Shakespeare wrote to get approval of the queen, this doesn’t feel as mythological, reliance on gods for everyday events, Augustus, from town to town, died before he finished it, not in 20 years, a really cool noir ending, its finished, wanted to have it burned, not good enough, his heirs, his literary estate, copyright didn’t exist back then, George R.R. Martin, more drafts, how you write an epic poem, the pentameter wasn’t quite right, a meter problem, forced rhymes, pretending you can rhyme things, funnier, poems should be hilarious, helps tell the story, Beowulf, the translation, failed Latin, Latin 101, greater shames in life, written in Greek or Latin, this translation tries to feel epic poetry, modern post-critical translation, words that will shock you, twist the meaning, the feel, someone just telling a story, structured that way on the page, accept it without a rhyme, prose translation, a phone call, edited an annotated and compiled, Arms and the man I sing, haughty Juno, long labours both by sea and land he bore, Latian realm, built his destined town, long glories of majestic Rome, so brave, so just a man, first part of book 1, very different, an exile driven on by fate, destined to reach Lavinia soil, cruel Juno’s relentless rage, before he could found a city, the same idea, same material, not as pretty, not as poetic, easier to understand, sounds better when you read it, a very busy week, hard to pick up what’s happening, sometimes the backwards is grammar, to make it it, Maissa was going to be here, compared to The Odyssey, a very boy book, not a girl book, marriage, Juno being mad, childbirth and marriage, picks up his father, takes his son by his hand, leaves his wife behind, new wives, a nice lady there, wants to have him in bed, a serious succession of goddesses, widow, ok, destiny, I am very Roman virtue, honoring thy father, Imma kill myself, I curse you, the feel, we notice and know, comes back all by himself, loses some ships, war with the Latins, he’s still got his people, not an individual’s return home, Philip K. Dick, a man experiencing the world, Beyond Lies The Wub, a similarity but a difference, he’s trying to go home, home has been destroyed, found a new place, you need more than one guy, the Greeks are not an empire, a league, teams, allies, games together, each guy is his own king, no matter what town, Ajax the lesser, Ajax the greater, propagandistic, a national epic for an empire, a leader of men who doesn’t kill his men, sex quest across the Mediterranean, supernatural stuff, monster or goddess, variation on the magic, guest host relationship, you invited me into your home, you came into my home without knocking, each island is about the guest host relationship, a bible for how to deal with no empire, they invite you in and turn you into a pig, Dido’s peninsula, Libya, respect and food to the other lost ships, I’ll sleep with you, that’s cool, called by fate, reminded by the gods, we disagree, Juno’s the one manipulating things, do we call that fate if a god is doing it, when Zeus or Jupiter says something’s happening, that’s fate, classical pantheons, the king of the gods has real authority, a lot of talk about how the greeks are very masculinity, same thing is true of the Romans, more obviously intensive, the rape of the Sabines, whole buncha women, a sacking, taken the remnants of an army, one guy eventually showing up on his own island, teams up with his son and kills em, righteous executes justice, boy what a troubled sailor, Aeneas is not fun, moved by the fate, a mirror to Augustus, blows some waves, Poseidon is happy with Aeneas, everything is reversed, all subsumed to the outcome, written backwards, a deliberate myth about his own people, an inversion, every part of it is backwards, an inevitable monopoly piece, watching a chess game from the 1960s, no concept of spoiling things, you know where it is going on purpose, the whole fun of it, almost too perfect, Dido is not a goddess, nymphs, more deliberate, more false, she’s also the queen of Carthage, beaten in recent history, she’s on her pyre, now we’re going to forever be at war for what you did to me, why didn’t he just stat with her, almost like a prequel, to get to Episode 4, doesn’t feel as awesomely spontaneous, not internal, everything he ran into, a goal he was going for, he’s dutiful, less of a character, found the new city and get better lives, you’re all going to live and conquer Italy, not acting like a king, a piece on a chessboard being moved around, his destiny was to found Rome, that is what a king is supposed to act like according to this piece of propaganda, those guys are lost at sea, that guy got eaten by a cyclops, that’s not the job of a kind, that is why we have an empire, good at art and tutoring but they don’t have the discipline that a king is supposed to have, that culminating scene at the end, he’s basically won the war, he’s essentially founded Rome, he could end this and make friends and have it be over, brothers in this new land, my friend, echoes back to the Iliad, of course we have to genocide you, extremely new to having a king again, imperator, supreme executive authority, an agent of the senate, working for the senate, that lie went away over the centuries, this is an emergency, for the rest of his life, is Augustus the first time an emperor comes into existence?, the same trick Napoleon uses, does that trick work again?, the British are very willing to marry into the Bonaparte royal line, the emperor of japan still exists, but the empire is just Japan and Okinawa, before the Shogun, prime minister, but the king has no power, I’m the emperor’s chief warlord, nobody tries to mess with the throne, a separate kind of thing, the managers of empire, they have staff, the buck stops with them, pontifex maximus, the highest religious figure, sometimes you become a literal god as well, the head of the army, extreme power, this book feels different in part because its an inversion, it is not about art and a man wandering the earth and figuring out how to relate to things, a man needs to be with his wife and his son, the journey of a state, curses the two culture to war, 27 BC, 2100 year old book?, they knew about all that Carthage stuff, figuring out what they’re culture is like based on this one thing, a very narrow window, the propaganda of empire, an emperor’s job, carrying the father, to lead the son, faithful to his friends, push on towards destiny, my pride is up, personal rivalry, the inevitable grind of what the plan is, trying to live your life trying to figure out what the gods want, make a sacrifice to Juno, the milk white cow, and a foal, motifs we don’t get, symbols, fire, snake, page 61, the hollow spaces lie, denoting deeth [death], the priestess enters with her hair unbound, a curse, threefold Hecate, hoary, with brazen sickles reaped a noon of night, baleful juices, robbing the mother’s love, two meanings, the mother of the foal, unable to suckle its child, she wanted to have his babies, you could get married again, this ritual is to kill her, a mother’s job is to have children and make new Roman soldiers, everything’s white, twas dead of night, gentle floods, peace with downy wings was brooding on the ground, making eggs, very skillfully done, a cow, pours red juice on its head, cow, cattle?, it exists, if I was a Roman, some of those symbols, circling back, feels like a witch, she’s a priestess, this text is the foundational text in education up into the 1900s, memorizing, those symbols, I bet a lot of it came straight outta this text, the root of a lot of the symbolism and language, this massive poem, 9000 couplets, breaking it up, so much going on, Donald Westlake book set in New York, what a cab is, how the economy works, the prices, racism, how much a sandwich costs, what the alley smelled like, how this was distributed, copied by slaves or copyists, possibly Greeks, making copies to be gifted, presents, enjoy them, everybody likes reading, the major media that’s available, they have theaters and stuff, the actors were slaves, low class, business magnate, a general, something important, who the audience for it is, they’re going to think it is cool, the amount of change you need to get in to get into it, questioning what does that mean exactly, more difficult than the odyssey, a manufactured bible, more book of Mormon, maybe they have an empire, surrounded, in Utah, there’s a Mormon in the house!, the description of the Trojan War, their minds were addled, intervention by gods that made them actually accept this thing, Virgil, why Odysseus is a hero to me is because he’s tricky, his virtue is not the virtue of being a good father or a dutiful leader, not the virtue of an emperor, pride, proud, strong, some invulnerability, sense of honor, honor comes from pride, how he can trick his way out of things, you promised to go off with a thousand ships, pretends to be insane, plowing the beach, puts [Telemachus] on the beach, Achilles, dressed him up as a handmaiden [Achilles on Skyros], thread, a rocket, a sword, these conversations, differences between men and women, the