Delicious Word Sandwich

Disgraced wastrel and former history Professor R.B. Ol' Matty discovers and begrudgingly introduces the first ever Delicious Word Sandwich frozen tape! Here, Ol' Matty had the absolute honour of discussing Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" and Jennifer Gordon's debut novel "Beautiful, Frightening and Silent" with none other than the author herself, Jennifer Gordon. Sharing their writing dreams, triumphs, trials and literary tattoo ideas, Ol' Matty and Jennifer Gordon delve into wonderful psychological journeys and grapple soul-curdling horror to masterfully conjure not one, but two Delicious Word Sandwiches of the most unique, experimental, delectable and appropriately terrifying nature. Dr Jekyll wishes he could do horror and madcap concoctions this good.

Jennifer Gordon's Beautiful, Frightening and Silent is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

EPISODE NOTES:

As we know, your ol' pal Ol' Matty is lost in time. According to some misprinted history textbooks, he has spent/is spending much time in Paris trying to defeat Jim Pawsby, the immortal demon bear that has declared itself the dark monarch of the city of lights. While he is doing that, the disgraced wastrel and former history Professor R.B. Ol'Matty reluctantly introduces a prized relic of Delicious Word Sandwich history: the frozen tapes. Why Ol' Matty recorded dynamite interviews onto tape, then put those tapes into the freezer, is anyone's guess. Then again, no one should be surprised.

The tape, however, is surprising. Ol' Matty blows nothing up, doesn't destroy any prized monuments or summon any kind of scourge of the world. Instead, what follows is a fun and in-depth chat with author Jennifer Gordon about her favourite works by Shirley Jackson, what sandwiches they would make, how to properly support and gently stalk your favourite author, and her own debut novel, "Beautiful, Frightening and Silent", the tale of an alcoholic man tortured by survivor's guilt who journeys to a haunted island for the chance to see the ghost of his four-year old son, only to find a crumbling old boarding house and himself becoming involved with a beautiful and manipulative ghost who has spent 60 years tormenting the now elderly man who was her lover, and ultimately her murderer.

Beautiful, Frightening, and Silent is a poetic fever dream of grief, love, and the terrifying ways that obsession can change who we are.

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you dolt, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

Until next time, my Quixotes!

Links:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51712363-beautiful-frightening-and-silent

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0854877HS/ref=x_gr_w_bb_sout?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_sout-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0854877HS&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

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Ol' Matty is kicking back after some well earned dishonourably discharged R&R when he realises that the demon bear terrorising Paris might be somewhat his fault. When a wise cricket tries to give him advice, Ol' Matty heeds by destroying the plane and landing in the Paris Opera, toppling a chandelier into an innocent and aiding a kidnapping in one less-than-heroic swing. Realising that Gaston Leroux's famous alleged Opera Ghost has turned the Opera into a deadly extension of their devious self, Ol' Matty follows the Phantom to his lair hoping to find the bear, in truth, under the pale mask, and, if not, at the very least bust some ghosts. Ol' Matty finds adventure, torture, taverns, and barrels of fun with a pinch of gunpowder. And, of course, he might just find a Delicious Word Sandwich.

Published in 1910 by Gaston Leroux, a renowned investigative journalist, travel writer and sensational crime solver, The Phantom of the Opera became a surprise smash, blending sweeping melodrama and comic-book tier iconography with hard-boiled pulp and gothic literature styles that like a Phantom would haunt popular culture for better or worse evermore. It is a methodical novel rich with characterisations and goofy hyperbole that is ultimately more obsessed with the criminally insane and obsession itself than in heroic Parisian romances, which in spite of modern adaptations is its greatest asset according to Ol’ Matty.

Flying in his very own WW2 Bombing plane, Ol’ Matty rids himself of a pestering cricket by firing his pistol from inside the cockpit. You killed Jiminy and yourself in one shot. Not a hole in one, but certainly a hole in done. As in, you’re done. You get it. Needless to say, Ol’ Matty abandons the plane to crash wherever it may and finds himself falling into the lap of Paris, which is now under the dictating control of our hero’s arch-nemesis: Jim Pawsby, the Nazi, human handed, M16 wielding, unicycling demon bear. He’s a lot.

Swinging into action, quite literally, at the gilded end of a swashbuckler’s rope (a goddamn chandelier), Ol’ Matty causes it to fall on a patron, killing them, and finds his bloody entrance has called a ripe distraction for the infamous Opera Ghost to steal away with a beloved opera singer, Christine Daaé.

