0:00

Did I tell you? So my

0:02

wife took her to the doctor

0:04

because they sent her home from

0:06

daycare yesterday. And so we're at

0:08

the pediatrician and she tests positive

0:11

for flu and my wife basically

0:13

was like, oh yeah, well, I

0:15

guess that's what my husband had

0:17

last week because he was sick

0:20

last week and you know, he

0:22

didn't get the flu shot. And I

0:24

was like, you, you knocked on

0:26

me to a doctor? The pediatrician

0:28

was like, yeah, well, you know,

0:31

this is why women live longer

0:33

than men. Yeah. It's because men

0:35

don't take care of themselves enough.

0:38

It's like, what? Yeah. I'm sorry,

0:40

I'm sorry I forgot to get

0:42

the flu shot. I'm so sorry.

0:45

Because they're so foolhardy that

0:47

they don't get the flu

0:49

shot. It was an accident.

0:51

I'm sorry. I got swept up

0:53

and I forgot. Hello

1:16

and welcome to Flanagan's wake.

1:19

A Duke Media podcast watching,

1:21

analyzing, and discussing the collective

1:24

works of Mike Flanagan. My

1:26

name is Scott Daly and

1:29

I am your host and

1:31

joining me this week dancing

1:33

around the house. It's Matt Freeman.

1:36

How's it going today, Matt? I'm

1:38

not here. I'm not here. I'm

1:40

behind you. No, you're definitely

1:42

here. We can clearly hear

1:44

you. Who knows? question of the

1:47

haunting of Hill House. Who knows?

1:49

Yeah. Maybe this week we'll try

1:51

to figure out if we know. Spoilers. We

1:53

do not. We do not. This week on

1:55

the show, our reading of Shirley

1:57

Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

2:00

as we finish the novel we

2:03

will be reading chapter 7 through

2:05

the end of the book and

2:07

as we've already said we're not

2:09

necessarily going to get some answers

2:11

here we get some we get

2:13

we get the end but not

2:15

not some answers for sure Matt

2:18

what did you think of of

2:20

the finale of this novel gosh

2:22

what did I think I don't

2:24

know what I thought we'll figure

2:26

out what I thought as we

2:28

talk about this I think it's

2:31

on the one hand it kind

2:33

of became even more chaotic and

2:35

coherent toward the end. But on

2:37

the other hand, like a preferred

2:39

theory did emerge for me. So

2:41

here's what's going to happen in

2:44

this conversation. Is this is still

2:46

going to be the same as

2:48

last week where we're going to

2:50

be like, but maybe this is

2:52

what's happening? But maybe this is

2:54

what's happening. And that's going to

2:56

make everything take three times longer?

2:59

But I do have a preferred,

3:01

this I think is what's happening

3:03

through line, which might make things

3:05

not take three times longer. That's

3:07

great. That's awesome. And I love

3:09

that because, you know, this is,

3:12

I think, the kind of book

3:14

that perhaps can at times challenge

3:16

our whole stick here of sitting

3:18

down. reading a book analyzing it

3:20

and then telling people what it

3:22

means at least at least what

3:25

it means to us. Oftentimes there

3:27

are novels that they don't necessarily

3:29

want to reveal exactly what they

3:31

mean and this is one of

3:33

those books where I think Shirley

3:35

Jackson has created a book that

3:37

is very open-ended as far as

3:40

what do you think this means

3:42

and it's it's it's kind of

3:44

like a an inkblot test right

3:46

like of This is what I

3:48

think it means. Will this reflect

3:50

something about how you perceive the

3:53

world and how you perceive people?

3:55

And I think that's really neat

3:57

actually, but from a perspective of

3:59

like, let's sound smart into a

4:01

microphone. It's definitely pretty challenging. Yes,

4:03

I would say. that this book

4:06

was a curveball. I was not

4:08

expecting something to be so, something

4:10

that was so ambiguous, like, intentionally

4:12

ambiguous on every level, where you're

4:14

just like, I don't, I don't

4:16

know, I don't know, I don't

4:18

know. Yeah, I mean, that's a

4:21

good point to say that, like,

4:23

I certainly have had books and

4:25

movies that I've. read or watched

4:27

and not gotten it. And so

4:29

my confusion and the ambiguity is

4:31

just me not getting it. But

4:34

then there are those that are

4:36

designed to not get or at

4:38

least to have this feeling of

4:40

ambiguity as you leave them. And

4:42

that certainly is like, I think

4:44

we can definitely say like the

4:47

design of this book for sure.

4:49

Yep. All right. Well, well, let's

4:51

get right into it then and

4:53

begin with. Chapter 7, we kind

4:55

of inadvertently, I didn't do this

4:57

on purpose, but I divided the

4:59

book into three chapter sections. This

5:02

one is like shorter than the

5:04

other two, so it's not like

5:06

I was being clever and actually

5:08

dividing the book into thirds, but

5:10

this is Chapter 7. This is

5:12

the third section, the third section,

5:15

the first of three of the

5:17

third section. Well, yeah, I know

5:19

you didn't, you know, divide the

5:21

book thematically, but it's interesting. I

5:23

feel like you may as well

5:25

have, because it sort of breaks

5:27

into three natural sections. Yeah. Last

5:30

week I remarked that for the

5:32

first one-third of the book, we

5:34

were basically positively predisposed toward Eleanor

5:36

as our main character. There were

5:38

some worrying hints in there, but

5:40

we saw those hints largely framed

5:43

as like, oh, she's naive, poor

5:45

Eleanor. And then the second part

5:47

of the book introduces a lot

5:49

more darkness and dark-tinged ambiguity into

5:51

Eleanor's character. her thoughts and actions

5:53

become much more concerning. And then

5:56

finally, this third of the book

5:58

is almost a hard break starting

6:00

right here at the beginning of

6:02

Chapter 7, where I'm just like,

6:04

okay, this just doesn't make sense

6:06

anymore. Yeah. like narratively character ill

6:08

logically. But yeah, let's get into

6:11

it. Yeah, no, I mean, let's

6:13

just give me full credit for

6:15

doing this intentionally. Sure, nothing about

6:17

the fact that it was arbitrary

6:19

and based on number of pages

6:21

and how things worked. So good

6:24

job, me. Yeah, good job. All

6:26

right. So our chapter begins with

6:28

Elmore going on a solo jaunt

6:30

in the hill surrounding Hill House.

6:32

I just want to. refresh everyone's

6:34

memory. Since we're reading this kind

6:37

of weird, it's been a week

6:39

maybe since anyone's thought about this

6:41

book, we left. last week's reading

6:43

with Eleanor and Theodore having gone

6:45

on a walk through the woods.

6:47

They stumble upon a ghost picnic

6:49

and then Theodore sees something that

6:52

causes them to panic and sprint

6:54

out through the picnic out of

6:56

the garden and rush back to

6:58

the house as quickly as they

7:00

can. It's something horrible and is

7:02

terrifying. We never get to actually

7:05

learn what it is, but they

7:07

experience that. And then the next

7:09

day. You know Eleanor is like

7:11

yeah, I'm gonna go hang out

7:13

here by myself right after this

7:15

happened cool great It's so jarring

7:18

because Like you end that reading

7:20

and you're like okay the next

7:22

thing that happens is going to

7:24

be some reaction to this incredibly

7:26

obviously Shockingly supernatural apparition that just

7:28

happened. Yeah, no never mentioned again.

7:30

Yep And that's

7:33

the tale of this book is

7:35

nobody reacts. Like in many ways,

7:37

like this book is like doing

7:39

this very clever thing where it's

7:41

playing within perhaps understood tropes of

7:44

storytelling of like, hey, we're gonna

7:46

give you all this information to

7:48

the beginning of the book. Like,

7:50

look, we're gonna go through this

7:52

this in-depth history of the Crane

7:54

family and everyone around them and

7:57

look, we're gonna know exactly how

7:59

they. died and then what happened

8:01

and like and isn't it going

8:03

to be great when all this

8:05

pays off all this knowledge pays

8:07

off really specifically and how the

8:10

haunting of Hill House unfolds? No

8:12

that's not going to happen and

8:14

then yeah when we continually have

8:16

these events that make no sense

8:18

that seemingly no one reacts to

8:20

them in a way you would

8:23

think they would like they happen

8:25

we move on and we never

8:27

talk about them again and that's

8:29

it. It's even unclear whether they

8:31

happen, actually. Sure. Yeah. And this

8:33

will, I think there's some backing

8:36

to the idea that maybe some

8:38

of these things are literally not

8:40

happening anywhere outside of Eleanor's head.

8:42

I'm not saying, I'm not actually

8:44

saying that's my preferred theory, but

8:46

I think that one could have

8:49

a very solid reading that all

8:51

the supernatural stuff in this book

8:53

is just Eleanor imagining things. Yeah,

8:55

and to that matter, like how

8:57

much of the mundane is Eleanor

8:59

imagining things, right? Like how much

9:02

of the interactions between these characters

9:04

actually happen the way the book

9:06

tells them to us, because it

9:08

certainly would explain a lot of

9:10

the unusual stiltedness of a lot

9:12

of these conversations if at least

9:15

partially they were not happening this

9:17

way. Totally. I really love this

9:19

little. reading here, Matt, I want

9:21

to read this to you and

9:23

then chat about it here. This

9:26

is when Eleanor is out in

9:28

the hills. It says, around her,

9:30

the trees and wild flowers, with

9:32

that oddly courteous air of natural

9:34

things suddenly interrupted in their pressing

9:36

occupations of grouping and dying, turned

9:39

towards her with attention, as though

9:41

dull and imperceptive as she was,

9:43

it was still necessary for them

9:45

to be gentle to be gentle

9:47

to a creature so unfortunate as

9:49

to not be rooted into the

9:52

ground, forced to go from one

9:54

place to another, heartbreakingly, heartbreakingly. mobile.

9:56

I love this as kind of

9:58

maybe the slow reveal of whether

10:00

real or not like what Illinois

10:02

What Eleanor's kind of quest this

10:05

entire time has been, which is

10:07

a place to belong, a place

10:09

to call home, a place to

10:11

exist and to live in any

10:13

way that means, like, you know,

10:15

that's, that's the, the. daydreams she

10:18

had while driving to Hill House

10:20

were all of having places, having

10:22

a home with things to do,

10:24

even mundane chores. She found this

10:26

kind of found family here and

10:28

wanted them. And so as she's

10:31

kind of becoming more and more

10:33

unmoored to everything, she's dancing through

10:35

the hills and imagining all the

10:37

things that get that by their

10:39

very nature have a set home

10:41

a set place they have roots

10:44

by their nature look upon her

10:46

with pity and I think that's

10:48

I think that's great I think

10:50

it's really great of of just

10:52

this beautiful image to push us

10:54

into what I think is going

10:57

to be our lasting understanding of

10:59

Eleanor here absolutely I think that

11:01

ties really well with the idea

11:03

that what a lot of the

11:05

content that we're seeing from the

11:07

apparitions last week and this week

11:10

is messages that essentially say come

11:12

home Eleanor you know you're home

11:14

Eleanor all these ideas about home

11:16

belonging yeah and then the ultimate

11:18

tragedy of her at the very

11:21

end of the novel of course

11:23

is that she thinks she's found

11:25

a home and is removed from

11:27

it and that's why chooses to

11:29

take her own life instead of

11:31

of deal with that or or

11:34

did she you get there? So

11:36

from here Matt we cut to

11:38

the promised arrival of Mrs. Montague

11:40

who we learn has not come

11:42

alone she brings Arthur her friend

11:44

a manly man he's the headmaster

11:47

of a boy's school and he's

11:49

he's a manly man he's the

11:51

headmaster of a boy's school and

11:53

he's he's a manly man he'd

11:55

yes they do those learning things

11:57

but that's not what I were

12:00

myself with, it's how to shoot

12:02

guns and be a man. These

12:04

very specific things, and these two

12:06

characters, man. I think it's, so

12:08

it's, first of all, like at

12:10

this point we're 50 pages from

12:13

the end of the book, right?

12:15

We are hurtle, it's a short

12:17

book, it's a 200 and something

12:19

page book, and we are hurtling

12:21

towards the end of the book

12:23

at this point, and we're going

12:26

to introduce two new characters at

12:28

the end of this. When you

12:30

do something like this, introduce a

12:32

new dynamic to the story to

12:34

make something clear. And I think

12:36

the purpose of these two characters

12:39

becomes clear very quickly. And it's

12:41

to suck. I hate them. I

12:43

hate them so much. They're awful.

