July 17, 2018 • 39 mins
With Unexplained the book due out on October 25th 2018, a number of people have asked me what books have inspired me and the show. Rather than list them I thought, why not talk about them instead. In tandem with a question and answer session I review a small selection of those books...Go to @unexplainedpod or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info.Thank you for listening.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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dot com. Hello and welcome to Unexplained Extra, or this
(01:14):
special edition of Unexplained Extra, I should say with me
Richard McClane Smith. So this week, as you may be aware,
I announced that I would do a one off sort
of question and answer episode to coincide with the upcoming
release of the book Unexplained. In light of that announcement,
I had a number of people asking me what were
(01:35):
the books that had inspired me or the show, So
I just thought, rather than putting up a list on
social media, why not just talk about them. And I've
been overwhelmed with the response, So thank you all so
much for getting in touch and given me your questions.
I've managed to condense it down to about fifteen or so,
I think. Apologies if I haven't included yours on the show.
(01:56):
So just a couple of quick, easy ones to start
off with. Few people had asked me about the music,
So the music and the show I composed that myself
and you can hear quite a large part of it
on the Unexplained SoundCloud. So if you wanted to hear that,
you could go to SoundCloud dot com forward slash Unexplained
Podcast I think is the address and you can find
(02:18):
it there. And the other question that quite a few
of you are asking, was is the book going to
be an audiobook as well? And will I be narrating it?
And the answer to that is yes, I will be.
And so at the moment, the book is due out
in the UK October twenty fifth, and we are sort
of talking about getting it distributed in the US and
Canada as well, So I think just watch this space
(02:41):
on that one. So let's begin. I had quite a
few questions in a similar vein to this one, so
I'll just take one, which is from Conan, who asks
have you ever had a personal supernatural experience? So the
short answer to that is no, But something that I
might talk about in more depth later on in the
question is that I suppose you could also say that
(03:04):
maybe I have, but I wasn't aware that it was supernatural.
But I think what I do find fascinating, though, is
that I have heard from lots of people, and from
people that I would consider to be perfectly rational and
intelligent people who claim that they have seen things that
I might have previously dismissed. So I suppose that just
(03:28):
leaves me wondering what it was exactly that was seen
or what was experienced So next one from Lee Britain.
Have you had an opportunity to meet with anyone directly
involved with any of the events that you've mentioned. If so,
who was the most convincing I have, Actually, I've not.
I haven't in person. I have over the phone or
(03:50):
on Skype or email. I've spoken to people that have
been at the center of some of these stories, and
I mean they've all been convincing. I mean and in
fact that the sort of thread that runs through the
more really was that none of them were absolutely convinced
that what had been experienced was supernatural or paranormal, but
(04:12):
I'd say they had an interest in that as a
as a potential or a possibility in the main, I
guess I don't think they were making up what they
think they experienced. Did that make sense? So the next question, again,
this is one that I had quite a few questions
in a sort of that were similar in one way
or another. So let's just take Steve. Steve asks of
(04:35):
all the podcasts you have researched, which if you found
the most disturbing, Which is the most scariest. So this
is a difficult one. The ones that were disturbing and
scary I think I would have to say, are the
ones that involved the most sort of traumatic outcomes or events.
So a lot of the time, I mean a lot
of the time, these stories, as terrifying as they might be,
they don't, you know, they don't result in somebody dying
(04:59):
or being killed. And except for one which I told
in the first season, which was about you might know
it's called Demons in Suburbia, which was a story about
a man called Michael Taylor who had quite tragically and
dramatically been affected in one way or another by an
exorcism that was practiced on him, and the consequence of
(05:20):
that was that he murdered his wife in quite horrific circumstances.
So I don't have much more to say on that
because I don't I'm not so familiar with the case
and life of Michael Taylor that I would be able
to comment possibly about the reasons and wise awarefores of
what happened. But that was certainly the one that I think,
as a story alone, was the most disturbing. Okay, so
(05:44):
not particularly related to the last few questions, but let's
do the first book anyhow. So this book's been a
huge influence on me I think, not just for the show,
not for the way I write, or for the way
I certainly would like to write or aspire to write.
It's a book that was reckoned mended to me quite
a while ago as a sort of it was recommended
as a travel book, but I think the intention wasn't
(06:06):
to reduce it in such a way. But that's how
I remember it anyhow, and so when I read it,
it opened up into so many other things that I
hadn't been expecting. So the book is called The Rings
of Saturn's by W. G. Sibald. Superficially, the book presents
as an account of one man's journey through Suffolk, the
(06:26):
Suffolk Coast, particularly in East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
But quite quickly it becomes apparent that there was quite
a bit more going on. So you find yourself being
taken on this extraordinary, very melancholic journey into the workings
of Sibald's mind. I think the way he sort of
touches upon the things that the landscape inspires in him
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in a sort of ruminations and his thoughts as as
he's making this journey, and from that you get sort
of taken on this extraordinary sort of epic trip through
lots of different waypoints and connections that are being triggered
as as he's making his way through the countryside, and
(07:10):
it's become quite a sort of major touchdone I think
of modern psychogeographic writing. So I mean, I'm sure there
are lots of different opinions on this out there as
to the you know, the quality of it in compare
in comparison to other books, but I would say that
it's certainly become one of the better known sort of
examples of this sort of writing. Just the expanse of
(07:35):
information alone that throughout the book is quite extraordinary. It's
a sort of domino effect. He has sort of way
of exploding information from one thing, connecting from one thing
to the next. And actually a very sort of brief note,
I would say, at one point he talks about Joseph
Conrad being in lower stuff, I think, and he draws
(07:57):
a connection there between that as the beginning of a
journey that's endpoint was essentially the horrors of colonialism, and
so another book I would say to sort of very
briefly recommend that has been quite a big inspiration on
me and in some ways unexplained is Joseph Comrade's Heart
of Darkness. And so with this book, I think what
(08:18):
I've drawn from it in terms of unexplained is just
the sort of the sense of the horror of humanity
really and what human beings are capable of. And I'm
not quite sure this is explored in the book, but
the sort of idea that human beings don't perpetrate evil
acts that there's no such thing as evil in that respect,
(08:39):
I mean that humanity is all of it. So for
me personally, I don't think there's a moral arbiter that
dictates what is and what isn't evil. There's nobody is
making that judgment on our behalf. We do that ourselves.
Of course, we can as a society decide together which
things we determined to be wrong or bad or unpalatable
(09:01):
or criminal. And as a sort of slight extension to
that point, I think the certainly the kind of setting
and the locations and many of the things that are
occurring in Heart of Darkness are based on true stories
and true things that happened, and I think the sort
of ultimate true horror really is that, And I think
I tend to find this quite often, is that the
(09:21):
reality of the stories. If you if you read the
actual stories about what took place under King Leopold the
Second of Belgium, who was the spearheading this colonial campaign,
the fact is you find that it's almost impossible to
come up with the reality of the terrible things that
were happened. You know that the real story is even worse.
(09:44):
So let's try and come back a bit from that,
because I think I don't know if I can take
that any any darker. So let's get back to questions.
I think it's starting to get a sense now of
where Unexplained comes from. So is a message from Elizabeth.
