The Daemon Lover by Shirley Jackson
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- Опубліковано 2 тра 2024
- In this haunting and enigmatic short story by Shirley Jackson, an unnamed woman eagerly awaits her wedding day, only to find herself plunged into a nightmarish search for her missing fiancé, Jamie Harris. As she navigates the city streets and encounters a cast of indifferent, jaded characters, the protagonist's quest for love and connection takes on an increasingly surreal and desperate edge. Through masterful prose and subtle psychological insight, Jackson weaves a tale that blurs the lines between reality and illusion, exposing the fragility of human relationships and the ways in which societal expectations can shape and distort our perceptions. "The Daemon Lover" is a masterpiece of ambiguity and unease that will leave listeners pondering the nature of identity, desire, and the elusive search for meaning in a world that often feels isolating and uncertain. Join me as we delve into the unsettling depths of Shirley Jackson's unforgettable story.
#ShirleyJackson #TheDaemonLover #PsychologicalHorror #LiteraryFiction #ShortStory #Storytelling #AudioNarration #UncannyTales #SurrealFiction #HumanCondition
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Music by The Heartwood Institute
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Here's a thought --- The main character intentionally doesn't have a name because she is a representation of women during that time. Shirley Jackson, from what I remember in school, hates the rigid gender roles. Just like in the story either be married and have standing in society or not married and be mocked about it. She's in a constant state or unrest (paranoia) and can't even write how they met to her sister. In the end there was no James or Jamie Harris because she made him up in her own mind.
Great story thank you. Appreciate your commentaries too!
thank you
So excited 😁 love me some Shirley Jackson. Thank you.
You are very welcome
Excellent performance
Thank you.
Thank you, Tony.
Welcome!
Thank you Tony!
My pleasure!
I love the commentary.
+@jayeautocorrectstohate5054 I like you for saying that
PPS
I like that you added other possible images created for the story. You’ve really gotten good at story to image AI creation. It’s neat to see.
Thank you . i’m here days i often mess about with the pictures on photoshop equivalents (the free online one )
Your voice is fantastic. I’m subscribing. 😊
Thanks for subbing! Thanks for the compliment too :)
Among the truly great, REAL HUMAN narrative voices on YT: (in no particular order): Mark John Maguire, (who has channel "THEY GOT AWAY WITH MURDERS":G.M. Danielson, THE TALE MASTER (does a lot of Lovecraft, including the best ever THE CALL OF CTHULHU, which uses audio crackle and hiss to great affect) and the wonderful,mesmerizing Tony Walker. All endlessly listenable!
Thank you. Jasper Le Strange. I must listen to those others. Good recommendations.
Great reading. Good luck on taking the pulge to full time. I've listen for a long while now and always thought that you should make a career of voice acting.
It’s an interesting career field at the moment with the twin challenges of AI narration and the gatekeepers of theatrical agents. I have to steer my way through the middle.
@@ClassicGhost Threading the needle with Scylla on one side and Charybdis on the other. It can be nerve-wracking. However, I think your narration skills and especially your original stories will see you through. Best of luck
@@matthewharper7333 that’s who i was looking for ! I’m
content here tbh. audiobook narration for others is a faff with auditions you rarely get and having to dance to their tune instead of your own. i gave up doing them for others because of that . this is much better
@@ClassicGhost That is understandible. Always better to be the captain of the ship. I hope you find the success you want.
I’ll tell you what was imaginary, that “evil” rat. I guarantee you that was a very kind rat and she just projected some outdated and cruel rat stereotypes. I’ve never once met an evil rat. Cecelia was a bit grumpy, but certainly not evil.
I was gonna say, this did remind me of Kafka. It was that stressful-weird, like The Trial, just kind of slightly off.
I see that
i think rats in general
get a bad press. They are typecast as the villains of so many stories.
@@ClassicGhost my little Phrasie was cuddling with me while I was listening to this last night. I bet you didn’t know you had rat listeners. =D
I didn't but I'm glad.
Your comments are gold!
Ha ha. Nice to hear this.
