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1-800-The Murders in the Rue Morgue · 1-800-1800

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hi everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: So this is a special episode of 1-800-1800.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: We will be talking about a short story with Grace Byron.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: And normally we paywall these episodes where we talk about a specific work.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: So if you like what you hear, please subscribe on Substack.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, you've reached 1-800-1800.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: 1-800-1800.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I have a burning question.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: 1-800-1800.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, welcome to 1-800-1800, the scariest podcast in the entire world.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Every week we talk about death, basically.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Mabel and my co-host is Madeline.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So true.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: Confirmed.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we are joined this week by author, writer, thinker, critic, Grace Byron.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, fellow ghouls and goblins
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: and ghouls.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Grace, you are a friend of the project.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: You are a real 19th century reader,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: which I really respect and appreciate because there's a lot of fake ones out there.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who would dare?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who would risk the curse of Charles Dickens coming after this?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you just really have read your way through the 19th century.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love the 19th century.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like, well,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think all the time about Le Guin saying you really can't and shouldn't be a writer
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: if you haven't read like 19th century literature.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's like,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: you don't know what this sentence can do historically
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: if you haven't read like Charles Dickens or Middlemarch or whoever.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I, yeah, I'm a huge Dickens fan, which I feel like surprises everybody.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I think he is just so lovely to read.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: He's so good.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I do,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like having read your novel,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: I can see like your sort of love of the like interwoven plot in
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: the Dickensian sense.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Leak House is one of my favorite books of all time.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I also love, I mean,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: speaking,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: we're going to talk about mysteries today,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: but I also love the mystery of Edwin Drood.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't read that.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's really weird.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's I think it's unfinished and it's very mysterious.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It feels very like it feels very Poe, who, you know, I also loved and read growing up.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's your origin story as a reader?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: I want to know.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was a huge fantasy and mystery kid growing up,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: and my dad,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: when I was really young,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: would read to me Edgar Rice Burroughs,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: who I feel like he was sort of 1920s mostly,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: but I feel like he was maybe writing in the 19th century at the very end.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad also read like had this giant like leather,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful bound copy of like Edgar Allan Poe also.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was another big one that we were like, my dad would read it out loud growing up.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so honestly,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: even rereading the story that we're going to talk about today,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, he cut.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, we're not going to bring in all of this like weird content.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was sort of like, we're just going to talk about the story.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or like Narnia.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: Narnia is huge for me as well.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird to reread those.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're super Christian, right?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're very Christian and they're very simple.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's very quick.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: How are you feeling, both of you, about Greta Gerwig's adaptation?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not aware of that.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think it's coming out this holiday season.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: Strap in.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's doing The Magician's Nephew,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: which is the first chronologically, but I think the sixth publishing-wise.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: I recall it well.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: I loved The Magician's Nephew, actually.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good one.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for a long time, she was maybe going to do The Silver Chair, I think.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Which would have been a weirder choice, I think.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I remember also as a kid watching the weird British versions of the movies,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: but they didn't have all of...
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think there is a movie of the magician's nephew yet.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: Or maybe I'm wrong.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I do feel like it's generally one that is sort of like lopped off.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that one and The Last Battle are usually pretty forgotten.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: For reasons that we don't have to fully get into.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: They are.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's sort of the genesis and revolutions of Narnia.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm impressed by your knowledge.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: But before we go too far into the depths of mystery and Narnia,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: we should acknowledge, Grace, your book, Herculine, is now out in paperback.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: It came out last year.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I own the hardcover.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I might need to go back and get the paperback.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, cherish the hardcover for future generations and reread the paperback in the bath.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's cute.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun to do a paperback.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's very for the people.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: As it should be.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hope to see it like in airports now.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you never know.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: A very sophisticated airport.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I like LaGuardia.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe like in the McNally Jackson in JFK.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Which is probably like the only place
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: that also you could get 19th century literature in an airport.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 5:45
  [music]
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So should we jump into today's topic?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Grace,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: there was so many different avenues we could have gone down with you because you are
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: a real one, a real 19th century reader.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: You proposed this Edgar Allan Poe story and we were enthusiastic.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had never read it.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: I hadn't either.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was like a scaredy cat as a kid, so I never really read Poe.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: Same.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: So we read The Murders in the Rue Morgue,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: but we had spoken in a previous episode, I think 1841, about another Dupin
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Detective story, which is the Marie Roget one.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's three of them.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because that one was based on a true event.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I pulled up my notes
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: about that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that one is based on a mysterious abortionist.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Named Madame Restel,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: who we talked about in 1841,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: who was accused of being responsible for this mysterious body that washed up in
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: the Hudson River.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Edgar Allan Poe fictionalized it in 1842,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: but changed the setting to Paris, which is interesting.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested in like the perspective of the American looking at Paris,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: and I would love to talk about that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've been kind of like orbiting around the murders in the Rue Morgue.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: First detective story, allegedly.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or is often considered the origin of the sort of like detective.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's also interesting that it's like by an American set in France.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: In France.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: So did you read this story for the first time when you were a kid?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that my dad,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think to his credit was a real reader and a real lover of literature
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: and definitely was like,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: like when he read this out loud,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think he sort of didn't read the beginning section,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: which is a sort of like a long introduction to the art of logic and syllogism
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: and very meta.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of like had forgotten about that part, honestly.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think he was like, we're going to just like read the story.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: But he very much was like, we're going to read literature and Yeah.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to read and they're going to be vocab words.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if to,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know, he was like, I know all of these words necessarily.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he was like, we're going to just sort of dive in and get there.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I also feel like because of that,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I never had the fear that some people have of like reading this kind of literature
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: and being like, I don't know this word or I don't know that word.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I think you figure it out by context or you don't and you keep it pushing.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that can be like a part of reading that we've really...
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: I also like I love the sort of the challenge of reading as the introduction to
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: the story,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: because I feel that one of the things we sort of come across
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: a lot is people being like,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: these stories will be illegible to me with our own, the books we publish.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, you know, the Murders in the Rue Morgue, it's challenging.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: It opens with this sort of like, you know, reflection on the process of writing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: Intuition and creativity and logic and what the mind is capable of.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: But it is also a pretty compelling murder mystery.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so...