Feeling inexplicably partially responsible (“PARTIALLY”!?), Ol’ Matty pays homage to the almighty Bill Murray and prepares to go Opera Ghostbusting, although it is very, very possible that this devilish death’s headed spectre is really Jim Pawsby in disguise. After all, the plot is absurd enough to be perpetuated by a demon bear. Teaming up with the fine wine drinking Gaston Leroux, who really likes his name “Gaston”, a dork named Raoul, a mysterious figure known only as the Persian, and NOT Jiminy Cricket because he bloody shot the little guy, Ol’ Matty ventures to the lair of the Phantom to find the truth, justice and a slice of the redemption he doesn’t even know he needs.

All the same, Ol' Matty has created a delightfully devilish and delicious word sandwich with all the anger, obsession and defiance of Leroux’s iconic antihero, deciphering the ramblings of the hard drinking, gambling and brawling Gaston to find just how this pulp mystery gumshoed through the centuries (bread), venturing on a katabasis into introspective and sometimes cruel story (meat), meeting a complicated, tormented yet brilliant vengeful sociopath (cheese), tearing away the mask to discover the deathly themes (sauce) and then whatever damn well pleases fits with those ingredients He ain’t a chef. I think it’s his way of making sure he adds salad. Well, this time he had no interest in making friends on this adventure, let alone best friends, so I suppose that’s growth, too. Don’t get stuck in catacombs again, Ol’ Matty. The last time had pacing issues.

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but...

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Just when Ol’ Matty thinks he’s got it made, escaping the island, making a new best friend, headed to a new island of wine and people, he start to suspect a strange truth when he is drafted into World War II. Ol’ Matty and his new-new best friend Yo-Yo navigate the perils of the war and, worse, Joseph Heller’s ultimate paradoxical tragedy Catch-22. Thrilling dogfights, tomatoes and potato peelers bloodily fly with Ol’ Matty through the bullet drenched sky as Ol’ Matty comes to learn Joseph Heller’s ultimate truth and confirms his initial suspicion: People are trash, and that may just make life worth living. Damn you, you beautiful Catch-22.

EPISODE NOTES:

A contradiction from beginning to end, when Catch-22 was published in 1961, to a harsh contemporaneous reception and no awards, and then became a best-selling classic, renowned as a masterpiece of the 20th century. Yet Joseph Heller, former WW2 Bombardier and one of the greatest satirists of literature, still found a way to be bitter. Now, everyone’s other favourite contradiction, so he tells me, Ol’ Matty tries to eat the legendary catch. It’s not a fish.

Ol’ Matty has escaped the tropical Tartarus that was his island, filled with malevolent tribes with lasers and laserdiscs, boars as paddlepop sticks and Jim Pawsby doing a wicked sick unicycle flip off the volcano into the unknown. Perhaps that’s the last we’ll see of him. Hopefully. How Ol’ Matty thinks that bear would make an interesting and enduring series nemesis is anybody’s guess, but I won’t bother. He is, as he tells me, a “Stupid genius”.

Ol’ Matty’s salvation came in the form of Major ____ de Coverley, recruiting our inept intrepid hero for his skill (?) of turning literature into sandwiches. What Ol’ Matty thought was a free ride to the vineyard island Pianosa was a cunning ruse (not that cunning) and he was immediately drafted as a bombardier, meeting his newest best friend Yo-Yo. Together, they read through The Match by Colson Whitehead, a hard-hitting short story rife with tragic contradictions, graduate bombardier academy and fly head first into the dog fights of World War 2. Ol’ Matty was having too much fun.

The dogfight in the skies, already a questionable expression, becomes all the more confusing with the addition of more assorted animals, enemies and mischief. I’m pretty sure I heard a nuke somewhere in the mix. He couldn’t just have a simple little World War, could he? No one questioned Ol’ Matty’s paws at the joystick, however, so small victories. But then the Colonel wanted them to finish their mission count and get the hell off his base, so Ol’ Matty made the great sacrifice for friendship and pulled some strings to keep them in the war. Friends will be friends. Yo-Yo was…displeased, and before long, so was the entire airbase. Help the war effort, Ol’ Matty, and leave. Please.

All the same, Ol’ Matty has created a scrumptious enigma of a delicious word sandwich, an edible contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, with all the brutality, perseverance, wit and cynicism of Joseph Heller’s story, along with all the beauty, humanity, tenderness and poetry of that very same story. I’m surprised he didn’t put a coin in there, or, better yet, a nickel. Do so at your own risk, Quixotes.

