Episode Details

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, and Alex talk about The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Talked about on today’s show:
1973, what’s the deal with this book, middle of a series, 2nd book, 1st book written in 1965, standalone, oh there was a movie?, the screenwriter and the director never bothered to read the book, I don’t like fantasy, go see my movie, The Seeker The Dark Is Rising, they adapted the 2nd book, Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys, kids looking for lost treasure, magic stuff at the end, parents not paying enough attention, different feel, the Grail has been found, fantasy, powering through the whole 5 book sequence, Jenny Colvin level reading, Greenwich, Over Sea Under Stone, Connor Kaye, Ghostland: In Search Of A Haunted Country by Edward Parnell, M.R. James, Lovecraft, BBC and ITV and Yorkshire TV adaptations, Children Of The Stones, every Christmas there were ghost story adaptations, travels to places in the UK, the landscapes, birds, birdwatches, hedgehogs, they don’t have big dangerous animals, the occassional fox, ooh a badger!, a Mrs. Tiggywinkle-style relationship with the landscape, cancer, a powerful and strange book, literature, TV adaptations and the British landscape, snowing, set at Christmas and today, incredibly appropriate, snowy season, a comfort book, a cozy kind of book, tentacles in a lot of writing, the big threat is not world ending, an amorphous unspecific threat of eevvviil, not WWII bad, coal strike bad, your porridge would be cold, always winter and never Christmas, the snow sequence, the manor, that’s brilliant, why this book is cherished, as a kid, weird evil, Neil Gaiman, Harry Potter, Jim Dale telling me I need to read Harry Potter books, on the nose, the evil in Harry Potter, hyperbolic vs. sedate, staid, I found a need for it today, down the street, adventures around the neighborhood and through time, very British, especially English and Welsh, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Wales, the brother in Jamaica, a worldwide thing?, a local thing, all southern Britain, she’s writing what she knows, no strong criticisms of it, just a good book, a fun book, the relationship that she’s promulgating is we are here, things are as they are, there’s a vague sense of danger somewhere, going to the lord’s manor, an inheritor of an estate, very British, if written today, respectful of authority, tricked by seeming authority figures, the butler/valet, Ian McShane, Lovejoy, Kings, an antiques guy, old beautiful art auctions, a mystery series, rich people, lords and ladies, marry into that, Jonathan Gash, when not out for himself, con-man, small businessman, just out of prison, a convicted felon, like Magnum, PI in the UK and not driving an expensive car, that is not the relationship we have in this book, they respect us and we respect them, bizzaro world, Gray, a respect for tradition, she gives us something nice to eat, not a rant against modernism, Mr. Jim Moon is one of the best podcasters ever, if he wasn’t so busy, surgery lately, 30 shows for Christmas, The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, second wave fantasy, The Graveyard Book, cairn or barrow, what he is tapping into, Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Kipling, rarely ever kipple, Philip K. Dick, Amer