12:45

They're the worst. Yeah, our first

12:47

impression of them is absolutely terrible.

12:49

I will remark that once again,

12:52

I think Jackson is continually playing

12:54

with... giving us a certain first

12:56

impression and then reversing it and

12:58

then like turning it left and

13:00

reversing it and turning it upside

13:02

down and sure it and it

13:05

just just messing with us in

13:07

that way so sure the first

13:09

impression is very negative again like

13:11

like you kind of said the

13:13

main crew the people we've gotten

13:16

used to they were kind of

13:18

starting to grind my gears in

13:20

their own individual ways And then

13:22

the arrival of Mrs. Montague totally

13:24

like renormalizes my impressions of the

13:26

main cast where suddenly I'm just

13:29

like, oh, the main folks are

13:31

fine. These people, though, geez, these

13:33

guys are ridiculous. These guys are

13:35

much worse. And you almost forget

13:37

how annoyed you were with, you

13:39

know, Theodore and Eleanor and even

13:42

Montague. Luke continues to be a

13:44

bit of a cipher to me,

13:46

by the way. I don't know

13:48

if we'll have much time to

13:50

talk about Luke like this week,

13:52

but I want to. put a

13:55

really big pin in talking about

13:57

Luke for next week when we

13:59

go over the whole book because

14:01

I don't really know what to

14:03

do with Luke. Sure. Just basically

14:05

agree with you that yeah we

14:08

we're meant to we're meant to

14:10

hate these people. And there's kind

14:12

of a big pattern interrupt. We're

14:14

just like, wherever we thought this

14:16

was going, whatever we thought we

14:18

were doing with this story, we're

14:21

just swerving. Yeah. Yeah, and I

14:23

think it's more than just that.

14:25

Like, I feel like these, and

14:27

this kind of goes back to

14:29

the, is this really happening the

14:31

way? we're being shown at is

14:34

this Eleanor's reading of these two

14:36

people that have entered the situation

14:38

or is this an objective reading

14:40

of these two people because they

14:42

almost behave as caricatures right and

14:44

and stay with me on this

14:47

one because I think this is

14:49

just accurate here it's almost as

14:51

if mummy and daddy have come

14:53

home. Right? Like, we have these

14:55

four characters, these four kids, like

14:57

playing in a haunted house, having

15:00

a grand old time, one big

15:02

slumber party, weird things are happening,

15:04

but we always kind of laugh

15:06

them off. And then the parents

15:08

come home to set things right.

15:10

And I think that fits. If

15:13

you look at like Mrs. Montague

15:15

is kind of like this characterized,

15:17

motherly figure, and then Arthur, for

15:19

his part becomes this character of

15:21

like... a man's man father figure

15:24

type of person. I think you're

15:26

right. I think they're both very

15:28

much about roles abstractly too. Yeah.

15:30

We'll talk about this in a

15:32

minute, but Mrs. Montague is very

15:34

firm that people should, you know,

15:37

kind of know their place and

15:39

be in their place. And Arthur,

15:41

obviously, he's a headmaster of a

15:43

boy's school. He's all about people

15:45

being in their place and people

15:47

fitting into their role. So the

15:50

fact that they are kind of

15:52

archetypes themselves, it's like, well, they,

15:54

of course, they know their roles,

15:56

and you should know your role.

15:58

So I think, I think you're

16:00

right, and I also think it's

16:03

kind of a meta thing that

16:05

we're doing there. Yeah. Well, yeah,

16:07

because Eleanor is a person who

16:09

doesn't know her role, like what

16:11

is Eleanor's role, where does she

16:13

fit? And yeah, I mean, I

16:16

love this as, again, like, we

16:18

could, we could, we could play

16:20

with the. play coy with this

16:22

idea of like is this happening

16:24

this way or is this just

16:26

Eleanor perception either way it doesn't

16:29

matter because either way these people

16:31

represent this kind of trying to

16:33

pin down and structure on and

16:35

label and and define who who

16:37

you are what is what are

16:39

we doing what is like we

16:42

need we need a plan we

16:44

need a plan of attack like

16:46

we need it is bringing limitations

16:48

in order and structure to a

16:50

situation that hasn't had it before

16:52

and that's like Eleanor kind of

16:55

is terrified of that I think.

16:57

Well and she's ultimately sort of

16:59

correct to be terrified by it

17:01

because it leads to her being

17:03

you know identified as the the

17:05

nail that sticks up and and

17:08

thus rejected. Yeah she she will

17:10

not conform. I mean Theodore also

17:12

doesn't conform. But Theodora, so let

17:14

me be specific, Theodora doesn't conform

17:16

to social norms. But she can

17:19

when she has to, like she

17:21

can play the role when she

17:23

absolutely needs to. Luke I think

17:25

also, again, this is me not

17:27

really quite knowing what to do

17:29

with Luke, but Luke I think

17:32

also doesn't quite conform. But when

17:34

she shows up and she starts

17:36

expecting Luke to carry her bags

17:38

around because he's a young man,

17:40

and that's what the young man

17:42

should do is the young man

17:45

should carry my bags to my

17:47

room, and he should, that's his

17:49

role, and like the power of

17:51

her expectation just compels him to

17:53

do that. But the power of

17:55

her expectation seems to have no

17:58

power over Eleanor. Eleanor is, you

18:00

know, outside context to her. I

18:02

want to before we move on

18:04

I do want to talk about

18:06

the Montague marriage for just a

18:08

brief moment here again in a

18:11

very subtextual like reading between the

18:13

lines kind of way because it

18:15

is very clear like we kind

18:17

of see from Dr. Montague that

18:19

he's exasperated by his wife, he

18:21

gets very angry with his wife,

18:24

but he's also very defensive of

18:26

her. And also we introduced the

18:28

idea of Arthur, which the book

18:30

does not come right out and

18:32

say this, but I feel like

18:34

there's something going on with Mrs.

18:37

Montague and Arthur beyond just a,

18:39

oh, this is my driver type

18:41

situation, and it feels like the

18:43

doctor is kind of being cuckold

18:45

a bit. I don't know, like

18:47

again, this is not, none of

18:50

this is like stated outright in

18:52

the book, but I find it

18:54

all very interesting watching how the

18:56

three of them play off of

18:58

each other in this way. It's

19:00

so baffling. And let me, let

19:03

me just say I agree with

19:05

you that it seems that way

19:07

so obviously that I'm like, well

19:09

then either Montague is like aware

19:11

of it and okay with it

19:14

or. that's just not the right

19:16

reading of it because there's no

19:18

way he could be this dense

19:20

about the situation. Like another reading

19:22

that I just kind of enjoy

19:24

because I because it amuses me

19:27

is just like the force of

19:29

Mrs. Montiou's personality is such that

19:31

one day she just decided that

19:33

Arthur was going to be her

19:35

chauffeur and manservant and and and

19:37

and just just like made that

19:40

so with the force of her

19:42

personality. and him being like a

19:44

guy who thinks that like that's

19:46

like his role is to be

19:48

you know a good a good

19:50

man who works hard and and

19:53

he was just like yeah perfect

19:55

this is exactly what I want

19:57

it's like a it's like a

19:59

you know a dog enjoys being

20:01

obedient that this is this is

20:03

what he was born to do

20:06

sure but and then I have

20:08

to ask the question I was

20:10

like We very specifically had Dr.

20:12

Montague read these old, old, like,

20:14

Proto novels about, like, moralism and

20:16

kind of defining, especially within the

20:19

context of marriage, like defining what

20:21

is proper and correct behavior for

20:23

marriage. And it's like, was that

20:25

just a long Shirley Jackson set

20:27

up for the reveal of whom

20:29

Mrs. Montague is and her relationship

20:32

with Arthur? And like, let's be

20:34

clear here, like these characters are

20:36

very funny. as much as they

20:38

are annoying. Like, it is also

20:40

kind of weird that at this

20:42

late stage of the book where

20:45

it has been horrifying and a

20:47

character is losing it, there's a

20:49

lot of comedy in this actually.

20:51

And I do wonder if this

20:53

was like just a slow burn

20:55

kind of reveal of that Montague

20:58

seems like a person who's very

21:00

very interested in like the correct

21:02

moralizing of... What is marriage and

21:04

what is the role of husband

21:06

and wife? Like we're talking about

21:08

roles. He's reading these very specific

21:11

kind of training manual novels on

21:13

this kind of thing and then

21:15

has a wife like this. Yeah.

21:17

Well, so that's my recollection. I

21:19

didn't really read into this too

21:22

deeply, but my recollection was that

21:24

those novels were meant to be

21:26

sort of educational for women about

21:28

like, here's how to be a

21:30

good wife. you could see it

21:32

as like him fantasizing about what

21:35

it would be like to have

21:37

a nice Serbian wife. Yeah, yeah,

21:39

a real wife under his. Yeah,

21:41

yeah. No, that's really interesting. Instead

21:43

of having a wife who dominates

21:45

him and makes him, I don't

21:48

want to say makes him miserable

21:50

actually because he's defensive of her

21:52

actually like like, like there's kind

21:54

of a nice moment when he's

21:56

defensive of her and. In a

21:58

way where he's it's clear that

22:01

he's aware of how she comes

22:03

off and how their relationship comes

22:05

off, but he's just haplessly like

22:07

She she shows the buttons on

22:09

my shirts and It's a marriage

22:11

This is her one vice is

22:14

her obsession with the the ghosts

22:16

which I we it's so funny

22:18

to call that her one vice

22:20

when it's like you mean the

22:22

thing you guys have in common

22:24

actually now of course they they

22:27

approach it from completely different ends

22:29

but this is actually I think

22:31

something that's that's really interesting that

22:33

I want to talk about here

22:35

because early on Mrs. Montague like

22:37

starts almost immediately chastising her husband

22:40

for running this experiment without any

22:42

sort of actual system which okay

22:44

like I don't like this woman

22:46

but I kind of agree with

22:48

her on this, right? Like, like,

22:50

like, he, we define Dr. Montague

22:53

as this person who, like, I

22:55

want to do this scientifically. I

22:57

am going to do a science

22:59

experiment on the paranormal at the

23:01

supposed haunted house. I'm going to

23:03

bring some people that might have,

23:06

you know, through... ESP or through

23:08

some extra sensory thing have maybe

23:10

a closer connection to this thing

23:12

than a regular person would and

23:14

then we're gonna bring them there

23:17

and we're gonna perform experiments to

23:19

see if the ghosts are real

23:21

if this place is really haunted

23:23

and then like his experiment is

23:25

like I don't know man just

23:27

like hang out and take some

23:30

notes yeah maybe I'll like measure

23:32

a cold spot once like He

23:34

does no, there's no control, there's

23:36

no experiment, there's no hypothesis, there's

23:38

nothing actually. Yeah, we're just gonna

23:40

see what happens. Yeah. Of course

23:43

it's funny because her approach to

23:45

it as an experiment is also

23:47

terrible. Yeah, yeah. Which to me

23:49

is just funny where it's like

23:51

she is putting on sort of

23:53

the cargo cult trappings of... doing

23:56

a scientific analysis where she's like

23:58

we have to actually bring in

24:00

the equipment which is the planchette

24:02

and and we have to actually

24:04

you know do this correctly and

24:06

it's like well that's that's all

24:09

made up too so it's all

24:11

it's all equally made up I'm

24:13

not sure It's interesting because I'm

24:15

pretty sure that Shirley Jackson is

24:17

saying something with this, with the

24:19

idea that, you know, how do

24:22

you quantify the numinous? You probably

24:24

don't do it with a plan

24:26

yet, but if ghosts actually speak

24:28

to us through, you know, our

24:30

subconscious, then maybe... I'm wrong and

24:32

maybe a Planchette is exactly right.

24:35

Yeah. You could even say like,

24:37

given that we have no idea

24:39

what we're doing here in the

24:41

first place, maybe just kind of

24:43

sitting back like a naturalist and

24:45

taking notes is kind of the

24:48

best you can do. But I

24:50

think ultimately nobody really succeeds. Like

24:52

I don't think I don't think

24:54

one of the two of this

24:56

couple like comes out the winner.