Catch-22 is the satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller about WW2 bombadier Captain John Yossarian, the perfect audience surrogate being a deeply flawed anti-hero. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, an island not nearly big enough to hold an airbase. Catch-22’s non-chronological structure may at first seem random, but it is, in fact, highly structured based on free association. Okay, I’m calling it...

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Published in 1714 by Daniel Defoe, a notoriously controversial political pamphleteer, Robinson Crusoe marked the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Before the end of the year, the first volume had run through four editions. Now, that’s some 18th century bestselling! From Tom Hanks in Cast Away to Ridley Scott’s The Martian, Robinson Crusoe has had such an endless legacy that there is a word dedicated to its descendants to mark a genre: Robinsonade. It is a profound commentary on society, a tale of isolation and new beginnings, but Ol’ Matty dares to say that this is not a colonialist fairy tale, unwittingly locking horns with many critics including James Joyce. I think you can take him, bud.

After a brush with death in the form of vengeance crazed unicycling bears and angry tribes, Ol’ Matty finds himself safe in a fellow castaway’s hideout. As his friend makes the bread, hunts the meat and gathers the other ingredients, Ol’ Matty makes himself useful, somehow, by regaling the tale of Robinson Crusoe, the tale of a young Englishman who defies the will of his parents, rejects the comforts of civilisation to become an adventurer, and finds himself alone and desolate on a deserted island, struggling turn the wilderness into his own utopia, or even, perhaps, a communist commune. Depends how generous you’re feeling.

I’m noticing that every time Ol’ Matty tries to tell a ripper story, he just can’t find the right audience. Rob seemed downright bored by the telling of Robinson Crusoe, and leaves to investigate some riff raff armed with muskets, despite the M16 wielding grizzly hunting our hero outside. Ol’ Matty followed, armed with a club (sandwich), discovering that Rob had declared war against a group of invading pirates. There was no time to lose.

I mean, of course Ol’ Matty joined the pirates. Who was this Rob guy anyway? It’s not like Rob has the ability of Crusoe and can defeat castaways and pirates alike by mastering fate and the island itself! After all, if Rob and Crusoe were one and the same, that would completely throw our deep and gritty story’s canon. In the first battle for island supremacy of many, I’m sure (knowing Ol’ Matty), our hero and his bafflingly loyal band of buccaneers do battle against some Rob dude and even an older enemy. Look at us, we’ve got recurring characters and intrigue!

All the same, Ol' Matty has created a wonderfully tropical, topical and delicious word sandwich with all the perseverance and self-reflection of Defoe’s landmark novel, salvaging the shipwreak that is 18th century history (bread), swimming deeply into introspective story (meat), meeting nuanced and individualistic characters (cheese), foraging through thoughtful themes (sauce) and whatever he apparently feels fit the setting. I think it’s his way of making sure he adds salad. Well, he can’t seem to make friends even when he’s one of the few options, but he can make an effort.

Robinson Crusoe (1719) is a confessional novel by Daniel Defoe. I say confessional for Defoe was quite cheeky, as the story is written as the journal of the titular character and his castaway adventures. Indeed, the first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents. It was not a hard sell, as this is a contender for the first English novel of all time. And yet Ol’ Matty has the audacity to claim Defoe is as relatable as a university student! I told him not to drink the seawater.

Crusoe is the archetypal story of the castaway on a desert island, a wasteland turned to personal kingdom ripe with grapes and scrapes of all kinds, including pirates, cannibals, and the wrath of nature itself. I think there was some Grenache somewhere, too. That’s a kind of grape, right?...

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Freed from the catacombs, Ol' Matty is now pursued by a vengeful M16 packing bear and has somehow used his "charms" to befriend a secret kingdom of hunters. Surprisingly civil, Ol' Matty decides to repay them with a Delicious Word Sandwich, regaling the story of King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, which can only go well because it's not too colonialist. Idiot.

EPISODE NOTES:

Published in 1886 on a five shilling wager that he could write a story as good as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, H. Rider Haggard became the penultimate pioneer of what would become the lost world genre, which would go on to inspire The Man Who Would Be King, The Lost World and eventually even Indiana Jones. Now, we watch how Ol' Matty, who idolises Indy, dances around not associating himself with big game hunting. Dance, ya hunter, dance.