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard,
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: but it's also very legible and very kind of like of the taste of sort
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: of mainstream literature today still.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's like there's something for everyone in it,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: even if, you know, you find the opening passage a bit opaque for whatever reason.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I feel like,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: and I feel like you guys have talked about this a lot,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: but like the long century is so applicable to our own moment in
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: so many different ways.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: One or two is one of my favorite books published recently,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: regardless of when it was originally published.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like that feels so modern.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this like fantastical eating disorder book.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But also like the way that genre started to blur into literature in
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: the 19th century is really interesting.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we're seeing that in our moment now too,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: where like so many contemporary novels have a genre element.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's really true.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I also just to,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: in the defense of the very long,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: dense opening to the story,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like reading the Murders in the Rue Morgue,
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I got to have the entire experience of being a detective in a way because of
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: the setup of the story.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to earn it.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I, when the story resolves itself at the end and you find out what happened,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was literally like,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: like I jumped up in my seat, just like excited that I had made my way through.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I just feel like Earning it is such a unique experience these days
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: and has been forgotten and replaced by immediate gratification.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: Anecdotally, and then I think we should say when the story was published and what it's about.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: But I have,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: because I teach undergrad classes,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: I have constantly like PDFs that I'm assigning and things.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: And now on Adobe and in a lot of like PDF readers, there are AI summaries of the PDF document.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: JSTOR does it too.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's insane.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like all of these kind of tools of academia are even like giving into this,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: wanting to summarize.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a story like Pose, like really...
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: Is about the gratification of what you're saying Mabel of like pushing through
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: and like taking the thing as a whole and seeing what comes out of it.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in the beginning teaches you how to read it more or less.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: here's what's,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't do the sort of like,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: which I do think some random books from this era will do,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is like,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: give you the summary and then,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: and then do the story,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: which is also interesting, but it does like do a, like, Here is how logic works.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Get ready for logic.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so and so the story,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: which was published originally in Graham's magazine,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: which was kind of an illustrated monthly.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: It was like one of the more popular illustrated monthlies of the 1840s where Poe was
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: an editor and wrote some of his most kind of like scathing criticism.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: It was published in 1841 in Graham's.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: And.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: As we said,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: so this is like one of the things I think is really interesting about kind of
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: the murder mystery format here.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: And is that so much of the information they're getting is through the newspaper,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: which is sort of a technology that's exploding at that time.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's a new technology that like everyone has access to these kind
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: of newspaper blotters and the crime reports and all of the stuff.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: And testimony is being printed in the paper for everyone to read.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: And it's then being disseminated through the same medium.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: And as we said,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: it's often described as the first modern detective story,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: though the term detective itself had not ever been used at the time that
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: the story was written.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I read a lot of interesting kind of stories.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Reflection and criticism on that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: So Poe himself referred to it as a tale of radiocination,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: which was not a word I was familiar with.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Which basically is the process of reasoning and valid and rational reflection.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Or a proposition arrived at by such a thought, which I love.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: And it tells the story of two kind of reclusive men who live together in,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: you know, sort of homosexual bliss, it seems.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, don't really go out except for at night and...
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: They don't talk a lot.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: They're like Bert and Ernie.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's very Bert and Ernie.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's very Sherlock and Watson.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: And one of them is the unnamed narrator and the other is Auguste Dupin,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: who's the quote unquote detective.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so the whole story of the murder,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: which is a horrific murder of two women,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: a mother and daughter in a sort of off the beaten path street in Paris,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: is completely told through their reading it in the newspaper and hearing about it.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: So you're not actually ever like in the in the room with the murder.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: Which is, yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: The rumor happened.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's sort of like,
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: it's always told through the kind of the radiocinations of the two main characters.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: And the other sort of genre thing that I had been interested in
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: that I think I would love to talk about with you guys is like,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: so obviously when this is written,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: the conventions of the detective genre have not been...
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: But you obviously see a lot of,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: you have the kind of like, you know, kind of not socially normal genius.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: You have the narrator who's sort of more aligned with the intellectual level of the reader.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the genius is filtered through someone who's legible to a reader.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have the
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: sort of like,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: The main,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: I think, genre breakthrough of this is that you don't know who did it until the end.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like you are working with the detective to figure it out,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: which is then the model that Sherlock Holmes follows,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: that all the Agatha Christie Poirot novels follow.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of new.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: yeah, I mean, it's sort of hard to think of that as strange as a contemporary reader, but
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: What do you guys think of how that must have been experienced as a reader in 1841?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: as a reader, I'd be like, should we say what happens?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are we allowed to say what happens?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's 20 pages and I think we should spoil it.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's been out for over 100 years.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: It would be surprising to people who haven't read it before.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think as a reader, the ending is actually a little surprising because it's not...
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something I think a lot of critics focus on both now and maybe at
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: the time, but you can't guess it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't really suspects.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also not like Columbo where you know who did it at the beginning.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of this thing that you have no way of guessing.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he sort of does this sort of thing where he's like, a priori, it must be this.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, but there's no... How?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know...
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Grace, do you want to tell us what the ending is?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's an orangutan.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: An orangutan
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: that somehow DuPont had read about in the paper also that we don't know
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: that you read about has been running around and had escaped its owner off of a ship,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think, and then killed these women and stuffed them up a chimney.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a locked room murder mystery, but not really because he gets in through the window.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, and the sort of like,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't read Sherlock Holmes in a really long time,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: but I've been wanting to reread it after reading this,
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: but I sort of remember like you.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I've read Wilkie Collins more recently.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know the actors and you know what the red herrings are that you're being told
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: to distract you.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you're in an intellectual universe and when you get to the end, you're like, oh, okay.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: I knew this person the whole time.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: This one, it's like, you're following this train of logic.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: This is a tale of, you know, in Poe's mind, kind of the great logic of the World High Rebecca.