So what determines what catches your interest? Is it mostly
what intrigues you or more about how easy you find
(10:05):
to communicate the story? Well, I think what catches my
interest first and foremost, especially because of the nature of
the show and it being based on ideas that are
unexplained and remained to this day unexplained. The key thing
is is having a story that's not too easy to debunk,
I suppose, or having a story that's not that doesn't
(10:26):
present itself too obviously as being a hoax. So I
suppose the best stories for me are the ones that
sort of really stretched that suspension of disbelief as far
as possible. So sometimes I find that that will supersede
whether I personally am into that kind of story, and
as well, A lot of the time I find that
(10:47):
digging a bit deeper into the story, it will sort
of reveal itself to be actually more interesting and more
fascinating than I had first imagined. Okay, I've got quite
a few questions here about how I got involved in
doing this, and what I was before unexplained and all
that sort of stuff. So without giving too much away,
(11:10):
I don't want to destroy the illusion completely, but I have,
I think, for quite some time, been trying to write,
and you know, get somewhere doing that, and it's a
case really of just discovering an outlet where I could
write something and it actually becomes something. A lot of
the time, you know, if you're writing any form of writing,
really you're trying to get through some kind of gateway
(11:35):
to get into something that legitimizes what you're doing and
also gets what you're doing out there. So whether it's
to be published or to have an article printed in
a magazine, or to have a TV show commission or
something like that, you know, if you're very if you're
very lucky, and so those things to take time, and
they take a lot of effort, and they require you
to be you're at the whim of somebody else's taste.
(11:57):
And I think Explained really started as a combination of
having that ambition, but also the fascination with these stories
and not being quite sure what to do with them,
and then discovering the podcast and what the podcast was.
And you know, I think that's something we're a lot
more familiar with now, but a few years ago, you know,
(12:18):
it's sort of I didn't really understand it in the
way that I do now, and I could craft it
myself and put it up myself and all that sort
of stuff. The show was kind of born, and it
evolved a bit in the process of, you know, understanding
what a podcast can be and all that sort of stuff.
And and I've been completely overwhelmed by the fact that
(12:41):
that anybody listened to it at all. So I mean,
this is a great chance to thank you all again.
Anybody who listens to the show has supported the show
for the incredible kind words and you know, and the
encouragement that I've been given. Yeah, it's been extraordinary. And
just to finish that point off, ru Howe asks, or
(13:02):
Ruhu says, I'm presuming you do it all in a dark,
wood paneled, book lined room, sitting in a leather armchair
with a pipe and a bottle of single malt. And
the answer is yes, of course, that's exactly how I
do it. Rue also asks, is the cover picture of
reference to Twin Peaks? I think in many ways you
could probably say everything I do as a reference to
Twin Peaks. So although that wasn't actually wasn't thinking of
(13:25):
Twin Peaks when I chose it, But yes, of course,
I mean subconsciously absolutely, it's probably where I've I've found
that I've got that idea from. So Christopher asks, my
question is do you have trouble sleeping at night or
going about your daily life having made podcasts on such
other worldly material? So I would say yes, So, yes,
(13:47):
I do. I do because I am always thinking about
the story or the next story, and invariably because of
the subject matter it, Yeah, it becomes it's very easy
for your imagination to run wild. So on that note,
and I think this is the more seamless transition to
the next book. So the next book that has inspired me,
and Unexplained is actually a collection of stories, but primarily
(14:12):
the one called Don't Look Now, which I'm sure many
of you will be familiar with, the Daphne Demurier short story,
which was later made into a brilliant film by Nicholas Rogue.
And so this really inspires me. And there's another book
as well I will talk about sort of in tandem
with this one, which is Joe Lindsay's Picnic Hanging Rock.
(14:33):
So there are lots of reasons why I love both
these books, but I suppose we should we could start
with tone. So this is something I think I've probably
quite deliberately, in one way or another, try to replicate
in Unexplained, which is to create the idea of the
sort of sense of a world that's familiar and real
(14:53):
and genuine and kind of scrutable, but then have this
air of something else, the possibility of something else, something
more enigmatic and and sort of intangible and you know,
magical in a way. I think you know, whether that
be spooky or terrifying magic or not. And I think
(15:17):
more than any other book that I've certainly read, these
these both these stories do that in an incredible ways,
and I think picnicer Hanging Rock is. It's probably more
enigmatic since it's so essentially if you're not familiar with
the story it's it was set I think in nineteen hundred,
on Valentine's Day in nineteen hundred, some girls from a
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school are taken on a trip through the outback in Australia,
in Victoria, I think, in the state of Victoria and
Australia to a sort of strange natural landmark known as
Hanging Rock, which I've actually been to and it is
just as a sort of specials as sort of portrayed
in the book. But so anyway, a couple of these
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schoolgirls going and as well as their teacher. I think
I might have the wrong but they go missing and
there's no explanation, and I can't tell you much more
to give anything away, but it's incredibly mysterious, beautifully portrayed story,
and it's very sort of hypnotic that of course goes
(16:20):
into all sorts of other things about sort of adolescent
awakening and all sorts of things like that. So thoroughly
recommended anyway, whether you like ghost stories or not. It's
not actually imperative to enjoy the story, so we don't look.
Now it's a sort of similar thing, but I think
there's more the sort of supernatural paranormal stuff going on,
(16:42):
which is particularly compelling because it's done in this way
where it's not sort of hysterical and so strange that
it's off putting or distracting. It's sort of to Maurier
and sort of merges them into the world that we
think we know in such a way that I don't
think has been I don't think has been bettered actually,
So yeah, read those books. So back to the questions.
(17:07):
I had a couple quite similar from Malcolm and Tom
who asked do you have your own conclusions to the
stories your research? And Tom asks are there any that
you truly believe have answers that lie beyond known science?
So these are good questions actually in relation to the
nature of the show, And you know, my kind of
thinking behind putting it together, and that really is that
(17:30):
I know this might sound strange, but I don't. Going
back to Malcolm's question, do I have my own conclusions
to the stories? I actually don't dwell on that too much.
I think what makes them interesting is that they that
they are these sort of open mysteries and unanswered questions
that then in turn invite new questions. And you know,
I think we're when you allow these stories to just
(17:52):
sort of be, rather than try and interrogate them too much.
I think that is where they sort of come most
alive and and provoke the most sort of interesting discussion.
And I think this is something I've tried to do
as well that I hope comes across, which is that
it's not that that doesn't mean that the story has
to be the ghost wasn't real, or it wasn't really
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a poltergeist or whatever, and that that's the end of
the story. You know that if you were to that,
if we were able to conclude once and for all
that no, this didn't happen, and this is actually what happened,
and you have that sort of full fact laid out
in front of you, I think even if that were
the case, I don't think that would be the end
of the story. Often say that I think even if
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it were to be proven once and for all that
God didn't exist, I think people would still believe in it,
or believe in her or him or however where you
hold the divine, and I think that in itself is
sort of equally as fascinating as to whether there's a
definitive answer or not. Kind of draws me on to
my next question, which is from m who talks about
(18:57):
how I sometimes use the mysterious and the fourteen as
a lens to explore deeper historical and sociological themes, And
is there any other literature that you are drawing on
that specifically looks into the sociology of fear about the
mysterious and the paranormal. So I don't specifically, but that
would be certainly be a very interesting thing to look
(19:19):
at how people's fears maybe not manipulated, but we're sort
of concentrated around specific ideas of the time or things
that have happened in the time, and certainly today you
can see the ways in which people's fears are stoked
and manipulated by the media. And so one very good
documentary you can watch all about that is called The
Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis, which I thoroughly recommend
(19:42):
you want to learn a bit more about that. So
the next book is Straw Dogs by the philosopher John Gray,
not the same John Gray, who wrote Men Are from Mars,
Women Are from Venus, a very different John Gray and
not the film is not the films draw Dogs. So
this is an entire thing on its own, straw Dogs
(20:02):
by John Gray. And the subtitle is Thoughts on Humans
and Other Animals. And I think when I read this book,
it was the first time I sort of really started
to understand and look a bit more broadly on the
human race and what it is to be human and
sort of picking apart the delusion that we have about
who we are and our sort of deluded sense of
(20:23):
separateness from the natural world, and the way we sort
of position ourselves apart from other animals. In fact, frequently
you will often hear people say talk about humans and
animals almost as if we're not part of that group.
