Pseudopod 214: Wendigo

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 214: Wendigo

By Micaela Morrissette, managing editor of Conjunctions

Read by The Word Whore, of Air Out My Shorts

Her elegant companion invited her to accompany him to the grocery store, and she accepted. “Dress warmly,” he counseled. He drove for hours in the dark, the headlights spinning uncertainly off the broken curbs, the sharp teeth of the stoops, the strobing telephone poles. The supermarket was in a bad neighborhood, but vast, swallowing several city blocks. Homeless were encamped at the intersections of the aisles. They each took a cart and moved quickly to the meat department, looking neither left nor right. The meat department was a gargantuan walk-in refrigerator: the space so enormous and the cold mist so dense that she could not see from one wall to the opposite. They did not leave each other’s sides. They did not speak or touch. They filled their carts: chicken, goat, bear, salmon, pork, lamb, conch, squab, rabbit, shark, beef, veal, turkey, eel, venison, duck, mussels, ostrich, frogs, pheasant, squirrel, seal. Tripe, kidneys, liver, tongue, and brains. She suggested the purchase of some lemons and marinade; he reproved her cordially.

Full text available here, from Weird Tales magazine

Sponsored this week by Audible.com and METAtropolis: Cascadia, the provocative sequel to the highly acclaimed METAtropolis series, featuring interconnected stories by today’s top science fiction writers, performed by a galaxy of Star Trek ® stars. Download a free introductory chapter and find the complete book at http://www.audible.com/meta




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Bdoomed]

Gross.  Interesting but gross.

[yaksox]

I know not everyone can stomach stories that are this adjective-rich but I can.
Not sure if I can say the whole thing was consistently great but there were flashes of brilliance, or at least bits I connected with like the toothpaste bits.
After the scene where they were eating the host I starting thinking a lot of The Cook, the thief, his wife and her lover.

[Scattercat]

Why is everyone always so horrified by the idea of eating human flesh?  Obviously, one doesn't want to make a habit of it, what with the risk of neurological diseases or parasites, but I have a hard time feeling any visceral loathing about it, which is always what these sorts of stories rely on for their tension.  I'd be a lot more horrified about something involving eating feces or pus, something disease-ridden and legitimately disgusting.

The writing was fun, but it went on a little too long for my tastes.  Once it became clear that it was one of those meandering imagery-heavy stories, we mostly just sat around and waited for her to get eaten.  I did approve of the subversion of that particular trope with her being deemed "not delicious enough."  Kind of a "Yeah, okay," story.

[iamafish]

Loved the story, loved the reading, really didn't like the writing. Just far too rich and overdone. I like beautiful descriptions and imagery, but I think they need to be more subtle. It just felt a little forced and overdone for my liking, which slightly ruined a really awesome story. I've only been listening for a couple of week, but this is my fav so far, especially from the point of view of the story.

[kingNOR]

Had to stop this one.  I've got a pretty tough stomach, but I was having trouble hearing the story for the elaborate descriptions of desiccated flesh.

[Gorbash]

I'll grant that the story had some weaknesses, particularly in the character of her companion who irritated me every time he showed up,  but I absolutely loved the dreamlike reading by the Word Whore - from the start, I was willing to just let the story wash over me.  I've been an AOMS listener for a long long time, but this is the best I've ever heard from her.

I'm afraid I didn't get the ending though?

[stePH]

I'm afraid I didn't get the ending though?

You followed better than I did, then. The whole story was lost on me.

[kibitzer]

Not quite finished but so far, this has a pretty high squick factor. The writing produces the effect of many sensations overlaying each other which I think is what they're going for.

[Scattercat]

I'm afraid I didn't get the ending though?

You followed better than I did, then. The whole story was lost on me.

Their love of her is self-love, fundamentally grasping and greedy rather than wholesome and giving, just as their desire to be eaten is selfish rather than altruistic.  She realizes this after deluding herself for a long time that her desire to give of herself was a generous impulse.  Such a love is ultimately self-defeating.

[stePH]

Their love of her is self-love, fundamentally grasping and greedy rather than wholesome and giving, just as their desire to be eaten is selfish rather than altruistic.  She realizes this after deluding herself for a long time that her desire to give of herself was a generous impulse.  Such a love is ultimately self-defeating.