• 18:32
  And...
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: But then he's explaining how he gets to this answer of the orangutan and he's like,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: well, because they didn't take the money, then there was no motive.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: And you're like, well, that's not, there are other motives.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: Believe it or not.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking so much about Wilkie Collins because I am obsessed with The Woman
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: in White,
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: which is also a novel told from the perspective of like eight different characters.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we know there's one kind of question mark mystery at the center of the novel.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then the narration switches between the perspective of all
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: the different characters involved.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it automatically reminded me of this story, which is going through the newspaper clippings.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Each of which interviews a different kind of witness or a different testimony
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: about what happened to the mother and daughter and how they were
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: so brutally murdered.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: The difference,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: between Poe and Collins is that in The Woman in White,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: the villain characters have inspirations.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Insanely obvious names that make them sound so villainous.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like the innocent victim is like her last name is Fairly.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like no one bad is the last name Fairly.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: The villain turns out to be a guy named Count Fosco who's described
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: as being like covered in white mice
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: who are crawling around his like disgusting body.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And like the hero is a guy named Walter Hartwright.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like the word right.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: His heart is right.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, his heart is literally right.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so different than what Poe is doing,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: which like I think it's so much more about kind of the new world that
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: the 19th century gives birth to where you don't necessarily know your neighbors.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: People are anonymous.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: People are coming and going from a big city like Paris.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're like on ships and then they're like and they're bringing strange things back with them.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's no like moral universe that's imposed upon the people in your community.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: There is no community like Dupin and his unnamed friend like exist in their own kind
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: of weird silo and they stumble onto this situation.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, even like their meeting is like by happenstance and they're not.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: I guess Dupin is Parisian, but the unnamed narrator is American, I think.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think so.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they just find each other because they're at the same like book stall and like
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: the same books.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's how we found each other.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's how we all found each other.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's really sweet.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there's like there's an like an irrationality of evil, too,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: that I think feels really poignant and like reflective of our kind
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: of like urban industrial world.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes an orangutan just gets loose and does a horrific crime.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like, can we talk about how horrific the crime is?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that's pretty important for
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: our listeners.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pretty good for the time.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I first commented on this line.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to say the name of the victims.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: My French doesn't exist.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Just make it up.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: Just be brave.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Of Madame L'Espagne.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: How's that?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: No traces were here seen,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: but an unusual quantity of suit being observed in the fireplace,
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: a search was made in the chimney and,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: horrible to relate,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: the corpse of the daughter,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: head downward,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: was dragged therefrom,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: it having been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the daughter's body is stuffed head, feet first, actually, head down.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Feet first up the chimney.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Up the chimney.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's already like so insane.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then this is about, oh yeah, here.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: So the corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excorciated.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently account
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: for these appearances.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: The throat was greatly chafed.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: There were several deep scratches just below the chin together with a series
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: of livid spots, which were evidently the impression of fingers.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: The face was fearfully discolored and the eyeballs protruded.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: The tongue had been partially bitten through.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: A large bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach produced apparently by
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: the pressure of a knee.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: The mother,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: is worse because her head looks to be on,
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: but her neck is so mutilated that when they,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: like, disturb the body, her head falls off.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Her scalp has been ripped off.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, my comment on the document was extreme violence.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's so, so nasty.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's very true crime.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: The detailed, grotesque description of the bodies.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no way an orangutan did this.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we're talking about logic, this is not...
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: You don't think?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not to the neck especially.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Remember when the chimp gripped that
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: lady's face off?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: Which chimp?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: But she actually didn't die.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Remember that?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think about that.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Something to think about as we move forward.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: Or not.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: Or not.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but they don't have like facial, like face transplants at the time, which I think was her.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to live in a world with no face transplants.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: So basically these women are found and it's inexplicable
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: because their bodies are mutilated beyond basically recognition.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a pile of 4,000 I don't know what the currency is
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: in gold just sitting on the floor of their apartment untouched.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a little suspicious.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty suspicious.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so everybody who kind of has been orbiting around them.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is up for kind of is, you know, could be guilty, basically.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like the neighbors,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: the nearby restaurateur, the banker, the clerk to the banker, the
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: candlestick maker.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: The silversmith.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: The tailor.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, nobody's innocent.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: And the way that we're given the evidence,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: there's kind of one crucial piece of evidence that is the detail
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: that nobody can agree upon,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: which is,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: so these women are being mutilated and The neighbors like rush the house to try
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: to get there and they hear two voices.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: One is very clearly the voice of a French man and the other voice no one can agree upon.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: And the Russian guy thinks it's like a Turkish person and
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: the Turkish person thinks it's an Italian person.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's an incomprehensibility to this person.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Shrill, like foreign voice that nobody can agree upon,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: which is how Dupin kind of enters into the logic of his mystery.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's that sort of irrational,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: languageless character that is the one who is capable of such brutality.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: Turns out to be the orangutan.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Who's foreign to everybody.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: The only foreigner.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Who speaks foreign language.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we've yet to translate orangutan talk.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: Mabel was talking about some pretty well-trained orangutans this morning at breakfast.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was looking into, I can pull up some information.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was kind of like, what is the understanding of the orangutan in the 19th century?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there was some notable 19th century orangutans because they were,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: as soon as people started finding them,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: or like white people started finding them, they started trying to bring them back.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they appear in Western fiction as early as the 18th century.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are a couple notable orangutans.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's one named Jenny, who is a female orangutan who lived at the London Zoo.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And she dressed in human clothing and she learns to drink tea.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And she notably once met Charles Darwin, who compared her reactions to those of a human child.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jenny Diskey wrote a novel about that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't read it, but it seems really cool.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Jenny is so cute.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry to show you this way, but look at her amazing outfit.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: I love her outfit.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Her arms are so long.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't kill anyone.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, she was tamed.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: She arrived at the London Zoo in 1837,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: which is a couple of years before this story was published.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like Poe must have known about Jenny.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I also included a quote from Darwin in the notes,