So it goes into I mean, there's a lot more,
way more than I can sort of expound on here,
(20:46):
but I would, yes, just thoroughly recommend it. It's well
worth reading, and you know, I think it's it's a
complicated point about whether we need to be more aware
of the damage we do of the delusions that we
have as human beings. I mean, you could also argue
that into the being deluded. That is also a natural
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sort of form of existence in a way, but it
certainly doesn't hurt to kind of think more broadly about
about that and what that means, and what that means
for the way that we think of ourselves and think
of others as well. So next question is from Daniel,
what advice would you give to other creative types who
(21:28):
want to create cool stuff like you? Well, thank you
first of all for calling Unexplained cool. That's very kind.
But also I would just say as well that I
think everybody is creative. Everybody is a creative type. We
all in our own ways can be creative or find
ways to be creative. But that being said, of course
I think you know what you mean, So I would say,
(21:52):
I mean, obviously it depends on what it is you're
trying to create. But if we're talking about writing, for example,
and of course Unexplained as a podcast, but really what
it's based on is writing and storytelling and having a
sense of how to engage an audience. I don't know
to what degree I'm especially successful at doing that or not,
(22:12):
but I think if I've learned anything, really, it's understanding
structure and the structure of storytelling. And I think when
I was starting out, when I was much younger, and
I had ambitions of writing and aspirations of doing all
sorts of things with that, I didn't really understand why
it was important in the way that I do now,
and which is really that it's not that you need
(22:34):
to follow rules and you need to kind of adopt
certain techniques. It's just more that having an understanding of
them is it gives you such a head start in
terms of approaching a blank page, which is as most
people who write, I imagine will tell you, is the
kind of the worst bit is that initial getting something
(22:55):
down and having something to work with. And so I
think just understanding structure and how to tell a story
and reading up on that sort of thing can be really,
really beneficial. And of course once you know it and
you understand why certain things work the way they do,
then you can play around with it and you can
dismiss it out of hand. I think. I mean, that's
(23:15):
basically the point is that it's better to know something
and ignore it than to not be aware of it.
I think in this sense not always the case, absolutely
not always the case, but from my experience anyway, I
think that has been helpful, and to that end, I
will recommend a couple of books that I think as
a writer really helped me. So one is Wide for
(23:37):
Story by Lisa Kron, which is really just an introduction
into how to kind of hook a reader into your story,
and it's just very sort of clear. It's very very
clear and easy to read, and again it's things you
can sort of take or discard at your own sort
of discretion. And in a similar vein another book that
(24:00):
I found quite isful was Writing the TV Drama Series
by Pamela Douglas, And as you can tell from the title,
obviously this is specifically for TV drama, but I think
a lot of the same rules apply to whatever kind
of narrative writing you are trying to do. That's what
you're trying to do. And lastly, just quickly, another book
that I've really helped me starting out was a book
(24:22):
called How to Write a Novel by the author John Brain,
who is most well known for a book he wrote
called Room at the Top. And so again it's you
might not be wanting to write a novel specifically, but
it just has a lot of kind of really great
lessons and ideas about how to get started and how
to really just start tackling the thing that you're trying
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to do. And it's a big you know, writing anything is,
it's difficult, so it mainly requires practice and and the
other thing, of course, it's just reading and watching and
listening to as much as you can and sort of
taking that in and trying to absorb it. So onto
the next questions, So Samantha asks, do you believe in
the existence of beings not in our realm? In light
(25:06):
of your extensive research over the past years and putting
together Unexplained podcast and your new book, have you been
swayed one way or another in this belief? So I
think this goes back a little bit to the earlier
questions about what I what conclusions I've drawn myself from
some of these stories. And I think the key word
here is believe. So you know, it's something that comes up,
(25:28):
particularly with supernatural paranormal and you know, just stories in
general of that kind, which is the sort of notion
of belief and what you believe in and what you
believe is possible. So I think for me, there was
a quote and I can't remember who says it who
said it? Rather what it was to do with having
seen a particular supposed paranormal event, and in the response
(25:52):
was that I didn't say it was possible, I said
it happened. And I think that's really the approach to
take to the stories, which is that I've known reason
to disbelieve the anecdotal evidence that's being presented, so I
take it at face value. And you know that might
be silly or gullible or ignorant, but the point is
really that is to display the things as they occurred,
(26:14):
or as we're sort of led to believe they occurred,
without interrogating that too much. But going back to the
question so about belief, Well, really the thing is that
I don't think I have seen or come across anything
that was that would convince me of a parallel or
supernatural thing being real actually having taken place. But you know,
(26:37):
I equally haven't seen anything that would that can say
once and for all that it hasn't either, So within that,
you know, I don't I couldn't possibly commit something being
real and until there was there was evidence enough for
that to be a certainty. And of course the thing
is in actual life, the things that we consider to
be real and absolutely true. You know, it's rare to
(26:57):
find that sort of certainty too if you if you
start interrogating things, you get start to get a bit
closer and down and dirty with things. You find that
the things that we do think are true and real
aren't in fact as true and real as we might
think they are, which is also I think a big
sort of theme of the show. So Jeff asks, were
(27:17):
there any potential episodes that you nixed because the subject
matter creeped you out too much? So no, absolutely not.
I think the creepier the better, I would say. Which
brings me to my next book recommendation, or rather book
that has inspired and explained. So this is a writer
that will be familiar to many people who listen to
the show. This is HP Lovecraft. Lovecraft is a complicated
(27:41):
writer to sort of admire, ostensibly because I think it's
quite well documented that he was he was quite racist,
and he had a sort of fear of I think
what he was anti Semitic, and also but had a
particularly repugnant attitude towards anybody who wasn't white, and I
(28:02):
think primarily to Americans who were black. So why that
becomes particularly complicated in terms of his stories, is that
that fear that he had of this otherness, of what
he perceived to be this otherness, as what I would say,
as ignorant and appalling as that was, it was that
(28:22):
fear that he used that was obviously very visceral to him,
that was then sort of imbued in the text and
the language that he used in his sort of horror stories.
So in many ways, the reason why they're so compelling
is because that fear was so real to him, and
so of course that makes it incredibly odd and complicated
(28:44):
and strange when you're reading these stories. Sort of knowing
that fear is the foundation on which these stories are
built and constructed, you know, that is a complicated thing.
That is a complicated thing to kind of hold that
at the same time, but separating the story from that,
what remains are incredibly gripping, horrifying stories and there, and
(29:04):
they're particularly horrifying because they you can sort of feel
that sense of terror person I find it something is
writing quite dense, and it can feel sometimes a bit
of a troll to get through, but always within it
this sort of extraordinary imagination of other worlds that are created.