24:58

his first paper on the subject

25:01

is kind of laughed at and

25:03

he just quietly gives up on

25:05

doing this kind of research. Right,

25:07

right. Yeah, I mean, I, I,

25:09

if I had to guess it

25:12

would be that, yeah, that any,

25:14

any kind of attempts to understand

25:16

this stuff on a scientific level

25:18

are per Jackson a little bit

25:20

of absurd, whether it's one way

25:22

or another, yeah, I love what

25:25

you said about. Mrs. Montague's methods

25:27

and like the the ridiculousness of

25:29

them like it's all bullshit and

25:31

that but yeah his methods don't

25:33

seem to do anything else anything

25:35

anything more either so I think

25:38

it's just like this is this

25:40

is a level of understanding that's

25:42

out of our reach and perhaps

25:44

by attempting to understand it we

25:46

we we we can't we can't

25:48

this is just a random thought

25:51

but but I wonder if it's

25:53

like, we have a much higher

25:55

level of knowledge than they do,

25:57

arguably. Maybe they should have just

25:59

interviewed Eleanor and Theodora and gotten

26:01

some answers out of them. Tried

26:04

to put it together by talking,

26:06

because Eleanor arguably knows a lot

26:08

more than they do about what's

26:10

going on. It's unclear whether Eleanor

26:12

knows that Eleanor knows this, because

26:14

you might have to tease some

26:17

of it out of her, but

26:19

her perceptions of what's going on

26:21

are quite different from everyone else's.

26:23

But then again, maybe she's hallucinating

26:25

everything. So I don't know. This

26:27

is the thing. We can be

26:30

absolutely tied up in knots trying

26:32

to figure this out. So. I

26:34

did just want to point this

26:36

point out, as Luke is having

26:38

to lug some heavy bags up

26:40

the stairs, Theodore says, poor Luke,

26:43

Theodore said, he never had a

26:45

mother. looking up, Eleanor found that

26:47

Theodore was regarding her with a

26:49

curious smile, and she moved away

26:51

from the table so quickly that

26:53

a glass spilled. So this goes

26:56

back to the conversation that Eleanor

26:58

had with Luke last week, where

27:00

that's the thing he said that

27:02

disappointed her so, where she totally

27:04

lost any romantic interest in him.

27:07

Again, this is, it is not

27:09

clear whether Eleanor divulged this conversation

27:11

to Theo. Like we don't actually

27:13

get to see that, right? Like

27:15

the next thing we see in

27:17

the, in the, chronology of

27:20

the book is that Theo is now

27:22

mad at Eleanor for having the hots

27:24

for Luke. But we don't get to

27:26

see any of that and then here

27:29

again is Theo just kind of teasing

27:31

Eleanor. Once again, with knowledge that she

27:33

maybe does or does not have, I

27:35

don't know, it tries to be crazy

27:38

the way these characters interact with each

27:40

other were just like, were you trying

27:42

to be an asshole there or were

27:44

you just like talking? Or like, what

27:47

were we trying to do there? Was

27:49

that like a ha ha, doesn't Luke

27:51

suck? Aren't we buddies and Luke kind

27:53

of sucks? Because we like each other

27:56

more than we like Luke or was

27:58

that, I don't know, I don't know.

28:00

Yeah. You know, I think he. Okay,

28:02

here's a commentary about the way that

28:05

I like to talk about stories is

28:07

I tend to like take the mainline

28:09

reading and then be like, ah, everyone

28:11

gets that. I'm gonna try to find

28:14

some interesting unusual reading that amuses me,

28:16

but that I nonetheless actually think is

28:18

a good reading, not unless actually think

28:20

is a good reading, not just because

28:23

it's like, oh, I was in this

28:25

wacky, but I like to find interesting

28:27

readings. And this book, there are too

28:29

many other readings. that is most likely,

28:32

which is literally just that Theodore is

28:34

reading her mind and kind of trolling

28:36

her a little bit. Yeah. And not

28:38

even necessarily doing it out of like

28:41

horrible mean-spiritedness, just kind of is bored.

28:43

She's been cooped up in this house

28:45

and she knows about this conversation. Not

28:47

only does she know about the conversation

28:50

that she had with Luke, but she

28:52

knows exactly how Eleanor feels about it.

28:54

And she's just kind of ribbing her

28:57

about it. I

29:00

don't see Theodore as being

29:02

mean-spirited, despite the fact that

29:04

she has needled Eleanor a

29:06

number of times. I have

29:08

this feeling that Eleanor kind

29:10

of deserves it, which is

29:12

another, by the way, just

29:14

like another thing that the

29:16

book is doing to us,

29:19

is it's actually made Eleanor

29:21

seem so unlikable and annoying

29:23

at this point that I...

29:25

This is going to sound horrible,

29:27

but like you kind of get

29:29

why people are mistreating her because

29:31

she's just so unpleasant. Like she's

29:34

just unpleasant to be around and

29:36

weird. And just what we're going

29:38

to see in a few minutes

29:40

is she just suddenly is like,

29:42

I'm going to come live with

29:44

you, Theodora. And it's like, that's

29:46

unhinged talker behavior. Like that's, that's

29:48

not even known you for four

29:50

days. Yeah, like that's genuinely, if

29:52

you were Theodore in this situation.

29:54

You would be legitimately freaked out.

29:56

the behavior of this woman and

29:58

that's kind of that's kind of

30:00

part for the course with Eleanor

30:02

yeah I mean a lot of

30:04

this I think is what we

30:06

talked about last week with with

30:08

Eleanor is just like this young

30:10

girl who's getting to experience all

30:12

these things for the first time

30:14

and is just overly excited and

30:16

kind of crazy about all of

30:18

it and it like in in

30:20

many ways it's endearing and adorable

30:22

but eventually it's like kind of

30:24

like okay this has gotten a

30:26

little it's pushed a little bit

30:28

past that and it's starting to

30:30

get kind of annoying and then

30:32

it's starting to get dangerous and

30:34

then like you're starting to get

30:36

uncomfortable and that's kind of the

30:38

what seems to be like in

30:40

the background the character's movements against

30:42

Eleanor throughout the course of it

30:44

is that's like, oh it's like

30:46

so charming and hilarious how naive

30:49

and adorable she is at the

30:51

beginning and a ha ha ha

30:53

isn't it great and she's so

30:55

excited and and it's like a

30:57

person like Theo who likes being

30:59

the center of attention, here's this

31:01

woman that's kind of obsessed with

31:03

you. Isn't that neat at first,

31:05

actually? It's kind of neat that

31:07

to have someone that's like so

31:09

clearly looking up to you and

31:11

obsessed with you, ha ha, but

31:13

then she asks to come home

31:15

with you and you're like, whoa,

31:17

wait a minute, actually, this isn't

31:19

fun anymore for me. And Eleanor

31:21

doesn't understand that. Yeah. I just

31:23

have to say this is such.

31:25

next level writing because I agree

31:27

with everything you just said basically

31:29

that like I want to be

31:31

clear I'm not saying like I

31:33

personally think that annoying people deserve

31:35

to be horribly mistreated that I

31:37

wasn't making a moral statement when

31:39

I said deserve I just mean

31:41

like if you were in this

31:43

situation and somebody was behaving as

31:45

you know out of pocket as

31:47

Eleanor is you would be doing

31:49

the side-eye thing with the other

31:51

people in the room yeah like

31:53

There would be a latent understanding

31:55

of the dynamic and that's what

31:57

you see happening, but you see

31:59

it through this like veil that

32:02

Eleanor sees the world through. So

32:04

it's all obscure. and you have

32:06

to pick up all these little

32:08

clues. Yep, yep, totally. All right

32:10

Matt, so after they eat Montague

32:12

and Arthur head to the library

32:14

with Planchette, and Matt, I just

32:16

like, Shirley Jackson is indeed a

32:18

genius because there's something so simple

32:20

and yet so incredibly annoying about

32:22

her insistence on calling this not

32:24

the Planchette, but... Naming it. This

32:26

is Planchet. Planchet says this. Planchet

32:28

says that. It's infuriating. I hate

32:30

it. I hate it so much.

32:32

I think Planchet would be a

32:34

beautiful name for a girl. Well,

32:36

in this case, Planchet says that

32:38

there's a nun here at Hill

32:40

House and a woman named Helen

32:42

that wants them to search the

32:44

cellar for an old well. Absurd

32:46

stuff, basically, like just truly absurd

32:48

stuff that has no relevance to

32:50

any of what we understand. is

32:52

the history of Hill House. Montague

32:54

is annoyed, but seems powerless to

32:56

stop his wife from relaying any

32:58

of this nonsense. She continues to

33:00

go forward with it. It's funny

33:02

because it's just like tropes, like

33:04

I know this, you know, the

33:06

ring came out much later than

33:08

this, but you're just like an

33:10

old well in the cellar and

33:12

you know, a nun being bricked

33:14

up is just a very horrifying

33:17

and dramatic idea. It's just, these

33:19

are obviously ideas that she herself

33:21

is having and then she's projecting

33:23

them into the into the plinchid.

33:25

And Montague is like, there are

33:27

no recorded instances of a nun

33:29

ever being bricked up in the

33:31

history of the world. John, may

33:33

I point out to you once

33:35

more that I find that I

33:37

myself have had messages from nuns

33:39

walled up alive? Do you think

33:41

I'm telling a fib, John? Or

33:43

do you suppose that a nun

33:45

would deliberately pretend to have been

33:47

walled up alive when she was

33:49

not? Is it as possible I

33:51

am mistaken I mistaken once more,

33:53

John? It's great. But yeah, yeah,

33:55

no, you're right. It's it's all

33:57

the I also love when they're

33:59

like no, we're not going to

34:01

go into the basement. and like

34:03

start digging up floorboards in this

34:05

house for renting to find a

34:07

well. And she's just like, no,

34:09

like Arthur can do it. Like

34:11

he could very easily do it.

34:13

It's your house, right, Luke? Get

34:15

the axe. No, it's very funny.

34:17

I was surprised that how funny

34:19

it is. It's a weird kind

34:21

of funny where it's a dread

34:23

filled funny because you're laughing, but

34:25

you're also like... Again, checking

34:28

on Eleanor in the corner like

34:30

sitting there muttering to herself as

34:32

these funny things are happening. But

34:34

yes, it is undoubtedly a funny

34:37

book actually. Well, and then what

34:39

Jackson does here, I think, is

34:41

so great because yeah, it's like

34:43

she's kind of... I've kind of

34:46

been lulled into this comedy scene,

34:48

this sense of comedy of everything

34:50

that's happening right now. We're laughing

34:52

at it. We're having a good

34:54

time. It's absurd. It's silly. All

34:57

the characters that we really like

34:59

seem to think it's silly. And

35:01

then... She's like, oh yeah, one

35:03

more thing. I had a whole

35:05

conversation here, let me read it

35:08

to you. And suddenly we're talking

35:10

to a ghost named Nell, who's

35:12

talking about wanting to go home,

35:14

and and we're like, whoa, whoa,

35:17

wait, like, we thought this was

35:19

all like the absurdist of a

35:21

fraud or a woman who's convinced

35:23

herself that she can actually, like,

35:25

talk to spirits, our characters have

35:28

had, and we're just like, oh.

35:30

Holy shit actually not that I'm

35:32

saying like she really experienced all

35:34

this but maybe this is the

35:37

house like laughing along with us

35:39

until it decides it wants to

35:41

turn a knife maybe this is

35:43

Eleanor herself maybe this is Theo

35:45

like maybe like this it just

35:48

the mood of everything shifts the

35:50

second we hear the name Nell

35:52

which once again I just want

35:54

to reiterate Eleanor never calls herself

35:57

herself Nell she never calls herself

35:59

even thinks in her head that

36:01

I am Nell or Nellie, like

36:03

that is all, it is all

36:05

Theodora, all of it. Yep. Yep.

36:08

Yep. Yep. So, um, so I

36:10

think this is a good time

36:12

for me to say what I

36:14

think is happening. Okay. Go for

36:17

it. So I think Theodora and

36:19

Or Elinor are just actually psychic.