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: although it's like I'm looking at it now and it's actually incomprehensible.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: So if you guys didn't read it, that's OK.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: But he talks about Darwin writes,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: let man visit orangutan in domestication,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: hear expressive wine,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: see its intelligence when spoken as if it understood every word said.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: Let man look at savage roasting his parent naked, artless, not improving yet improvable.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then let him dare to boast of his proud preeminence, not understanding that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Language of Fuegian puts on par with monkeys.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: So this is a racist exploration of like kind of what in Darwin's mind was
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: the lower orders of man.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: But in describing that,
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: he is using the orangutan as sort of the closest thing to human that
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: an animal could be.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: The other sort of interesting thing in my research,
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: so Dupin finds his description of an orangutan from Cuvier,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_03: who is a French naturalist.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: And Cuvier also writes about the orangutan as kind of the closest to human before,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: again, like very racist.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think Cuvier is specifically writing about the French colonies.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: So the colonized people and then the orangutan are kind of the orders of Manning Cuvier's mind.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, I mean,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: obviously I would like to talk about the racial question,
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: but I think there's also an interesting negotiation happening here.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like even before that of where is the line between human and animal
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: and like what are humans capable of?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I think like in this story that is so much about the possibility
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: of rational thought,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: like I think Poe is kind of drawing a line in the sand of where he thinks that is.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the story sort of goes into, I mean,
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: it talks about Phrenology briefly,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: like as another kind of logic and whether or not that's logical and sort of like,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: what is the question of like the logic and like, can the other be capable of logic?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Which is very,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: can the subaltern speak,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: but also very like, yeah, I mean, I mean,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: there clearly is sort of like a panic of like,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: so like what could come and destroy civilization and like, who would that be?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: I also feel like phrenology is such an interesting thing to talk about in a story
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: where the victims have had their heads so
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: mutilated.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a unification that happens in death too,
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: where like there's kind of maybe attempts to question the character of the victims.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, Were they fortune tellers?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big question.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what were these women up to in this apartment where they were very isolated
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: and very rarely went out and they had a lot of money, but they didn't spend it?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: So like they're in the middle of the night,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: supposed to have been like reorganizing documents,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: which I think is a bit suspicious.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I do that most nights.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm singing about, puttering around.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's, and also like the, the constant in Mystery murder mysteries, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is that there is at least two people who know what happened, the murderer and the victim.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And in this situation, the victims can't speak because they are dead upon being discovered.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the murderer is a monkey.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we cannot talk to him.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what does that say about our current reality or our society?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like there is no logic anymore.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there are these like These implicit questions about a more globalized world.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like when you,
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: when the,
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: when the distant becomes closer and the monkeys come back to Paris on the ships,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: like the entire social order is seemingly called into question.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there's like these isolated people trying to navigate it and you can't go to the police.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I feel like also a theme
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: of our podcast lately is like bureaucracy has failed people constantly.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a lot of hilarious jokes in the story about the police and
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: the police being so confounded.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Classic also the detective story.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like the incapability of the actual bureaucracy
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: that like it's like Scotland Yard or whoever.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the gentleman genius who can solve it.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the savant.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something interesting there about the senselessness of evil and like
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: the panic around globalization,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: like you're saying,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: and sort of like this like fear of contamination or like of being like brought
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: into contact with the new world and like wanting to maintain some semblance of order
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: or in this case,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: perhaps even logic that like Is really coming across and like is very in the sort
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: of like brutal way.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I will say there is one person who knows what happened.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's true.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And turns out to be the second voice that everybody heard.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do feel like we should at least briefly gloss that because that is sort
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: of like how the story wraps up in some way.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Grace, do you want to tell us more about who he is and what his role is?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: So basically DuPont is like,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: there's this missing orangutan and I can sort of deduce slash say where he is.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to remember exactly how he knows where the orangutan is,
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: but he's like, he's in this stable.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: That part didn't really
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: make sense at all.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find, like, makes an ad, right?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: He creates a trap where the sailor shows up.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: He lures the sailor.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I know where the orangutan is, or, like, orangutan found.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she has never worn a orangutan found.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the guy whose orangutan was lost is like,
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: great, no one will know that my orangutan was lost and killed people.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just go pick up my orangutan.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes and DuPont is like, aha,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you are the other voice that everybody heard who was talking to
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: the ringtone trying to stop it from killing these women.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ergo, you're not guilty.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: he does this whole thing where he's like,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a gentleman, I'm not going to get you into trouble, but you are guilty.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like by default, because you sort of like let this happen and then didn't report it.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah, and then he's like, yes, I did know that.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I let my ringtone do this and then I didn't report it and I went back on my ship
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: and was just like going to wait it out.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's, yeah, it's such a, it's an interesting passage.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: The story is really also like a commentary on the exotic species trade,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: which is like an area of crime that I've never understood.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Tiger King.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this isn't an exotic species,
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: but I was recently waiting in line,
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: like at the bank or something,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: and I was reading the local newspaper up here,
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: and there was a crime in Chatham,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: which, as you can imagine, is a crime-ridden hamlet.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: And...
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: Basically,
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: someone had a dog that had been watching this dog and the dog had gotten out
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: and another person had hit the dog with their car and the dog had died.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: And the person who had hit the dog was suing the person who owned the dog
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: for creating a car wreck because they were responsible for their car.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: Now, these people just lost their dog.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what the damage was to the car.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what if anyone else was injured?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: That wasn't really specified in the article.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: But I was just like,
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: that is a really interesting, like, because the dog has agency and yet is property.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is a whole thing in the Talmud,
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: which is like, are you responsible if your cow causes a fire?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And do you owe the person...