And what I find most compelling about it is that
the that unlike lots of other stories of this kind
(29:27):
of ilk where you're encouraged ultimately to think that there
was some kind of psychological catalyst that was provoking these stories,
but with Lovecraft, a lot of the time it's actually,
you know, you're you're invited to think that the horror
is real. It's not imaginary. That these creatures, you know,
are existing in their own sort of autonomous way, whether
(29:48):
they be in another realm or under the sea, sort
of subterranean things. And so that I find that particularly compelling.
I mean the book I have if to me at
the moment, it's a collection of his stories. This is
Lovecraft The Call of Clulu or Cthulu, a few different
ideas on how to say that, and other weird stories.
(30:10):
And if I had to pick one for any of
you who haven't read him before, let's go for The
Shadow over Innsmouth. This is actually one of his longer stories,
but plot wise and the revelation that you will discover
on reading it, I think it's it's certainly for me anyway,
it's one of his best. We'll wrap this up with
(30:33):
a couple more questions, Andrew asks. He says, there's probably
a lot of people asking this, but actually you are
the only one, so thank you. It's a good question.
If you could know the definitive answer to just one
unexplained mystery, what would it be and why? So again,
going back to the previous questions, I don't feel the
need necessarily to know the answer, but I think the
(30:55):
one I would most like to know would be the Lightkeepers,
the Lighthousekeepers rather from I think episode eight of the
first season, which was called When the Light Fades. I think,
as some other people have asked me, what was my
own personal favorite, I think that for me is my
favorite one so far. And the reason why I'd like
to know that is because I think anything that involves,
(31:17):
you know, missing people, missing individuals, I think there's something
inherently and obviously terribly tragic about that. For anyone that's
been left behind and not knowing what has happened to
a loved one that has disappeared, I think is you know,
in some ways, almost more horrific than the finding out
that they might have been killed. So Deepmar asks, what
(31:42):
is the appeal of the unexplained in general for you especially,
is it even a good idea to concern oneself with
stuff like that? Wouldn't it be healthier not to do that? Well,
so I know where you're coming from in terms of
you know, I think if you, if you're someone who
might dismiss all these stories out of hand, then it
seems a bit a bit of a nonsense to even
kind of give them the light of day or the
(32:05):
darkness of night as it were, or you know, to
give them any sort of sense of credibility whatsoever. And
I think, again, I think that maybe going back to
something I said earlier, I think that attitude has its
own ignorance in a way. I think everything can have
a potential worth. You know, I don't again, it doesn't
necessarily have to be that that we commit to the
(32:27):
supernatural paranormal explanation, But I think all these stories have
something in them, certainly from a human perspective. There are elements,
There are lots of things within these stories that can
throw up all sorts of questions and ideas and things
that go way sort of above and beyond and transcend
the basic kind of question of whether these things really
(32:48):
happened or what the actual explanation was, and whether that
explanation is something beyond what we currently know or are
aware of as being possible in our world or our reality,
which brings me to my next book recommendation, which is
Ways of Seeing by John Burger. John Berger was a
(33:08):
I think primarily or professionally. His sort of title I
suppose was art critic, but he's much more than that,
and he's written on lots of different subjects, but I
think Ways of Seeing is probably what he was best
known for, so this book. Funnily enough, I won this
when I was about nine or ten years old. I
think I did. I'm a bit hazy on this, but
I think I won this when I took part in
(33:30):
something called the Spaghetti Bridge building competition, which is exactly
as it sounds. When I was at school. I think
our class got put forward for this, and the team
I was in, myself and two others, we came third
in a national competition, so I was very proud of myself,
but I think really it might have had something to
(33:51):
do with the fact that one of my team members
is dad's was an architect, and I think he might
have helped plan the bridge. Anyway, we came third, and
one of the things I won as a sort of
nine or ten year old. This was this book Ways
of Seeing by John Berger, which I was far too
young to appreciate at the time. I don't think I
even read this till late teens, early twenties, but I'm
(34:17):
glad I did because basically, and there's a bit of
a bit of a theme here, I suppose developing with
Unexplained in general, which is that all the book is
really trying to teach you is that there are different
ways to see the world, that there are many different perspectives.
And I think it's something that's become just in mainstream,
everyday kind of conversation. I think it's something we're becoming
(34:39):
more aware of now and are interrogating more and more,
this idea that there's there's not one way to hold
the world, or that there's no you know, there's not
one version of history, there's not one version of the truth.
I think more kind of potently, and so yeah, this
is a book really that kind of establishes that in
a very sort of simplistic and powerful way. And you know,
(35:02):
by looking at art specifically and the ways in which
we as individuals can sort of interpret the same piece
of work in different ways, but also how the way
that work is or art is interpreted differently throughout the years. So,
for example, anybody looking at a painting that was that
(35:22):
was made four hundred years ago is not going to
have the same context that you might have had had
you looked at it when it was first painted, and
so the effect of that piece of art is kind
of distorted in some way. So the effect of that painting,
that piece of art that it has on the viewer
is is changed by not only the sort of context
(35:44):
of the time that it's being observed, but also by
what the viewer brings to the observation. So I think
there's a quote I can't remember again, I think it
was freud l I don't know this for sure, but
who said something like you cannot analyze something about taking
into account the mechanism through which it is observed. And
I think it plays again into this sort of a
(36:05):
whole notion that you might hear sometimes people say, sort
of consciousness makes up the world, you know. I don't
know the degree to which that might be true absolutely,
but I think, you know, there is an element of truth,
and that's certainly that a lot of the time when
you what you're seeing in the world and the way
that you respond to the world is not because of
the truth of what that world is, but how you
(36:28):
interpret that. So in that way, you kind of are
making up the world. You know, for better or worse.
You are kind of constructing the world in your head
as much as the information from that world is being
fed to you, if that makes sense. So just time
for one final question, which is from Peter and Morgan,
who ask both of us are still dying to know
(36:51):
why there is such an unexplained ghostly gap between McClean
Smith in the phrase Richard McClean Smith. It is a
very good question. I think it just came out like that,
and I've sort of felt I had to stick to
it ever since. But it's now kind of taken on
a life of its own where even if I try
to close the gap, it feels like I'm sort of
(37:13):
dishonoring the original version in some ways, so I've tried
to keep it quite consistent. I've also joked about how
I think I should get a T shirt made which
just says Richard McClain on the front and then Smith
on the back. I don't know if I'm quite narcissistic
enough to do it. We'll see. So yeah, thank you
(37:36):
so much for listening. Thank you even more for sending
in your questions and for all your interests that you've
shown in the show. Again, I can't thank you enough
for all the support and kind words, and I hope
you enjoy it going forward. As I mentioned before, I
will put the list of books up on social media,
so Twitter, Facebook, and I'll probably add a few more
(37:58):
in there that I didn't think I had time to
talk about this time around. Very very difficult trying to
compile a small list of books. There have been so
many that have inspired me, and also films and TV
shows that have inspired me immensely, and music too, so
maybe there are more lists to be made at a
later date. Anyway. That's yeah, I think that's it for now.
Once again. The book will be out on October twenty fifth,
(38:20):
and I'm actually going to be doing some live speaking
events which I'll be putting up on my website soon
if anyone's interested in coming along to that. Thank you
very much again for listening to the show. I will
be back next Tuesday with episode eight of season three,
So until then. Now it's time to take care of yourself,
(39:16):
to make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to
a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
video any time between seven a m. To nine pm
local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available
through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit
(39:38):
teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast today to get started.