36:21

I'm somewhat ambivalent as to whether

36:23

it's both of them or just

36:25

one or the other. I don't

36:28

really care at this point, but

36:30

I think psychic powers exist. Do

36:32

ghosts exist? unclear. I suspect not,

36:34

actually. I suspect that the supernatural

36:36

manifestations are expressions of Theo or

36:39

Eleanor's psychic talent. Probably like uncontrolled

36:41

expressions, probably not malicious expressions. I

36:43

just don't see a reading for

36:45

this being intentional manipulative behavior. I

36:48

think it's, I think if anything,

36:50

the house is causing them to

36:52

do this. And that leads us

36:54

to what then made this all

36:56

click together for me, which is

36:59

realizing that my reading of this

37:01

book is just Stephen King's reading

37:03

of this book. Which is that

37:05

the house, maybe the house is

37:08

an entity, maybe the house is

37:10

just sort of madness and incarnate.

37:12

In any case, it being like

37:14

an evil weird house, it doesn't

37:16

need ghosts. It's more like the

37:19

Overlook Hotel where it's kind of

37:21

just an intrinsically evil building that

37:23

feeds on the psychic powers of,

37:25

in that book, Danny Torrance to

37:28

a lesser extent Jack Torrance, and

37:30

leverages their powers to manifest apparitions.

37:32

In this book, it's actually, I

37:34

would say there's even less evidence.

37:36

that it's quote unquote the house

37:39

doing these things and more interesting

37:41

to the idea that just the

37:43

house has sort of amped up

37:45

their psychic potential and they are

37:48

now causing manifestations that they're not

37:50

they're not doing them on purpose

37:52

so when something starts banging on

37:54

the door that's one of the

37:56

two women in the room causing

37:59

that to happen. Not knowing they're

38:01

doing it not doing it on

38:03

purpose certainly But some part of

38:05

them maybe wants that to happen

38:08

or is afraid of that happening

38:10

and thus it conjures that into

38:12

being And the reason I like

38:14

this reading is like you kind

38:16

of go back through the book

38:19

and Play the whole book out

38:21

in your head and you're like

38:23

that that basically works. I don't

38:25

see any contradictions to this idea

38:27

And I kind of think it

38:30

thematically hangs together too, for much

38:32

of the same reasons that the

38:34

shining hangs together. We're like, it's

38:36

not really about ghosts, it's about

38:39

people. And in this case, you're

38:41

saying, well, we're taking these people

38:43

and we're kind of elevating them

38:45

magically, and seeing what happens, and

38:47

what happens is all these situations

38:50

that are created, many of which

38:52

it just kind of makes sense

38:54

that like this is something that

38:56

Eleanor... is manifesting out of her

38:59

subconscious desires, subconscious fears, imagination, hopes

39:01

and dreams. Anyway, I'll stop there,

39:03

but that's my favorite reading at

39:05

this point in time. Yeah, no,

39:07

I like this because I think

39:10

this matches as closely as possible

39:12

to what my, this is the

39:14

correct read read of this book

39:16

is. And again, like I think

39:19

the great thing about this book

39:21

is that like someone could come

39:23

away with it and think the

39:25

exact opposite of you. and I

39:27

think both I would with both

39:30

of them I'd be like no

39:32

these are equally valid but I

39:34

agree with you I mean I

39:36

not only is this the one

39:39

that I think lines up the

39:41

best but I think it's just

39:43

the one I like the most

39:45

And that is most important when

39:47

picking an interpretation of something is

39:50

the one you like the most.

39:52

I do think it fits. And

39:54

I agree with you with the

39:56

Overlook Hotel reference. I think it's

39:58

funny that the novel that King

40:01

put the opening quote from the

40:03

Hunting of Hillhouse in front of

40:05

was Salem's lot. Like the opening

40:07

blurb. Hill House not saying was

40:10

in the opening of Salem's lot,

40:12

but yeah, it's it's it fits

40:14

so much better with the Overlook

40:16

Hotel than it does with the

40:18

Marston House, which, you know, in

40:21

Salem's lot was definitely a bad

40:23

house, but just like, I don't

40:25

know, there were no ghosts in

40:27

the Marston House. It was just,

40:30

it was just a place where

40:32

evil congregated, which I mean, I

40:34

guess that, I guess technically works.

40:36

I mean I think I think

40:38

I think to your idea that

40:41

this is the shining is the

40:43

closest that Stephen King is to

40:45

doing the haunting of Hill House

40:47

I think is just right like

40:50

like I want to do the

40:52

haunting of Hill House I'm going

40:54

to do it in a hotel

40:56

instead of a house like just

40:58

the way the ghost manifests the

41:01

way the book is structured I

41:03

think that's just correct and obviously

41:05

it's a little more overt and

41:07

explicit in King's novel because he's

41:10

Stephen King and that's the way

41:12

he does it. But I think

41:14

it lines up beautifully. Yeah. Yeah,

41:16

and also, you know, the overlook

41:18

does sort of seem to accumulate

41:21

all of these ghosts over the

41:23

course of its life and I

41:25

don't really I don't really think

41:27

that's happening here. Like I honestly

41:30

think the apparitions are just the

41:32

sorts of things that Eleanor is

41:34

worried about seeing or afraid of

41:36

or maybe, you know. They read

41:38

her from the book about the

41:41

little girls, and then she hears

41:43

little girls. Yeah. Which doesn't make

41:45

sense from a like tactical realism.

41:47

Let's talk about ghost standpoint. because

41:49

those girls died when they were

41:52

old women. So I would there

41:54

be girl ghosts. So these are

41:56

just the little details where I'm

41:58

like, yeah, I just see it

42:01

as Eleanor externalizing these things. I

42:03

think like the second tier explanation

42:05

is not only is it all

42:07

in Eleanor's head, but it's totally

42:09

all in Eleanor's head and none

42:12

of this is actually happening at

42:14

all. I think like you said

42:16

a second ago, I just like

42:18

that explanation less. That would be

42:21

just like disappointing. Yeah, and the

42:23

problem once you draw that line

42:25

is that like it becomes just

42:27

like, okay, well, does anything mean

42:29

anything at that point then? Like,

42:32

like, if all of this is

42:34

just in one character's head, then.

42:36

the nuances of the other characters

42:38

seem to become less important. I

42:41

mean, not entirely because they still

42:43

reflect on Eleanor and what Eleanor

42:45

believes about herself and others, but

42:47

yeah, I mean, I like one

42:49

that's kind of a mixture of

42:52

that where these things are really

42:54

happening, because they're really happening because

42:56

they're being created by the people

42:58

that are here. And I do

43:01

think there's a read for this

43:03

like textually in the book, by

43:05

the way. We're jumping ahead a

43:07

little bit here, but when the

43:09

four of them kind of huddle

43:12

up in the room, kind of

43:14

huddle up in the room, and

43:16

there's this great... great storm that

43:18

almost spins the house. There is

43:20

a moment where Eleanor wonders who

43:23

wonders to herself, am I doing

43:25

this? And that's, you know, you

43:27

maybe remember the thing that the

43:29

reason she's here at Hill House

43:32

is because of the the rain

43:34

of stones that happened at her

43:36

home when she was a child.

43:38

Maybe that was just her externalizing

43:40

what she felt at that time

43:43

too, that she summoned. or made

43:45

manifest this rain of rocks from

43:47

right above her house in, in,

43:49

go back to Stephen King again

43:52

and a similar way to the

43:54

way Kerry did it in that

43:56

novel. And so, so yeah, I

43:58

mean, I think the only thing

44:00

I'm not quite sure of in

44:03

your, in your read here is

44:05

that I agree with you, like

44:07

Theo has some sort of. Power

44:09

as well. I'm not sure like

44:12

what in this experience is Theo

44:14

versus Eleanor like I think the

44:16

Eleanor ones are fairly clear. I'm

44:18

not sure Like outside of reading

44:20

people's minds like what Theo is

44:23

doing in Hillhouse Yeah, I simply

44:25

don't have anything to offer you

44:27

there in terms of like what

44:29

you know, oh, but what about

44:32

this one? It's like no, there's

44:34

it all just fits better if

44:36

it's Eleanor doing the manifestations and

44:38

Theo does have a little bit

44:40

of talent, but it's really just

44:43

down to, what was the word,

44:45

not precognition, you know, reading minds,

44:47

clairvoyance, clairvoyance. Yeah, it does. You

44:49

do kind of like the, then

44:52

with this read, the idea of

44:54

Theo immediately saying, maybe you wrote

44:56

it Eleanor, just is true, just

44:58

like, is absolutely, and you wonder

45:00

if like, like, Theo knows that's

45:03

true and knows that it is

45:05

Eleanor manifesting all this stuff and

45:07

is trying to find a way

45:09

into telling her that she's doing

45:11

it without like just flat out

45:14

telling her in a way that

45:16

could like like shatter her psyche.

45:18

She realizes that, hey, you're doing

45:20

all this stuff. I don't know.

45:23

Right. I mean, another book that

45:25

is another recapitulation of the hunting

45:27

of Hill House is sphere, which

45:29

maybe less obvious, but like I

45:31

very much got sphere vibes in

45:34

the latter half of this book,

45:36

especially after I formulated this theory

45:38

somewhere during this last week's reading

45:40

where I was like, yeah, this

45:43

is like in sphere when the

45:45

characters are manifesting terrifying things and

45:47

they don't know that it's them

45:49

doing it doesn't give them any

45:51

protection from it. That's like actually

45:54

a very scary thought. I enjoy

45:56

that as a as a look

45:58

as sort of a source of

46:00

horror. It's just, I guess, surprising,

46:03

not surprising, I don't know, the

46:05

book just never quite tells us

46:07

that that's what's happening, you know?

46:09

Mm-hmm. And, yeah. It doesn't need

46:11

to, I just think it's interesting.

46:14

Yeah, yeah. Man, I bet you

46:16

Crichriton sat down and was like,

46:18

I'm gonna write Hill House, but

46:20

in a underwater. Totally. A lab.

46:23

Yeah. and the house will be

46:25

a sphere. No, I think you're

46:27

not onto something there for sure.

46:29

Cool. I guess the thing to

46:31

talk about as we continue through,

46:34

if we accept this read, which

46:36

I think we both kind of

46:38

are, is like, okay, to what

46:40

end ultimately, like what are the

46:42

themes of this novel? What are

46:45

we talking about here? Like, just

46:47

to throw out some words that

46:49

we can circle back to, like,

46:51

family, self-identity, like you already talked

46:54

about your role, like, home. exist

46:56

like how do you exist like

46:58

all these things circling around Eleanor

47:00

that are being brought up by

47:02

her power and the power of

47:05

the house yeah okay cool All

47:07

right, so Eleanor is of course

47:09

a little disturbed by the fact

47:11

that she has been seemingly been

47:14

singled out again I really like

47:16

this part though I want to

47:18

talk to you about this Nell

47:20

doesn't want messages from beyond Theodore

47:22

said comforting me moving to take

47:25

Eleanor's cold hands and hers Nell

47:27

wants her warm bed and a

47:29

little sleep Peace Eleanor thought concretely

47:31

what I want in all the

47:34

world is peace. A quiet spot

47:36

to lie and think. A quiet

47:38

spot up among the flowers where

47:40

I can dream and tell myself

47:42

sweet stories. So I love this

47:45

because like Theo is just like

47:47

speaking for Eleanor now and and

47:49

then we we get like a

47:51

rare introspective moment of Eleanor or

47:54

we get to see what's Eleanor's

47:56

reaction to Theo saying this stuff?

47:58

Well, no, I don't I don't

48:00

want a born bed and a

48:02

little sleep. I just want some

48:05

peace and quiet actually. I just

48:07

want to... Just want somewhere I

48:09

can just lay down away from

48:11

even you, Theo. It's also confusing

48:14

because then later she wants Eleanor

48:16

is inconsistent. What a concept. Yeah.

48:18

I still don't know what Theodore

48:20

really thinks of Eleanor. Because at

48:22

this point, she seems to be

48:25

very fond, sisterly protective. And

48:27

maybe that's who she is. I

48:29

mean, I think Theodore is inconsistent

48:31

too, I guess is one thing

48:34

we can say. Yeah, and it's

48:36

so hard to say, like, is

48:38

the mood swings that we seemingly

48:40

get from Theo? Are those Theo?

48:42

Or is that Eleanor's read of

48:44

Theo, right? Because you're absolutely right.