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who, whose cow or like, you know, like who owes who, like what.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: And in the Talmud, what are they?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're usually like, you're kind of at fault.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're,
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: if your animal caused a fire and it damaged somebody else's stuff,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think like there's degrees of fault.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's also sort of like it really,
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: they're sort of like, In the Talmud, there's sort of like degrees of fault.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So like sometimes, right,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: if you kind of knew what was going on or you had a really rowdy cow,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really bastardizing the Talmud right now.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Please forgive me, God.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: But like if you had a really rowdy cow and you kind of knew that this could happen,
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: then you're more at fault.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's like was sort of a real accident,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: like a freak of nature, then you're a little bit less at fault.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think usually you still kind of owe the person something and But this is,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: again, based on damages.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: So in the case of the dog in Chatham, this case that we should all write a book
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: about.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's tearing the local community apart.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to interview everybody up there.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: I thought you would find some fascinating people.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm sure.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like a la Susan Orlean.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it would depend on if there was damage to the car.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because if there's not, and also like, this also is different because you killed...
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: The dog.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: That also means you at fault for killing property.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I get it.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: if you're in a car wreck and there's not anyone else who you hit other than the dog,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: like, you're going to follow the dog to its source.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you're going to try to hold someone else's insurance accountable.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is it really their fault?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: But did the car suffer damage from hitting a dog?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: That part's unclear.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: That seems like no.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to guess.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: We need a tomorrow.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can we please talk about the section of the notes that you put in,
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Madeline, which is about the criminal prosecution of animals?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: We should.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's so fascinating.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: So there is a long history of the criminal prosecution of animals.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: Actually,
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't include this,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: but there's a very famous case in,
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think, Liverpool of, I believe, a chimpanzee being hung for crimes.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Was it what year?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: That would have been in the 19th century.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: Can you find that, Mabel?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's like a memorial in Liverpool.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Here's an article.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever happened to Mickey?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Liverpool's smoking chimpanzee.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a different chimp.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think that might be a different chimp.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: That would be great.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, the example that I included here is about a case where in rats were – wait,
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to find it in my notes.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: Where rats were prosecuted.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_03: This is a pre-modern example, though.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: In the early 16th century, a number of rats destroyed a barley crop in a French province.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: And when, end quote, when the defense Oh.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: So he said it was unsafe for them to appear in court.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_03: But there is a long history and there was a book written in 1906 by a man named E.P.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Evans that catalogs this long history of animal prosecution called
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's very interesting that this book was written at the turn of the century when...
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think maybe it seemed a bit more absurd to do something like that because
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: the 19th century is sort of the century where a lot of these questions about where
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: the line is of man and animal and like these kind of are there gradations
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: of are there more responsible animals are there less responsible men are kind
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: of being negotiated and resolved over the course of the century.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, it's it's amazing.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: I know that France and England in particular had long histories of trying animals in the courts.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's also just important,
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think, to say,
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: too, that 1841 is like barely 50 years after the three fifths compromises made.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Also,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: like it's in living memory that the United States constitutional writers decided
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: that enslaved people accounted for three fifths of a non enslaved person.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So like black people were still could be.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Count towards someone's representation in Congress,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: the white representation in Congress, but we're not people in of themselves.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So like the 19th century is fully about like the rights of man and who gets
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: to access these privileges,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: which are kind of are not privileges,
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: these rights that are articulated during the Enlightenment.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that battle is still being fought, basically.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and Toni Morrison has her great sort of Book of Criticism,
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Playing in the Dark,
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: which is a lot about depictions of Blackness in the 19th century and
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: in 19th century literature.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And she touches on Poe.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she uses his novel as the source of her sort of jumping off point.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: And sort of like that,
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: like the sort of like quest for whiteness of like going to Antarctica as sort
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: of like one of her things.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's sort of like another genre.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only novel.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Very weird.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And feels a little unfinished, but it was published firmly during his lifetime.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was not like an unfinished story.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it is like about like an adventure story about like this guy going to Antarctica.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: And she sort of reads him for filth.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think she reads the story,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: but I would be very curious what her reading of it would have been.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I certainly,
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: when I was doing the research,
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: read a lot of kind of like, you know, various criticisms.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: For context, for listeners, Poe grew up in a slave-owning household in Virginia.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: And he was disinherited.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: He never kind of owned slaves himself or was engaged in any like...
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: Any kind of like business that would have even touched on that.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not because of his principles.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's because he was a gambler and a drinker and didn't have a lot of stability basically.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: But he never expressed any kind of anything beyond these sort
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: of existential anxieties about You know,
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: what it is to be a human and what it is to be,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: the impulses of the lower orders
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_03: of nature coming up like he did not ever express abolitionist views
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: or anything like I think it's pretty safe to say that he was within
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: the historical context that he was raised in.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: He was aligned with those beliefs.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's almost the anniversary of we just passed the anniversary of Poe's death.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is it time?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: He died.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: He died on October 7th, 1849.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: In mysterious circumstances.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have to talk
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: about his death.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about the death so bad I'm like chomping
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: at the death.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite detail about his mysterious death?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love that somebody who hated him so much was like,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to write a fake obituary and then I'm going to sort of malign his life
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: and call him this evil,
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: vicious drunk that was stupid and depraved and make it my life's mission
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: before I die to sort of like ruin his reputation.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think we're doing revenge that well anymore.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: We're not messing with people's legacies in the way that we really could be.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: It took like a hundred years for this Poe to kind of like,
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: Poe scholars to be like, oh, some of that might have been.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know who is trying to do that, though?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Who?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is Trump.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just thinking of his response to Rob Reiner's death.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're not wrong there.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I guess his like hall of his walk of shame of former presidents.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Look at this loser.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe I'm just trying to pull up what Trump said about Rob Reiner.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: of President Donald J. Trump, says Trump.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: That is very, very Reverend Griswold.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Rufus Wilmot Griswold was the guy who tried to ruin Post's life.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: So crazy.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, everybody tries to be like he was a drunk.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then I feel like if you read more,
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: people are sort of like, well,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: he drank,
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: but he was like, but I think there's sort of conflicting ideas of how much he drank.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't seem like he, maybe he went through periods of drinking more and less.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: He also, I do feel like we haven't said this yet, and I just like have to say it somewhere.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: He, his first wife,
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe his only wife, he was engaged later, but his first wife was 13.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And his cousin!