reason he is beloved of Minerva/Athena is he’s tricky, wisdom is being clever/tricky not making good decisions for your community, Aeneas is beloved by Jupiter, the fealty is to the father, a major difference, tusky boars and stags, my animal, the titles for these books, The Passion Of Dido, a biblical meaning, Safe Haven After Storm, The Final Hours Of Troy, Landfalls Ports Of Call, Arms And The Man, The Fall Of Troy, Aeneas’ Wanderings, wow, double meaning, an interesting choice, have something happen to you, Passion Of The Christ vs. a woman who is passionate, to be an actor is to act, to be a patient is to have things done to you, her sister is the human who tries to give her good advice, bad advice, murdered by his brother, his land and his wealth, his gold, the wife is collateral damage, she had promised not to remarry, in such a tough spot, she loved her dead husband, visiting his tomb, not in the know with regard to the chessboard plan, the visits to Sicily, abbreviated and less cool than anything we get in the Odyssey, just following the map, together in one book, who he was writing for, what would a stop in Sicily have meant, pooping on this book, two of the greatest things ever written, pretty good for a dude, given all the limitations, so much foreshadowing, follows the same structure and formula, you can bump into characters, a map of the journeys, time feels very compressed, founded Rome before Odysseus got home, 10 years at war, 10 years at sea, hanging out with Calypso, the storytelling, the first book of The Odyssey, sees some washer princesses, is it Menelaus, I’m not a classics scholar, I’m a pulp art fan, the man of many devices, the sacred citadel of Troy, many the woes he suffered, the return of his comrades, he desired it sore, so sad all my guys died, hey guys you all have to stuff your ears full of wax, but tie me up I gotta hear this shit, so appealing to a teenagers, fools, goddess daughter of Zeus, longing for return, yearning that he should be her husband, everybody wants to marry our boy, turn him into a tame animal, maybe an owl, whatever you are is what you’re turned into, stay in bed don’t go out, stay here, we’ll stay in, a third lady, all these sea-ladies want to keep him, return home to Ithaca, even among his own folk, save Poseidon, sundered in twain, where Hyperion sets and rises, Argives, his men screwed up, they killed the bulls of the sungod, that’s why they were all killed, Mercury shows up and says don’t go in there, take this herb with you, favoured by the gods, one way to read it, being gifted with good ideas, having an app on your phone that can tell you where to go, these Facebook gods are working against us, always meeting cross dressing gods, Mentor, more formal about it, piety was prized among the Romans, forces of nature, make this guy a king, personification of storms, keep your head down and survive, more legalistic, rational?, the city of Rome, household gods, a Roman concept, a guardian angel, you inherited them from your father, little statues of them, a different vibe, the gods have a plan and are working through it, I got reject by Paris and I’m mad about it, you killed my cows, he was brought home because they liked him for some reason, Aeneas is being dragged along his path of fate, a very pious guy, Aeneas before this was written he was a very pious guy, supremely violent, appealed to the Romans, a more Roman virtue, martial prowess, bows to the will of the gods, does what he’s supposed to, feels less mythic than Odysseus, really good, flashed, Hyrcania, Hyrkania, the horselords in Conan, Russia/Ukraine, these walls he entered, forced by my fate, from head to foot, looking at people’s bodies, no longer these outrageous threats, she dissin him, hardened entrails, rough Hyrcanian tigers, looked or lent, all symptoms of a base ungrateful mind, behold in vain, triumphant treason, faithless is earth, faceless are the skies, suicidal you might say, #betrayed, I know that place, you knew that one, a number of cities, Argos, in one of these old books, sometimes it is mapped in Robert E. Howard, The Lost Valley Of Iskander, kinda sorta, 20 cities named after Alexander, weird fantasy novel, the other Alex, weird fantasy author, [Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Weirwoods], shinto like spirits, occassional cyclops, there isn’t magic in every wave, Cloacina the goddess of the drains, the sewers in Rome, chief of the drame, The Not-World, every forest is full of spirits, nymphs, dryads, naidas, land of the lotus eaters, weird creatures, the world is unexplored, at least 500 years earlier, the Mycenaean collapse, a very post-modern, Virgil is very post-modern for a pre-modern, camera, well that just happened, make me die, really horrible, a mural of the Trojan war here, a grotto where there’s a lady who’s immortal, that’s not a thing in this book, its a human woman in a real place, that we really salted the earth for, pretty extraordinary book, the next two installments, split it into thirds, the Iliad part is the war part, more Odyssey part, the journey to the underworld, how Virgil ended up in Dante, referencing previous book, Larry Niven putting himself in hell, Inferno, the sequel, H.P. Lovecraft is always thinking my life as a Roman!, Philip K. Dick leans on the early end, a story set in ancient Greece, [The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft], I know, I know, the whole story is a kinda like Robert Graves gives us about Livia, Augustus’ wife, I, Claudius, poisoning everybody, two artists are commissioned to make a statue of a god, inspiration from nature vs. inspiration from partying in the city, such a good friend to his friend, you don’t need to build me a tomb, put an olive branch at the head of my grave, a mighty tree, collapses in a windstorm, the friend isn’t a friend he was jealous, he poisoned him, art inspired by nature, Lovecraft’s argument, making that argument here, The Odyssey is better because its inspired by some sort of natural thing vs. a propagandistic thing, three great attempts to do epic poetry, Gilgamesh is a thing, a tradition of epic poetry, Dante did it for the Italians, he put Virgil in it, not so much as a history, everyone else writing in Latin, Milton tried to do it in English, none of them, for science fiction fans, Eclogues aka The Bucolics, The Georgics, shorter poems, some sort of theories, one of them is a really interesting thing about bees, bees in here, an Italian miniseries adaptation of The Aeneid, a nest of bees, bees are a big thing in Roman culture, the Romans being bees, they have queens, they thought they had kings, the king bee, industrious, plays and drinking parties and doing philosophies, also farmers, bees produce honey, citizen farmers, we will kick your ass, a recipe for making bees, get a carcass of a bull and cover it so no air can get in, bees within it, wasps?, that doesn’t sound right, a metaphor, what that metaphor is, you can see the working hand of Virgil in the manipulation of the events, Dido and the war, so much content in the millions of similes, Dido’s sister her hair is blonde, are the Carthaginians aryans?, is that a metaphor, the marriage bed, something red poured on its head, virgins everywhere, endless virgins, something the Romans are thinking a lot about, prized virginity, Vestal virgins, what’s the word sacred mean, set aside for the gods, something unblemished, in Exodus, an unblemished lamb, what’s the best animal to sacrifice, nudity, half-cladness, bottomless, kinda fun, not a prudish book, the morality is very different, extremely different, they have the things they believe in, a lot of echoes to it, The Man Who Was Thursday, Father Brown Mysteries – The Sign Of The Broken Sword, guess who the spymaster is, higher up the chain, The Everlasting Man, the pinnacle of pagan civilization, only the Christianization of Roman, the best culture, supposed to rule the world, our empire will have no boundaries, let’s go Rome!, these guys were a little weird tho, invade and murder all these people, before tweets, it sounds like a forerunner to the Riverworld novels, John Kendrick Bangs, Bangsian Fantasy, everyone who has ever died is in Hades, a mysterious houseboat, comedic version of what happens, put Virgil in Hell, he doesn’t belong in the worse circle of hell because he’s a virtuous pagan, retrograde takes, this doesn’t seem right to me, reading Gilgamesh, that guy really loved his friend, science fiction about a future culture where their virtues are really different, prized different things, murdered that guy and raped his wife, Jack Vance, The Moon Moth, a culture where you aren’t allowed to watch people eat, so disgusting, Time Out Of Joint, you do things backwards, gonna have to go to school soon, people regurgitate food into the refrigerator, everything’s reversed, Catholic worries about birth control and abortion, insert me into some woman, attach an umbilical cord, you eat through your ass, learned a ton, meeting again on the first of September, on for The Green Queen and then Treasure Island, Hugh B. Cave, unmute your children.