48:46

Like, it seems to go back

48:48

and forth. And then I think

48:51

we end at the very end

48:53

of the novel on the moment

48:55

that when we get there, I

48:57

think that is Theodore's genuine. feelings

48:59

about Eleanor as she says goodbye

49:01

to her at the end. I

49:03

think. But like, yeah, it's just

49:05

like, it's really like this, this

49:07

structure and this, this style that

49:10

the Shirley Jackson has done with

49:12

this book is wonderful, but it

49:14

creates these moments where you have

49:16

to constantly be asking these questions.

49:18

You know, that scene in American

49:20

Psycho where the famous one where

49:22

they should. Willam to foe playing

49:24

the detective comes to talk to

49:27

Patrick Bateman and yeah, they shot

49:29

it They shot it all the

49:31

way through with the instruction to

49:33

will and the foe being Play

49:35

this like you're just here for

49:37

routine check. You're just want to

49:39

you know cross all your teas

49:41

So you've got to interview this

49:44

guy You know you're charming you're

49:46

laid back. You don't really care

49:48

what's happening. Okay next take you

49:50

were absolutely certain this guy's the

49:52

murderer you're hyper paranoid and you're

49:54

trying to nail him on everything

49:56

you say. And then when, and

49:58

then the movie is actually just

50:00

switching between those two. performances, and

50:03

it's utterly unsettling and you feel

50:05

actually in Patrick Bateman's perspective, like

50:07

I have no idea what this

50:09

guy thinks, I can't get a

50:11

read on him, this is so

50:13

uncomfortable. That's how I feel about

50:15

Theodora. Theodora in particular, really, because

50:17

I really do keep going back

50:20

and forth almost seen to seen.

50:22

I still don't know what to

50:24

make with the book over. Yeah.

50:26

So as they prepare for bed,

50:28

Arthur notifies everyone being daddy man

50:30

that he's going to patrol all

50:32

night long while Mrs. Montague is

50:34

going to sleep in the spookiest

50:36

room in the house, which is,

50:39

of course, the nursery. This is

50:41

the single funniest moment in the

50:43

book is him being like, all

50:45

right, everyone, I'm going to be

50:47

patrolling the corridors in the dark

50:49

with a loaded gun to help

50:51

everyone sleep soundly. Good night. And

50:53

then. And then all the other

50:56

characters are like, holy shit, everybody,

50:58

we've got to like stay in

51:00

the same room so that nobody

51:02

like tries to go to the

51:04

bathroom and get shot. It's amazing.

51:06

I love it. I love this

51:08

too. I wanted to talk to

51:10

you about this briefly. because we've

51:12

been pretty hard on Mrs. Montague

51:15

for very valid reasons, but I

51:17

do want to read this. My

51:19

dear, how can I make you

51:21

perceive that there is no danger

51:23

where there is nothing but love

51:25

and sympathetic understanding? I am here

51:27

to help these unfortunate beings. I

51:29

am here to extend the hand

51:32

of heartfelt fondness and to let

51:34

them know that there are still

51:36

some who remember who will listen

51:38

and weep for them. Their loneliness

51:40

is over. So this is like

51:42

actually very sweet and kind. Except

51:44

it's towards ghosts that do not

51:46

exist or possibly do not exist

51:48

within the context of the story

51:51

and not the people at the

51:53

house that need this Actually, yeah,

51:55

like I immediately thought of Eleanor

51:57

at how much Eleanor needs everything

51:59

that Mrs Montague just said here.

52:01

Yeah Yeah, she needs compassion. She

52:03

needs a mother figure, perhaps even

52:05

a mother figure, just like Mrs.

52:08

Montague, not that Mrs. Montague is

52:10

great, but might potentially provide something

52:12

Elinor needs if she were willing

52:14

to offer it. She just doesn't

52:16

seem to, I mean, do the

52:18

two of them even have an

52:20

interaction? It just seems like Elinor

52:22

is completely shut down whenever Mrs.

52:25

Montague is around. It's really interesting.

52:27

Yeah. Well, one thing we do

52:29

see that I forgot to mention

52:31

is this. She's reading what Planchette

52:33

said. She knew one of them

52:35

was now. And she assumed that

52:37

it was Theo, right? Like that's

52:39

the really interesting reaction there is

52:41

that like when she's. being talked

52:44

to about now and is like,

52:46

oh, I thought you were, I

52:48

thought it was you thinking it

52:50

was Theo, maybe, maybe like to

52:52

what you said that the nail

52:54

that's sticking up is the one

52:56

that just seems like the more

52:58

Bohemian one that seems like, oh,

53:01

you're gonna be the problem person

53:03

rather than this quiet kind of

53:05

mousey girl that's standing there and

53:07

the shock of learning that information.

53:09

So yeah, no, I don't think

53:11

we see them have too much

53:13

of a direct interaction and I

53:15

agree like. whether it's because she

53:17

reminds her of her mother, but

53:20

Eleanor is very much like closed

53:22

down whenever she's around. We do

53:24

not. Even her thoughts are kind

53:26

of closed down sometimes. I think

53:28

it's that. I think it's that

53:30

this woman arrives who reminds her

53:32

of her mother in a way

53:34

that is incredibly uncomfortable for her.

53:37

And of course she never thinks

53:39

that thought explicitly, but yeah, I

53:41

mean, you already kind of pointed

53:43

out, yeah, like she's a mother

53:45

figure and... Eleanor is is primed

53:47

to react negatively to that. So,

53:49

yeah, she's a mother figure in

53:51

the most absurd characterized version of

53:53

that too, which interestingly enough, we

53:56

like never, we don't learn anything

53:58

about Eleanor's mother, really, except that

54:00

Eleanor hated her. And so, like,

54:02

we can, we can make a

54:04

lot of assumptions on what type

54:06

of mother she was. was based

54:08

on what we know. And so

54:10

yeah, like the character character, I

54:13

can't speak on a podcast. This

54:15

version of caricaturized, thank you, I

54:17

got, you helped me get there,

54:19

is I think maybe even even

54:21

more affecting to her. Yeah, you're

54:23

right. So after saying

54:25

goodnight all the kids meet up

54:28

in the doctor's room for their

54:30

party time, they're, you know, not

54:32

only just because one of them

54:34

is out in the halls with

54:36

the loaded weapon, but they're also

54:38

convinced that the spirits here are

54:40

probably going to be pissed off

54:43

at Mrs. Montague's blazing use of

54:45

Planchette, and so they think something's

54:47

going to happen. something big and

54:49

they sit together as the house

54:51

starts to get cold and the

54:53

banging once again begins an ill

54:55

house. This is this is that

54:58

moment that we already talked about

55:00

where Eleanor as as things really

55:02

like begin to pick up, Eleanor

55:04

is convinced that that perhaps this

55:06

is me am I doing this

55:08

like we start to hear not

55:10

just banging but like the pacing

55:13

of an animal the babbling murmur

55:15

of babies and and yeah so

55:17

Eleanor starts to wonder briefly briefly.

55:19

if this is her, which I

55:21

think we come to the agreement

55:23

that yeah, at least part of

55:25

it. Yeah, I think so. One

55:28

of the thought I had at

55:30

around here was was like, is

55:32

she even really manifesting these things

55:34

or is she just sort of

55:36

like causing a shared hallucination? Yeah.

55:38

And the reason I mean, go

55:40

ahead. None of the other characters

55:43

experience this. Well, so the other

55:45

the other two characters do not

55:47

experience any of what happens in

55:49

that room that night. Right. So

55:51

I think the biggest supporting evidence

55:53

for the idea that these are

55:55

like constrained hallucinations comes a bit

55:58

later. But it's just the fact

56:00

that when they find up Theodore's

56:02

clothes, they're fine. Yeah. And everyone

56:04

previously saw them, not just. everyone

56:06

saw the clothes and they were

56:08

ruined, they were covered in blood,

56:10

apparently. And nope, that didn't happen.

56:13

But everyone thought it did. So,

56:15

yeah. Yeah, yeah. So everything seems

56:17

to crescendo as the house begins

56:19

to shake, glass breaks, floors, moves,

56:21

rooms, spin, things crash. And I

56:23

love this. She heard the laughter

56:25

overall coming thin and lunatic rising

56:28

in its little crazy tune as

56:30

though, no. It's all over for

56:32

me. It's too much, she thought.

56:34

I will relinquish my possession of

56:36

the self of mine. Abdicate. Give

56:38

over willingly what I never wanted

56:41

at all. Whatever it wants of

56:43

me, it can have. And as

56:45

soon as she thinks this, everything

56:47

stops. And it's suddenly morning. It's

56:49

not just that the events of

56:51

the night are over. It's like

56:53

the night is over. And it's

56:56

just morning now. And it's like,

56:58

wait, did we, did we sleep?

57:00

Did like, did the crashing. and

57:02

then we slept and now you're

57:04

waking up or it's again intentionally

57:06

vague here yeah I almost wondered

57:08

if if she had fallen asleep

57:11

and and you know woken up

57:13

and then when she woke up

57:15

everything is fine to normal now

57:17

because yeah you know or maybe

57:19

she was dreaming but it's like

57:21

I don't I don't I don't

57:23

get the read that she was

57:26

just dreaming there at once again

57:28

could tie ourselves in knots about

57:30

this but What do you think

57:32

of the idea of her abdicating

57:34

and like giving up kind of?

57:36

Well, everything becomes even more super

57:38

weird after this point that she

57:41

abdicates and it is kind of

57:43

like she becomes a ghost. Not

57:45

literally, but she, her point of

57:47

view changes, the prose changes. What

57:49

it means? Like metaphysically, I don't

57:51

really know. What do you think?

57:53

Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean,

57:56

like, I... There's part of me

57:58

that's like, what does Eleanor have

58:00

been trying to do this whole

58:02

time? Well, she's been, she comes

58:04

to this place and she knows

58:06

this place is awful, but there's

58:08

all these people here and there's

58:11

this family and there's this belonging

58:13

that she senses. And I think,

58:15

I think there's this really interesting

58:17

push and pull that exists for

58:19

Eleanor. that is the house and

58:21

these people. And I think early

58:23

on, the things that she's feeling

58:26

attracted to and the pull that

58:28

she's feeling is towards the people.

58:30

And eventually, that starts to be

58:32

replaced by this pull towards the

58:34

house. And we could say the

58:36

house as this evil entity, or

58:38

we could say the house just

58:41

loosely as like this concept, this

58:43

conceptual idea in her mind. And

58:45

that starts to pull. more and

58:47

more to hurt and I do

58:49

think at this this this moment

58:51

symbolizes this moment of kind of

58:53

acquiescence to I am going to

58:56

just be this like I'm going

58:58

to fully embrace this dream that

59:00

I've set up for myself in

59:02

this place like like you know

59:04

the the dreams she had of

59:06

the different lives that she drove

59:09

along the fully falling into this

59:11

one knowing in some level that

59:13

it's all made up knowing that

59:15

It's not reality, but she's exhausted

59:17

and tired and and tired of

59:19

trying to come up with a

59:21

version of herself that is a

59:24

version of herself that can fit

59:26

in with all these people and

59:28

all these things and all these

59:30

ideas and just doesn't want to

59:32

do it anymore? I don't know,

59:34

I'm just kind of talking out

59:36

of my ass. No, no, I

59:39

like that a lot. I like

59:41

this idea that she has sort

59:43

of just given up on resisting

59:45

her fantasies or her delusions, you

59:47

could say. Yeah. Whereas before she

59:49

was able to keep her delusions

59:51

sort of at arm's length, get

59:54

some measure of comfort. from them

59:56

while understanding them to not be

59:58

real, but now soon after this,

1:00:00

what we're about to see, you

1:00:02

know, almost immediately is her being

1:00:04

like, I'm going to go live

1:00:06

with Theodora, which normally would have

1:00:09

been like a little private fantasy

1:00:11

that she kept in her head,

1:00:13

and now she's just like delusional.

1:00:15

She is delusional now. Yep. And

1:00:17

so our chapter seven ends with.

1:00:19

that morning, Theodore is saying, come

1:00:21

along baby, Theo will wash your

1:00:24

face for you and make you

1:00:26

all need for breakfast. And this

1:00:28

is another one of those instances,

1:00:30

Matt, where I'm like, one of

1:00:32

my supposed to read from this.

