Author Topic: PseudoPod 792: The Rocking-Horse Winner  (Read 923 times)

Bdoomed

  • Pseudopod Tiger
  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 5891
  • Mmm. Tiger.
on: January 09, 2022, 07:03:21 AM
PseudoPod 792: The Rocking-Horse Winner

Author: D. H. Lawrence
Narrator: Alasdair Stuart
Host: Kat Day
Audio Producer: Chelsea Davis

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” was first published in Harper’s Bazaar, July 1926.



There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: “She is such a good mother. She adores her children.” Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other’s eyes.



Listen to this week's PseudoPod.
Follow us on YouTube and Spotify!

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Gary

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 92
Reply #1 on: January 27, 2023, 11:18:11 PM
When I was in the 5th or 6th grade, we were made to read this story and I remember not being at all impressed.
It has a slow build and sure, a kid dies but it wasn't that creepy. The problem was I was too young to appreciate it. I was an avid reader but I read stories that had action and adventure and didn't require nuance in my interpretation. When I read it I was hearing it in MY inner voice and at that age I just wasn't a good narrator. (I have a whole other rant on how people are turned off from literature by being forced to read it before they are individually, mentally ready for it but that is not why I am here now). Sadly, my poor reading of that story coloured the way I viewed D. H. Lawrence from then on.
Until now.
Alasdair has fixed all of that. His reading had me transfixed. It's the length and placement of the pauses, the inflection, the vocal dynamics ... ITS ACTING. This is the same story I read a lifetime ago but now I think it is brilliant and that is all due to this narration.
Thank you Alasdair.