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The world has gone still.
All are lost in the silence of unquiet minds.
But I am neither still nor quiet.
I stand in the deafening roar of this new work
delivered by the tide of strange upheaval
that has cast me onto the shore
of a place I do not recognize.
Tonight on Strange & Scary Story Talk I discuss Henry James’s exquisite short story, The Altar of the Dead. This beautiful and haunting tale is not only a meditation on death, betrayal, forgiveness and unconditional love, it is also a reflection of what haunted James himself at the time he wrote it. The Altar of the Dead demands careful reading, not because it is unnecessarily complex but because James was so generous in his crafting of the tale that you do not want to miss all he offers.
*Please note that James’s 1904 masterpiece was The Golden Bowl, not The Glass Bowl. Unfortunately by the time “glass” stumbled out of my mouth, it was too late to turn back.
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If the ocean turned pink,
then it would be mine.
If the earth changed rotation,
it would be mine.
If the sparrows barked,
they would be mine.
And if the mice spoke,
they would be mine too.
If up became down and down up,
they would be mine.
And if sound became silence
and sight the blackness of night,
they would be mine.
If only I stayed silent.
If I had stayed silent
and the ocean turned pink
and the earth changed rotation
the sparrows barked
the mice spoke
and the universe turned itself inside out
and sound and sight disappeared
into the black void of an ancient catacomb
…if I stayed silent,
would it all be mine?
Surely, it would never be yours.
Are you tired of saccharin-sweet made-for-TV Christmas movies? If so, do as the Victorians did and invite a few ghosts to your next holiday gathering, or at least fix yourself a cocktail or cup of tea and read a classic ghost tale where winter is bleak and death is serious business. This week on Strange & Scary Story Talk I discuss Elizabeth Gaskell’s THE OLD NURSE’S STORY, a gothic tale of jealousy, betrayal and terror.
How long does it take
for a heart to no longer feel?
For the blood to coagulate
and harden?
How long does it take
for the heart to beat against itself-
its soft tissue slapping a relic
of an unfortunate past,
a pulse with no flow,
alive yet dead,
pounding on the door of an empty house?
There is no one home.
After forty-six years
its tenant has left.
Let’s resurrect the Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas. On this episode of STRANGE & SCARY STORY TALK, I discuss the long history of this tradition and explain why the Victorians took a particular interest in the dead and their relationship with the living. I also talk about why Christmas is the perfect time to welcome ghosts to our holiday celebrations.
Trees lurch from an icy wasteland,
their spindle fingers clawing at the sky,
hoping for something to grab hold of,
but there is nothing they can do-I told them so.
Their roots reach too deep into the ground.
There is no way to loosen earth’s grip
unless, of course, I chop them down.
But it strikes me that death is not what they desire.
The poor things are too stupid-they think they can fly.
I can fly-away
-in a plane.
Or, perhaps, not.
Perhaps only in my mind.
But they can’t.
And so I think they are afraid.
I understand.
Sometimes I am afraid too-to be left here.
Sometimes I fear a horrible beast will set fire to this ice-and it will melt
and we will all drown.
flailing and choking on the last of our breaths
until we quiet and sleep
and the ground once again freezes and sprouts trees born of loss
so that they too can reach their spindle fingers into the sky and hope that in the gray nothingness lies
salvation.