That's t e l a d oc dot com slash
Unexplained podcast
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dot com. Hello and welcome to Unexplained Extra, or this
(01:14):
special edition of Unexplained Extra, I should say with me
Richard McClane Smith. So this week, as you may be aware,
I announced that I would do a one off sort
of question and answer episode to coincide with the upcoming
release of the book Unexplained. In light of that announcement,
I had a number of people asking me what were
(01:35):
the books that had inspired me or the show, So
I just thought, rather than putting up a list on
social media, why not just talk about them. And I've
been overwhelmed with the response, So thank you all so
much for getting in touch and given me your questions.
I've managed to condense it down to about fifteen or so,
I think. Apologies if I haven't included yours on the show.
(01:56):
So just a couple of quick, easy ones to start
off with. Few people had asked me about the music,
So the music and the show I composed that myself
and you can hear quite a large part of it
on the Unexplained SoundCloud. So if you wanted to hear that,
you could go to SoundCloud dot com forward slash Unexplained
Podcast I think is the address and you can find
(02:18):
it there. And the other question that quite a few
of you are asking, was is the book going to
be an audiobook as well? And will I be narrating it?
And the answer to that is yes, I will be.
And so at the moment, the book is due out
in the UK October twenty fifth, and we are sort
of talking about getting it distributed in the US and
Canada as well, So I think just watch this space
(02:41):
on that one. So let's begin. I had quite a
few questions in a similar vein to this one, so
I'll just take one, which is from Conan, who asks
have you ever had a personal supernatural experience? So the
short answer to that is no, But something that I
might talk about in more depth later on in the
question is that I suppose you could also say that
(03:04):
maybe I have, but I wasn't aware that it was supernatural.
But I think what I do find fascinating, though, is
that I have heard from lots of people, and from
people that I would consider to be perfectly rational and
intelligent people who claim that they have seen things that
I might have previously dismissed. So I suppose that just
(03:28):
leaves me wondering what it was exactly that was seen
or what was experienced So next one from Lee Britain.
Have you had an opportunity to meet with anyone directly
involved with any of the events that you've mentioned. If so,
who was the most convincing I have, Actually, I've not.
I haven't in person. I have over the phone or
(03:50):
on Skype or email. I've spoken to people that have
been at the center of some of these stories, and
I mean they've all been convincing. I mean and in
fact that the sort of thread that runs through the
more really was that none of them were absolutely convinced
that what had been experienced was supernatural or paranormal, but
(04:12):
I'd say they had an interest in that as a
as a potential or a possibility in the main, I
guess I don't think they were making up what they
think they experienced. Did that make sense? So the next question, again,
this is one that I had quite a few questions
in a sort of that were similar in one way
or another. So let's just take Steve. Steve asks of
(04:35):
all the podcasts you have researched, which if you found
the most disturbing, Which is the most scariest. So this
is a difficult one. The ones that were disturbing and
scary I think I would have to say, are the
ones that involved the most sort of traumatic outcomes or events.
So a lot of the time, I mean a lot
of the time, these stories, as terrifying as they might be,
they don't, you know, they don't result in somebody dying
(04:59):
or being killed. And except for one which I told
in the first season, which was about you might know
it's called Demons in Suburbia, which was a story about
a man called Michael Taylor who had quite tragically and
dramatically been affected in one way or another by an
exorcism that was practiced on him, and the consequence of
(05:20):
that was that he murdered his wife in quite horrific circumstances.
So I don't have much more to say on that
because I don't I'm not so familiar with the case
and life of Michael Taylor that I would be able
to comment possibly about the reasons and wise awarefores of
what happened. But that was certainly the one that I think,
as a story alone, was the most disturbing. Okay, so
(05:44):
not particularly related to the last few questions, but let's
do the first book anyhow. So this book's been a
huge influence on me I think, not just for the show,
not for the way I write, or for the way
I certainly would like to write or aspire to write.
It's a book that was reckoned mended to me quite
a while ago as a sort of it was recommended
as a travel book, but I think the intention wasn't
(06:06):
to reduce it in such a way. But that's how
I remember it anyhow, and so when I read it,
it opened up into so many other things that I
hadn't been expecting. So the book is called The Rings
of Saturn's by W. G. Sibald. Superficially, the book presents
as an account of one man's journey through Suffolk, the
(06:26):
Suffolk Coast, particularly in East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
But quite quickly it becomes apparent that there was quite
a bit more going on. So you find yourself being
taken on this extraordinary, very melancholic journey into the workings
of Sibald's mind. I think the way he sort of
touches upon the things that the landscape inspires in him
(06:50):
in a sort of ruminations and his thoughts as as
he's making this journey, and from that you get sort
of taken on this extraordinary sort of epic trip through
lots of different waypoints and connections that are being triggered
as as he's making his way through the countryside, and
(07:10):
it's become quite a sort of major touchdone I think
of modern psychogeographic writing. So I mean, I'm sure there
are lots of different opinions on this out there as
to the you know, the quality of it in compare
in comparison to other books, but I would say that
it's certainly become one of the better known sort of
examples of this sort of writing. Just the expanse of
(07:35):
information alone that throughout the book is quite extraordinary. It's
a sort of domino effect. He has sort of way
of exploding information from one thing, connecting from one thing
to the next. And actually a very sort of brief note,
I would say, at one point he talks about Joseph
Conrad being in lower stuff, I think, and he draws
(07:57):
a connection there between that as the beginning of a
journey that's endpoint was essentially the horrors of colonialism, and
so another book I would say to sort of very
briefly recommend that has been quite a big inspiration on
me and in some ways unexplained is Joseph Comrade's Heart
of Darkness. And so with this book, I think what
(08:18):
I've drawn from it in terms of unexplained is just
the sort of the sense of the horror of humanity
really and what human beings are capable of. And I'm
not quite sure this is explored in the book, but
the sort of idea that human beings don't perpetrate evil
acts that there's no such thing as evil in that respect,
(08:39):
I mean that humanity is all of it. So for
me personally, I don't think there's a moral arbiter that
dictates what is and what isn't evil. There's nobody is
making that judgment on our behalf. We do that ourselves.
Of course, we can as a society decide together which
things we determined to be wrong or bad or unpalatable
(09:01):
or criminal. And as a sort of slight extension to
that point, I think the certainly the kind of setting
and the locations and many of the things that are
occurring in Heart of Darkness are based on true stories
and true things that happened, and I think the sort
of ultimate true horror really is that, And I think
I tend to find this quite often, is that the
(09:21):
reality of the stories. If you if you read the
actual stories about what took place under King Leopold the
Second of Belgium, who was the spearheading this colonial campaign,
the fact is you find that it's almost impossible to
come up with the reality of the terrible things that
were happened. You know that the real story is even worse.
(09:44):
So let's try and come back a bit from that,
because I think I don't know if I can take
that any any darker. So let's get back to questions.
I think it's starting to get a sense now of
where Unexplained comes from. So is a message from Elizabeth.