Aeneas tells Dido of The Trojan War by Guerin

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #586 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Tree Of Life by C.L. Moore

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #586 – The Tree Of Life by C.L. Moore; read by Gregg Margarite. This is an unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 10 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, October 1936, what a good issue this is, how many podcasts based on stories in this issue?, Lloyd Arthur Ashback, The Lost Temple Of Xantoos by Howell Calhoun, Robert Block, Witch-Burning, The Lost Door by Dorothy Quick, Mark Twain, Earle Pierce Jr., Red Nails by Robert E. Howard, the final Conan story while he’s alive, R.E.H. by Robert H. Barlow, The Secret Of Kralitz by Henry Kuttner, Arthur Conan Doyle, a lot for your money, The Shadow, Motor Stories, True Detective, Northwest Smith stories, worldbuilding, Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven, corrupt the planet, elves, diminished, our swashbuckling hero, connections, Philip Jose Farmer’s authorized Tarzan novel: The Dark Heart Of Time, a crystal tree, a civilization built around it, trees, a pocket universe ruled by a being that created the universe, ultimately easy to deal with, Jirel Of Joiry, Shambleau, succumbing to the wiles of a woman (who is not a woman), an anti-climactic ending, as an introduction, it has the virtue of being public domain, LibriVox, what she does with the language, not very much happens, mostly description, very Robert E. Howard like, the colour and the emotion, what actually happens, crashed, he’s basically Han Solo, a Mandalorian episode, no Chewie here, more pathetic than Chewie, a million year old ruined city, the Patrol, the well, a fake crying lady, reaching back into his brain vocab book, a missing bit, sacrificing a few of the forest people, through a monumental effort of will, he shoots it in the trunk/roots, very metaphorical, a dream sequence, the mushroom expression of the thing that is Thag, give him a sword, half of Conan stories, fights a god, a girl to be saved and a girl that’s evil (and jealous of Conan’s gf), Jesse’s least favourite part of Game Of Thrones, a really long story for the amount of activity that happens, a laser beam battle, a tribal war, it feels very long, the repetition, the same strange word again, incongruity, incredulous, making it more ornate and then colouring in, how it feels rather than what you see, a queer sort of music, intolerable beauty, that piercing strength, purple prose, its all about the dwelling in that feeling, the description of bodies, moonstone eyes, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, The Tyger by William Blake, my dead friend Gregg Margarite, “went lurking” a verb now used,

“went lurking” is a verb now used by people who only know each other via newsgroups – can mean, stopped responding to email or threads, also usable to describe people have have possibly died – so that’s how I will now describe my friends who I know have died

-they “went lurking”

Where do they lurk? Under what circumstances do they stop lurking? This sounds like a story waiting to be written.”-@StephenPersing

Now they ride with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-winds, and play by day amongst the catacombs of Nephren-Ka in the sealed and unknown valley of Hadoth by the Nile, at least… for now.

