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Cast your minds back a few days to the pivot of October 31/November 1: All Hallows’ Eve (Hallowe’en) and All Hallows’ Day, or All Saints’ Day. And come attend to some Hallowe’en-spirited songs and reflections, modulating into something closer to a celebration of All Saints and All Souls – that is, everyone, good or bad.
You did a wonderful job on The Body-Snatchers. It was very well read, and very creepy!
I wonder if the gothic has progressed or regressed. Nowadays, Gray would certainly come to life as some kind of superhuman zombie, wielding something sharp and shiny. Nowadays, Gray would certainly mete out some kind of bloody justice to Fettes and MacFarlane. However, Stevenson seems to allow these two students escape any kind of immediate justice. Isn’t this more frightening though? Gray’s body is heading toward Edinburgh where the two lads reside. As long as Gray (or his body) is at large, he will continue to haunt the lads.
In Fred Bothing’s book Gothic, he discusses the differences between terror and horror. He says, “If terror leads to an imaginative expansion of one’s sense of self, horror describes the movement of contraction and recoil” (10). It seems that in this story (and earlier Gothic literature such as Lewis’ The Monk), long strings of terror are punctuated by moments of horror. Nowadays, the terror simply moves the vehicle along, and any terror seems to be overshadowed by the much-too-prevalent bloody, gory horror.
I think I like Stevenson’s ending a bit better than any 21st century equivalent. Had Gray hacked them up we would have been presented with a neat and tidy ending, and then we could move right on to the next flavorless morsel. But with Gray at large, we have to imagine (like Bothing says, we have to engage in an imaginative expansion) what might happen to the lads later in the evening, tomorrow, next week, or next year. Like a big, fat flavor-filled jawbreaker, the terror lasts…
By the way, the sound on the show is very crisp and clear (I think more so than ever before). Thanks for another enjoyable show!
Good point. What do I know about modern Gothic, but I can believe that the trend is for more gore and less imagination. As for justice, well, yes, I left out the very beginning of the story when we see the two men middle-aged, Macfarlane a prosperous and smug doctor, but Fettes a broken man, hanging out at the pub every night for his nightly ration of drink. Fettes’ conscience punished him enough. But Macfarlane, standing for all these smug people who find solace only in respectability, is doing fine – except that he’s hollow – and perhaps seeing Fettes again has managed to disturb him just a little.
Thanks for opening up the terms terror and horror. What you say makes sense.
I’m glad you thought the sound was better. I think it sounded better to me too – but we’d done nothing different, as far as I could tell. In a few weeks we’ll have our new studio, and we’ll see what that’s like.
And thanks for your supportive comments. They always mean a lot.