0:00 the time is gone•the song is over•thought I’d something more to say•
🎼BREATHE…breathe in the air🎶
🎼BREATHE, breathe in the air🎶
+@heidisorenson3775 yep
I love waffles 🧇
tyvm
Definitely a feminist interpretation from my perspective. I read this story 30 years ago and felt the same then. I relate to the main character, having lived with an alcoholic who often didn’t come home. I remember trying to figure out where he was, thinking he’ll be home soon and being devastated when he wasn’t. He wasn’t a daemon luckily and I no longer live like that, but I definitely relate to the feminist perspective.
How DARE you refer to me as "Old Bean!" You have no right nor basis to project your ageism upon my beans! I challenge you to a duel of deadly eyepins!! ;)
Seriously, though, huge congratulations on leaving your day gig! I've been rooting for you for years and you've finally made it! Please take it as a compliment that I'm very jealous and hope, one day, in the fullness of time, I, too, might be able to pay my bills with only my own creativity.
How about this for a contentious interpretation: Tricksters have been around forever (you mentioned Loki from Norse mythology, consider also Coyote and Iktomi in Lakota mythology) and, although mostly confined to the protagonist's mind, Harris is a trickster because he leaks into her physical reality, even into the apartments of strangers. Harris is also, by the end, a ghost, because he is missing-yet-not-quite-presumed-dead. He is again also a daemon in that he has brought this message of exceptionalism into the life of the protagonist and has turned all the routines of her plainness upside down.
He is the daemon, but she is the daemon-lover.
I'm glad you mentioned Kafka in the comments. Although I don't know Schultz well, the ending of this story has always seemed like almost an homage to Kafka. Have you ever thought that these interminable mazes of sparsely populated buildings and old newspaper (or Machen's brick-kiln suburbs, or Aikman's sealess seashores, or Burroughs's Interzone tenements...) are the actual ends of the Earth? They're not edges off which to fall, but, instead soft borders beyond which travel could continue forever without changing anything of notice to the traveller. That's what makes Harris a ghost. He has penetrated that edge of her world and now only exists somewhere just outside it.
(...oh, and if we're thinking about the same Geoff, I'm pretty sure he was actually a beetle who turned into a teacher...)
The Freudian slip about masculinity might be telling as well. She eschews her blue pocketbook and blue silk dress because they are too plain and severe. Instead she carries a shabby brown pocketbook that matches her "soft, feminine... over-young" print dress -- a garment which is repeatedly torn as she waits and later searches the city for a man in a commonplace blue suit. Maybe, even as a woman in a man's world, she is sufficient in herself, but cannot see it. Or, at least, she cannot see how to simultaneously be flowery and feminine while also maintaining the (plain? blue?) severity needed to navigate (and, indeed, be an author within) the wide world.
Your comments about "shoulds-and-oughts" are also dangerously on the money, and frankly chilling. I'm not sure that they are the only pillars of depression, but you've got to be right in that they are among its crucial supports. Ill have to think more about that!
Congratulations again on your career as a full time creator!
What a great comment. Thank you for your thoughts. If you write a book about this, I'll buy it. Did you listen to Three Miles Up? It is reminiscent of 'are the actual ends of the Earth? They're not edges off which to fall, but, instead soft borders beyond which travel could continue forever without changing anything of notice to the traveller.'
@@ClassicGhost thanks, I'll get to work on that book right away :) .Good call on Howard's "Three Miles Up." What a great job you did with that reading! The endless marsh canal bit definitely qualifies, although the penultimate paragraph has always made me think that, when the dryad disappeared, the men stopped travelling and actually ended up arriving somewhere final, with no way back, like a Greek Limbo, or a Chinese Realm of Hungry Ghosts or Burrough's "LoD" (land of the dead). A chilling ending for sure, but seems a bit different -- finding doom at the end of wandering, rather than being doomed to wander endlessly.
Oh no, this is a sad story 😢. The poor dear.
I know
Tak!
+@martiwilliams4592 ta
I am totally onboard with your post- read analyses. It's no different than emerging from a movie theater with friends and talking about the movie is it not? Plus one has to conceed that a British accent offers an air of authority and legitimacy to both the read and subsequent commentary.