referencing The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft whenever possible, The Number Of The Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, it’s a (Philip Jose) Farmer book, its not a great book, “I’m going to do nostalgia”, 666 dimensions, WOW, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, 1979/80, revisiting some feelings, self-indulgent and incestuous, Lazarus Long, Mike the computer, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Glory Road, tour de Heinlein, enjoyed reading it, living my life and reading this book, it shouldn’t exist, the Exegesis of Robert A. Heinlein, science fictional concepts, watch out for femme fatales, “I’ll try”, a character development, a bottle episode, a standalone, the way Red Nails ends, Queen Of The Black Coast, go have one of his gigantic melancholies, “harry the coast of Kush”, a sense of optimism, this is not really science fiction, more like Star Wars, sword and planet, science fantasy, a romance, more weird, a setting beyond the Earth, its totally weird, there’s this god and this wizard, Conan, The Lost Valley of Iskander by Robert E. Howard, broody and thinky, Windwagon Smith, Philip Jose Farmer’s Windwagon Smith, Frank Leslie Illustrated, The Steam Man Of The Prairies, Tom Swift And His Electric Runabout, Around The World In 80 Days, Planes, Trains And Automobiles (1987), an Ice Sledge, Dragonlance DL6: Dragons Of Ice, could this really work?, Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Windwagon Smith And The Martians, a mashup, Northwest Smith and Windwagon Smith, Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides, pirates and voodoo, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Lord Dunsany’s A Story Of Land And Sea, Thomas Windwagon Smith, 1854 newspaper accounts, the prevailing winds blow in the wrong direction, a legal document with silver ink on blue paper, adapted into a comic (Eclipse’s Orbit), recorded into an audiobook, reasons to contact Ray Bradbury, Twelve Kings In Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu, Paul Bunyan, American myths, where’s Philip Jose Farmer when we need him?, American Mythos, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Smith is that name, Joe Anybody, C.L. Moore’s afterword for Shambleau And Other Stories, a red figure running, N.W. Smith, a third character was needed, Yarol is an anagram for the typewriter, North-West recurs, North West Territory, North-West Passage, the Northwest Rebellion, Northwest Of Space, do you remember when I was a kid?, Grizzly Adams, recreating the Garden of Eden with a bear,

The Lost
Temples of Xantoos

By HOWELL CALHOUN
Celestial fantasies of deathless night, Enraptured colonnades adorned with pearls, Resplendent guardians of crimson light, Expanse of darkness silently unfurls Among colossal ruins on this shore, That once was purled by Xantoos’ rolling seas; Nothing remains upon this barren core Of Mars, but your palatial memories.

Your altars and magnificent black gods Still flash beneath the sapphire torches’ flames, The fragrant ring of sacred flowers nods Beneath the monstrous idols’ gilded frames. Your jeweled gates swing open on their bands Of gold; within, a lurid shadow stands.

John Carter, Northwest Smith, this Sea that once was (now dry), abandoned city, vocabulary practice, retelling without having read, mixing and remixing, when you put Burroughs out into the world…, more sharp, more poisonous, it sticks with you, Blake inspired, the syntax, part of the fun, reading deeply, what haunts authors, the sea is an image in Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, C.L. Moore is more commercially minded, Robert E. Howard was willing to write for anybody, Henry Kuttner, he’s kinda like Robert E. Howard, first fanmail, ‘she’s hiding her identity behind her initials’, a more common thing to do, a trend that happened, the sexism was not real in Weird Tales, some womens names were hidden by initials, the readership was almost equally female, boys and girls and women and men of all ages, more female poets, 30% female story authors, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Seabury Quinn, Lovecraft’s semi-beef with Farnsworth Wright, No Woman Born by C.L. Moore, gynoid body please, rings of metal, conveying the woman that she used to be, Science Fiction 101 aka Worlds Of Wonder edited by Robert Silverberg, Fondly Fahrenheit, Day Million, No Woman Born, The Monsters, Jack Vance, no time to read for anything except for the podcast, the difference between podcasts and reviews, the firehose is the fifty firehoses, I would love to help, 17th century novels and poetry nobody reads, a lot of dross, gender stereotyping, kind of a doofus as opposed fascist, compilation of trailers, Siren, Odysseus and the Sirens story, a classical trap,
a fundamental misunderstanding people have been having since the mid-19th century, what evolution, a show about mermaids set in 2020, I despair for our species, that’s why we have problems, FreeForm, filmed 10 feet from my mom’s house, Apple TV+ a fourth grade student investigating a murder as an accredited journalist, its not aimed at humans, its like a kitten detective, a serious show, Encyclopedia Brown, Love Is Blind, marriage, they’re all fake, artificial drama, the consequences, why did you bring this white guy home, a TV whore, an intellectually morally bankrupt decision, abuse, Will to to blame, subordinating themselves for infamy, The Running Man by Stephen King, The Prize Of Peril by Robert Sheckley, Das Millionenspiel, traumatized by the indignities, doing your spirit wrong Will, Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan, facial tattoos, scarification, SoundCloud rapper is a culture, earlobe stretching, lip stretching, group identity by shared pain, everything’s crazy in the shade of The Tree Of Life, were in the Thag bubble, their story is a lot richer, snuggled up or running screaming, the lie of this story, he never really got out that’s why this is the last story, he’s a white man, he’s fine, a semi-desperate criminal, why people fundamentally reject the death of Han Solo, when Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes, remember Spock?, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, give Mirror Universe Spock a shave, killing Kirk, a generational changing of the guard, gone down with the Enterprise, a twitter argument,

@SFFaudio Feb 8 [2020]
time to face the truth:

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) looks better and better and better as the years go by

at some point it will be better than VOYAGE HOME (1986) and yes, inevitably, even WRATH OF KHAN (1982)

Star Trek 1 is an art film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969), how you know you’re in a Russian art film, a big idea, everybody agrees, VGER, Milton and Moby Dick and Shakespeare, themes, everything, meanwhile in the darkness Star Trek I is getting better and better, gaining more gravity with time, why they changed the uniforms, its Frankenstein, try the computer down, we can be friends, The Changeling, Voyage Home is so much fun, some lady who’s a cat, Assignment: Earth, “exact change”, too much LDS, while ST1 is a better film, Star Trek IV is more fun, retcon things, Jesse’s ratings of the Superman movies.

