On this episode of Strange & Scary Story Talk I discuss Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock. The story begins on Valentine’s Day, 1900. Students of Appleyard College for Young Ladies are going on an outing to Hanging Rock, an ancient volcanic rock formation and popular picnic site. During the trip, three of the girls and a teacher disappear. Picnic at Hanging Rock is a mystery, but is also a work rich in themes, addressing colonialism, repression and the spiritual and natural forces that cannot be controlled by man. This work is eerie and disturbing, and it’s backstory is as strange as the novel itself.

In this video, I explore how Lindsay’s interest in Spiritualism-she is said to have been a mystic herself-informed her writing of Picnic at Hanging Rock and how Lindsay’s training as a painter is evident in her use throughout the text of light and shadow which not only function symbolically but also create the hazy, dreamlike sense of place, one of the most powerful aspects of the novel.  I also talk about the decision to omit the book’s final chapter and Peter Weir’s 1975 film adaptation of the novel.

I hope you enjoy this video. If you do, please like and subscribe to Strange & Scary Story Talk. Also, please leave comments. Let me know what you think about the novel, the film, the ambiguous endings of both….

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