So what determines what catches your interest? Is it mostly
what intrigues you or more about how easy you find
(10:05):
to communicate the story? Well, I think what catches my
interest first and foremost, especially because of the nature of
the show and it being based on ideas that are
unexplained and remained to this day unexplained. The key thing
is is having a story that's not too easy to debunk,
I suppose, or having a story that's not that doesn't
(10:26):
present itself too obviously as being a hoax. So I
suppose the best stories for me are the ones that
sort of really stretched that suspension of disbelief as far
as possible. So sometimes I find that that will supersede
whether I personally am into that kind of story, and
as well, A lot of the time I find that
(10:47):
digging a bit deeper into the story, it will sort
of reveal itself to be actually more interesting and more
fascinating than I had first imagined. Okay, I've got quite
a few questions here about how I got involved in
doing this, and what I was before unexplained and all
that sort of stuff. So without giving too much away,
(11:10):
I don't want to destroy the illusion completely, but I have,
I think, for quite some time, been trying to write,
and you know, get somewhere doing that, and it's a
case really of just discovering an outlet where I could
write something and it actually becomes something. A lot of
the time, you know, if you're writing any form of writing,
really you're trying to get through some kind of gateway
(11:35):
to get into something that legitimizes what you're doing and
also gets what you're doing out there. So whether it's
to be published or to have an article printed in
a magazine, or to have a TV show commission or
something like that, you know, if you're very if you're
very lucky, and so those things to take time, and
they take a lot of effort, and they require you
to be you're at the whim of somebody else's taste.
(11:57):
And I think Explained really started as a combination of
having that ambition, but also the fascination with these stories
and not being quite sure what to do with them,
and then discovering the podcast and what the podcast was.
And you know, I think that's something we're a lot
more familiar with now, but a few years ago, you know,
(12:18):
it's sort of I didn't really understand it in the
way that I do now, and I could craft it
myself and put it up myself and all that sort
of stuff. The show was kind of born, and it
evolved a bit in the process of, you know, understanding
what a podcast can be and all that sort of stuff.
And and I've been completely overwhelmed by the fact that
(12:41):
that anybody listened to it at all. So I mean,
this is a great chance to thank you all again.
Anybody who listens to the show has supported the show
for the incredible kind words and you know, and the
encouragement that I've been given. Yeah, it's been extraordinary. And
just to finish that point off, ru Howe asks, or
(13:02):
Ruhu says, I'm presuming you do it all in a dark,
wood paneled, book lined room, sitting in a leather armchair
with a pipe and a bottle of single malt. And
the answer is yes, of course, that's exactly how I
do it. Rue also asks, is the cover picture of
reference to Twin Peaks? I think in many ways you
could probably say everything I do as a reference to
Twin Peaks. So although that wasn't actually wasn't thinking of
(13:25):
Twin Peaks when I chose it, But yes, of course,
I mean subconsciously absolutely, it's probably where I've I've found
that I've got that idea from. So Christopher asks, my
question is do you have trouble sleeping at night or
going about your daily life having made podcasts on such
other worldly material? So I would say yes, So, yes,
(13:47):
I do. I do because I am always thinking about
the story or the next story, and invariably because of
the subject matter it, Yeah, it becomes it's very easy
for your imagination to run wild. So on that note,
and I think this is the more seamless transition to
the next book. So the next book that has inspired me,
and Unexplained is actually a collection of stories, but primarily
(14:12):
the one called Don't Look Now, which I'm sure many
of you will be familiar with, the Daphne Demurier short story,
which was later made into a brilliant film by Nicholas Rogue.
And so this really inspires me. And there's another book
as well I will talk about sort of in tandem
with this one, which is Joe Lindsay's Picnic Hanging Rock.
(14:33):
So there are lots of reasons why I love both
these books, but I suppose we should we could start
with tone. So this is something I think I've probably
quite deliberately, in one way or another, try to replicate
in Unexplained, which is to create the idea of the
sort of sense of a world that's familiar and real
(14:53):
and genuine and kind of scrutable, but then have this
air of something else, the possibility of something else, something
more enigmatic and and sort of intangible and you know,
magical in a way. I think you know, whether that
be spooky or terrifying magic or not. And I think
(15:17):
more than any other book that I've certainly read, these
these both these stories do that in an incredible ways,
and I think picnicer Hanging Rock is. It's probably more
enigmatic since it's so essentially if you're not familiar with
the story it's it was set I think in nineteen hundred,
on Valentine's Day in nineteen hundred, some girls from a
(15:38):
school are taken on a trip through the outback in Australia,
in Victoria, I think, in the state of Victoria and
Australia to a sort of strange natural landmark known as
Hanging Rock, which I've actually been to and it is
just as a sort of specials as sort of portrayed
in the book. But so anyway, a couple of these
(15:59):
schoolgirls going and as well as their teacher. I think
I might have the wrong but they go missing and
there's no explanation, and I can't tell you much more
to give anything away, but it's incredibly mysterious, beautifully portrayed story,
and it's very sort of hypnotic that of course goes
(16:20):
into all sorts of other things about sort of adolescent
awakening and all sorts of things like that. So thoroughly
recommended anyway, whether you like ghost stories or not. It's
not actually imperative to enjoy the story, so we don't look.
Now it's a sort of similar thing, but I think
there's more the sort of supernatural paranormal stuff going on,
(16:42):
which is particularly compelling because it's done in this way
where it's not sort of hysterical and so strange that
it's off putting or distracting. It's sort of to Maurier
and sort of merges them into the world that we
think we know in such a way that I don't
think has been I don't think has been bettered actually,
So yeah, read those books. So back to the questions.
(17:07):
I had a couple quite similar from Malcolm and Tom
who asked do you have your own conclusions to the
stories your research? And Tom asks are there any that
you truly believe have answers that lie beyond known science?
So these are good questions actually in relation to the
nature of the show, And you know, my kind of
thinking behind putting it together, and that really is that
(17:30):
I know this might sound strange, but I don't. Going
back to Malcolm's question, do I have my own conclusions
to the stories? I actually don't dwell on that too much.
I think what makes them interesting is that they that
they are these sort of open mysteries and unanswered questions
that then in turn invite new questions. And you know,
I think we're when you allow these stories to just
(17:52):
sort of be, rather than try and interrogate them too much.
I think that is where they sort of come most
alive and and provoke the most sort of interesting discussion.
And I think this is something I've tried to do
as well that I hope comes across, which is that
it's not that that doesn't mean that the story has
to be the ghost wasn't real, or it wasn't really
(18:13):
a poltergeist or whatever, and that that's the end of
the story. You know that if you were to that,
if we were able to conclude once and for all
that no, this didn't happen, and this is actually what happened,
and you have that sort of full fact laid out
in front of you, I think even if that were
the case, I don't think that would be the end
of the story. Often say that I think even if
(18:34):
it were to be proven once and for all that
God didn't exist, I think people would still believe in it,
or believe in her or him or however where you
hold the divine, and I think that in itself is
sort of equally as fascinating as to whether there's a
definitive answer or not. Kind of draws me on to
my next question, which is from m who talks about
(18:57):
how I sometimes use the mysterious and the fourteen as
a lens to explore deeper historical and sociological themes, And
is there any other literature that you are drawing on
that specifically looks into the sociology of fear about the
mysterious and the paranormal. So I don't specifically, but that
would be certainly be a very interesting thing to look
(19:19):
at how people's fears maybe not manipulated, but we're sort
of concentrated around specific ideas of the time or things
that have happened in the time, and certainly today you
can see the ways in which people's fears are stoked
and manipulated by the media. And so one very good
documentary you can watch all about that is called The
Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis, which I thoroughly recommend
(19:42):
you want to learn a bit more about that. So
the next book is Straw Dogs by the philosopher John Gray,
not the same John Gray, who wrote Men Are from Mars,
Women Are from Venus, a very different John Gray and
not the film is not the films draw Dogs. So
this is an entire thing on its own, straw Dogs
(20:02):
by John Gray. And the subtitle is Thoughts on Humans
and Other Animals. And I think when I read this book,
it was the first time I sort of really started
to understand and look a bit more broadly on the
human race and what it is to be human and
sort of picking apart the delusion that we have about
who we are and our sort of deluded sense of
(20:23):
separateness from the natural world, and the way we sort
of position ourselves apart from other animals. In fact, frequently
you will often hear people say talk about humans and
animals almost as if we're not part of that group.