He tells the tale of King Solomon's Mines, the story of famed hunter Alan Quatermain and his friends travelling to the secret kingdom of Kukuanaland, fighting to return the rightful king to the throne and discovering the fabled diamond treasure. One of the original and archetypal old fashioned adventure stories that few could balk at, and yet Ol' Matty's new friends seem utterly outraged.

In a turn of events that was truly shocking, it seems this was a radical sect of the tribe from the story that were still loyal to the usurped king and his diabolical witch general, and thus it was that Ol' Matty had to make yet another hare brained, and bear pawed, escape.

Now, you may ask about the bear paws. He cut off the bears hands, the bear ate his other human hand, Matt sewed the paws on crudely and they have since been surgically integrated into his body proper thanks to the tribe's liquid diamond technology. He asked after the procedure, naturally, if new human hands were possible (they totally were). All the same, Ol' Matty has created a wonderfully delicious word sandwich with all the danger and mystery of Haggard's iconic lost world adventure, hunting through the jungles of history (bread), story (meat), characters (cheese), themes (sauce) and his final thoughts (seasoning). On the run from both the bear and the tribe, he may have forgotten to add salad. One step forward, two steps backward and into their awaiting spears? One can only hope.

King Solomon's Mines (1885) is a rollicking adventure by the English Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party, with startling imagery and visceral adventure around every corner. It is the first English adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered to be the genesis of the Lost World literary genre. Just keep the colonial/imperialist undertone in the back of the mind, taking the whole thing with a grain of salt. Note, add a little salt to sandwich.

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you dolt, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

For more short stories like the one featured here, All Will Be Well by Yiyun Li, see The New Yorker either online or subscribe to have the magazine delivered for those delectable morning reads. You sponsor me too, New Yorker. Look at me GO.

I have only ever read the book with my own eyeballs so I can't personally vouch for any version on Audible, however there is an Audible exclusive, which are always exceptionally produced...

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Published in 1926, Ernest Hemingway told the spicy, dramatic tale of a group of passionate and broken expatriates spending a wine-hazed week at the Pamplona Fiesta, where all their interpersonal dramas come to full boil. Things are heating up for Ol' Matty, too, as he finds seducing a volcano for a ride out of the Center of the Earth was more than he bargained for. I'm not even surprised anymore. Sure, seduce a volcano.

Turns out the writer of Ol' Matty's available is just as lazy as Verne, and the lethally dead-end plotline of wandering his subterranean prison are coming to an abrupt and epic end. After successfully turning the volcano on with a whole new segment, things got a little too saucy and lava-y for Ol' Matty as he is shot out of the volcano like a cannon, skyrocketing toward the surface. Quite a bit hungry, he uses this convenient burst of heat to make the spicy and boozy sandwich based on Ernest Hemingway's spicy and boozy novel, The Sun Also Rises. Say what you will about the Ol' fool, but he knows how to see the silver linings in things, and always when is the right time to drink - it may be his last, after all.

Finding himself back on the surface eventually, and more importantly back in his element with his idol Hemingway, Ol' Matty may be elevated but he is delving deeper and deeper into history and literary analysis all the same. I was about to be impressed to be honest, I mean, the guy seems to be able to summon an orchestra for dramatic readings, but then he was attacked by a bear and it got weird again.

Even though he now has paws for hands (Yes, both hands. Don't ask), once again Ol' Matty has created a wonderfully delicious word sandwich with a dangerously high alcoholic content, shimmying down the skinny of history (bread), story (meat), characters (cheese), themes (sauce) and his final thoughts (seasoning). But get this, he may have stitched bear paws on but he is healthier, he added both tomato and lettuce just for kicks!

The novel is a impassioned, and beautifully spun and exaggerated roman à clef: the characters are based on real people in Hemingway's circle, and the action is based on real events. Hemingway presents his notion that Gertrude Stein's "Lost Generation"— who she and many else considered to have been decadent, dissolute, and irretrievably damaged by World War I—was in fact resilient and strong. Hemingway investigates the themes of love and death, the revivifying power of nature, and the concept of masculinity.

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you dolt, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

For more short stories like the one featured here, see The New Yorker either online or subscribe to have the magazine delivered for those delectable morning reads. You sponsor me too, New Yorker. Look at me GO.

I have only ever read the book with my own eyeballs so I can't personally vouch for any version on Audible, however there is one read by William Hurt who I know is quite good and think we can trust, Quixotes.