1:00:34

Is this Theo just having fun

1:00:36

and ribbon her? Or is this,

1:00:39

like, Eleanor's interpretation of Theo's concern

1:00:41

for how Eleanor is doing? I

1:00:43

don't, I don't, no, I don't

1:00:45

know. Yeah, I don't know and

1:00:47

I know even less because we're

1:00:49

about to see scenes where people

1:00:51

appear to do and say things

1:00:54

that are then revealed not to

1:00:56

have happened. And so I'm just

1:00:58

like, I don't even know if

1:01:00

this happened. I don't know if

1:01:02

this happened. I don't know if

1:01:04

this interaction happened at all. I

1:01:06

found it uncomfortable. Yep. Yep. Yeah,

1:01:09

let's get into it. I think

1:01:11

the rest of this book is

1:01:13

going to move a little bit

1:01:15

faster now because yeah, like the

1:01:17

lines between what is actually happening.

1:01:19

definitely beginning to degrade as we

1:01:22

move into chapter 8. The two

1:01:24

new guests at breakfast are a

1:01:26

little slow to arrive, but as

1:01:28

we said already, it seems like

1:01:30

whatever happened last night, they didn't

1:01:32

experience any of it. All they're

1:01:34

complaining about is dust and stuffiness

1:01:37

and Mrs. Dudley's lack of cleaning.

1:01:39

Eleanor though, as you said, Matt,

1:01:41

has come to a decision when

1:01:43

it's time to leave Hill House.

1:01:45

She's going to leave with Theo.

1:01:47

Theo takes this about the way

1:01:49

you would expect a person to

1:01:52

take this after knowing a person

1:01:54

for four days. I love this

1:01:56

right here though. I don't understand

1:01:58

Theodore threw down her pencil and

1:02:00

exasperation. Do you always go where

1:02:02

you're not wanted? Eleanor smiled placidly.

1:02:04

I've never been wanted anywhere

1:02:07

she said Like imagine you as a

1:02:09

person you're exasperated with this woman

1:02:11

who has just said I want

1:02:13

to move in with you you

1:02:15

say no and she just kind

1:02:18

of keeps going with that anyway

1:02:20

and then finally you're just like

1:02:22

all right Do you do you like

1:02:24

going places that you're not wanted

1:02:26

and her response to that is

1:02:28

I've never been wanted anywhere and

1:02:31

you're just like, fuck! What am

1:02:33

I supposed to do with that?

1:02:35

Yeah, you really feel for Theodore

1:02:38

in the situation because

1:02:40

it's obviously it's always

1:02:42

uncomfortable like when someone

1:02:44

is interested in you

1:02:46

in whatever way and

1:02:49

you're just not like interested

1:02:51

back. But you're stuck in

1:02:54

a house with them in this

1:02:56

in this situation and also I

1:02:58

think the order does feel a

1:03:00

lot of compassion for her maybe

1:03:02

some big sisterly Protectiveness, but at

1:03:04

the same time. It's like okay pump

1:03:07

the brakes. You just met you know.

1:03:09

Yeah My favorite part about this

1:03:11

though Matt is this whole sequence

1:03:13

Shirley Jackson is like layering this

1:03:15

with Luke having a conversation with

1:03:17

I'm not even sure who

1:03:19

presumably Mrs. Montague, but

1:03:22

he's talking about Hill

1:03:25

House. And this is just kind

1:03:27

of layered without context in the middle

1:03:29

of the Theo and and Eleanor conversation

1:03:31

and there's stuff in there that's so

1:03:33

charged and it's like he looks at

1:03:35

Eleanor when he says some of it

1:03:38

But it's unclear whether he's hearing what

1:03:40

she it's all like listen to this

1:03:42

it's also motherly Luke said everything so

1:03:44

soft everything so padded great embracing chairs

1:03:46

and sofas which turn out to be

1:03:49

hard and then welcoming when you sit

1:03:51

down and reject you all at once

1:03:53

this is what's layered in between Theo's

1:03:55

rejection of Eleanor and it's just like

1:03:58

you just kind of go what? is

1:04:00

going on. Yeah, so I've said

1:04:02

big sisterly a few times, but

1:04:04

like, Theodore is also kind of

1:04:06

a mother figure too, like she's

1:04:08

a little, she's a bit older,

1:04:10

she's talked about like, I'm gonna

1:04:13

wash your face, you sweet little

1:04:15

baby, very, very sort of mother

1:04:17

coded, and it's, and yeah, Eleanor

1:04:19

wants the house to be a

1:04:21

mother, she wants the order to

1:04:23

be a mother, she also hates

1:04:25

mothers, she also hates mothers, She,

1:04:27

she, maybe even when she, when

1:04:30

she looks at theater, she's simultaneously,

1:04:32

the reason we're getting the, the,

1:04:34

the American psycho performance is like

1:04:36

she's mother to her is these

1:04:38

two things, one of which is

1:04:40

love and warmth and the other

1:04:42

is rejection and hardness and harshness

1:04:44

and demand. Yeah. That makes a

1:04:46

lot of sense actually. Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:49

Alright, so from here, I got

1:04:51

a really just fascinatingly interesting stylistic

1:04:53

choice that Shirley Jackson does here.

1:04:55

They all decide they want to,

1:04:57

they're going to go walk to

1:04:59

the brook together. And now Theo

1:05:01

and Luke are talking to each

1:05:03

other about Eleanor. And despite the

1:05:06

fact that we're in Eleanor's point

1:05:08

of view in this sequence, I

1:05:10

think what you said about her

1:05:12

kind of being a ghost here

1:05:14

is so apt because... We, she

1:05:16

says nothing and we don't get

1:05:18

to see any of her reactions

1:05:20

to any of the things they're

1:05:22

saying. The only way we see

1:05:25

Nell's reactions is via their description

1:05:27

in dialogue of the way she's

1:05:29

reacting. It's like, oh, don't, don't

1:05:31

look like that, or don't, like,

1:05:33

and. Like, it's so fascinating because

1:05:35

you're like, what is going on?

1:05:37

Why are we doing this? They're

1:05:39

talking about her as if she's

1:05:42

there, but she doesn't seem to

1:05:44

be there, but she's definitely there.

1:05:46

And then out of in the

1:05:48

middle of this, where we haven't

1:05:50

heard Nell speak, we have. haven't

1:05:52

heard anything about now, in the

1:05:54

middle of this, she just drops

1:05:56

this bomb, this bomb that is,

1:05:59

it was her fault that her

1:06:01

mother died, that her mom would

1:06:03

knock on the wall and call

1:06:05

to her, for her medicine at

1:06:07

night, and one night she called

1:06:09

and Eleanor didn't wake up, and

1:06:11

so her mother died, or at

1:06:13

least that's what she says. Right?

1:06:15

There's also some implication that she

1:06:18

thinks, oh, maybe I did wake

1:06:20

up and I just went back

1:06:22

to sleep. And of course, this

1:06:24

makes sense. The writing on the

1:06:26

wall, the calling for Eleanor, the

1:06:28

banging on the doors and the

1:06:30

walls, all kind of makes sense

1:06:32

with this idea, right? But the

1:06:35

way, like, it's nobody would ever

1:06:37

build a reveal like this. It's

1:06:39

just so fascinating how this actually

1:06:41

like tumbles out of her voice.

1:06:43

And then her friends don't... react

1:06:45

to it at all. Like, Theo

1:06:47

said, oh, you should have just

1:06:49

forgotten about that by now. Luke

1:06:51

says nothing. And then the reason

1:06:54

we learn after the fact that

1:06:56

they're not reacting to it at

1:06:58

all is because maybe they're not

1:07:00

actually there. And these voices talking

1:07:02

about Eleanor have not been Theo

1:07:04

and Luke the whole time because

1:07:06

she wandered off on her own

1:07:08

and they stayed where they were.

1:07:11

And this whole thing... It's all

1:07:13

just in Eleanor's head. Yeah, or

1:07:15

in her head, or she is

1:07:17

like manifesting them Being there, you

1:07:19

know, yeah, yeah, which is a

1:07:21

What sure why not sort of

1:07:23

thing but but I think I

1:07:25

think she's as surprised as we

1:07:28

are to learn that they're not

1:07:30

there So yeah, but I think

1:07:32

ultimately it's like yeah, I mean

1:07:34

six to one half dozen of

1:07:36

the other that they're hallucination whether

1:07:38

they're a magical hallucination or just

1:07:40

a hallucination hallucination. It's still disconcerting

1:07:42

and shows that Eleanor is kind

1:07:44

of losing her mind. Yeah, yep.

1:07:47

She certainly is and work. So

1:07:49

so like this this all important.

1:07:51

important reveal about like I feel

1:07:53

responsible for the death of my

1:07:55

mother is something that perhaps none

1:07:57

of the other characters in the

1:07:59

book actually ever get that that

1:08:01

you know she feels like I

1:08:04

almost love she's like we get

1:08:06

to jump back into her head

1:08:08

at this point she's like okay

1:08:10

good now I've told them now

1:08:12

they know and it's like well

1:08:14

maybe maybe not actually yeah but

1:08:16

what you said is she eventually

1:08:18

does look back and realize There's

1:08:20

nobody behind her. She hears the

1:08:23

footsteps of people walking behind her,

1:08:25

but there's nobody there. And then

1:08:27

she sees the footsteps and indentions

1:08:29

in the ground come towards her.

1:08:31

They start calling her name. A

1:08:33

force holds her still. She begs

1:08:35

it not to leave, but it

1:08:37

eventually does and walk across the

1:08:40

water. That was something. And then

1:08:42

she rushes back and finds Theo

1:08:44

and Luke who said, no, we're

1:08:46

gonna. we didn't ever actually agree

1:08:48

to go to the brook we're

1:08:50

just gonna stay where it's warm

1:08:52

and they were there the whole

1:08:54

time and and and there seemed

1:08:57

pretty annoyed to see Eleanor actually.

1:08:59

Yeah this is one of those

1:09:01

moments it actually reminded me of

1:09:03

how the man and the woman

1:09:05

at the coffee shop in the

1:09:07

beginning of the story behaved toward

1:09:09

Eleanor where yes there's like a

1:09:11

weird vibe and you get this

1:09:13

sense that maybe what's happening is

1:09:16

that Eleanor is putting off extremely

1:09:18

you know off-putting vibes and that

1:09:20

you have two other characters in

1:09:22

the scene who are sharing knowing

1:09:24

lances being like she can leave

1:09:26

soon because this is really uncomfortable

1:09:28

for everyone but but like they're

1:09:30

acting like they don't know her

1:09:33

at all and it just makes

1:09:35

you wonder is I don't know

1:09:37

perhaps I'm over interpreting this one

1:09:39

small little scene but I'm like

1:09:41

how many of her interactions with

1:09:43

these characters actually happened how much

1:09:45

of it how much of this

1:09:47

book has been her like sitting

1:09:49

in the corner mudring to herself

1:09:52

while everyone else has conversations and

1:09:54

this is this is just their

1:09:56

genuine reaction to like oh my

1:09:58

god it's Eleanor Jesus hi Eleanor

1:10:00

who knows who knows But yeah,

1:10:02

I mean like it's like she

1:10:04

she has this experience she rushes

1:10:06

back to that feels abandoned to

1:10:09

buy them rushes back to see

1:10:11

them They don't want anything to

1:10:13

do with her and and basically

1:10:15

now for the rest of the

1:10:17

chapter Eleanor just Exists in the

1:10:19

shadows So the next the next

1:10:21

thing we see is her witnessing

1:10:23

all these different scenes and interactions

1:10:26

between the characters, but she's doing

1:10:28

it from the shadows, from hiding,

1:10:30

or at least she believes that

1:10:32

she's hidden in the shadows. I

1:10:34

think it'd be really funny if

1:10:36

she's just like there and everyone

1:10:38

knows that they're just not paying

1:10:40

attention to her. I kept thinking

1:10:42

about 28 days later towards the

1:10:45

end of this book where it's

1:10:47

like she's always like, she's become

1:10:49

the monster, you know? Yeah. Great

1:10:51

movie. All right, so the first

1:10:53

of these little vignettes we see

1:10:55

is Eleanor and Luke hanging out

1:10:57

together They're being a little bit

1:10:59

flirty with each other and Eleanor

1:11:02

Abs- sorry Luke and Theo sorry

1:11:04

look is seeing a beautiful little

1:11:06

ditty called the Groton murders to

1:11:08

Theo I'm not going to read

1:11:10

all this. I'll just read some

1:11:12

of this for you though Matt

1:11:14

the first was young Miss Groton.