Uh... okay. I'll take your word for it.

[ElectricPaladin]

I loved this one. It was disgusting and delicious.

Seriously, though, this one was great. It has that quality of great horror of being totally inexplicable and horrible, but in a way that's pervasive, creeping, rather than simply inconsistent. It contrasted nicely with Hexagon, which I thought was merely inconsistent. I enjoyed the vague sense that the narrator was now other than human, with the details gradually falling into place, but the true nature of her new condition never really emerging. The fact that I never really understood what was going on added to the horror, but the details (the plethora of awful, awful details) created a sense of horror nonetheless.

And I'm trying to lose weight, you know. Good story for that.

[Unblinking]

The writing in this one was pretty much impenetrable.  After several minutes went by, I thought to myself "What has happened so far?" and all I could come up with was "They're having a meal, with excruciating detail."    Under-describing can make a setting vague and generic, but over-describing just makes my mind wander, especially when the meaning of the description is so unclear.  Why go to such depth to tell me that things glowed but specifically did not glitter, and then go on and on about it?

And then after 10 minutes or so of nothing much happening in many words, she yanks the guy's deteriorating finger off.  Which was weird, but not so weird as when she suddenly and inexplicably decided to eat it?  Even if you are a cannibal, don't you think you ought to consider avoiding eating the flesh of someone whose fingers are falling off on their own?  That sounds a bit like leprosy, and I'm pretty sure that eating leprous flesh is not good for you, though I'm waiting for the FDA's official findings to draw any firm conclusions on the matter.  After she chose to eat his finger I really had no sympathy for her deteriorating condition--if you eat what she ate, you don't have much room to complain about any sort of medical condition you end up with.

Shortly after I decided to give up on the story.  Cannibalism usually really creeps me out, but that wasn't really my sticking point here, it was more the overdescription of every detail and the fact that I had no sympathy for the characters who apparently had no sense of self-preservation.

[Grrlwriter]

I'm hoping that I make it through to the end of this one - kudos to Pseudopod for posting a story that quite literally turned my stomach so much I had to stop listening mid story!  And for helping me realize that apparently cannibalism freaks me out in a really big way.  I wonder what hidden neuroses will be uncovered next...   

[Unblinking]

I'm hoping that I make it through to the end of this one - kudos to Pseudopod for posting a story that quite literally turned my stomach so much I had to stop listening mid story!  And for helping me realize that apparently cannibalism freaks me out in a really big way.  I wonder what hidden neuroses will be uncovered next...   

I'm guessing... a fear of hamsters!

[stePH]

The cannibalism aspect didn't bother me in the slightest. I just didn't care for losing 40 minutes on a pointless story.

[kibitzer]

Seems to me the story was a sensual excess, which in some ways is what a Wendigo is about. Whilst they're gaunt, emaciated and rotting, they're also greedy, gluttonous and can never get enough. That suggests a veering between lean gauntness and bloated excess, something I think the story conveyed in the heavily detailed descriptions. On the one hand, exotic feasts; on the other, a bag of shrimp. On the one hand, her suave yet damaged companion; on the other the simple workmate.

[The Far Stairs]

The cannibalism was pretty gross, but not because they were eating human flesh. It was more the elaborate way it was described. The author could have described eating grapes or doing laundry in that florid, super-ultimate-descriptive style and it would have been just as gross. It was like someone tying you to a chair and forcing you to eat adjectives until you puked. At times, I pictured the author being held at knifepoint by a maniac panting "More words. More words. Use bigger ones. Yes. You know how I like it."