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: And his cousin.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was unfortunately normal.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have a little bit more something for that.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what, but at least it's like, okay, that happens.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: But how old was he?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was 27.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: So in 1836, he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clem, when he was 27.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: My notes here write, their marriage was rocky.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why did I even feel the need to do that?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, of course their marriage is rocky.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then she died.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she died.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: She was really young.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Of tuberculosis.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he died maybe a little bit less than a decade later.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he died
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: two years later.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Two years later, so much less than a decade later.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard to know how much of this is kind of projecting backwards.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: But from what I read,
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: the worst periods of his drinking were after her death and he was kind
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: of beside himself.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then he dies in very mysterious circumstances.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: He's basically found drunk and beaten to death over a barrel in an alley.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's some disputes.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, definitely a lot of people are going to say he was drunk,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: but some people say maybe he was really sick.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: He was a little delirious.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: He was calling out, what was he calling out?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Reynolds.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Reynolds,
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: which could have either been somebody that he was sort of like trying to court
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: as like a magazine helper because he was like trying to start a new magazine.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: His magazine was also definitely not doing very well.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was engaged again,
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: but it like hadn't been,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: he had not consummated or done the deed, done the marriage ceremony.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: What is it called?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: The dirty deed of getting married.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: so some people are sort of like maybe he was suffering from tuberculosis or cholera
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: or he had syphilis and he was going crazy.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then some people say that he may have been a victim of couping,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: which is a type of election fraud where people sort of like kidnapped you,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: dressed you up in different clothes and made you go around to the polls and vote
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: as different people.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we just watched Gangs of New York, which there is.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy to read about election fraud in that era
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: and like maybe how much more common it was
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: in our current election fraud hysteria moment.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_03: We ain't seen nothing.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: There's a scene in Gangs of New York where they're like taking all the drunks out of
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: the bar,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: making them vote and then taking them to the barber,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_03: having him cut their hair and shave them and then sending them back to the polls,
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_03: which I think is a pretty accurate depiction of what people suspect happened to Poe.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So some people,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: and then he would have,
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: and then potentially would have been like sort of like kicked back out on the street
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe like was sick also.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: So these are the different, some of the different theories.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Also one Poe biographer said, Suspects that he was murdered.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: By who?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a little bit less clear to me.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have an obvious suspect?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe like the cooping got out of hand.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: Perhaps there was no motive unless a monkey did it.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: Unless a monkey did it.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: How many were like, I hate your stories?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're a bad writer.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think a monkey
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: cooped him.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: I hope a monkey cooped him.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what a legacy he left behind.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: What a legacy.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was in, was it in Baltimore?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: He died in Baltimore.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's also unclear because all of his stuff was in Virginia and he just sort of,
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: so it's also like, how did he get there?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Without all of his stuff or why was he there with all of this stuff?
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And his last words were, Lord help my poor soul.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's sweet.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a pretty good way to end it.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Good last phrase.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, help my poor Saul.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_03: He had a pretty brutal life, I have to say.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: So he came out as he went in.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's another detail about the monkey murder and the murders in the room morgue,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: which is just coming to mind as we discuss Poe's death,
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: because we're talking about Poe being dressed up in somebody else's clothes
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: upon his demise,
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: but also a really interesting detail about how and why the orangutan ends up
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: a murderer.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the orangutan has been cooped up,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: no pun intended, with the sailor and watching the sailor shave.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so the orangutan being almost human basically and capable
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: of fine motor skills is interested in this motion of using the razor
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: to touch one's face and he's both mimicking it.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: In at the sailor's house,
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: but then also he then when he runs away and ends up in the apartment
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: of these two women, he still has the razor.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what he's trying,
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: what he is sort of doing is shaving the old woman,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: of course, using far too much force and brutally maiming her.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: Far too much force being an understatement.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: He not only removed the hair, he removed the face itself.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: The head.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: The head.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that's a really key detail too.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's also obviously giving like the demon barber of whatever.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sweetie Tompkins.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And like the way that we've talked about this too on the podcast,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: like the way that your dress becomes a way of disguising your character in
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: the 19th century.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like that definitely is kind of a plot point of the woman in white where it's all
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: about mixed identities and it has to do with the outfit that someone is wearing.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then also like the first person who was caught for having been a murderer using
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: the new technology of the telegrams.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Was identified because of his weird overcoat.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Something about like you can just walk into a place and get a haircut
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: and therefore vote 10 times because you look different.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then the monkey like in trying to like apply this new skill or this new idea
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: of identity changing and appearance changing and then taking it way too far
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: and ending up murdering someone that I feel like is so important.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they seem to have no consent.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: My roommate and my boyfriend,
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: we all live together and we have this joke that like you wouldn't recognize me
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: if I wore a hat.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: There is this kind of, like,
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: element in the 19th century of, like,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: if you just put on a hat,
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: no one recognizes you for some reason,
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: as if, like, suddenly you're a different person.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so much of, like,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: how that changed was through the technology of the newspaper would be,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: like, people could sort of say, this person is a fraud, right?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: You would sort of get, like,
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: found out and announced or, like,
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: that was a big thing for sort of,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: like, how gender transgression was happening or, like, if you were...
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: sort of a precursor to transgender,
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: you'd be found out by somebody like putting a newspaper like,
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: this person found out to not really be, you know, sex at birth or whatever.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: I was actually just,
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: I was writing a newsletter about skirts because everyone is so obsessed with
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: the Prada show and skirts and pants.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: And there was like a bunch of kind of the early like reporting on women
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: in trousers is about,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: they're saying it's because they put on pants and go get jobs and nobody can tell
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_03: that they're women anymore and they get paid more.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_03: But it's like the idea that if you put on a pair of pants, everyone is like, oh, that's a man.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's like so crazy to
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it took.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody is sort of like doing gender detective even more.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like perhaps like at the time people weren't really doing gender detective in
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: the same way.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were just like, okay, you're wearing pants.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you must be whatever.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: Not for me to know.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's like, you're wearing pants, but you know, it's.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: What's the first lady of France?
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_03: What's her name?