1:11:16

She tried not to let him

1:11:18

in he stabbed her with a

1:11:21

corn knife. That's how his crimes

1:11:23

began The next was Grandma Groton,

1:11:25

so old and tired and gray.

1:11:27

She fit off her attacker until

1:11:29

her strength, until his strength gave

1:11:31

way. So it continues on from

1:11:33

there, until the last is a

1:11:35

baby. And then she finishes this,

1:11:38

he finishes this song, and Theodore

1:11:40

calls it lovely and perfectly beautiful.

1:11:42

And you're just like, what? What

1:11:44

is going on? Yeah. I mean...

1:11:46

theory in this part is just

1:11:48

that none of this is happening.

1:11:50

Well, here's a little wrinkle for

1:11:52

you, Matt. Okay. On how you're

1:11:55

supposed to feel about this. This

1:11:57

little song here, Shirley Jackson would

1:11:59

sing this to her chill. at

1:12:01

bedtime. So it's possible the reading

1:12:03

we're supposed to take is that

1:12:05

Theodora is just sort of being

1:12:07

you know what's the word like

1:12:09

macabre like like I don't know

1:12:11

I feel like if somebody's saying

1:12:14

this you know at a gathering

1:12:16

I would be like delightful delight

1:12:18

like like sarcastically kind of you

1:12:20

know encouragingly but like obviously calling

1:12:22

it delightful is ridiculous. But that

1:12:24

is the kind of person theater

1:12:26

it is. So maybe it's as

1:12:28

simple as that. Yeah. Yeah, I

1:12:31

mean, like, there's, that's, I mean,

1:12:33

I think that's the really interesting

1:12:35

thing with, with Jerlie Jackson in

1:12:37

this book with me is like,

1:12:39

obviously her and I are very,

1:12:41

very different people. And like, you

1:12:43

want to, every time you read

1:12:45

something, you make assumptions about what

1:12:47

the, what, how you're supposed to

1:12:50

feel and what the thing wants

1:12:52

you to feel and what the

1:12:54

thing is doing, and what the

1:12:56

thing is doing, and what the,

1:12:58

and what the, and what the

1:13:00

you and the things that you

1:13:02

like and the things that you

1:13:04

do not like and then it's

1:13:07

like it's it's rather shocking and

1:13:09

you have to kind of stick

1:13:11

a step back when you hear

1:13:13

oh no she put this in

1:13:15

her book because like this is

1:13:17

something she sang to her children

1:13:19

and she thought it was cute

1:13:21

and funny and she thought it

1:13:24

was cute and funny and funny

1:13:26

and it's like okay so wait

1:13:28

a minute how am I supposed

1:13:30

to feel about it then like

1:13:32

is the book want you to

1:13:34

go this as kind of my

1:13:36

starting to circle the drain of

1:13:38

sanity as we as we speed

1:13:40

to the end of this novel.

1:13:43

So I don't remember if we

1:13:45

talked about this or not that

1:13:47

the fact that she she breaks

1:13:49

rules of writing in this book

1:13:51

where she she know she uses

1:13:53

the dialogue tags she says you

1:13:55

know Theodore said condescendingly you know

1:13:57

she does that sort of thing

1:14:00

quite a lot of this book

1:14:02

but it's weird it I At

1:14:04

first I was just like that's

1:14:06

that's really interesting that this master

1:14:08

of literature, you know, chooses to

1:14:10

break that rule which is very

1:14:12

rarely broken by like serious books.

1:14:14

The interesting thing is it's almost

1:14:16

like she's using it so that

1:14:19

you come to expect this like

1:14:21

crutch of like okay I need

1:14:23

to understand what's actually happening in

1:14:25

the scene because Eleanor is unreliable.

1:14:27

So I'm gonna wait for the

1:14:29

text to tell me what is

1:14:31

Theodore like how is Theodore saying

1:14:33

this so that I know whether

1:14:36

she's being sincere, sarcastic, ironic. But

1:14:38

then, but then, Shirley Jackson will

1:14:40

pull that stool up out from

1:14:42

under us and not give us

1:14:44

that tag. And we're just like,

1:14:46

I have no idea how Theodore

1:14:48

said that. I don't, I don't

1:14:50

know how that was supposed to

1:14:53

come off. I don't know how,

1:14:55

I don't know how, I don't

1:14:57

know if you experience this, but

1:14:59

there are so many moments when

1:15:01

I'm just like, how this scene

1:15:03

actually goes could be completely different

1:15:05

depending on like an actor's interpretation

1:15:07

of how to perform it. 100%.

1:15:09

Yes. Yeah. So just a thought

1:15:12

I was having, especially here toward

1:15:14

the end where we're things are

1:15:16

becoming even more distant to us.

1:15:18

Yep. From here we move over

1:15:20

to Dr. Montague attempting to work

1:15:22

and Arthur pestering him like a

1:15:24

child pesters his father. It's the

1:15:26

purely comedic scene that Eleanor just

1:15:29

like watches on silently, but I

1:15:31

I actually adore this so much.

1:15:33

I love it. I take back

1:15:35

everything I said about Mrs. Montague

1:15:37

and Arthur being bad. I actually

1:15:39

love them. I love this dynamic

1:15:41

between Dr. Montague and Arthur. It

1:15:43

just makes you smile. It's just

1:15:45

like you can imagine having it

1:15:48

with your kid where you're trying

1:15:50

to get some work done. It's

1:15:52

like, well, what am I do?

1:15:54

I don't know. Go read or

1:15:56

something. Yeah. But it also like,

1:15:58

it seems to be like a

1:16:00

reversal of the dynamic that we

1:16:02

saw when the two first showed

1:16:05

up, right? Which I think is

1:16:07

part of what we're doing here,

1:16:09

because the third of the little

1:16:11

vignette that we have to talk

1:16:13

about here, Matt, is Mrs. to

1:16:15

you and Mrs. Dudley chatting, except

1:16:17

Mrs. Dudley is just being normal.

1:16:19

She's just casually chatting. And like,

1:16:21

like, the line, like, I actually

1:16:24

had to read this dialogue multiple

1:16:26

times because one other thing. That

1:16:28

I think intentionally Shirley Jackson does

1:16:30

sometimes is like yes, she uses

1:16:32

the the tags with the adverbs

1:16:34

and things like that But sometimes

1:16:36

she drops the tags whatsoever and

1:16:38

you kind of have to figure

1:16:41

out Which person is speaking by

1:16:43

just following the back and forth

1:16:45

of the dialogue? And sometimes you

1:16:47

like lose your track halfway through

1:16:49

and you have to go back

1:16:51

and read it I had to

1:16:53

do that here because no, oh,

1:16:55

no you sit down over there

1:16:58

and rest you've done enough I'll

1:17:00

put the water on and we'll

1:17:02

have a nice cup of tea

1:17:04

What? Uh-huh. Yeah. Huh? Just a

1:17:06

perfectly charming woman. Yeah, perfectly charming.

1:17:08

I... On the one hand, it's

1:17:10

a fantastic comedy beat. The idea

1:17:12

that Mrs. Dudley is like this,

1:17:14

unless Eleanor is around for some

1:17:17

reason. Or perhaps Miss Dudley has

1:17:19

always been like this. And, uh...

1:17:21

Eleanor just perceives her weird because

1:17:23

she's an older woman. Yeah. And

1:17:25

also everyone seems to feel this

1:17:27

way about Dudley like they joke

1:17:29

about it. It's true that both

1:17:31

of the Dudley seem absolutely awful

1:17:34

but like I mean it could

1:17:36

be like it's the fact that

1:17:38

these sort of two two older

1:17:40

motherly women talking to each other.

1:17:42

I mean part of it I

1:17:44

don't know this is this is

1:17:46

really starting to reach I feel

1:17:48

like I'm reaching here just in

1:17:50

saying this but like it could

1:17:53

be that the women who are

1:17:55

literally old matronly figures start to

1:17:57

act more. horrible around Eleanor because

1:17:59

she is doing magic on them

1:18:01

to make them that way. I

1:18:03

don't know if I believe that,

1:18:05

but I mean, I guess. One

1:18:07

thing I'll say broadly about all

1:18:10

three of these vignettes is these

1:18:12

are all people acting ways that

1:18:14

are different from the ways we've

1:18:16

seen them act. And the important

1:18:18

thing that you just said is

1:18:20

that Eleanor is not there. She's

1:18:22

hiding in the shadows. These are

1:18:24

people acting differently. When they think

1:18:27

Eleanor is not there and I

1:18:29

do think that lines up to

1:18:31

what we know about Eleanor like

1:18:33

Just does she have this feeling

1:18:35

that people like she has she

1:18:37

she has there's a lot of

1:18:39

self-hatred within Illinois, right? She doesn't

1:18:41

like herself She has very little

1:18:43

self-confidence and so this idea that

1:18:46

the second you walk out of

1:18:48

the room people behave differently than

1:18:50

they behave when you're around they

1:18:52

talk differently they like maybe specifically

1:18:54

about you, but like I love

1:18:56

this like broader more Eleanor manifestation

1:18:58

of this is like some of

1:19:00

these people are just completely different

1:19:03

human beings when I'm not around

1:19:05

and it goes into what you

1:19:07

talked about earlier the two people

1:19:09

in the coffee shop it goes

1:19:11

into this this that woman that

1:19:13

she bumps into at the very

1:19:15

beginning of the book like that

1:19:17

these are people that like she

1:19:19

just feels are doing something or

1:19:22

thinking something or saying something or

1:19:24

having some private conversation that she's

1:19:26

not privy to that would reveal

1:19:28

some deeper part of who they

1:19:30

are or how they feel about

1:19:32

her specifically and now we get

1:19:34

these these three little vignettes where

1:19:36

all these people are acting totally

1:19:39

differently and again regardless of whether

1:19:41

this is happening or not it

1:19:43

is so revealing. about what Eleanor

1:19:45

thinks about these people or thinks

1:19:47

they think about her. They're like

1:19:49

that. But then suddenly we're back

1:19:51

with Eleanor's not hiding anymore. Luke

1:19:53

and Theo were there. Luke is

1:19:56

talking directly to Eleanor. He's like,

1:19:58

hey, is that really your shirt

1:20:00

that Theodore is wearing? And then

1:20:02

Theo is protecting. to be Eleanor,

1:20:04

she goes, no, no, I'm, no.

1:20:06

What, what? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?

1:20:08

I think, I think this is

1:20:10

about, this is about the part

1:20:12

where I was just like, okay.

1:20:15

I give, yeah. Like, like, either

1:20:17

the book will explain to me

1:20:19

what's going on or I will

1:20:21

have to figure it out later

1:20:23

with Scott because I don't, yeah.

1:20:25

I don't even have, I don't

1:20:27

even have, I have no sentences

1:20:29

for you about what this means.

1:20:32

Yeah. And then Eleanor seems to

1:20:34

almost have a magical awareness of

1:20:36

the house suddenly. I love this.

1:20:38

Somewhere upstairs a door swung quietly

1:20:40

shut, a bird touched the tower

1:20:42

briefly and flew off. In the

1:20:44

kitchen the stove was setting and

1:20:46

settling and cooling with little soft

1:20:48

creaking. An animal, a rabbit moved

1:20:51

through the bushes by the summer

1:20:53

house. She could even hear with

1:20:55

her new awareness of the house,

1:20:57

the dust drifting gently in the

1:20:59

attics, the wood aging. So yeah,

1:21:01

she's... has this newfound awareness of

1:21:03

the house. She sees and senses

1:21:05

and hears everything. And here we

1:21:08

go. Here we go. Yep. I'm

1:21:10

not sure if I take this

1:21:12

literally, but I think I'll choose

1:21:14

to take literally the idea that

1:21:16

she has let the house in

1:21:18

like she did earlier. She's sort

1:21:20

of metaphysically let it in and

1:21:22

now she has this awareness of

1:21:25

the house. Yeah, I think so.