The Tree Of Life by C.L. Moore

The Lost Temples Of Xantoos

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The SFFaudio Podcast #477 – READALONG: Dune (Book II of III) by Frank Herbert

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #477 – Jesse, Paul, Marissa, and Will talk about Dune: Book II “Muad’Dib” by Frank Herbert aka the second third of Dune.

Talked about on today’s show:
the second third of the first and only Dune novel, exposed in the desert, Liet Kynes talking to his dad, more philosophy, infodumping, that surviving chunk, he couldn’t murder his darling, sand grasping, so long, he’s dying, a beautiful way to tell us about it, George R.R. Martin, why is he telling me this?, the Miniseries, terraform Dune, an invitation to pick up the torch, sort of Homeric, our moral purpose, his life is just as worthy as the others, Villeneuve, two movies?, David Lynch’s version, The Hobbit movie debacle, powerful scenes, the camping scenes, struck with, Chani was the daughter of Liet, parallels, they’re made for each other (dead fathers in common), you shall know them by who they despise, they hate Harkonnens together, both fathers killed by Harkkonens, the dream girl, a come-on line, when he sings her that love song, his mother is his enemy (in that moment), chilling, what Herbert does with psychology, people sometimes have criticisms, “you should more women writers”, 90% or higher, women understand women and men understand by men, the scenes where Jessica is talking to her daughter, Herbert’s a good writer of women, women aren’t just one thing, just like that scene in Dune, doing drugs when she was pregnant, you should’ve told us you were pregnant, the Bene Gesserit scolding, controlling the gender of babies, why did Jessica choose to have a daughter?, kind of a hole, Jesse knows how wise he is because he tells himself he is, two kinds of pie, the ability to choose vs. letting such thing happen, sunk costs, choosing badly, is the directive off?, 38% through, a prophecy of Paul’s, “only to serve”, mucking around with the Emperor, Irulan, ending the Emperor’s line, he has self-restraint, not manipulable, “I’m holdin’ off”, Count Fenring and wife, a fascinating couple, a power couple, a voice Will wanted to hear, sequelitis, why this book is so great, great backstory, why J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings is so great, backfill for a whole universe, using the religion to keep them obedient, Mission Protectiva, the channel Jessica uses, bringing the jihad, Bene Gesserit on ice planets become snow-witches, “wild”, Kynes’ father is responsible for the jihad, Cortez and Quetzalcoatl, a white skinned deity, a unnerving series of coincidences, “we’re taking this land guys”, horses, armour, disease, the Aztec Empire was ripe to fall, doing the legend, Paul territory, the Jesuits teaching the rules, special communications powers with the God, Catholicism, long term less thought out, the Protestant Reformation, North Vancouver, abuse of power, the Orange Catholic bible, mystical religious figures, multiple levels of interpretation, when Paul quotes from the OC bible, no expectation that you need to read the bible, a mediated thing, “Gods!”, Gurney and the Harkonnens and Jessica, tempt not the Gods of the desert, “Gods! What a monster!”, are the sandworms the only aliens?, the patterns of life are mimicked by the alien life brought to it, Caladanian plants?, slime on Gedi Prime?, the jungles and rice paddies, sounds like Vietnam, terraforming jungles?, the following five books…, Lois McMaster Bujold, 10,000 years later, one mixed thing, a native plant?, the Goodreads reviews, meta-reviews, subtle trolling, ‘couldn’t have been written today’, a thing veiled description of reality, John Kerry, squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, plastics factory, coffee, oil, the economy is run on oil, the spice must flow the oil must flow, a retelling of Lawrence of Arabia, the Harkonnens are the Ottomans, is spice-coffee made of spice?, coffee substitutes, chicory, coffee extender, fungal masses, the pre-spice mass, chaga coffee, a positive psychoactive effect, plus you, everything is made of spice, addictive like cocaine vs. addictive like oil, a metaphor, once you start farming with tractors, once you get on the oil, melamine, food made out of oil, sugar, horses and hay, inventing synthetic fuels, not just about fuel, an ideology in itself, a galactic economy, motivations, their computer technology, we’re going to have a Butlerian Jihad, proving you’re not a robot, against the ownership of AI, every phone has a button or an assistant, Alexa, Siri, we’re making our lives so easy we’re only responding, God made Arrakis to train the faithful, their goal is to become soft, a very Greek idea, the Spartans, the Persians were living easy lives, soft like the Ottomans, lion’s mane and chaga, Thufir taking stims, poison transmuted into a psychoactive sex party drug (ecstasy), just “look within”, manipulating the chemical bonds, a cool trick, weird fuel, acid and bile, transmutational effects, the magic in it is science based, aligning your chakras, prana bindu training to squirt the chemicals, the two kinds of alcohol, methyl and ethyl alcohol, drunk and blind, regular grain alcohol is an antidote for wood alcohol, extending regular alcohol with wood alcohol, it isn’t a book about one thing, politics, the Suez Canal is not just for fun, for moving product and controlling empire, a longer process, Jefferson, Barbary Pirates, the shores of Tripoli, doing lots of mushrooms, sex, when Fenring hums and haws, Feyd, everybody has a pink pouch of a mouth, the Windsor nose?, formic acid, this is amazing!, ethanol cures methanol poisoning, parallelism, Paul 1st kill vs. Feyd’s 100th kill, how much time is spent with the whole Jamis situation, expressing opposite societies, Feyd is the shadow version of Paul, Paul’s loving mother and father vs. Feyd’s creepy uncle and creepy cousin, an individual as deplorable as Sting, Sting’s smirk, the scene between the Baron and the Beast Rabban, the beast is on the ball, his spies and his addictions, they’re all flawed, Lady Fenring thinks Feyd was raised wrong, part of the failing of the book, I’m a prince and therefore I have a right to rule, King of North Korea, the rule of life, nature is really cruel, powerful monarchies, the rule is to try to be as tough and wily as you can, breeding a super-being, eugenics, breeding smart people, Ramses the III vs. Yao Ming, great writers who are the sons of great writers, Stephen King and Joe Hill, Kevin J. Anderson composing novels on hikes, Hitler’s son, opulent in their luxury, immigrants to Canada, Sardaran rote, going to Salusa Secundua, the Marine Corps, the tool of a bunch of tools, super-geniuses making huge mistakes, a thirty car pile up of different plots and plans, Thufir’s fuckups, the hawk symbol on the gladiatorial slave, trying to kill and help Feyd, a Harkonnen he can control, Feyd as Thufir’s weapon to kill the Baron, suppose Paul and Jessica died in the thopter crash, who would be the next emperor?, if the Kwisatz Haderach plan failed?, lighting round statements, respect for the truth comes close to the basis for all morality, a book of wisdom, poor princess in the tower, what do you despise? by this you are truly known, Michio Kaku, the future doesn’t exist, you cannot back into the future, an Uber car backed into the future at 88 miles per hour, Jesse’s Row, Row, Your Boat theory, life is but a dream, life is not real, the blue pill, we can never see the future, Barrett Brown, disrespect for authority, an amazing and hilarious writer, Thomas Friedman is wrong about everything, tricks and tropes, just read “Thomas Friedman”, why Noam Chomsky doesn’t have a column at the New York Times, your pustules are so beautiful my Baron, a suck-up to power, consistently wrong, a great philosophy, on drugs and about to have sex with Chani, we’re gonna make a baby, the hard part is not seeing the future but seeing the past from the future, tripping amazeballs, what is an Usul?, “that’s that scene where she said Usul!”, is the future known or is it experienced?, a nexus moment, a cloud, déjà vu, we have déjà vu, “ah! It is the prophecy, she is the sayyadina!”, the opposite of science, science isn’t in the business of proving anything, very meta, holding a physical copy of the book, Paul has the Wikipedia entry for certain chapters or certain scenes, the effect of magic mushrooms, everything is connected and seeing things as they are, The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” –which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of getting it, the self imposed delay, delayed gratification, Jamis was pleased, “I was a friend of Jamis”, a political speech, constant tension, a sometime prophet, just a teenage kid, “my mom is so stupid, I hate her right now”, Gurney, dispersed, taking up new positions, mercenaries, going rogue, short shrift, smugglers, live to fight another day, learning a lesson, Staban Tuek, very honorable in a very interesting way, gratitude, cool your sorrows with water, green grass, the beauty of women, rich with characters and stories, really good writing, a weird book, no chapters, Halleck turned, landscape face, the shadow version of the Fremen, a stone is heavy, playing a circumspect game, destroying the witch, Hawat didn’t see the traitor, rumors and hunches, likely not even their bones will never be found, differences between the audiobook and paperbook, the number of Fremen, dragging that foot and walking without rhythm, an interesting parallel, young and trainable, no value in the mom (except the water), the water discipline, the middlemen between the Fremen and the Guild, fascinatingly interesting, a story amongst all the structure, systems within systems, so good, the worst scene in the book, no more terrible disaster could befall your people than to fall into the hands of a hero, meta-commentary, by not killing himself or his mom, “show me the eighteen moves of pleasure, woman”, Kynes was seduced, the wife of Hitler, longer and stranger, when Jessica uses the voice she has to have them talk for a while, Chakobsa, the power that Bill Clinton had, winning the room, using the words, legit the voice, the voice of command, pressing the buttons of what people want to hear, “Axis of Evil”, right to the root of the brain, when someone comes up with a new metaphor, everything is metaphor, a new martial arts attack, move and counter move, Mixed Mental Arts, chattering heads on TV, the Atredies win the room, winning the action, so good!