Lol. I shall enjoy the unearned authority :)
Thank you for reading in your English accent. 😂
I'm wondering about the blue suit. It was such a recurring detail and I have the impression of a blue suit being the sign of a dandy, or a salesman, or a huckster at that time.
On reflection, it seems to mean something. But what....?
@@ClassicGhost Maybe a trickster/con man reference
Good evening all ❤
Good morning!
Hi fellow ghost chaser! 🙋♀️
I've wondered for a long time now how much mental illness imfluenced her writing vs. feminst themes, ie a response to her husband's infidelity.
Also, I thought the rat was James. Here she is thinking the locked apartmet contains her lover who is ignoring her and perhaps cheating on her, when in fact the empty room with the rat, (the trickster) is the reality?? A reversal of the Cinderella (ella, ella)😁 fairytale. The prince turns into a rat. No house in the country. No happily ever after.
I am familiar with Shirley Jackson's biography Etc. I don't think I see in the evidence of mental illness guiding her stories which seem to be the result of the most careful and rational analysis all the aspects of life including the painful the delusional and the inexplicable. the perceptions of the subtleties of life may have lead to stories of extraordinary vision and insight and also led to intense stresses which may have contributed to an imperfect mental and emotional state.
@@garybernstein3527 that is a very effective point. I in no way meant to lessen her talent in wondering what part mental illness may have played in her writing. I forget who the author is, but there is a wonder book called, "Touched by Fire," which examines how some of the greatest talents in the arts channeled their mental struggles into the most memorable and meaningful work, such as Van Gogh. Thanks for responding!✌️
Thanks! I apologize for the lengthy comment. I try to write, post, reread & edit my comments. My brain too can be scattered w/ Virgo-critique of micro to the macro, and the seed of my communication lost in the jumble. (Even support can look like criticism when looked at from fresh eyes.) Also, most people just don’t have to time to slog through the jumble & of course, I hope it’s the edited version you see, but nonetheless. Thank you!
+@evelanpatton is this the comment or a comment about the comment :))
@@ClassicGhostah, this is unfortunately, the lengthy comment about the comment. 😮😢 I get so excited to respond. I haven’t much intellectual stimulation, coming to your channels is like attending a creative writing class I can come back to to explore ideas. So my thoughts wonder. I do apologize. 🪭
You’re not alone in this by a long shot. 🤓📚…
@@evelanpatton I can’t see the comment though
😅
I would rather hear your British voice reading the American story than an American voice.
Thank you! I feel the same! Unfortunately I spend more words saying what I appreciate & mean this very easy comment. I guess, “It takes ‘em all!” Cheers!
i’m actually doing that more and more as I realise that while British people don’t like hearing British stories in American accents it is not mutual. I was trying not to be chauvinistic.
@ClassicGhost There was an American survey (study?) years ago that found that people more readily accepted what was told to them as authoritative if it was said in a British voice. Upper Received Pronunciation, I assume.
@@thurayya8905
I saw a similar study years ago for native Gaelic speakers in the Hebrides. There were two axes. The first was authority and the second was friendliness. They perceived local Gaelic speakers is the most friendly and English RP as the least friendly but most authoritative.
"Christian stories". Ha, haaa. Also known as The Book
Ok, love the channel but this story...seems to be a woman obsessed over what she's going to wear. Must be a woman thing. Ill try and finish it later.
I can see what you mean, but I think that in the hands of a writer of Jackson's calibre, we can assume that it was done deliberately. I took the dresses to represent two different personas / realities that the protagonist was choosing between. Sorry, I've put that clumsily! But I'd be interested to hear any other thoughts or takes on it.
“The smell of burning fields,
Will now mean you and here
But I know that this will never be mine”.
Your talk reminded me so strongly of this wonderful song, thank you twice Tony.
I was particularly impressed by your talk today; your take on the story from a mental health clinician’s point of view was totally pertinent.
I can’t help feeling that the *protagonist* was a kind of ghost. Existing in the world, but unable to make an impression on it, barely being noticed at all,except for her incongruity, and completely unable to touch a “real life”
All success to you in your future ventures Tony.
🎧🎤📚🛜🧡
i think that is one of my favourite KB songs. That and Under The Ivy