I have to agree with the prevailing sentiment that the style killed the story. There was an interesting idea buried in there somewhere, but it was pretty much unrecognizable. I was in Mississippi for Thanksgiving, and there's a vine there called kudzu which some unsuspecting Southerner imported from Japan years ago not realizing it would spread like wildfire and swallow the entire landscape; this story reminded me of the rocks and/or small bushes which appear only as shapeless bumps in the mass of tangled vines. I could sense something under all that verbiage which might potentially have involved me in the events of the characters' lives, but I just couldn't grab hold of it. It didn't help that the characters were nameless; that conceit, for me, rarely adds to a story, and often comes across as pretentious. Are they too fabulous and mystical to have names? Are we just not cool enough to know their names? I guess maybe our awe at the heroine's uncommon sensitivity might be diminished if we knew her name was "Shirley." They all seem to drift through a shimmering world of intense meaning which has little to do with our world. Do they really always "lunge" when they move forward? Do they always "grasp" or "grip" instead of just hold things or pick them up? Do they constantly tremble with unspoken desire and never have trouble with bus schedules?

I guess maybe some people feel at home in that world and enjoy hearing about it, but I don't. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, but that kind of writing bugs me. I don't get horror from it, because it bears no resemblance to my experiences. In order to feel horror, I need some kind of grounding in reality; the banal details of the everyday are just as important as the fantastic outlandish events because they provide contrast and that sense of shock when the scary stuff does occur. Take Episode 209, "Corvus Curse," which I thought was brilliant: there's such an underlying humanity to that story that even when completely ridiculous things happen, you can still put yourself in the narrator's place and feel his surprise, pain, and loss. More stories like that, please!

[Scattercat]

I like heavy style.  I speak/think in elaborate metaphors to begin with...

[deflective]

how elaborate are they?

[Scattercat]

how elaborate are they?

As baroque and filigreed as a faberge egg sculptor's laudanum-induced fever-dreams.

[Unblinking]

It didn't help that the characters were nameless; that conceit, for me, rarely adds to a story, and often comes across as pretentious. Are they too fabulous and mystical to have names? Are we just not cool enough to know their names? I guess maybe our awe at the heroine's uncommon sensitivity might be diminished if we knew her name was "Shirley."

I wondered that too.  I wonder what the author had in mind when making the choice to keep them nameless?

[Scattercat]

It didn't help that the characters were nameless; that conceit, for me, rarely adds to a story, and often comes across as pretentious. Are they too fabulous and mystical to have names? Are we just not cool enough to know their names? I guess maybe our awe at the heroine's uncommon sensitivity might be diminished if we knew her name was "Shirley."

I wondered that too.  I wonder what the author had in mind when making the choice to keep them nameless?

No one has any names when you're speaking in Literature.  The grammar of Literature is not an easy one.

[Kanasta]

I'm really bored of the no-name stories; they seem to pop up more and more. I get the impression it's meant to give the story a timeless, universal significance, or something, but I just find it makes it hard to connect to or picture the people in the story. I didn't finish listening to this one as I just could not get into it.

[Hafwit]

That was beautiful and hypnotic (as well as a bit squicky). The Word Whore's voice fit this one perfectly.

[Unblinking]

I'm really bored of the no-name stories; they seem to pop up more and more. I get the impression it's meant to give the story a timeless, universal significance, or something, but I just find it makes it hard to connect to or picture the people in the story. I didn't finish listening to this one as I just could not get into it.

I also find it harder to connect to the characters, and it just strikes me as lazy writing.

[Dave]

If the disturbing beauty of Claire Suzanne Elizabeth Cooney's "My Body, Your Banquet" were take to its logical extreme (and I do mean extreme), both the lyric eroticism and gut churning horror elevated to dizzying heights, you might have this story.

Really sick, sick stuff.

Well done.

[Dave]

The cannibalism itself was no big deal. I mean, the story is called "Wendigo", so you know from the start somebody's gonna get et. The disturbing part was the minds and behaviors of the cannibals. The insight into what sort of person might act that way was all too plausible.

Also it was pretty clear that the narrator was unreliable, not lying necessarily, but delusional. In this case, the dreamy mental fog we all swam through with her worked for me, and the WW's reading was spot on.

For myself, I enjoyed the Companion.

[Boggled Coriander]

Description in my own fiction tends to be sparse.  It's not that I don't like long descriptive passages; it's that I never really learned how to write them.  

I really liked the descriptions in this story.  They motivated me to try to learn to write better descriptive passages myself.  And I think it's because of food.

I like food.  I like eating all kinds of food.  The descriptions of food in this story got to me.  They stimulated the food-wanting parts of my brain, and made me want to improve my own writing so I can write like that.