John Kerry Code Pink

Dune by Frank Herbert (dustjacket)

ACE - Dune by Frank Herbert

Waldtenapes - Dune: A Recorded Interview

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #435 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Green Meadow by H.P. Lovecraft and Winifred V. Jackson

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #435 – The Green Meadow by H.P. Lovecraft and Winifred V. Jackson read by the great Wayne June. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (17 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Mr Jim Moon, Bryan Alexander, and Wayne June!

Talked about on today’s show:
The Crawling Chaos, a tiger, a plague year, drugs, a meteorite, professors, translators, how it struck an ending, baffling, three big paperbacks, the revision work, Arkham House, Horror Of The Museum, like a fragment, an extended commonplace book entry, strongly echoed in The Shadow Out Of Time, the mythos shopping list, the artificial checklist, Memory, What Rhe Moon Brings, prose poems, the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, completely ignored, what to make of it, prose poem aspects, the only audiobook version in the universe, the way it struck Wayne, 1918/19, an early effort, Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, atypical formula, loosely connected to the frighteningly uncaring universe, The Willows by Algernon Blackwood, The Wendigo, The Damned Thing by Ambrose Bierce, nature as a threat, 100%, the gauntlet thrown down: “The text, as far as preserved, is here rendered as literally as our language permits, in the hope that some reader may eventually hit upon an interpretation and solve one of the greatest scientific mysteries of recent years.” a hoax, dreams, a frame, figuring out what it means, a series of images, the power of the description, its so clear that life is the enemy, the sea and the sky are in a war with life, he breaks off from life, a peninsula, things of the air, the forms of the air that are non-alive join with the sea, conspiring, the living against the non-living, cataract, ending in the Dreamlands, Bryan’s take, the fantasies vs. the horror, appreciated and enjoyed, the massive frame, WWI, German, one of the many loathsome policies of the Wilson administration, the tonal shift, the quick catastrophe, the Harvard guy blows it,

I saw clearly the source of the chanting, and in one horrible instant remembered everything. Of such things I cannot, dare not tell, for therein was revealed the hideous solution of all which had puzzled me; and that solution would drive you mad, even as it almost drove me. . . . I knew now the change through which I had passed, and through which certain others who once were men had passed! and I knew the endless cycle of the future which none like me may escape.

