Exhuming The Spookatorium

As mentioned in a previous post, I started working to relaunch my old podcast recently. Last night the first new episode in three years went live.

In this episode we look at Cotard’s Syndrome a psychological affliction where the sufferer believes themselves to be dead, missing organs or simple non-existent. We’ve got some publishing news from Gray Friar Press, Dark Regions Press, Tartarus Press and the new Phantasmagoria Journal. Then it’s into the catacombs beneath Paris, and a secret workshop in the dome of the Pantheon with UX and arguably secret society urban explorers and preservationists.

Author Richard Gavin speaks on the ideas behind his bleak tale In The Shadow Of The Nodding God from his collection Omens published by Mythos Books, and gives a reading of his vignette Notes On The Aztec Death Whistle. In addition to Omens, Richard has two other collections of short stories available - Charnel Wine & The Darkly Splendid Realm are available from Dark Regions Press.

Music this time
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
WESTERING
RASPUTINA
PAIN TEENS
CELTIC FROST
PHALLUS DEI
FAITH & THE MUSE
SLOPPY SECONDS
GOATVARGR
GOD BULLIES
ABANDONER & ANGEL OF DECAY
MALARIA!

Professor Gruntsplatter’s Spookatorium 027

Revisiting Udolpho

I’m reading Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Published in 1794 this tale, most succinctly summarized on Wikipedia this way -

“The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel.”

I’m at about the half way point of this 620 page beast and one thing keeps occurring to me. What would a modern editor have done with this book?

Udolpho, the rotting castle referenced in the title, doesn’t come on the scene until just over 200 pages in. The language is overwrought, and the repetition of words is legion. I wake up in the morning and the first words in my head are “melancholy countenance” because they appear so frequently in these pages.

This book is 217 years old, and I am quite enjoying it. Even with all the “flaws” that modern editing and writing pound the desk about, the book has survived and influenced those that followed across genres. I wonder how temporary fiction of today will appear on the spectrum of history? What role does the trim the fat, clean as a whistle, approach to editing play in that?

This is only one example of many. The books that have wriggled into the collective unconscious often disregard the gospel. Many predate any gospel. (here is another post on the matter). That isn’t to say history won’t preserve the reduced fat storytelling of the current day, but In 217 years whose tendrils of influence will be visible in the literary canon?

Will it be those that wrote beyond the rules or never needed the rules to begin with? Story existed before, and has persevered through, different schools of thought on form. It existed before we  started building fences and genre’s and check lists about how story should be conveyed. It existed before writing. Not a revelation by any means, but a reminder worth considering.

Spookatorium

I spent yesterday re-animating the old Spookatorium Podcast site. I produced 26 episode of this from 9/06 – 10/08. I had been thinking a lot lately about bringing it back and now there it is.

I’m still formulating the first new episode, but in addition to what the show was, I’m looking to incorporate some of the authors and stories that have come to mean so much to me. We’ll see how it shakes out. The plan is to set a more realistic schedule. The last time I did this I started out weekly, it was too much. This incarnation will likely just be a monthly show.The feed is in place now to listen to the archived shows. Once I have the new content up I’ll hassle with getting it on iTunes. Stay tuned.