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: You guys know what I'm talking about.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_03: Mrs. Macron.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_03: Giselle,
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Giselle, maybe?
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds right.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody thinks she's trans, right?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't know if everyone does, but Candace Owens certainly does.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: Not everyone.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like this sort of Brigitte Macron.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you were thinking of Giselle Pellico.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I realized that.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_03: No, I just think that's such a like example of the way that people are kind
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_03: of operating now and like nothing is true and like everything is a mystery
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: to be solved.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas the mystery of the Poe world is sort of,
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know, a little bit easier to parse through, I think.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: and also like the police and the community are very ready to settle on to the clerk
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: as the murderer,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: even though he has no clear motive because he didn't even take the money.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no way he would have like he had no motive other than the money
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: to brutally murder them.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: So something must have gone wrong.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like the I feel like in today's day and age,
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: like even just the way that people have been like digesting like
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: the Lindsay Clancy story.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally about to talk about that.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Which I hope, I feel like Madeline, you've been like relatively safe.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: I actually don't really know about that.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's like certain,
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Madeline and I kind of like trade off on which horrifying current event we'll decide
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: to like embrace and know about.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell she doesn't know about Lindsay Clancy,
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: but there's no way you're going to say about Lindsay Clancy.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Me?
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, yeah,
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really interesting because there is so much conspiracy theories about
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: that in comparison.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: And also, right, like there was no innocence project in the 19th century.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now I think people are much more like,
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: or even like with the Casey Anthony case,
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: or JonBenet Ramsey, like people have such a like, do they have
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: detective brain?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're sort of like, there must be more to the story.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there's no way of, and I think that's like a, Yeah.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and what I think is so interesting about, like,
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: everybody being a detective now,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: my favorite detail of the story is that Dupin is able to get permission from
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: the police to investigate this case officially.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're like,
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: you need help.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now there's actually,
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: there is, like,
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: a way that, like,
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: the police have some relationship to Citizen Sluice, even when they don't want to.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, Citizen Sluice are now affecting real cases,
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: whether or not, you know, that's a good thing or not, depends on many things, but...
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean,
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: I also think like to that point of like everything is mystery,
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_03: everything is solvable.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that the kind of the murderer in this case is the ultimate it is
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: the most random a crime could be because it's an animal.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like there's no possible logic to figure out.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_03: Even though this is ostensibly this narrative of logic is incomprehensible to
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: the modern reader in some ways because we live in a world where everything has
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: a logic to it, even if it's kind of like a schizophrenic logic, it exists still.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Yeah.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like the Lindsay Clancy comparison is not only in the way that like it,
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: that story has been metabolized in conspiracy world,
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: but also like there's,
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: we're all still grappling ultimately,
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: ultimately with like the incomprehensibility of like human action, like,
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: and the,
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: the claim of,
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know, insanity, it doesn't totally fulfill people because It's too upsetting.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's just like the denial of the fact that people also can be violent and irrational.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Or violent and rational.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_03: We can do it all.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: We are capable of it all.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_03: Dare I ask what the conspiracy with the Lindsay Clancy thing is?
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I know like the outline of the case.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_03: The husband
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: did it.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I see.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think the main one.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think the main one.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: The main one is like the...
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Either really convinced her to do it in order to get away from her or he did it and
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: then framed her.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: To be very clear, those are both conspiracy theories.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: There is very little evidence for that.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like the mom talkers that I've heard are saying that – so like
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: the evidence – He was out of the house basically when it happened.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: But then the bomb talkers are like, well,
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: there was an email sent from his Microsoft Surface at the same time that
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: the murders happened.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: So he was home or something like that.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_03: What's a Microsoft?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a desktop?
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a device.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like a phone.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard of that either.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much I don't know.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's a PC iPad, basically.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's also kind of like very Victorian in some ways, this idea.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Poe,
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: I put in a classic Poe quote here,
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_03: which is that the death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_03: the most poetical topic in the world, which is not...
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_03: Totally this,
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_03: but like the idea that the woman cannot possibly be guilty of something so gruesome
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_03: and irrational because like that is what a man would do is very sort
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_03: of like Victorian mind still functioning in the kind of like trad mom talk community
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: that is like still sort of living in those gender norms.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: And women are much more likely to convict a woman.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a big thing in the Casey Anthony trial.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the jurors were mostly men.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so they acquitted.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: Allegedly, you know, like again.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: That makes sense to me.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's also the line about like character being in this short story, right?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: The quote that you read is sort of about his rules for short story writing
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: or story writing, which I think is great.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: But he also in the story writes about like how I think it's Dupont who sort of says,
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: like, some people have windows in their bosoms and I do not.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: He sort of, like,
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: says something along those lines,
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: which I think is,
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: like, an interesting thing about, like, character and appearance and, yeah.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, Annabelle.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like so many of his stories are about the deaths of beautiful women.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we're at, like, an all-time high.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, like, also, I'm thinking of Jeffrey Epstein, too.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what we're really fascinated with there is,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: like, the Crazy ways that people can abuse women and how far they can take it.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a constant.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of think like Poe is responsible in some ways for articulating that,
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: like the beginnings of the story that we're still seeing played out.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to read that quote, Madeline?
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: Which quote?
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: You just highlighted something that I was looking at also.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, I was...
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was just sort of like in kind of the context of that,
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_03: my specialty is French symbolist painting and literature,
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_03: which is also obviously fascinated with kind of the beauty of women,
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_03: but in this sort of like I don't want to say asexual, but it's...