Kafka’s fragments, The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym, the four professors, Potowonket, Lovecraft country village, Dr. Richard M. Jones, the “late” professor Chambers of Harvard, how did he manage to do it?, the indestructible pages, he found out what happened and he followed the path, why the text is cut-off, it’s not a fragment,

. . . . All is before me: beyond the deafening torrent lies the land of Stethelos, where young men are infinitely old. . . . The Green Meadow . . . I will send a message across the horrible immeasurable abyss. . . .

that sort of scene, The Quest Of Iranon, Sarnath, the book is the message, that’s not so interesting, a real scholar, Democritus, idola (eidolon), air spirits you absorb through your pores, influencing your eidolon, really creepy, the theme: oh those scary trees – watch out!, papyri, center for Hellenic studies at Harvard, Professor Rooms, he original atomic theory, souls of the dead, Homer, audible and visible in sleep, the Poe connection again, Dreamlands,

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE—Out of TIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters—lone and dead,—
Their still waters—still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,—
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,—
By the mountains—near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—
By the grey woods,—by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,—
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,—
By each spot the most unholy—
In each nook most melancholy,—
There the traveller meets, aghast,
Sheeted Memories of the Past—
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by—
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion
’T is a peaceful, soothing region—
For the spirit that walks in shadow
’T is—oh, ’t is an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not—dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fring’d lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.

msiing the one thing Lovecraft never puts in (the dead girlfriend), the dead trans-gendered boyfriend, not a good girl to hang out with, The Man Whom The Trees Loved, forest and verdure being alluring but having a terrible force, Arthur Machen, Jesse makes his students do his homework for him, vocab words, Jesse thinks regular people read about teacups and tea-cozies, how insane people were in whatever period, why are they so upset, they haven’t invented rocketships, between 1895-1925, astral projections, the long nights, cursing the gods, the ancient blasphemies and terrible delving, terribly upset and thoroughly enjoying himself, his astral body, over-leaped the bounds of corporeal entity, he planeted the seed, this explains the whole story, old science fiction (before the rocketships), David Lindsay’s A Voyage To Arcturus, Jack London’s The Star Rover, a lot less vikings and Japanese invasions of Korea, bringing Hypnos and the Dreamlands all together, the checklist, you can frame it in the wrong way, how good this story is, the abrupt ending is foretold by the huge frame, the narrator does almost nothing, a malignant hatred, grotesquely huge horrible, unthinkable things, the land breaks off, its up to us to do all the work, typical Lovecraft, unthinkable indescribable things, this horrible thing (existence) is just hitting them, existence (consciousnesses) attacks him, the hopeless uncaring universe, William Blake’s The Tyger, he thinks it is a reference to Rudyard Kipling, less and less of an isthmus, a description of bodily decay, let’s go off to another planet, so good, Virginia Jackson was a prodigious dreamer herself, holding on to all those details, turning a dream into a story, an alien place, why are the trees scaly, he had become an ant, a field of broccoli, lichen and fungi, grey lichen, a point of alien-ness, adapting it for film, stop-motion animation, whatever is going on in this alien planet, Scythian (Greek description of everybody to the top right of the Black Sea), if all the Mediterranean, the planet is being destroyed, the sea has defeated the trees, night gaunts?, dong interpretation, life is terrible-horrible, god is life, god is DNA, the enemy of life is non-life, nihilistic, living where young man are, scythe, the earliest recorded hashish smokers, the smoke rings of the hashish smokers, what’s lurking in the Green Meadow, human-ish,

While the words were utterly undistinguishable, the chant awaked in me a peculiar train of associations; and I was reminded of some vaguely disquieting lines I had once translated out of an Egyptian book, which in turn were taken from a papyrus of ancient Meroë. Through my brain ran lines that I fear to repeat; lines telling of very antique things and forms of life in the days when our earth was exceeding young. Of things which thought and moved and were alive, yet which gods and men would not consider alive. It was a strange book.

a prototype for the Necronomicon, who are the chanters?, The King In Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, Alan Moore’s Providence, a test out, a strange narrative and a strange book, a persistent meme, people get upset (and Jesse finds it hilarious), look at these crazy people, the Yellow Peril, what they should have been worried about, not just for space (it’s also for time), mis-named, semi-based on a real guy, projecting yourself outside your body, that’s cool, when King Kuranes walks off the cliff, Celephais, a fucking meteorite came down from the sky with a book in it, it took 2,000 years to reach the Earth, chalk and slate, the lure of life that isn’t horror, the siren call of human contact, parties, suicide, the shadowy figures were that which were really real, reverting to the main theme, oblivion is to be preferred, why is this story called “The Green Meadow” instead of “The Scary Trees

My eyes could now discern several things amidst the omnipresent verdure—rocks, covered with bright green moss, shrubs of considerable height, and less definable shapes of great magnitude which seemed to move or vibrate amidst the shrubbery in a peculiar way. The chanting, whose authors I was so anxious to glimpse, seemed loudest at points where these shapes were most numerous and most vigorously in motion.

the sense of vibration and oscillation, wake up buddy!, shrubbery, a three headed knight, A Voice In the Night by William Hope Hodgson, The Derelict, a fungus, eater of the dead, green vs. grey, so green even the trunks and rocks are green, the forward and backward nature, the perpetuation is the horror, if anyone could become President then Lovecraft could become President, give me a clean planet like Mars or Mercury bathed in the solar rays, a walk in the woods with Wayne June, green is my favorite colour, just beneath the skin, existence sucks, In The Mountains Of Madness by W. Scott Poole, there’s still lots of interesting books to read, that strange book he read, Lovecraft is so funny, a joke, falling along his normal path and message, it’s not deadly serious, the most important scientific discovery in the history of the world, The Colour Out Of Space, that’s how Joseph Smith found his books, the hoax religion, there nice people to hang out with, sure they don’t like coffee but they don like ice-cream, really cool underwear, chloroform in print, before we go completely sideways, the Fiddler’s Green myth, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, better than anything Gaiman has written since (except for the first volume), appeals to sailors, reading a lot of comics, mermaid, mermaids are the angels for sailors, DC and Marvel horror comics, mermaid discovers meat, lamia, sirens, a Valhalla for sailors, common ways of dying in folk-songs, Friday and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Billy Budd by Herman Melville, dance-houses doxies and tapster, ladies of negotiable affection, were dance halls a way of getting around prostitution laws, an earlier version of Match.com, off the rails and into the sea and off the hook.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #280 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Völsungasaga

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #280 – Völsungasaga translated by Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris; read by Corpang (of LibriVox). This is an unabridged reading of the saga (4 hours) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Seth, and Mr Jim Moon.