And you're all thinking "Ew" because of the story's subject matter.  The really sick thing is, I'm not kidding about any of this.  Yeah, I've managed to disturb myself a little.

[Loz]

I'm not sure if we've had such a food-filled story since The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray right back at the very dawn of time and I enjoyed it. Any story about gourmands, even perverse ones, has to have lots of OTT descriptions of food and feasting, people generally don't complain that Dracula stories have a tall and wan East European snacking on people's necks before Grand Moff Tarkin comes to finish them off after all. That said it did slow things down and I did lose my way a bit at times but this was a wonderful reading by the Word Whore with the right level of dreamy detachment from the reality of the character's actual situation.

[stePH]

The cannibalism itself was no big deal. I mean, the story is called "Wendigo", so you know from the start somebody's gonna get et.

...unless you don't know what "wendigo" means. I only just thought to Google it now.

[Unblinking]

I'm not sure if we've had such a food-filled story since The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray right back at the very dawn of time and I enjoyed it. Any story about gourmands, even perverse ones, has to have lots of OTT descriptions of food and feasting, people generally don't complain that Dracula stories have a tall and wan East European snacking on people's necks before Grand Moff Tarkin comes to finish them off after all. That said it did slow things down and I did lose my way a bit at times but this was a wonderful reading by the Word Whore with the right level of dreamy detachment from the reality of the character's actual situation.

If you listen to EP, there was "This, My Body" definitely food-oriented.

[Scattercat]

Also Smidgen.

[Listener]

TWW is an excellent reader.

I was very much bothered by the eating of the fingertip, but that's personal to me -- I nearly lost a fingertip when I was six. Literally hanging on by a thread. It's fine now, but still. Blergh.

I felt the story went on far too long, and I didn't really care enough about the MC. The gradual reveal of the companion was cool.

[Loz]

I'm not sure if we've had such a food-filled story since The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray right back at the very dawn of time and I enjoyed it. Any story about gourmands, even perverse ones, has to have lots of OTT descriptions of food and feasting, people generally don't complain that Dracula stories have a tall and wan East European snacking on people's necks before Grand Moff Tarkin comes to finish them off after all. That said it did slow things down and I did lose my way a bit at times but this was a wonderful reading by the Word Whore with the right level of dreamy detachment from the reality of the character's actual situation.

If you listen to EP, there was "This, My Body" definitely food-oriented.

Also Smidgen.

All right, but apart from 'This, My Body' and 'Smidgen', what stories about food have the Romans ever given us?

[The Word Whore]

    thank you so much for all the very kind comments RE the reading.....   it was quite a struggle.   deeply sorry for the echo / poor sound quality!!

[Unblinking]

   thank you so much for all the very kind comments RE the reading.....   it was quite a struggle.   deeply sorry for the echo / poor sound quality!!

There was an echo/poor sound quality?

[The Word Whore]

   thank you so much for all the very kind comments RE the reading.....   it was quite a struggle.   deeply sorry for the echo / poor sound quality!!

There was an echo/poor sound quality?

i thought so      suffered many technical difficulties during this recording.  very relieved listeners didn't reject on that basis!!

[Hafwit]

   thank you so much for all the very kind comments RE the reading.....   it was quite a struggle.   deeply sorry for the echo / poor sound quality!!

There was an echo/poor sound quality?

i thought so      suffered many technical difficulties during this recording.  very relieved listeners didn't reject on that basis!!

I didn't notice this, so I don't think it's terribly pronounced. 

[The Far Stairs]

how elaborate are they?

As baroque and filigreed as a faberge egg sculptor's laudanum-induced fever-dreams.

LOL! But I've read your stories! (They're very good.) I always thought your writing style was pretty direct and to-the-point.

For myself, I enjoyed the Companion.

You, er... enjoyed him? As in... well...

All right, but apart from 'This, My Body' and 'Smidgen', what stories about food have the Romans ever given us?

"The Evil-Eater"?

[AliceNred]

I think the poetry of the words with its romance, decadence of food,  balanced the subject matter nicely.

The food is presented in both a glorious way and gross.

