SethH Hi there, and welcome back to the Hugo's There podcast. I'm your host, Seth Heasley, and this is another normal episode. My guest this time is Ray Alston, and we are going to be discussing The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers, which is a 1989 novel that was nominated for the Locus and the World Fantasy Award, and which won 1990 Mythopoic Award. SethH So hi there, Ray. Thanks for joining me. Ray Alston for having me, Seth. I'm really excited to be part of this and to discuss this really interesting book. SethH Yeah, yeah. And you're a friend of Paul Williams, is that right? Ray Alston I am, yeah. We're best friends. We were college roommates. Stayed up late talking about books all the time. He's done two with you, right? or just one? SethH Yeah, yeah, he's done too. Ray Alston He's done two. And I enjoyed listening to those and he suggested, hey, why don't you try this out? See if Seth takes it up. So SethH Nice, nice. Now, did one of you introduce the other to Tim Powers? Ray Alston Yes, Paul introduced me to Tim Powers, and I'm trying to remember if he had actually read him yet, or if he just thought that it seemed like a good idea. SethH i think I think he mentioned it on the last episode that he threw a book at you that he hadn't read yet. that That rings true. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH Yeah. But Bo was like, I think he'll like this. Ray Alston That's right, because you he did ah a good podcast with you on Declare, which is an excellent novel, but yeah, I did read that first. SethH Yeah. um I don't know if anybody... So on my... I'll try that again. See, I do it myself. um So on my big list of award winners that ah people choose from, I think I do have the Mythopoic Awards on there. SethH And um usually the first time we cover something that is a winner, I like to at least mention what the awards are. um So they're actually they were established in 1971 by the Mythopoic Society. SethH And the Mythopoic Fantasy Award is given for it Fiction in the Spirit of the Inklings. So that's Tolkien, Lewis, you know, that... That group. It doesn't look like they do a single award every year. SethH they They award multiple books, but still it counts. Ray Alston yeah SethH It's a winner. It's on the list. So just a regular old episode. So why this book? Right. Oh, actually, you know what? Let's talk about you a little bit. um Ray Alston um SethH So I know you're a friend of Paul's, but um what else should people know about you? Ray Alston ah Well, I've been... trying to figure out where to start. Like I said, ah met Paul back at college. We were roommates at BYU-Idaho. Studied English there, minored in Russian. Then I tried did some graduate work in Russian, master's and PhD, Russian literature, specialized in a lot of 19th century stuff. And I've been kind of a career doldrums for the last five years, haven't taught since 2020, but That's finally at an end. It's a huge blessing. I'm going to be a visiting professor BYU-Idaho this coming fall semester. I'm so excited, feel so blessed and humbled to have that opportunity coming up. Ray Alston i And did you want me to go straight into this book from there? SethH ah No, let's let's save that. where Where is BYU-Idaho? Ray Alston Rektberg. SethH I do not recognize that. What what what part of Idaho is that? Ray Alston I mean, it's like 45 minutes north of Idaho Falls, so it's not that far from Utah. SethH Okay. Ray Alston i um It's going to be a three-hour drive for which I'm very thankful because my kids would not be that excited about being in the car. I've got ah three kids, eight, six, and four. SethH Yeah. SethH Okay. Okay. Off the record, where where are you at in Utah? Ray Alston Lehigh, Utah. SethH Okay. Okay. ah my My son and I passed through a couple of years ago when when he graduated college. Ray Alston The Salt Lake Valley. SethH we ah We stayed in Ogden. And so, you know, we kind of know how far that is from Idaho. Ray Alston Yeah. Ogden's farther, I think, isn't it? Yeah. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston I'm not native to Utah. SethH Okay. Ray Alston I came here just two years ago after my plans in Ohio didn't pan out. SethH Hmm. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So let's go ahead and move into why this book. Ray Alston I really enjoy Tim Powers. I read Declare before this, thought it was really quite a good novel. And Paul was telling me but that he has done all of these different novels about 19th century poets, which I really like. And I thought, you know, I like Tim Powers. I like the fun zany fantasy stuff he's doing. Ray Alston I really like 19th century poetry. So it sounds like these novels could be like hitting both sides of my nerdhood. And so I thought would give it a try. SethH and Okay, nice. So, I mean, that's kind of like with Declare, if you like sort of secret history stuff and, ah you know, mystical, spiritual things and a spy novel, that that's a good, you know, its a good one. Ray Alston Right. SethH Yeah. Yeah. So yeah just how about we do like in these episodes post kind of finishing the list, ah the original list of of Hugo winners. SethH I'd like to get more quickly into the spoiler section just so we can talk about whatever. um But let's go ahead and start with ah the little non-spoilerish as non-spoilerish as we can go discussion. So you want to kick that off with like, what is this book about? Ray Alston book is about a man named Michael Crawford, and he... trying to decide how much detail to give, but is going into another marriage trying to give himself a new start in life, but before that puts the wedding ring on a statue, Ray Alston And when he goes to get the ring back from the statue, the hand is closed as a fist and he can't get it. But he goes up through with the wedding and the day after his for his wedding night, he wakes up and his bride has been brutally murdered and he has been accused. Ray Alston And so he goes and runs to because there's no other way to clear his name. He's a fugitive. And while he is trying to escape, he discovers that in putting the ring on the finger of the statue, he has married a supernatural being that took the form of the statue, and she now considers him his bride. So he now trying to figure out how to navigate that situation. At first, he kind of allows it, just kind rolls with it, lets it be, and then he realizes that that's not going to work. Ray Alston He meets up with the famous poets per she Percy Shelley and George Gordon, Lord Byron, and they reveal to him that they also have relationships with supernatural beings, and Byron takes them on a quest to try to free themselves. Ray Alston There's some success, some failure. does His sister-in-law, who is... Yeah, of the that wife who was murdered. Her name is Josephine. She is trying to get revenge for her sister's death. She comes chasing after him, ends up making her own supernatural deals at different points along the way. Ray Alston And there's, yeah, lots of twists and turns there. He ends up in a relationship with her later on. They free themselves and then get sucked back into these weird relationships with these horrible supernatural entities and the main character takes it great deal of physical punishment I want to talk about that and right SethH yeah SethH He sure does. SethH Yeah, he does. And, and you know, like ah like you mentioned, right, this is oh ah secret history novel, kind of like Declare, where it sort of explains some of the the lives and deaths even of ah some of those romantic poets. SethH um John Keats is another that he he crosses paths with. I think that's the first person he actually meets, right? Ray Alston yes that's true SethH um Ray Alston Which SethH and And yeah, just a really interesting kind of notion of the cost of creativity and art output. Ray Alston I thought I thought that was an interesting topic. That was one of the things I put in my notes that I wanted to talk about is for a creative writer, it's interesting to present other creative writers as working under the influence of these evil supernatural beings. SethH Right. Ray Alston right And their creativity is also very destructive to the people around them. SethH Yeah, yeah. I mean, it kind of reminds me of, you know, I grew up in the height of the satanic panic and, um you know, hearing that, well, the only reason Stephen King's so prolific is that he's got a demon, you know, a demon helps him with his writing. Ray Alston Yeah. Ray Alston but SethH um And, oh yeah, oh, 100%, you know, in all seriousness. Ray Alston Did they really say that? SethH um And people like Bob Larson, people people who grew up in the 80s in the evangelical church will know who I'm talking about. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH There was a demon behind every bush. And, um you know, anything that was remotely... You know, heavy metal or or horror novels or horror movies, you know, it was all suspicious in Dungeons Dragons. SethH um Yeah. Ray Alston It's interesting. SethH But yeah, yeah, it's it's like he kind of diminishes their work in a way. Ray Alston but Ray Alston because Because they can't take credit for it and it. And they do address that issue, too. They're actually very sensitive about that question. you remember early in the novel when he asks Keats about it? Keats is like, no, my poetry is all mine. But it's pretty clear that it's not. SethH Right. Ray Alston and And the other... I'm wondering if there is kind of a play, because this is what, during the time there were people who were calling Shelley and Byron part of the satanic school of poetry. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston And I'm wondering if this is a play on that, because have you read Anubis Gates by Powers? SethH No, I haven't gotten to that one yet. Ray Alston it's It's good. it's It's not quite as good as this ordeclare, but it's really zany. There's lots of fun magic stuff. Coleridge is in that novel. And Coleridge is apparently not under the influence of evil spirits, but that makes sense in in the logic of the era because they called Coleridge part of the angelic school of romanticism. Ray Alston So I wonder if there's this play with with those ideas that were part of the critical dialogue of that era. SethH Well, it too, I mean, like ah Shelley, I think, was kind of an out atheist at the time, right? Ray Alston Great. SethH Which which was not super popular in Christian Europe. Ray Alston Certainly. Right, and and they were both... And Byron was not... but I mean, it's debatable. His relationship with Christianity is complicated because he had a very Calvinist upbringing that it seems to me he was never able to completely fake. Ray Alston But at the same time, he was also very jaded by it. He had a lot of sexual abuse in his history. Some of that is addressed here. They talk about the one Lord who... Ray Alston the other nobleman who sexually abused him. Apparently, according to to this novel, he is one of these supernatural entities. But they didn't mention the the nurse who watched him and sexually abused him, and she was also just very devout, Calvinist, Christian, jim and that, of course, really hurt Byron, and he always had that association. But you see this Key's one of the romantics who presents the devil in a rather positive light, or satanic characters, broadly speaking. You've got Manfred, you've got his Kane as well, dramatic poem. So he's... Both of these are... This is the more subversive side ah of romantic poetry. You know, Percy with his promoting... Ray Alston atheism or just step outside of orthodoxy and Byron with this rather subversive presentation. And so I think there is a logic to having them be the ones. SethH Hmm. um I might have to get some recommendations for you on what to read um just because I have not read much of the the romantic poets. Ray Alston I dont Ray Alston would like to read more of the English ones. the my Yeah. Shelley especially. I've only recently been able to get more of an appreciation from him. i mean, everybody has read Ozymandias. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston But there's a lot of other good stuff that I want to get into. For Byron, but Byron is an interesting poet. He was really popular back in that day. Everybody was reading him. Ray Alston And in Russia, everybody was reading him, which is a huge accomplishment. without Since I've studied Russian Romanticism, Byron was a huge influence there. Ray Alston But with him... Some of the stuff hasn't aged as well. Some of it seems a little glib. But I would go with Don Juan, which that's how he pronounced it. it Not Don Juan. It was Don Juan. And you have to say it that way for the rhymes to work. Ray Alston But a it's it's really clever. It's really interesting. These adventures. of He's not really a Don Juan in the strict sense. Because he's not really a seducer. He's kind of just haplessly falling from one situation to another and there are women who happen to be falling in love with him but there's a lot of social satire as he's going through it pretty interesting haven't read the whole thing it's huge but I've read selections SethH So let's move into kind of just some quick overall thoughts about the book before we get too deep into spoilers. Ray Alston yeah the first time how about you SethH um You know, what is this a reread for you or is this a first time read? SethH Okay. First time as well. I had never read Tim Powers prior to Declare. um I did buy a couple of his books on on Audible um when I had a bunch of credits to burn. So I think I have the anubit gate Anubis Gates. So one of these days, I'll i'll get into that. Ray Alston but your time, how would you compare this to Declare? SethH So i I felt like I enjoyed this one. um it wasn't as much my thing as Declare because to Declare had that spy thriller element to it that I really, really got into. Ray Alston yeah. SethH um Where with this one, was a little wordy in places. um There were several times where I was like, oh okay, this thing's starting to wrap up. And then I'd look down at my my player on on either in the, I was reading the book. In the book, you know, you're not going to be fooled by that. But on on audio, it's pretty easy to get um pulled into, oh, okay, we're we're moving to a close here. And like, nope, nope, we've got six hours left. SethH um and And so there were kind of, it's like it was faking towards, yeah, yeah, we're going to do this thing and this is going to be the thing that's gonna that is going to help us win. And then then we'll be done. Everything will be happy ever after after that. SethH um So yeah, it it ah I think I admire the book more than I like it, um but I did enjoy it. Ray Alston Yeah, I thought, I saw a lot of Declare, especially in the first half of the novel. SethH Yes. Ray Alston did yeah I felt like the the journey into the Alps and stuff, I felt like in many ways that was kind of a first draft of the Ararat scenes and in Declare. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston Did you get any of that? SethH I did, yeah. and And I will say, Tim Powers really knows how to start a book, start a novel. um Both, at least so far, two for two with with Declare, that first chapter really sucks you in. And and the same thing here, where it's just you know Shelley and Byron on a boat and in Switzerland in a lake, and then something comes after them, and they're able to repel it and you're like what is going on? SethH um Ray Alston no SethH And then it goes straight from there to the the whole, ah you know, the muddy, murky night where he accidentally marries the statue. Ray Alston It's wonderful. Ray Alston It a wonderful beginning. And I wanted to talk about that bit beginning because I think it's it's interesting that he starts us in this familiar territory for readers. SethH Yes. Ray Alston Even if you're not an expert ah ah in Shelley and Byron or in Romanticism, when you think Shelley and Byron in Switzerland, what's the first thing you think of? SethH Yeah, Frankenstein. Yeah. Ray Alston Yeah, Frankenstein. They're sitting around telling ghost stories to each other. And Tim Powers was smart enough, let's start with that. There's real ghosts! SethH Right, right. Well, yeah, and and also it's that setting, but we don't really hear anything else about Frankenstein for 300 Mm-hmm. Ray Alston Yeah! Exactly, for 300 pages. Then he brings it back and, yeah, it ties it back in. But I thought this was a smart beginning because it it gets us in this familiar territory, we're expecting it, but then it puts that turn on it where Oh my gosh, but the ghosts are real this time. Ray Alston It's not just a story. What if there really was encounters with supernatural? SethH Yeah. Ray Alston What a fun beginning. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston So the step Statue with the Ring, if you study Romanticism, are you familiar with the French writer Merame? i don't speak any French. SethH I don't think so. Ray Alston So Prosper Merame, that's how an Anglo would say it. I don't know how the French would say it. But in 1837, he published a story called The Venus of Il, I think is how you say the last part, The Venus of Il. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston And this story is drawing on ancient folklore. But that story, there's a statue that a character is obsessed with, a statue of Venus. And he's obsessed with it, keeps talking about it. Ray Alston And he jokingly puts his wedding ring on that statue. And then he comes back to get it, and the hand is closed, and he can't get it back. And then he has his wedding, and the morning after his wedding night, they find him crushed by the statue. SethH Interesting. Ray Alston So Powers is drawing from existing tradition, not just in folklore, but specifically in Romanticism. This is the period, you know, this is later in the period than what he's portraying, but it's still from that period, and it's a recognizable story for those of us who have who are studying Romanticism, but he puts this really interesting turn on it. he wants us I think he wants us to recognize the story, but he changes it not just by having the bride killed, but he doesn't end the story with that. That's where he begins the story. SethH Right. Ray Alston And so it's not just this supernatural punchline at the end, where it's a one-punch story, sort of like a trying to think like Twilight Zone sort of thing, but it's it ends, it begins where that story ends, where you're thinking about what would be the consequences of somebody who had this happen. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston And I thought that was a really productive way to engage with this pre-existing tradition, is to start with the ending and think, what are the consequences? SethH i like I admire that, um you know obviously, in something like this, there's something super arcane going on, right? and then Who understands this, right? Ray Alston Yeah. SethH And so it takes Crawford a long time to figure out what happened, because he's thinking back on that night. He's like, well, I remember all the you know the fun wedding night stuff that I was thinking was going to happen. And then later on, he's like, I'm not sure that that was happening with my wife, though. Ray Alston Right, wait a second. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston um SethH um Ray Alston the The supernatural stuff is pretty spooky in this book, too. SethH It is, and and it's you know it it mixes up some of the kind of lore. you You could very easily see that the existence of these creatures would spin off into folklore about vampires and about the succubus um and incubus and and you know all kinds of other things. Yeah. Ray Alston Yeah, I counted, let's see, Vampire, Succubus, Incubus, Nephilim, trying to think, I feel, yeah, Lamia is the other, yeah, Lamia is the big one from the, because of Keats, and then they even call them Muses once or twice. SethH Lamia or Lamia. SethH Yeah. And the gray eye as well. Ray Alston Oh, I didn't remember that one. SethH Yeah. That's, that's the, the reference to the, the eyeball, right? Where that's big spoilers, but we can kind of get back to that. Ray Alston Hmm. Hmm. SethH um I mean, I think before we move into spoilers, you know, as much as I'm saying it's not something that is necessarily my style, I think i think it's a well-executed novel. SethH If you like, you know, if it's the kind of, if it sounds like the kind of thing that you'd like, you're going to be in it for a while. It's it's a pretty thick book. Ray Alston Yeah, it's pretty thick, and there's a lot to recommend it. And it really spoke to me. Part of that is, like I said, it hits both sides of my nerddom. SethH Okay. Okay. Ray Alston I like the fantasy, and I like the the poets. So if you if you're a reader of these poets, there's a lot of fun Easter eggs in this book, and a lot of fun hints. Ray Alston Like, still at the beginning of the novel, the first time he meets Keats, Keats talks about how these creatures... Lamia, Secubi, whatever you want to call they are extending his life. SethH Right. Ray Alston What is the first thing you know about Keats? SethH I don't know anything about Keats, I have to admit. Ray Alston Okay. Sorry, um didn didn't realize that. So, I mean, Keats is one of the major poets of English Romanticism, but he died in his early twenty s Ray Alston And so if you hear Keats talk, and you you know that Keats died of consumption, tuberculosis, whatever you call it, in his early 20s, and then you see, um my gosh, these things are extending his life, you know that something's not right here. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston What's goingnna but's going to shorten his life if these creatures are extending it? SethH Oh, nice. Nice. I know I'm going to, I'm going to save that for spoilers. ah well What's it, what's it we've, we've flipped the switch and just say, okay, I'll spoilers from here. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH You good? Ray Alston I'm good. SethH Okay. and So I think it's funny that we haven't even mentioned Polidori because the role that he plays in the book, um you know, he's he's always the Polidori was also there at this at this famous, you know, stormy night, right? Ray Alston Yes. Ray Alston Right. SethH Where we're we're supposed to write a ghost story. Ray Alston right SethH And he wrote The Vampire, which is good. I enjoyed it. um I read it a couple of years ago, um but he's sort of always the also ran of that group. Um, and, and here he's kind of always in the background and I'll always kind of like a hanger on. Ray Alston right Yes. and And Byron just like boots him out when Michael Crawford shows up like, oh, now he's my physician. SethH And I'm sure that was deliberate. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston You can you do whatever you want. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Um, So Crawford ends up running, right? i don't think he was ever actually accused before he ran, right? he He realizes I've woken up in a bed with a woman who has been smashed to bits, right? SethH There's no way I could have actually done this, but who's going to listen to me? Ray Alston Right. I SethH um You know, yeah i'm I'm covered in gore. Ray Alston right SethH um And so it doesn't seem that it should be possible. but It should be possible for me to do this, but I've got to run. And so he he ends up running. I think they're in Scotland at the time. ah where the novel kind of begins after the cold open. Ray Alston can't remember SethH and And so he ends up fleeing to you know more of the south of England and changing his name just slightly and working as, I think, a veterinarian at some point and then then as a physician as well. Ray Alston Yes. SethH and And that's when you know you kind of have Josephine coming along to push him out of wherever he is, because they can't they seem to keep crossing paths again. SethH um Ray Alston Yes. SethH what Did you get the impression, was it explicit that Josephine is Julia's his wife's twin or just her sister? Ray Alston i didn't I didn't notice if she was the twin. she It seemed like there was an age difference. SethH Yeah, i so I'm a little puzzled on that. i At times I felt like it was definitely saying twin. um i didn't go back and reread any of those passages. i i I went back a couple days ago and flipped through the the book in print and just kind of reread key passages um to to kind of get them back in. Ray Alston yeah SethH Yeah. Ray Alston I'm not sure about that, but there is kind of this doubling or and and foiling going on but with Josephine and and the sister. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston What was the sister's name again? can't even remember. SethH Josephine. Oh, Julia. Ray Alston i mean, Julia. Yeah, that's right. Julia and Josephine. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there yeah, there's something strange going on there where its it seems like she's not quite all there. um Ray Alston yeah SethH ah were She might have ah dissociative identity kind of syndrome. Ray Alston Right. And sometimes she starts presenting herself as Julia. Right. SethH And it could be just a coping mechanism. um you you You find out that they're growing up, their home life was not amazing. Ray Alston Right. SethH um that that there was a kind of a history of her pretending to be Julia and her sister laughing at her over it. Ray Alston Right. SethH um you So it's another um another interesting thing is that you like I didn't know much about Percy Shelley. right I didn't didn't know about how how he met his fate, but I thought it was interesting in that opening scene that it definitely mentions that he can't swim. Ray Alston From the beginning. SethH Yeah, from the beginning. and And they're pretty close to shore at some point. and he's like, sorry, I can't i can't do it. I guess I'm dying out here. Ray Alston Right. SethH um and And that's really important for later. Ray Alston Really important for later. And yeah, it's like the Keats extended life thing. Like, oh, you know, this is this is important because he's going to die a little Easter egg-y int. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston And yeah I don't think that qualifies as a spoiler, right? SethH um So I'm, yeah, you go ahead. Ray Alston Talking about how the poets die. seems like that's SethH No, I don't think so. Yeah. Ray Alston historic record, though what he does with it is really interesting, and I will discuss that in greater detail once we switch over to spoilers. SethH Oh, no, no, we're in spoilers. Ray Alston Oh, yeah, okay, good. i one One of my favorite things about this novel is what he does with the death of the poet. The way that he renders the poets while they're alive has some successes and some shortcomings. Ray Alston I personally, and Paul is disagreeing with me, he's working on the novel now, but I personally didn't love his portrayal of Shelley. felt like Percy Shelley did a lot of info dumping. Ray Alston And for me, it just feels like we were talking about one of the dozen best poets in the English language. And if he's going to be info dumping, I would at least want it to be otherworldly the way he was describing it. Maybe like more metaphorical where he was like, Ray Alston intuiting the way that these supernatural creatures were working, but we have him just kind of going through and really explaining detail by detail how the conceptual aspects of the novel work. Ray Alston And the concepts are very interesting. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston Powers is a master at this sort of thing. Just the different aspects of lore that he's tying together, connections that you're like, I never would have thought to connect that. Now I'm never going to unsee that. Ray Alston But to have a Shelley who is lecturing about that, to me, was a little disappointing. What were your thoughts on that, though? SethH Yeah, I mean, I guess you could argue that his creativity didn't extend to to his exposition. Ray Alston Yeah, that's what I would say. SethH Yeah. That it's it's like the papal infallibility, right? yeah it's it's It's not everything the Pope says. It's only when he says it, you know, ex cathedra, right? Ray Alston Yeah, as the as the Pope. SethH um Yeah. um I think it's interesting too, though, that, you know, it's not like one character gets all the exposition because definitely Keats gives some of that as well. SethH it's It's kind of like, it it reminded me a little bit of in Highlander, of the series, you know, like when the immortals meet, they can sense each other. Ray Alston It says. SethH um and ah And so Keats almost always picks almost almost immediately picks up on the fact that ah Michael is one of these, what do they call it, nefesh or something? Ray Alston Yeah. Never. SethH Right, right. um it It reminded me of like the word nebesh, nebeshi, like a Yiddish word. Ray Alston ah SethH um But yeah, can can kind of recognize that there's there's somebody else like him. SethH It's interesting, too, because it's kind of the cosmology of the book. And and that this is kind of going way to the end, right, where you you find out more about the the origins of this. SethH And and Crawford starts to cotton to some of this when he's asked like the Sphinx question, you know the the the riddle about what goes on. Ray Alston right SethH four feet, then two, then three. um And, and he gives an answer that's just on the edge of, you know, it's sort of intuitive. um And like the different ways that these creatures can come to be Ray Alston Yeah. SethH where it kind of mixes up vampires and, and, and other things. Ray Alston Yeah, really interesting. I loved the bit. I did like, so I guess my complaint with Shelly is only when he's talking. The way that the the story and stuff, the whole idea that he had this half-sister who is the supernatural being that was part of his body until he cut her out. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston Fascinating story. And then this is the very statue that Michael Crawford... And I can't get over the name, by the way. I wonder why he named him Michael Crawford. Ray Alston i I keep thinking of the actor... SethH Yeah. Oh, from Condorman? The Phantom of the Opera? Ray Alston Yeah, Condor Man or Phantom of the Opera is what I think of and I kept singing Music of the Night to this novel. SethH Yeah. Yeah. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston and so Which I guess is not inappropriate because these are you know creatures of the night and it's part of this kind of gothic tradition. SethH yeah SethH yeah yeah it shows you where my nerdery goes that I went to Condorman before Phantom of the Opera. Ray Alston but So I wonder why he went... Ray Alston Spy novel! SethH Yeah, yeah, the Game of X. It's fun. Ray Alston Yeah. But... So yeah, I thought that was... kind of funny, but I don't know that he's trying to do something with the name the way that, like, Dickens J.K. Rowling does things with people's names. Ray Alston I'm not sure why he chose it, though. SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but like I was saying, um you know keats isn't Keats is just the first person to to kind of give him the exposition, and then then Shelley does a lot of it as well. SethH But then he meets, I can't remember the name of the old Frenchman, like where his his French is wrong somehow. Ray Alston but just really old French, you find out. SethH Yeah, yeah. Ray Alston This guy has been around for centuries. He's like medieval. Wasn't that Villon? Or was that it? SethH Yeah, something like that. i i did and I didn't write down the name. Ray Alston He goes by more than one name, and I think both of those are poets, so the idea is that it's the same guy, but manifesting in different eras, I thought. I don't know French literature nearly as well, but the... SethH Yeah, where he's kind of come to, like, I've been around long enough, it's time for me to go and and actually tries to get Crawford to drown him. Because that's that's one of the ways to to separate them, because otherwise the Nephilim can come and save them. Ray Alston yeah Ray Alston Right. ah Yeah, apparently drowning is one way to get free. And that's important, of course, for Shelley, which for me, that was one of the high that was maybe the the high point of the book was Shelley's deliverance there. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston But I loved what he did with the death of these poets. Teets and Shelley on screen and then the implication about Byron. what It's interesting. Ray Alston It reminded me of... Did you watch Doctor Who? SethH I've never really been a Whovian. Ray Alston now Well, in the the first season of the new version, like back in the 2000s, there's an episode called Father's Day where the companion of the Doctor, her Dad died in just a freak accident, but she goes back to try to save his life, but that opens up time to all of these horrible things. Ray Alston And so then her father decides that he will sacrifice himself to save the world from this horrible time catastrophe. And so his accidental death turns into this heroic death. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Ray Alston And it's it's a beautiful episode. It's a beautiful idea there. And that's a little bit of what Powers is doing here with the death of these poets. which is, if you're you're reading it without the secret history, it just looks like an accident of history. Ray Alston Tuberculosis for Keats, drowning for Shelley. Byron went off to fight for Greek independence and died of some disease there. Ray Alston And Ours takes this so that they are willingly sacrificing... an extended life and this powerful creative powers given to them through these supernatural beings in order to save the people around them who are being negatively affected by their connection to the supernatural beings. And there's something so powerful about the way that works. SethH Yeah. yeah that That reminds me a little bit of the, um in Star Trek, the next generation where you have ah Tasha Yar who dies in this meaningless way, but then she comes back in a subsequent episode and is given a chance to sacrifice herself um and make it, make it more meaningful. Ray Alston Yeah, I haven't seen it, but that that's the idea. SethH Yeah. Oh, no, no, go ahead. Ray Alston And, go ahead. SethH I lost my train. Ray Alston So I thought it was interesting that you said that I didn't realize that the Mythopoik Award is awarded for those in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien. And my first thought with this novel would definitely not be Lewis and Tolkien. SethH no Ray Alston But there is a Christian element to it. And and ah Crawford does have something of ah of a Christian conversion in this, and it is partly influenced by death of the poets. There's the moment where—I'm going to open up to the novel because I think the passage is interesting. Ray Alston It's pretty late into the novel in my version. It's on page 368. They're going through graveyard. Ray Alston And it said, Crawford found himself praying to the weather-grade little figures on the different graves and stuff. He wasn't precisely praying to Christ, but to all the gods who had represented humanity and had suffered for it. Ray Alston Curled around his mental image of the wooden Christ were vague ideas of Prometheus chained to the stone with the vulture tearing at his entrails, which actually also brings Kelly into it because he wrote... Ray Alston a Prometheus unbound, where he presents Prometheus as this heroic figure accepting the suffering on behalf of humanity. SethH right Ray Alston So Prometheus chained to the stone with vulture tearing at his entrails and balder nailed to the tree around the roots of which flowers grew where the drops of blood fell and Osiris torn to pieces beside the Nile. Ray Alston So he has this kind of composite view of the suffering gods as the ones that he is going to call on SethH right Ray Alston for deliverance from from these other supernatural beings or as an alternative to these. At one point, I think they refer to them as the old gods, or that's like the the older manifestations. Ray Alston And so he he sees the suffering gods as representing humanity. It's kind of this postmodern Christian conversion. Right, SethH Yeah, it's almost like the Jesus mythicist view, right? Where where Jesus is just the the latest in the in the this line of ah myths. Ray Alston that's what saying. Ray Alston Right, and and and I'm saying postmodern because he's deciding to just roll with it and be converted to the story, you know, whether or not in a positivistic sense there is something on the other side. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston But later in the novel, he does take the next leap and does have this complete conversion to Christ where it's not just this composite Jesus mythicist view. Ray Alston But I thought it's interesting that this is the process that he goes again And I think the poets play a role in that because they choose to sacrifice their immortality or at least their extended lives for the sake of others around them. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston And and this is you know similar to to the Christ's descent, what in theological terms we would call kenosis of Christ. And the poets are are setting that pattern for him. And that's interestingly what stays with him for Shelley, more so than the things that he actually writes, is that Shelley and Keats were willing to lay down their lives in the end. SethH Yeah. the the you know um The fact that the Lamia or Nephilim offer this creative you know kind of output ah to ah to all these writers is interesting that one of them chose Michael Crawford, a physician, to ah to to kind of become married to. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH um Because the... you know the When that scene first happens, right, he's just kind of stumbling through the dark, trying to help a friend and realizes, oh, crap, I've got this wedding ring. SethH and I can't lose this in the mud. We'll never find it. And then then what happens at the wedding tomorrow? And, oh, look, convenient statue. But, of course, it wasn't a convenient statue. The statue was was trying to lure him. Ray Alston Yeah, apparently it was all set up. SethH but But it's like the Lamia never really offers him that same thing that that Byron and Keats have such a hard time separating from. Ray Alston And, the yeah, that's true. They don't offer him that added benefit. Same with Polidori, actually. Polidori, when he ends up making the deal with the Lamia, he is deprived of poetic power, which is ah bit of a There's a bit of irony there, because that was what he was trying for the whole time. He's kind of this poetaster hanging on to the the true poets. SethH Right, he's the Salieri, right, from Amadeus. Ray Alston And then... Ray Alston Exactly. oh I'm so glad you made that reference. I'm a huge fan of Amadeus. SethH Oh, yeah. Ray Alston And also, while while you're asking for recommendations, the Recton poet Alexander Pushkin wrote a one-act play called Mozart and Salieri in 1830. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston And Peter Schaefer, who wrote Amadeus, insists that he didn't ever hear about it. I don't believe him because there are parts where Amadeus almost quotes Pushkin. Ray Alston But it's a SethH Interesting. Ray Alston It's a terrific play, and i love Amadeus too. I don't mind that he plagiarized because what he did was terrific. I don't even know if it's plagiarism. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston Maybe it's almost like what Crawford, what Powers is doing in this novel. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston it He took the theme and he's riffing on it. So he expands where Pushkin gives kind of this wonderful, compact, short play. Anyway, but yes, Polidori is the Salieri figure who, and there's the irony that he makes the deal with the devil for the poetic power, but he loses his soul and doesn't get what he wanted. SethH Right. Ray Alston But he's trying to tell us. SethH He does not gain the whole world. Yeah. Ray Alston Yeah, exactly. Did not gain his whole world, but he lost the soul anyway. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston It's a biting irony. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston And it's sad. There is the line, though, when you're talking about Crawford's relationship with that statue, Ray Alston Shelley is convinced that she married Crawford to get to him so that she could get to Shelley again. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston i I feel like there was only that one comment about that, though. Did you feel like there there's reason to give that idea credence? SethH Yeah, I mean, it's it's i think it's there, and and certainly there is a ah connection that's made there, and and Crawford is very... ah SethH upset by it, right? Because even though he's, quote, divorced his his his wife, i are they ever given names? Ray Alston Yeah. SethH I mean, the ones that take over for dead people just take the names of, you know, like Polidori, right? Ray Alston I don't think they are. Ray Alston right. SethH But um but there it's it's really fascinating to me the trick Powers plays here without ever giving you a name for his wife. i and And I'm not talking about Julia. Ray Alston That's interesting. SethH I'm talking about his his, you know, statue wife. Um, where was I going with that? Ray Alston yeah SethH I don't remember what I was saying. Ray Alston and There is a rich tradition and fantasy of the nameless ones being like this ultimate evil thing. SethH Hmm. SethH Well, I mean, even like the muses, right? Where the where they're they're in some sense, you know, not not real, right? Ray Alston Right. SethH they're They're forces of nature, um even though, of course, of the muses have names. um But although the way muse is typically deployed in, ah you know, colloquial terms is, you know, she's my muse and, you know, my wife is my muse or, or you know, someone else. Ray Alston Right. SethH Now, we're here. It's like you really have a muse who's nameless and and behind the scenes, and only you really see. Ray Alston mean Ray Alston and the And some of the the shift and in the usage comes from the shift in Romanticism, where before Romanticism, before the Romantic Age, the term genius meant a tutellar tutelary spirit that gave you ideas, right? SethH oh Ray Alston there That's where the term evil genius means. That's equivalent to the shoulder devil. SethH Hmm. Ray Alston It's the evil spirit telling you stuff versus the good spirit telling you what to do. Those were external until the Romantic era. The Romantic era internalized that and said, no, this is coming from within the poet. Ray Alston This is the God within me, not the God without. Powers is saying, no, they're wrong. there This is still external. SethH yeah Ray Alston He's re-externalizing what the Romantics had internalized. And so there there is kind of this return to an archaic presentation there. SethH Mm. Nice. You know, Powers, I think, that like, one of his strengths is showing the encounters, these transcendent encounters kind of that happen, um you know, in... SethH declare there's There's several of them. There's the Ararat one, the later Ararat one. um There's several in there. And this one, you know the encounter in the Alps where the where this is your first little hint that there's something about and I read it as the atmosphere is thinner. SethH And somehow you know that it's not just the the altitude. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH It's like and we we find out later there's something about the sun. And so maybe in the thinning atmosphere, it makes it even harder for them. Ray Alston yeah SethH um And you have that that kind of divorce that happens there. And that's when you first really encounter Josephine again. SethH and And like all those scenes where where there's the the encounters and the attempts to break the the chain are really, really well done. Ray Alston Really well done. Really fascinating. And he he pulls from all of the folk Warwick stuff we know. Water is classic, right? ah Silver, garlic. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston Although, popping a glass eye into your mouth and filled with garlic and chewing on it, inflicting wounds on yourself, and then, come on, didn't that stick with you? SethH And then making out with somebody. Ray Alston That was something. SethH but Yeah. Ray Alston Yeah, and then making out with somebody, so you're both sharing. That was something else, man. SethH It was, it was very evocative. Like, like I, that one, I could practically taste the garlic. Ray Alston Yeah! And feel I could feel the glass shards and taste the garlic, like you said. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston It was it was remarkable. that For me, that was where the book really... hopeful but Once you get to the the Keats death scene, everything before that, I felt like this feels like a first draft of Declare, and that was when it was really taken off for me, is is when he gets to those deaths of the poets, which I've talked about a little bit. SethH yeah Ray Alston And you also get just that weirdness. I guess that would work, but man... but And we've got talk about all the physical punishment we this character takes. SethH Oh man. Ray Alston i Have you ever read a novel where a character gets injured this much? SethH Boy, I don't know. I mean, he really does go through the ring at some point. Ray Alston yeah I think I'm like... SethH Like having been shot in the leg, it's just no big deal anymore. Ray Alston so Actually, it actually... That was one of the things. It makes it for kind of heavy reading sometimes. Between all of the really messed up stuff from the Nephilim... Ray Alston and then the physical punishment he's taking. This is a dark book. I think this is much darker than Declare. As far as other characters who take this level of physical punishment, maybe Don Quixote. sure gets beat up a lot, but he also tends to recover, and the wounds that finally lay him low are psychological, rather than when he finds out that, when he has to accept that this has been just a game and he can't be Don Quixote anymore. That's what crushes him, rather than the physical punishment, but it does take a bit. Ray Alston ah Maybe Harry Dresden, but he's a wizard, so he keeps recovering from all of the physical punishment. He can do it supernaturally. Michael Crawford ends the book really like physically disabled compared to where he was at the beginning. SethH Yeah. SethH I do want to talk about the very end, but go ahead. Ray Alston And I thought that was... SethH Sorry. Ray Alston Yeah, please. I thought that was an interesting and a very honest move to take because most authors give a way out of that level of ah physical injury. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston But he loses the use of an arm and a leg. the SethH Yeah, most of the several of his fingers. Ray Alston loses fingers. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston Yes, several fingers. There's permanent damage going on here. Ray Alston For me, that heightened all of this. You know, we talk about the suffering gods, and i and I think that's another thing that he needs there, is he's somebody who is experiencing all of this suffering, and it makes sense to me that that kind of a character would cry out to the suffering gods for deliverance. SethH Yeah. i'm I'm getting it mixed up as if it it was in this book where doesn't he bite off one of his own fingers? Ray Alston He does. does. SethH Yeah. um all All the lengths that he goes to repel the the Lamia or the the gin, you know, whatever they are, you know, with the garlic and the brandy and the self-inflicted wounds is really something. Ray Alston Yeah. Wow. SethH And even in that scene with the glass eyeball, you know, when she... Ray Alston it SethH she pops that out of her skull and, um ah and bites down on it. And then they have the kiss there. There's also the little, I i reread it yesterday. um Just the the little moment ah of when their heads come close together and he remembers the bullet that is under her skin because she's been shot in the head, but it was ah just a glancing blow and it's stuck under her forehead. Ray Alston um Ray Alston really injured too, obviously she lost the eye, she has the the bullet wound, she has lot of psychological trauma. Ray Alston yeah so And they have this pretty interesting relationship, I thought, where they they keep coming together and separating and and trying to figure out their relationship and free each other from bulimia and sometimes give in to temptation from bulimia and then try to figure out had to get back on the path. i I thought it was a compelling relationship. SethH Yeah, I did too. i think when when I talked about the the book seeming a little long in places, um it seemed like it was starting to wrap up. And, you know, they're they're finally kind of on each other's sides and they've become lovers, I think. And and they're kind of like, okay, this is this is our happily ever after that's going to happen. SethH And then she goes off and has her own little dalliance with Nephilim. And it just kind of reminded me of of Dracula, um you know, where where Mina has kind of gone out after after Dracula. Ray Alston Yeah. Ray Alston Interesting. Ray Alston Yeah. Interesting. SethH And it just kind of, it's like it kicks the ball down the road a little bit, keeps the keeps the thing going. Ray Alston Still need to read Dracula. Ray Alston I keep the thing going. I feel like for me, one of the other weaknesses of this novel and maybe he and I don't know if it's that big of a weakness. Ray Alston yeah Okay, so if you think about Declarem You have the stuff for the main character, Hale, and his relationships, but you also have this wider scope with the Cold War, right? SethH Yes. Ray Alston And this interesting stuff about the Soviet Union is actually being powered by supernatural entities. And someday I hope I can talk to you about the Russian cultural references with that, because he's actually doing a really good job with Russian culture there. Ray Alston But the... I feel like that Cold War stuff is pretty compelling. In stress of her regard, I didn't really care about the Habsburgs and the car Carbonaris. SethH Right. Ray Alston Did you care about that? SethH No, no. And in fact, as soon as you started talking about this, I thought, I thought, you know, the geopolitical situation is there in the background, but it's never developed enough for me to care about it. Ray Alston I didn't care about it. I did care very much about Michael Crawford and Josephine and them getting free from the Nephilim and the Poets. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston I wanted all of them to be free from the Nephilim. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston The geopolitics didn't care. I don't think that's just because I'm a son of a cold warrior. I think it's also how Tim Powers is developing it. is Do you get a similar sense? SethH Yeah. And, and I don't know, it just, it seemed like that ah for for as long a book as it was, um, like I didn't really feel like it set the stage well for what exactly was going on between Austria and Italy. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH Um, and I still enjoyed the confrontation at the end, right. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH Where you find out there's an even older guy who was the first guy to kind of crack this, right. And thousands or like, I don't know, 1500 years, something like that. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH um and And this is where you you really get into the the Nephilim idea. that um and And I like that some of it's kind of vague. It's like the sun changed. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH I'm like, what what do you mean? it It reminded me of like in Young Earth Creationist, SethH theories. There's this theory of like the ice canopy or the vapor canopy that, that after the flood, all of a sudden, yeah, that that now all of a sudden this the sun beats down on the earth at a, at a higher rate. Ray Alston Right. That existed before the Flood. SethH And there's a consequence of people don't live as long now because, because the sun is hard on people. Ray Alston Right. SethH um And so it kind of reminded me of that, that like, and and that's where you find out, right. Ray Alston Yeah, me too. SethH That they kind of went dormant and, and this guy figured out, Maybe if I take one of them inside of me, I can be a bridge between the species. Ray Alston And so this he becomes the first villain defeated by Caesarean section. SethH Yes. Yeah. and And this is where, like, this is the reason that Michael Crawford is ah doctor, right? Because he's he's essentially an OBGYN, right? Ray Alston into it. SethH and um And so at some point earlier in the the novel, he finds this picture and he's like, this isn't a cesarean. This looks like it's putting something into a body. Ray Alston into it SethH um And that becomes important because he can remember that. So you have that very dicey scene where Josephine is now his assistant you know nurse and and they're performing an operation on someone in a very dangerous ah situation because he's kind of melded himself with the building and the stones in the building. Ray Alston and And Cropper himself is way broken at this point physically, so it is really dicey. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston That part worked for me, but I think this is one of the main reasons why he had Josephine go and make the deal with the Lamia in the 11th hour, to salvage the novel. Ray Alston We don't care enough about the geopolitics, so we've got to get it back on that personal level. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston And so... you know She's pregnant at this point, and he says if if he's born, it's going to be like Shelley again, unless we come up with a way of deliverance. Ray Alston And so defeating the villain is the way to save their family. And so I do care about that, and I think he does salvage that, and it does pull it off. But for me, the high point is still the death of Shelley, where it's Shelley sacrificing his life, and at the same time, Crawford is sacrificing... Ray Alston his connection to the Lamia, and thus his potentially extended, possibly immortal life, and any of the other benefits. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston I wonder... SethH Go ahead. Ray Alston go ahead, Chuck. SethH No, no, no. Go ahead. Ray Alston So, in Powers, in in both Declare and here, there is this idea of, like, a false or an alternative salvation to what Christianity goes. Like, in in Declare, there was the the thistles that can make the tea that'll make you immortal. SethH Right. Mm-hmm. Ray Alston And, and hail decides to turn away from that and finds faith in this novel. There's the deal with the devil or the lamia, which is the false salvation, which it's interesting because it reminds me of, I'm going back to Pushkin, another romantic poet. He has a poem where he actually says, I would give up the immortality of my soul. Ray Alston to live forever in my poetry. and And that's a little bit of what these but these characters are having to ask, is am I going to go for the the Christian immortality or for, like, Horatian immortality, like a monument built without hand sort of thing, like in the Odes of Horus? Ray Alston Like classical or Greek immortality? do we want to live forever in poetry or do we want the soul? Like the scripture you were alluding to before, right? What will we, what does it profit you if you gain the whole world, but lose your soul? SethH yeah Ray Alston And, and, and this is one of the things that he's working out in the novel is, is immortality through poetry or through this evil relationship versus immortality of the soul, which you still, you're still betting on it through faith because, know, SethH Sure. Ray Alston He's not giving you straight evidence of it in the novel. SethH yeah Ray Alston Does that make sense? so SethH Yeah, yeah. i I think therere there you could read these novels and go, or read this novel and and think, you know, the Nephilim aren't actually evil. SethH They're just, you know, they're they're they're trying to live. It's just that people who get involved with them don't understand the cost. And so if there was a presentation of here is the contract, Ray Alston Hmm. SethH Um, you can't cheat on me. I will get very upset. Um, and, ah and, and also of course, you know, no secret marriages, right? That that's right out, right? SethH ah he didn't know he was, he was marrying into this and what the consequence would be, even though of course you do kind of find out that his marriage was kind of a marriage of convenience. Ray Alston Yeah. Yeah. SethH ah A doctor of his standing should have a wife. Um, you know, that, Ray Alston um SethH That doesn't mean that you want to fridge his wife right right at the beginning there. um but But yeah, like I could see somebody kind of like when I watch Blade Runner, by the end, I'm kind of like, i mean, I kind of get where Roy Batty's coming from. SethH um You know, he just wants to live. And that's that's kind of the same with with these creatures. And it's just that some of the kind of double dealing that happens and and people not understanding the stakes ah is where it gets tricky. Ray Alston They're so predatory, is the other thing. Though, there's... Yeah. I get your point. At the same time, they're just so predatory. Ray Alston Like, Keats talks about how, like, all of his family is dropping dead from tuberculosis, and it's all tied to this. SethH right Ray Alston And his connection with them. You know, Shelley has children dying. Byron has children dying from it. They're losing... people right and left, there their relationship with these people is this, like, damn, pyrrhic, horrible, sexual, printed predatory stuff. SethH yeah Ray Alston It's dark, and it's... It makes them numb to the world. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston It makes them outcasts to society. so I get your point that this is, know, a lot of it's not having the contract... revealed to them clearly but man what a deal it's awful like it's SethH Yeah. Oh yeah. It's, it's, it's not a good deal. Um, no matter how you cut it, but if somebody went into it with, you know, their eyes completely opened and whatever. Um, but even so like during that scene where, where Shelley is drowning and they've they've got the, the blood connection going with, with Shelley and, and Crawford, um, which is another very visceral thing to me when it kind of describes the, you know, the taste of, of blood. Ray Alston covered SethH I hate it when people say coppery taste. i'm like, We all know what blood tastes like. Not all of us know what a penny tastes like. So just say it tastes like blood. um Metallic, I get, but whatever. SethH um Ray Alston Fair enough. SethH But you know when when all that's happening, and of course, the lamia is pleading for her life and saying, are you sure that you want to do this? You don't have to do this. Hey, here's here's an even better deal. What do I have to do to get you back into this relationship, right? SethH I'm putting on the full used car salesman. ah Look, I'll exempt everybody you care about from it and that they'll all be safe. but then But then, like you said, the the the kind of predatory thing revealed itself a little bit, is when that creature dies, she kind of shifts into a snake. SethH um And there's there's other times