So it goes into I mean, there's a lot more,
way more than I can sort of expound on here,
(20:46):
but I would, yes, just thoroughly recommend it. It's well
worth reading, and you know, I think it's it's a
complicated point about whether we need to be more aware
of the damage we do of the delusions that we
have as human beings. I mean, you could also argue
that into the being deluded. That is also a natural
(21:08):
sort of form of existence in a way, but it
certainly doesn't hurt to kind of think more broadly about
about that and what that means, and what that means
for the way that we think of ourselves and think
of others as well. So next question is from Daniel,
what advice would you give to other creative types who
(21:28):
want to create cool stuff like you? Well, thank you
first of all for calling Unexplained cool. That's very kind.
But also I would just say as well that I
think everybody is creative. Everybody is a creative type. We
all in our own ways can be creative or find
ways to be creative. But that being said, of course
I think you know what you mean, So I would say,
(21:52):
I mean, obviously it depends on what it is you're
trying to create. But if we're talking about writing, for example,
and of course Unexplained as a podcast, but really what
it's based on is writing and storytelling and having a
sense of how to engage an audience. I don't know
to what degree I'm especially successful at doing that or not,
(22:12):
but I think if I've learned anything, really, it's understanding
structure and the structure of storytelling. And I think when
I was starting out, when I was much younger, and
I had ambitions of writing and aspirations of doing all
sorts of things with that, I didn't really understand why
it was important in the way that I do now,
and which is really that it's not that you need
(22:34):
to follow rules and you need to kind of adopt
certain techniques. It's just more that having an understanding of
them is it gives you such a head start in
terms of approaching a blank page, which is as most
people who write, I imagine will tell you, is the
kind of the worst bit is that initial getting something
(22:55):
down and having something to work with. And so I
think just understanding structure and how to tell a story
and reading up on that sort of thing can be really,
really beneficial. And of course once you know it and
you understand why certain things work the way they do,
then you can play around with it and you can
dismiss it out of hand. I think. I mean, that's
(23:15):
basically the point is that it's better to know something
and ignore it than to not be aware of it.
I think in this sense not always the case, absolutely
not always the case, but from my experience anyway, I
think that has been helpful, and to that end, I
will recommend a couple of books that I think as
a writer really helped me. So one is Wide for
(23:37):
Story by Lisa Kron, which is really just an introduction
into how to kind of hook a reader into your story,
and it's just very sort of clear. It's very very
clear and easy to read, and again it's things you
can sort of take or discard at your own sort
of discretion. And in a similar vein another book that
(24:00):
I found quite isful was Writing the TV Drama Series
by Pamela Douglas, And as you can tell from the title,
obviously this is specifically for TV drama, but I think
a lot of the same rules apply to whatever kind
of narrative writing you are trying to do. That's what
you're trying to do. And lastly, just quickly, another book
that I've really helped me starting out was a book
(24:22):
called How to Write a Novel by the author John Brain,
who is most well known for a book he wrote
called Room at the Top. And so again it's you
might not be wanting to write a novel specifically, but
it just has a lot of kind of really great
lessons and ideas about how to get started and how
to really just start tackling the thing that you're trying
(24:44):
to do. And it's a big you know, writing anything is,
it's difficult, so it mainly requires practice and and the
other thing, of course, it's just reading and watching and
listening to as much as you can and sort of
taking that in and trying to absorb it. So onto
the next questions, So Samantha asks, do you believe in
the existence of beings not in our realm? In light
(25:06):
of your extensive research over the past years and putting
together Unexplained podcast and your new book, have you been
swayed one way or another in this belief? So I
think this goes back a little bit to the earlier
questions about what I what conclusions I've drawn myself from
some of these stories. And I think the key word
here is believe. So you know, it's something that comes up,
(25:28):
particularly with supernatural paranormal and you know, just stories in
general of that kind, which is the sort of notion
of belief and what you believe in and what you
believe is possible. So I think for me, there was
a quote and I can't remember who says it who
said it? Rather what it was to do with having
seen a particular supposed paranormal event, and in the response
(25:52):
was that I didn't say it was possible, I said
it happened. And I think that's really the approach to
take to the stories, which is that I've known reason
to disbelieve the anecdotal evidence that's being presented, so I
take it at face value. And you know that might
be silly or gullible or ignorant, but the point is
really that is to display the things as they occurred,
(26:14):
or as we're sort of led to believe they occurred,
without interrogating that too much. But going back to the
question so about belief, Well, really the thing is that
I don't think I have seen or come across anything
that was that would convince me of a parallel or
supernatural thing being real actually having taken place. But you know,
(26:37):
I equally haven't seen anything that would that can say
once and for all that it hasn't either, So within that,
you know, I don't I couldn't possibly commit something being
real and until there was there was evidence enough for
that to be a certainty. And of course the thing
is in actual life, the things that we consider to
be real and absolutely true. You know, it's rare to
(26:57):
find that sort of certainty too if you if you
start interrogating things, you get start to get a bit
closer and down and dirty with things. You find that
the things that we do think are true and real
aren't in fact as true and real as we might
think they are, which is also I think a big
sort of theme of the show. So Jeff asks, were
(27:17):
there any potential episodes that you nixed because the subject
matter creeped you out too much? So no, absolutely not.
I think the creepier the better, I would say. Which
brings me to my next book recommendation, or rather book
that has inspired and explained. So this is a writer
that will be familiar to many people who listen to
the show. This is HP Lovecraft. Lovecraft is a complicated
(27:41):
writer to sort of admire, ostensibly because I think it's
quite well documented that he was he was quite racist,
and he had a sort of fear of I think
what he was anti Semitic, and also but had a
particularly repugnant attitude towards anybody who wasn't white, and I
(28:02):
think primarily to Americans who were black. So why that
becomes particularly complicated in terms of his stories, is that
that fear that he had of this otherness, of what
he perceived to be this otherness, as what I would say,
as ignorant and appalling as that was, it was that
(28:22):
fear that he used that was obviously very visceral to him,
that was then sort of imbued in the text and
the language that he used in his sort of horror stories.
So in many ways, the reason why they're so compelling
is because that fear was so real to him, and
so of course that makes it incredibly odd and complicated
(28:44):
and strange when you're reading these stories. Sort of knowing
that fear is the foundation on which these stories are
built and constructed, you know, that is a complicated thing.
That is a complicated thing to kind of hold that
at the same time, but separating the story from that,
what remains are incredibly gripping, horrifying stories and there, and
(29:04):
they're particularly horrifying because they you can sort of feel
that sense of terror person I find it something is
writing quite dense, and it can feel sometimes a bit
of a troll to get through, but always within it
this sort of extraordinary imagination of other worlds that are created.