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's very remote.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's like a very homoerotic group of men who are writing about kind of insularity
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_03: and interest in their own souls in a way that is rejecting,
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_03: the sort of not just like gender norms,
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_03: but The way that Poe is talking about a woman's death being poetical is
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_03: then very inspirational to Mayer May and Baudelaire and Verlaine and Wiesma and all
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_03: of these guys who are writing these very,
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_03: like, these books and poems that are interested in kind of immateriality.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so, I mean,
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_03: it's hard to talk about this in terms like without,
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_03: because this is all like pre-Freud and pre sort of surrealist thought
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_03: that talks It talks about sort of the baser instincts versus the higher instincts
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_03: and all of these things,
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: but there is kind of sexuality would be in the kind of base material world
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_03: and this sort of rejection of procreation and sexuality in the minds
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_03: of these symbolist writers is lifting them up to a sort of higher realm of thought
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: and spirituality.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_03: I forgot why that was going to relate,
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_03: but Mabel, maybe you had a thought since you told me to say it.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think I was interested in taking myself away
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: from our contemporary horrifying world and talking about kind of
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: the artistic legacies and psychological legacies of Poe.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the other sort of the other reception thing I had in here,
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_03: which I actually I guess this is a very famous quote,
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_03: but I did not know it,
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_03: which is that Henry James wrote an enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_03: an extremely primitive stage of reflection, sort of the opposite.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_03: He was such a bitch, though.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: He was such a bitch.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was such
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_03: a bitch.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_03: But what I think is so interesting about that is Poe is his obsession is with,
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_03: these antisocial, primal,
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_03: like animal motives and sort of the like the repressed, the gothic, these things.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas James is.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_03: James is obsessed with the social,
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_03: the superficial, the like, you know, the kind of most surface level.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_03: Of reflection.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, reflection being like,
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_03: yeah, the
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_03: mirror, like not being kind of the introspective reflection.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I just loved that as kind of him being so bitchy.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then like, it's just crazy.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you guys have a current,
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_00: this is kind of an aside,
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: but do you guys have a current favorite 19th century author or critic or writer?
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I feel like we've brought up a lot recently,
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: just in the past like five minutes and I'm like,
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: who are you diving into or interested in?
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a huge James head.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say that he's hard for me.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry to that man.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know this man.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_03: He, I mean,
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_03: the thing about James is like when he's good,
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's great, but he was, he was not that good a lot of the time.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: Especially like the longer winded later novels.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: I, I just will not touch with anymore.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was just saying this to Madeline yesterday.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm rereading.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're both rereading Sense and Sensibility right now.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I am just like, oh my God, she is just so talented.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Austin, like even, I don't know.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just what she's doing is so sophisticated and subtle and fun.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I've read all of them and I'm hoping to reread all of them again.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just am like, oh, they're so good.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so easy, honestly.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_03: I think, I mean, I also, I love Dickens and I love George Eliot.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I think for me, those are like kind of, that's the pinnacle of 19th century literature.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: What about you?
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I,
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to have to tell me how to get into Austin because I've tried many times
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: and I kind of am a famous Austin denier.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a huge Austin fan.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think Mansfield Park is a good entry point.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think you tried Mansfield Park and I've tried Pride and Prejudice.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: What about Persuasion?
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've tried Persuasion.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: Persuasion was my gateway.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it's kind of the most contemporary because it's about a like middle-aged woman.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: She's like 27.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like is a has-been spinster.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: Literally.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: My seven-year-old has-been.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that one is a good way to get into her.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I'm a big Dickens head.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously love.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sherlock Holmes,
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: which I feel like it started at the very end of the century,
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: but that feels like not really, not really.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: It feels very early 20th century.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I feel like Arthur Conan Doyle actually was like a very Victorian man in many ways.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_03: A very Victorian sensibility.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think that like I'm a huge Wuthering Heights person.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: I refuse to see the new movie.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of refuse to see movies of it.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they could capture...
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Her language.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: I love Emily Dickinson.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love...
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: I do...
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel like I wasn't sure if I liked Villette when I first read it,
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: but I think about it all the time.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the mark of a good novel.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I love Jane Eyre.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I didn't read it for a long time because I was like,
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm going to like this.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I read it and I was like, oh,
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: this is way better than...
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in a similar way to Wuthering Heights, I feel like the...
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: Reception around those two books has been so, um, flattening.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think like those books were really like turned into this, like,
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: but they're weird and witchy and gothic-y and like lovely and like,
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: they're so poetic.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I,
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: and then again,
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: and then the Russians,
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big fan of the Russians,
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: which I feel like we didn't really get to touch on,
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: but I love Tolstoy and I love Dostoevsky and I love Chekhov,
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: um, I think 2027 is going
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_03: to be my Russian year.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_03: I've honestly avoided the Russians.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_03: I just feel like it's just a whole can of worms.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a little intimidated to open, but I feel ready.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like I've moved through France.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess, yeah, what I didn't say is actually like Zola is like for me, just gigantic.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_03: But that's in part because I love the world he's talking about,
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_03: not because I necessarily love Zola's writing.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: I also think I'm going to reread Madame Bovary this year.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't love it for whatever reason.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time for me.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I loved it that much.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I've read it since college.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: Have you read Tessa the D'Urbervilles, either of you?
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, I need to do...
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to do Far From the Maddening Crowd.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love those.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: do that one.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_01: I really recommend...
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was funny.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope our listeners enjoyed that.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: That little circle jerk.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: We love the circle jerk of
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: the 19th century.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you guys feel jealous.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wish you could be us, but you can't.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, this was so fun.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: Grace, you have to, let's like all read the same thing soon and talk about it again.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_03: I also liked doing a short story.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_03: That was fun.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe we could make that a recurring.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a cute idea.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: Short story.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: You should check off.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the spot.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: Grace, thank you so much for coming on 1-800-1800.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody go out and buy Herculean in paperback if you haven't yet or buy it in hardcover.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_03: Buy it in hardcover.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: It'll last forever.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_03: It'll last for 10 years.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: Grace, anything else you want to say to our listeners before we part ways?
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Buy every book by Mandylion that you can, which I say organically.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am just like such a genuine...
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_03: I know, we really appreciate you.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we met Grace just because she was shopping at our booth at the book fair.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: I said, look at this beautiful graphic design and strange, lovely sounding novels.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_03: You're the best.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_03: We've been connected ever since.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_03: We appreciate you.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so honored to be on.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, you've reached 1-800-1800.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_02: 1-800-1800.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: I have a
• 1:09:35
  [music]