where where they kind of shapeshift into into lizard or or serpent shapes. Ray Alston That serpent with wings image is specifically what Keats uses in his long poem Lamia. SethH Okay. SethH Okay. Ray Alston So that's... SethH That's another yeah fun part of this is is for somebody who doesn't know these poets well, each chapter begins with just a little snippet from from some of their work. Ray Alston Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. I like it. It's very evocative, and it usually presents it in different light. Sometimes... Ray Alston sometimes It's almost, I don't know. so I like that you can see them as metaphorical, but I'm not necessarily disappointed that he presents these lines in in such a literal way. Ray Alston It's still fun to play with it. SethH Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it builds into the secret history thing, right? Ray Alston But I do recommend... SethH where Well, what now I know what they were really talking about. Ray Alston Right. Ray Alston Right. So yeah it's a fun conceit. I do recommend Lamia by Keats. It's an interesting poem. Part of an interesting thing to me is the Lamia, this guy, marries this girl who is actually this Lamia, this snake, and she keeps him trapped in this cave. So you you do get the weird, you know, sort of predatory relationship. But then he finally convinces her to come to a party And so he can show everybody who his wife is. Ray Alston And she finally gives in. And they go. And there's a philosopher there. And he sees her and says, wait, you're not really a human. You're a Lamia. Ray Alston And then when the pretense is up, she turns back into the Lamia. And the man who married her dies. And and it's interesting. Ray Alston He's so crushed. that the illusion is gone. And so the interesting thing about the poem is that Keats is writing it as this elegy for the illusion rather than, you know, an 18th century poet would present the the philosopher as the hero. Ray Alston But in this poem, it's, and the interesting thing is that the Delamia is shown in a little bit like the creature from Frankenstein, where it is something that does trigger fear in the reader, but you also sympathize. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston and empathize with with the character, like the creature. And so I think Lamia is well worth your time. And and they're different in this, though. i did not feel much sympathy for them. Maybe a little bit at the end when that statue, at the end of that statue's life when she's pleading for her life and saying, I'll do anything. Maybe a little sympathy there. Ray Alston Otherwise, I mostly just saw them as predatory. Did you have much sympathy for those? SethH I mean, just kind of what I hinted at, that, that you know, I can kind of kind of see that, you know, they are another living creature. Ray Alston Lamia in this book? Ray Alston Yeah. SethH It's just the the fact that, like you said, there there is that predatory element to it that makes it so like, I'm i'm sorry. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH but this is This is what we're left with, right? We're we're trying to save the lives of people. Ray Alston Yeah. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston I guess you're right. They are another living thing, and I can feel sympathy for a tiger even when I don't want to get eaten by And SethH Sure. Yeah, yeah. Ray Alston but and And that statue does say, i love you, when she's trying to save her life. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston And later in the book, Crawford does say, does realize, you know what, I think they're actually, they actually do love us on some level. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston It's destructive, but I don't think they're insincere. SethH Right. Right. And, you know, it's it's a ah definitional thing. what What does that mean to you that you love us? Ray Alston Yeah. SethH Yeah. Yeah. SethH Um, let's see. SethH Well, as I mentioned, I didn't, I didn't have a ton of notes and I think i've i've worked through everything that I had written down. Ray Alston but I have two. i Although there's lot of other interesting things in this novel, and I recommend and SethH Yeah. Ray Alston And I also recommend the poets it SethH Okay, let's let's kind of move into, I'll i'll move into final thoughts. Ray Alston talks about. SethH How about that? Ray Alston Yeah. SethH All right. Well, I think i've I've come to kind of the end of my notes, which I hastily put together this evening. um But any kind of final thoughts about this, Noelle? Ray Alston This novel speaks to me. It's very dark. It's certainly not for the faint of heart, and it's ah certainly one that I am not going to be recommending to my kids until they are a bit older. SethH Mm-hmm. Ray Alston But it certainly speaks to me, and it is wholesome. You know, these are... We live in a world where there are predatory relationships, unfortunately. Ray Alston And so I think there is some necessity to bring that out in the open. And there is a lot of suffering in this book, but there's also suffering in our world. Ray Alston And to be able to go and find meaning in it, and even a particular Christian meaning, I thought it was very ah moving book. Ray Alston And that passage and the so about the suffering gods has stuck with me. And so has... You those wonderful scenes with the death of these poets. So I highly recommend this. Ray Alston I think it's really interesting to see what he's doing with romanticism with these poets. Ray Alston And I, yeah, I recommend the book. SethH Nice. Nice. And you know, I, I also recommend the book, especially if you're a fan of Tim powers and you haven't read this one. Um, and, uh, I mean, I, like I said, I was, I was sucked right in at the beginning of it. Um, and, and read in print for a while and then I, I kind of needed to make some progress on it and had some yeah yard work to do. And so, so I took a lot of this in on a couple afternoons when I was doing a lot of weeding and, and, uh, lawn maintenance. SethH Um, and, uh, And yeah, like from that very beginning scene where I'm like, oh, I know what this is. you know i i know what the Lake Geneva or whatever it is where they are. um and And yeah, i it's an interesting trick that Tim Powers pulls in some of these secret histories. SethH And like I said, he can really, really start a book. Ray Alston is it SethH Read the first couple chapters. Ray Alston You can really start a book. SethH Yeah. Ray Alston It's really satisfying beginning. And I'm excited to read some more powers. i Have you heard of Hide Me Among the Graves? SethH Yes. Ray Alston I guess Polidori comes back in that. SethH Yeah, it's it's kind of a sequel to this one, right? Ray Alston I guess loosely, because it's Polidori and more poets, not these ones. So that's going to be my next powers. Definitely. I love this and I love what he's doing with 19th century poetry. So got to have more of I got to get that fixed. And that'll be my next powers. What about you? SethH All right. um I mean, I have a couple of his other books, I think, on on Audible. So i'll at some point when I have a little more time, I'll probably get back to to some of these. But yeah, I enjoy his work. SethH um You'll have to let me know what what you think of the quote sequel. Ray Alston but they SethH Cool. Ray Alston Thanks for your time tonight, Seth. This was really a fun conversation. SethH Yeah, thanks so much for doing this. I wanted to say thank you. And and um do you have anything you want to plug or anything that you've got going on? Ray Alston um Not immediately. I'm trying to get a podcast started with a friend. We're we're calling it Expressions, Faith, and Art. and and So it's not so much about like religious art exclusively. It's more about how you know, faith is an important part of our lives and art is an important part of our lives. Sometimes they intersect and, but they're, they're always, they're always there and they're always informing each other. Ray Alston And so, so that's what we're talking about there. And we're going to be interviewing different artists, different types of artists, but ah the launch date keeps getting pushed back. So unfortunately, I don't know when that would be happening. SethH All right. Well, keep me posted on that. Any social media you want to share? Ray Alston Not at the moment. Thanks. SethH Well, this was a pleasure. Great. Thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Ray Alston Thank you, Seth. SethH right. All right. Bye now.