And what I find most compelling about it is that
the that unlike lots of other stories of this kind
(29:27):
of ilk where you're encouraged ultimately to think that there
was some kind of psychological catalyst that was provoking these stories,
but with Lovecraft, a lot of the time it's actually,
you know, you're you're invited to think that the horror
is real. It's not imaginary. That these creatures, you know,
are existing in their own sort of autonomous way, whether
(29:48):
they be in another realm or under the sea, sort
of subterranean things. And so that I find that particularly compelling.
I mean the book I have if to me at
the moment, it's a collection of his stories. This is
Lovecraft The Call of Clulu or Cthulu, a few different
ideas on how to say that, and other weird stories.
(30:10):
And if I had to pick one for any of
you who haven't read him before, let's go for The
Shadow over Innsmouth. This is actually one of his longer stories,
but plot wise and the revelation that you will discover
on reading it, I think it's it's certainly for me anyway,
it's one of his best. We'll wrap this up with
(30:33):
a couple more questions, Andrew asks. He says, there's probably
a lot of people asking this, but actually you are
the only one, so thank you. It's a good question.
If you could know the definitive answer to just one
unexplained mystery, what would it be and why? So again,
going back to the previous questions, I don't feel the
need necessarily to know the answer, but I think the
(30:55):
one I would most like to know would be the Lightkeepers,
the Lighthousekeepers rather from I think episode eight of the
first season, which was called When the Light Fades. I think,
as some other people have asked me, what was my
own personal favorite, I think that for me is my
favorite one so far. And the reason why I'd like
to know that is because I think anything that involves,
(31:17):
you know, missing people, missing individuals, I think there's something
inherently and obviously terribly tragic about that. For anyone that's
been left behind and not knowing what has happened to
a loved one that has disappeared, I think is you know,
in some ways, almost more horrific than the finding out
that they might have been killed. So Deepmar asks, what
(31:42):
is the appeal of the unexplained in general for you especially,
is it even a good idea to concern oneself with
stuff like that? Wouldn't it be healthier not to do that? Well,
so I know where you're coming from in terms of
you know, I think if you, if you're someone who
might dismiss all these stories out of hand, then it
seems a bit a bit of a nonsense to even
kind of give them the light of day or the
(32:05):
darkness of night as it were, or you know, to
give them any sort of sense of credibility whatsoever. And
I think, again, I think that maybe going back to
something I said earlier, I think that attitude has its
own ignorance in a way. I think everything can have
a potential worth. You know, I don't again, it doesn't
necessarily have to be that that we commit to the
(32:27):
supernatural paranormal explanation, But I think all these stories have
something in them, certainly from a human perspective. There are elements,
There are lots of things within these stories that can
throw up all sorts of questions and ideas and things
that go way sort of above and beyond and transcend
the basic kind of question of whether these things really
(32:48):
happened or what the actual explanation was, and whether that
explanation is something beyond what we currently know or are
aware of as being possible in our world or our reality,
which brings me to my next book recommendation, which is
Ways of Seeing by John Burger. John Berger was a
(33:08):
I think primarily or professionally. His sort of title I
suppose was art critic, but he's much more than that,
and he's written on lots of different subjects, but I
think Ways of Seeing is probably what he was best
known for, so this book. Funnily enough, I won this
when I was about nine or ten years old. I
think I did. I'm a bit hazy on this, but
I think I won this when I took part in
(33:30):
something called the Spaghetti Bridge building competition, which is exactly
as it sounds. When I was at school. I think
our class got put forward for this, and the team
I was in, myself and two others, we came third
in a national competition, so I was very proud of myself,
but I think really it might have had something to
(33:51):
do with the fact that one of my team members
is dad's was an architect, and I think he might
have helped plan the bridge. Anyway, we came third, and
one of the things I won as a sort of
nine or ten year old. This was this book Ways
of Seeing by John Berger, which I was far too
young to appreciate at the time. I don't think I
even read this till late teens, early twenties, but I'm
(34:17):
glad I did because basically, and there's a bit of
a bit of a theme here, I suppose developing with
Unexplained in general, which is that all the book is
really trying to teach you is that there are different
ways to see the world, that there are many different perspectives.
And I think it's something that's become just in mainstream,
everyday kind of conversation. I think it's something we're becoming
(34:39):
more aware of now and are interrogating more and more,
this idea that there's there's not one way to hold
the world, or that there's no you know, there's not
one version of history, there's not one version of the truth.
I think more kind of potently, and so yeah, this
is a book really that kind of establishes that in
a very sort of simplistic and powerful way. And you know,
(35:02):
by looking at art specifically and the ways in which
we as individuals can sort of interpret the same piece
of work in different ways, but also how the way
that work is or art is interpreted differently throughout the years. So,
for example, anybody looking at a painting that was that
(35:22):
was made four hundred years ago is not going to
have the same context that you might have had had
you looked at it when it was first painted, and
so the effect of that piece of art is kind
of distorted in some way. So the effect of that painting,
that piece of art that it has on the viewer
is is changed by not only the sort of context
(35:44):
of the time that it's being observed, but also by
what the viewer brings to the observation. So I think
there's a quote I can't remember again, I think it
was freud l I don't know this for sure, but
who said something like you cannot analyze something about taking
into account the mechanism through which it is observed. And
I think it plays again into this sort of a
(36:05):
whole notion that you might hear sometimes people say, sort
of consciousness makes up the world, you know. I don't
know the degree to which that might be true absolutely,
but I think, you know, there is an element of truth,
and that's certainly that a lot of the time when
you what you're seeing in the world and the way
that you respond to the world is not because of
the truth of what that world is, but how you
(36:28):
interpret that. So in that way, you kind of are
making up the world. You know, for better or worse.
You are kind of constructing the world in your head
as much as the information from that world is being
fed to you, if that makes sense. So just time
for one final question, which is from Peter and Morgan,
who ask both of us are still dying to know
(36:51):
why there is such an unexplained ghostly gap between McClean
Smith in the phrase Richard McClean Smith. It is a
very good question. I think it just came out like that,
and I've sort of felt I had to stick to
it ever since. But it's now kind of taken on
a life of its own where even if I try
to close the gap, it feels like I'm sort of
(37:13):
dishonoring the original version in some ways, so I've tried
to keep it quite consistent. I've also joked about how
I think I should get a T shirt made which
just says Richard McClain on the front and then Smith
on the back. I don't know if I'm quite narcissistic
enough to do it. We'll see. So yeah, thank you
(37:36):
so much for listening. Thank you even more for sending
in your questions and for all your interests that you've
shown in the show. Again, I can't thank you enough
for all the support and kind words, and I hope
you enjoy it going forward. As I mentioned before, I
will put the list of books up on social media,
so Twitter, Facebook, and I'll probably add a few more
(37:58):
in there that I didn't think I had time to
talk about this time around. Very very difficult trying to
compile a small list of books. There have been so
many that have inspired me, and also films and TV
shows that have inspired me immensely, and music too, so
maybe there are more lists to be made at a
later date. Anyway. That's yeah, I think that's it for now.
Once again. The book will be out on October twenty fifth,
(38:20):
and I'm actually going to be doing some live speaking
events which I'll be putting up on my website soon
if anyone's interested in coming along to that. Thank you
very much again for listening to the show. I will
be back next Tuesday with episode eight of season three,
So until then. Now it's time to take care of yourself,
(39:16):
to make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to
a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
video any time between seven a m. To nine pm
local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available
through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit
(39:38):
teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained podcast today to get started.
That's t e l a d oc dot com slash
Unexplained podcast
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