Talked about on today’s show:
anonymous, 1000 AD, Beowulf, Germanic myth collection, Volsung Dynasty, quick character changes, irrational logic, biblical similarities, Sigurd, echoes of myths, family relationships in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Tales of Dragons, a hodgepodge of influences, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, dramatic events, wolves, half-historical and half-saga storytelling, origin from Homeric Myths, odes, cyclical time, less Christian influences than other written sagas, a source or influences on stories and also influenced by earlier sagas, Vikings on History Channel, moral lessons to be awesome, unconsciousness of glorious kings with immoral actions, The Old Testament, hierarchy of power, jealousy of wealth and power, Medieval Japan, neighbor relationships, attitudes toward prophesy and fate, stoicism and acceptance, Odin Mythology, simple naming of characters, absence of fear of death, reincarnation, female equality, werewolves, Roman Mythology, frequent raiding, laws protecting wolves, wolves as outlaws, Caligula, power creates rules, Christian epics with Christian rule system, power of sacrifice, irrational idea of original sin, The New Testament subverting the idea of superiority, master morality and the slave morality, a lot of similarity to Beowulf, a source for education and entertainment, reason for being dramatic, 13th century literature, history in a very vague and incorrect way, more atrocity earlier in the saga, parallel between fantasy and real life, Story of Attila, transmission of knowledge, Haida Gwaii’s similarity to Vikings, We are really here for the gold!, names of dwarfs, broken names, obsession of money creates craziness, atrocity and craziness as history, story created before medieval nobility, morality as generosity, guest morality, Richard Wagner, being near Vikings is dangerous, endurance of pain as superior, no laughs and mild jokes in Volsunga saga, disrespect is bad, burial traditions create conflict, William Morris, the absence of slaves in Tolkien Fiction, free society.

The Worm Fafnir illustrated by Lancelot Speed

Sigmunds Schwert illustration by Johannes Gehrts

Ramsund Carving

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #275 – READALONG: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Podcast

Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #275 – Jesse and Mr Jim Moon discuss Ivanhoe: A Romance by Sir Walter Scott

Talked about on today’s show:
1820, the Tantor Media audiobook as read by Simon Prebble, 3 comic book adaptations!, the July 2014 BBC Radio 4 adaptation (1hr), General Mills Radio Adventure Theater, immensely important, Wamba and Gurth, looking at adaptations, refinement, Robin Hood (1973), the splitting of the arrow, a willow wand, daring-do fiction, archery, folktale, Will Scarlet splits the arrow in the Queen Katherine Ballad, the historical inaccuracies, Rob Roy, a plump text, King Richard and Friar Tuck, The Merchant Of Venice by William Shakespeare, a very Shakespearean novel, pithy and punchy, dialogue and banter, The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, fully motivated characters, Athelstane, colour cloaks, where does Isaac stat at Ashby?, Chapter 2 Gurth is “this second Eumaeus”, Ivanhoe is a retelling of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, the usurpation, the governance of Scotland, the Saxons as the Scots under the English yoke, Loxley, Prince John, King John, Magna Carta, robber barons, Brian de Bois-Guilbert (wants Rebecca), Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, “Front of Beef” (wants Isaac’s money), Maurice de Bracy (wants Rowena), war and God, the 1997 BBC TV adaptation of Ivanhoe, an Arthurian style obsession, the reconciliation, Athelstane is almost a Hobbit, Athelstane death is a comedic version of a Guy de Maupassant or Edgar Allan Poe premature burial story, The Fall Of The House Of Usher done as farce, Monty Python And the Holy Grail, surprisingly few deaths, “boys own adventure”, The A-Team, Ulrica’s death, the the Waverley Novels, almost a Fantasy, magic, The Prisoner Of Zenda, venison, the Douglas Fairbanks Robin Hood, the Black Knight – who could it be?, how easy would the disguises be seen through in 1820, bigger than Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, stage adaptations, Waverley places around the world, Abbotsford, British Columbia is named (in part) after Sir Walter Scott’s home, Ivanhoe’s popularity in the southern United States, invasion, slavery and chivalry, underselling the power of fiction (as compared with non-fiction), On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin, The Communist Manifesto, Tolkien, understanding fiction, the revelation of truth through fiction, novels were once quite novel, the need for novels, models of action, 1984 changes, helps and improves you, “what is honorable action?”, the power of oaths, rapacious acquisition vs. honorable service, the destruction of the Templars, banishment was a harsh punishment, an obsession with love, Rebecca is the female Ivanhoe, the role of the Jews in the book vs. the adaptations, banking, this is not an anti-Semitic book (shockingly), the coin counting scene, the roasting scene, Friar Tuck is super-anti-Semitic, Churchill’s background, why is it that English were not as anti-Semitic as most of Europe?, a zeitgeisty historical novel, looking at the present through a historical lens, puffy, the level of intellect is very high – the etymology of pig, Lincoln Green, the final battle, a powerfully intellectual book for a piece of fiction, mid-19th century fiction isn’t as punchy, wit and intelligence in peasant characters, J.K. Rowling must have read Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott’s was “the Wizard Of The North”, Cedric <-the name comes from this book, "freelance" <-lances for hire, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Robin Hood (Ridley Scott), Robin Hood’s nom de guerre, ITV’s Robin Of Sherwood <- both Robin Hood mythologies are in it!, the "Dread Pirate Roberts", a good knight but a bad king, pagan gods, Herne the Hunter, Ivanhoe popularized the Middle Ages, Arthurian scholarship, folk customs, the ancient Egypt craze, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, a big powerful book, A Song Of Ice And Fire is kind of the anti-Ivanhoe, the Dunk And Egg stories, surprisingly modern, the symmetry of Ivanhoe, a tonic for gallstones, HBO should commission Ivanhoe, the 1952 version, the 1982 version, Ciarán Hinds, Mark Hamill, Kevin Costner vs. Alan Rickman, a noir ending averted.

Rebecca and Ivanhoe - illustration by C.E. Brock (1905)

Ivanhoe illustrated by Clarence Leonard Cole (1914)

Ivanhoe illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen

Ivanhoe illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen

Ivanhoe illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen

ad for Ivanhoe from Good Housekeeping, August 1952

Posted by Jesse Willis