Where I understand that Windgos, are humans whom consume human flesh, it did not seem like they gained anything extra for doing so, and windgos do: strength, speed and healing. You can say, of course they did, because of the way they could go on, where others would have perished. BUT... in this universe that just seems part of the course.

To me, they are not windgos. But since they aren't real, I guess the author and reader, can feel free to change what makes up one imaginary creature from another. And at least, they didn't sparkle.

Food is at best as an expression of love. Cake anyone?

[Scattercat]

As baroque and filigreed as a faberge egg sculptor's laudanum-induced fever-dreams.

LOL! But I've read your stories! (They're very good.) I always thought your writing style was pretty direct and to-the-point.

I appreciate that.  But that just means that I have learned to save my metaphors for when they count and introduce them more subtly.  You'll notice, if you look for it, an unusually high proportion of "like" and "as" in my writing, as I constantly compare things to other, dissimilar things.  I try to catch myself if I notice I've put three of them all in a row.

[Unblinking]

   thank you so much for all the very kind comments RE the reading.....   it was quite a struggle.   deeply sorry for the echo / poor sound quality!!

There was an echo/poor sound quality?

i thought so      suffered many technical difficulties during this recording.  very relieved listeners didn't reject on that basis!!

I didn't notice this, so I don't think it's terribly pronounced. 

I didn't notice any problems whatsoever.  I didn't dig the story, but that was just because I didn't dig the story, not because of the reading or recording.

[The Far Stairs]

I appreciate that.  But that just means that I have learned to save my metaphors for when they count and introduce them more subtly.  You'll notice, if you look for it, an unusually high proportion of "like" and "as" in my writing, as I constantly compare things to other, dissimilar things.  I try to catch myself if I notice I've put three of them all in a row.

Fair enough!

[jeroen94704]

I really dig the reading by TWW for this one. Her voice was exceptionally appropriate here.

As for the story, I felt it was more slipstream than horror (which is not a bad thing!). Eating human meat in itself does not necessarily disturb me. I've always said that if anyone ever survives plane crash in which I perish, and they find themselves stranded and without food, go ahead and eat me! I'd do the same in the reverse situation.

Nevertheless, this story succeeded in disturbing me because of the way it handled the subject. I guess the significant difference is cannibalism as a means of nourishment versus cannibalism as an end in itself. That, and the ritualistic, almost religious way in which the characters approach their habit is what made it work.

This, combined with the rich prose, made it give me quite a slipstream feeling.

Jeroen

[Lift]

An enjoyable, if elaborate "clinic" on the use of description. A grotesque, "Bizarro" plunge into surreal cannibalism.

I appreciated it greatly, but after the fifth or sixth minute was already growing seasick on the high waves of language (not to mention the language itself!) And it seemed the greatest focus was this and only this.

Sort of like a Jazz-Fusion concert, amazing, inventive, intricate, but largely without melody.

[kibitzer]

Sort of like a Jazz-Fusion concert, amazing, inventive, intricate, but largely without melody.

Nice analogy -- can feel that sensation/experience very clearly.

[Bete]

Just listened to this and wanted to say how much I enjoyed the story and the reading.

From the first opening lines, I was drawn into the sensuality - despite the horror.  Something about food and sex that gets me every time. 

I will admit I was a bit lost at the end and didn't quite understand what I had just witnessed.  I am ok with being left somewhat confused and for things to be vague, but I'd hate to think I missed an important note or thought or theme.

Thanks to all involved who made the podcast happen.

[Fenrix]

   thank you so much for all the very kind comments RE the reading.....   it was quite a struggle.   deeply sorry for the echo / poor sound quality!!

I did get the echo while listening on the car speakers, but teh Word Whore was amazing as usual so it is forgiven. It was a hard story to listen to, so I can only imagine how difficult it was to get into the character and read it.

Their love of her is self-love, fundamentally grasping and greedy rather than wholesome and giving, just as their desire to be eaten is selfish rather than altruistic.  She realizes this after deluding herself for a long time that her desire to give of herself was a generous impulse.  Such a love is ultimately self-defeating.

I think Scattercat nails the heart of the story. This was a rough listen, but there was so much more than just body horror that it kept me listening.