1:21:27

I think yeah, that's a valid

1:21:29

read for sure. Misses Montague storms

1:21:31

back into the scene complaining about

1:21:33

how all their negativity, all their

1:21:35

god damn negativity and doubt has

1:21:37

made Planchet a touch shy, and

1:21:39

now she wasn't getting anything useful

1:21:41

from the device at all. Eleanor

1:21:44

has stopped paying attention to all

1:21:46

that though, she doesn't care. She's

1:21:48

focused instead on the presence that

1:21:50

has made its way into the

1:21:52

room. No one else seems to

1:21:54

have noticed it's singing softly and

1:21:56

old children singing. Nobody heard it,

1:21:58

but her and that's when our

1:22:01

chapter ends. It's very creepy. It

1:22:03

is a little creepy. There's a

1:22:05

ghost in the room singing about

1:22:07

coming outside and bringing around the

1:22:09

rosy. It's not that singing song,

1:22:11

but it's close. But it's happening

1:22:13

juxtaposed with this matronly figure who

1:22:15

Eleanor doesn't like complaining that, oh,

1:22:17

we're not getting anything. We're not

1:22:20

getting any supernatural signals. And here

1:22:22

Eleanor is getting a very clear

1:22:24

supernatural signal that she is then

1:22:26

keeping to herself because she is

1:22:28

special. And she doesn't want to

1:22:30

share it with these awful people.

1:22:32

Indeed. And our final chapter, chapter

1:22:34

9, begins with Eleanor's midnight romp

1:22:37

through Hill House. Last time, she

1:22:39

thought that, you know, maybe I

1:22:41

was making all these banging noises,

1:22:43

and then this time, she's just

1:22:45

going to make that come true

1:22:47

literally. As she knocks on every

1:22:49

single door and runs away, kind

1:22:51

of laughing to herself, expecting them

1:22:54

all to just hide in their

1:22:56

rooms and fear as she bangs

1:22:58

on the doors. But as Theo

1:23:00

awakens in her room and finds

1:23:02

Eleanor missing. They go, uh-oh, we

1:23:04

better go with Eleanor. And she's

1:23:06

like, oh, fuck. I think the

1:23:08

text literally says she forgot about

1:23:10

Eleanor, which is a fascinating sentence,

1:23:13

that she forgot about herself and

1:23:15

herself missing and what that would

1:23:17

do. So they all come out

1:23:19

of their rooms and now the

1:23:21

chase is on as she dances

1:23:23

her way through Hill House as

1:23:25

they drastically run around looking for

1:23:27

her. Yeah, it's like she thinks

1:23:30

she's the house now. Yeah, it's

1:23:32

unsettling in a different way where

1:23:34

it's not like it's unsettling because,

1:23:36

oh, there's an evil ghost banging

1:23:38

on doors. It's like she's just

1:23:40

completely lost it and she's running

1:23:42

around like a crazy person. And

1:23:44

not like because this is a

1:23:46

funny prank, it's like she thinks

1:23:49

that she's being the ghost now.

1:23:51

Yeah. At last, she

1:23:53

makes her way to the library tower,

1:23:55

entering it for the very first time.

1:23:58

Matt, I just want to, what is

1:24:00

your... on this here at the end

1:24:02

now, Eleanor resisted the library, she wouldn't

1:24:05

go in there the first time, this

1:24:07

is our first time to go in

1:24:09

there, and so why do you think

1:24:11

she was so resistant to entering the

1:24:14

library tower, and why does it have

1:24:16

significance here at the end of the

1:24:18

story? So I really don't know, but

1:24:21

if we grant the idea that the

1:24:23

house is actually evil, and you know,

1:24:25

the text tells us the house is

1:24:28

evil pretty directly, so. maybe we can

1:24:30

grant that then like maybe she she

1:24:32

sensed on some level that what the

1:24:35

house wants from her is her destruction

1:24:37

her death and subliminally maybe and so

1:24:39

she knew that it wanted her to

1:24:41

go into this room she felt the

1:24:44

threat of it and so she resisted

1:24:46

that and now that she's given herself

1:24:48

over to the house she is pulled

1:24:51

into this room where seemingly if it

1:24:53

is that the house has sort of

1:24:55

hypnotized her into a situation that's going

1:24:58

to result in her immediate. death, which

1:25:00

she barely escapes from temporarily. I really

1:25:02

love this as she decides to climb

1:25:05

up that staircase though. Under her feet

1:25:07

the stone floor moved caressingly rubbing itself

1:25:09

against the soles of her feet and

1:25:11

all around the soft air touched her

1:25:14

stirring her hair drifting against her fingers

1:25:16

coming in the light breath across her

1:25:18

mouth. And then she danced in circles.

1:25:21

No stone lions for me, she thought.

1:25:23

No oleanders. I have broken the spell

1:25:25

of hillhouse and somehow come inside. I

1:25:28

am home, she thought, and stopped and

1:25:30

wonder at the thought. I am home.

1:25:32

I am home, she thought, now to

1:25:35

climb. I mean, let's just kind of

1:25:37

come right out and say it, like

1:25:39

the idea of the only home for

1:25:41

Eleanor is death, but there is no

1:25:44

home for Eleanor, right? That there is

1:25:46

no place for Eleanor to belong, ultimately.

1:25:48

Yeah, this is the only solution to

1:25:51

the equation as she sees it. is,

1:25:53

you know, I found my place here,

1:25:55

this is where I fit, and the

1:25:58

only way for me to fit is

1:26:00

to die. Yep. She climbs up the

1:26:02

old narrow staircase to the very top,

1:26:05

and this is where the rest of

1:26:07

the guests of Hill House find her.

1:26:09

The staircase is old and pulling away

1:26:11

from the wall in some places, but

1:26:14

Luke risks going up there to get

1:26:16

her down. He does so and succeeds,

1:26:18

and the three companions are both, you

1:26:21

know, kind of pissed off at her,

1:26:23

but also terrified for her. You really

1:26:25

feel like you really feel for everyone

1:26:28

in the scene, I think. Yeah, once

1:26:30

again, the descriptive writing is so careful

1:26:32

to kind of control our awareness of

1:26:34

what is happening when and who is

1:26:37

doing what. It's a really tightly written

1:26:39

scene. Yep. This is yeah, I'm just

1:26:41

I keep pinging off of Luke because

1:26:44

number one, I feel like we just

1:26:46

haven't talked about Luke much over the

1:26:48

course of this book. But number two,

1:26:51

it's like, hey, for all the fact

1:26:53

that the book told us that he's

1:26:55

like a liar and a piece of

1:26:58

shit. Like, he risked, number one, he

1:27:00

never does anything bad in the whole

1:27:02

book. Number two, he just risked his

1:27:04

life to save Eleanor here. Yeah, he's

1:27:07

supposed to be a coward. Everyone keeps

1:27:09

saying he's a coward. He's a horrible,

1:27:11

horrible coward. Even he says he's a

1:27:14

coward. And yeah, this was not cowardly.

1:27:16

Oh, he's great. I don't know. I

1:27:18

don't know. What, um, maybe, you know,

1:27:21

this is more of that stuff where

1:27:23

we're playing with like the power of.

1:27:26

How we absorb our impressions of

1:27:28

people from what we're told or

1:27:30

how others treat them because everything

1:27:33

that Luke actually does is admirable

1:27:35

and heroic and You know mildly

1:27:37

wistfully tragic, but like other people's

1:27:39

reactions to him sort of push

1:27:41

and pull on us and cause

1:27:44

us to maybe see something different

1:27:46

than that I wonder if there's

1:27:48

a really funny thing happening in

1:27:50

this book where for The three

1:27:52

other characters, they are just normal

1:27:55

characters going through with the normal

1:27:57

character arc of a story. Like

1:27:59

Luke, Luke is... a scoundrel and

1:28:01

coward that comes in and through

1:28:04

this experience learns how to be

1:28:06

brave and compassionate. Theo is this

1:28:08

kind of selfish flitting person that

1:28:10

through maybe even through now like

1:28:12

learns the importance of taking care

1:28:15

of people and kindness and the

1:28:17

doctor is this kind of hardline

1:28:19

science need to investigate these things

1:28:21

we don't understand person that kind

1:28:23

of learns to let go of

1:28:26

the understanding of all this stuff.

1:28:28

And this is just like a

1:28:30

normal story happening, but in the

1:28:32

middle of it is Eleanor, in

1:28:34

which none of it is normal

1:28:37

whatsoever. And so all that is

1:28:39

pushed to the background of the

1:28:41

story, and in the foreground we

1:28:43

get a thing that basically issues

1:28:46

all normalcy in storytelling and storycraft.

1:28:48

I wonder if that's like an

1:28:50

intentional design. I love this so

1:28:52

much. I mean, I just think

1:28:54

you're right now that you set

1:28:57

it out like that because... It

1:28:59

is a story built of tropes

1:29:01

just like any other story, but

1:29:03

then it undermines all of its

1:29:05

own tropes through the perspective of

1:29:08

the character, but that doesn't mean

1:29:10

that the tropes aren't still kind

1:29:12

of there being load-bearing. Like, yeah,

1:29:14

Luke has his own inner life.

1:29:16

It's just Eleanor has no idea

1:29:19

what it is. Yeah, because he's

1:29:21

not interested in it. Probably couldn't

1:29:23

accurately understand it even if she

1:29:25

was actually, but yeah, that's wonderful.

1:29:28

I love that So the next

1:29:30

morning almost without anyone even saying

1:29:32

anything it's clear that it's time

1:29:34

for Eleanor to go They they

1:29:36

are sending Eleanor away at first

1:29:39

Eleanor says that she can't leave

1:29:41

because Theo needs her clothes and

1:29:43

what'll Theo do for clothes if

1:29:45

Eleanor is not there But as

1:29:47

you said earlier, it turns out

1:29:50

that all Theo's clothes are perfectly

1:29:52

fine They never did have blood

1:29:54

and were destroyed. They're just normal

1:29:56

clothes. Hooray. Yeah, so this is

1:29:58

I think one of the major

1:30:01

things that makes me believe that

1:30:03

like Eleanor did all of this

1:30:05

and the reasons that she did

1:30:07

it were things that I like

1:30:09

I said earlier things she was

1:30:12

afraid of things she wanted fantasies

1:30:14

her delusions and fears and hopes

1:30:16

and hopes and hopes and dreams

1:30:18

leaking out into the world because

1:30:21

like oh wouldn't it be so

1:30:23

convenient if Theodore's clothes were destroyed

1:30:25

number one she's probably jealous if

1:30:27

Theodore's clothes if Theodore's clothes or

1:30:29

destroyed has to come. kind of

1:30:32

get even closer to me. She

1:30:34

becomes, you know, come stay, yeah,

1:30:36

just come stay with me basically,

1:30:38

which is what she wants to

1:30:40

happen. She's building reliance on the

1:30:43

people around her. Yeah, I think

1:30:45

that's, I think that, yeah, I

1:30:47

think that's right. Eleanor finally admits

1:30:49

something that we already knew, Matt,

1:30:51

that she has no apartment of

1:30:54

her own, she sleeps on a

1:30:56

cot in her sister's house, and

1:30:58

after stealing her sister's car, she

1:31:00

probably... has nowhere to go now.

1:31:03

Somehow Mrs. Montague has already spoken

1:31:05

to said sister? How? Did you

1:31:07

have her number? Huh? That's a

1:31:09

good question. This whole, this whole

1:31:11

scene here sort of follows nightmare

1:31:14

logic where it's like all of

1:31:16

her persecutors have teamed up and

1:31:18

they're all standing in the line

1:31:20

glaring at her. Yeah. It almost

1:31:22

again feels like, is this really

1:31:25

quite happening the way it appears

1:31:27

to be happening? Yeah. There's a

1:31:29

little bit more weirdness of it

1:31:31

too with like, they seem like

1:31:33

really, like they're gonna pack her

1:31:36

into the car and like, it's

1:31:38

all very quickly and very fast.

1:31:40

And like, yeah, again, I think

1:31:42

there's the nightmare logic part of

1:31:45

it. You kind of try to

1:31:47

read how this is playing from

1:31:49

the other characters who they're just

1:31:51

genuinely concerned and terrified for her.

1:31:53

But then also, like Mrs. Montague

1:31:56

and Arthur are like, hey, like...

1:31:58

We should probably make sure she

1:32:00

gets home okay, right? Like maybe

1:32:02

Arthur should drive her home, actually,

1:32:04

right? Right? Right? And then the

1:32:07

other three are like, no, no,

1:32:09

no, no, no, no, no, no,

1:32:11

no, no, she needs to do

1:32:13

it herself, she needs to drive

1:32:15

her own, don't do that, she'll

1:32:18

get in her car and she'll