If you really don't want to read or listen, I recommend the 1957 film. Hemingway himself didn't like it because it was shot in Mexico for budget reasons, but the script itself treats the original text as gospel, the story is streamlined excellently and the dialogue is more or less directly lifted from the book. While Errol Flynn was glorious casting, and Ava Garner turned in a fine performance as Brett Ashley, other than Flynn the cast is terribly miscast on account of age, all at least 20 years older than they should be. Nevertheless, you forgive Ava Garner and Errol Flynn due to their solid performances, and Tyrone Power and Mel Ferrer are eventually believable as Jake Barnes and Robert Cohn. I...

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In a severely over-budgeted and tragically lost filmed sequence, Ol' Matty slew Breaderick the demon, who turned out to be a lousy side-kick, friend and understandable co-host. Our hero now follows the advice of Jules Verne's subterranean adventurers, delving deep into the earth, the courage of humanity, and his own snickers bar food reserves in an attempt to finally escape the catacombs. I keep telling him Snickers weren't a good food ration for his journey (other than his delicious word sandwiches), but he keeps bringing up that they're full of nuts. Well, so is he.

His spirit has somewhat returned since slaying Breaderick. It was brutal. I wish you could have seen it. I think at one point Ol' Matty literally consumed all of the souls Breaderick himself had harvested. I guess that makes Ol' Matty a demon as well as undead, but who's counting? Me. I'm counting. The idiot is going to become a God with his lunacy, while me, with my stupid sane and responsible decisions, shall die a sane mortal, and he'll be all like, "The key is just enjoying yourself" as he ascends to Valhalla and Olympus at ONCE.

Despite losing oxygen and a lot of bread, Ol' Matty explores every layer beneath Verne's earth's crust. He always was one to eat the whole pizza. With neither Hemingway or Plath to guide him, Ol' Matty returns to the glamorous whimsy of French literature of his youth, and using a variety of sources, spelunks through bread (Background), meat/meat-substitute (Story), cheese (Characters), sauce (Themes) and seasoning (final thoughts/feelings). It's not easy to make a sandwich out of a story that takes place 20,000 feet below the earth's surface, but by gum my boy did it.

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth is the second of Jules Verne’s “voyages extraordinaires,” a vast project entailing nearly a score of novels about adventures on, beneath, and above the earth and seas. By combining diligent research into scientific fact and hypothesis with his natural bent as a storyteller, he moulded a popular form of narrative which appealed to his nineteenth century audience’s appetite for tales of wonder.

Keeping with the theme, somehow, of The Bell Jar and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, the story is yet another journey through the darkest layers of the human psyche and back, as well as a ripping story of adventure. Yes, Ol' Matty, I know you wanted more swords. Science was their sword, sir! ...no, you're lame.

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you dolt, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

I read this story twice, once with that tiny narrator in my mind, the second on Audible listening to Tim Curry's superb read through. I must say, my Quixotes, that I think Jules Verne himself would be proud of this somehow at once fresh, faithful and buoyant revival of his story, and would laude the use of technology to listen - so by no means feel unfaithful or less legitimate by taking in the story with Audible's production of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, read by Tim Curry in a way that makes every layer of Verne's first iconic world bloom into life.

The 2008 adaptation of Journey to the Centre of the Earth I will confess got me through purely on the shoulders of the mighty Brendan Fraser, however I did very much enjoy the concept of Vernians, a secret society that function on the premise that Jules Verne's works were non-fiction. Like the rest of the world, the 4D gimmick I found pretty lacklustre alas. The 1959 adaptation did its best but hasn't aged well, but if you really don't want to read I would say is the better bet, being labelled, "a silly but fun movie with everything you'd want from a sci-fi blockbuster –...

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The Demon Breaderick has run off with Ol' Matty's Kilimanjaro Sandwich, severing our hero's hand and hope in the process. In his despair, Ol' Matty finds an understanding voice in Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", a hearty and heartfelt coming of age story about growth through pain and suffering.

Published in 1963, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is Ol' Matty's only hope for survival as he lies desolate and bereft in the catacombs that may well soon become his own tomb. Breaderick, eating the Snows of Kilimanjaro sandwich, has also taken Ol' Matty's hand and his spirit. The bastard.

It is both a blessing and a curse that The Bell Jar was so rich for analysis and such a challenge to translate into ingredients on every complex layer. Indeed, so raw and intense it was, that Ol' Matty tried to "DiCaprio my liver", in hopes for an accurate bloody sandwich and an Oscar to beat Breaderick to death with. So, yeah. He's mad. In every sense of the word.

Now venturing beyond the comfortable shores of his Isle of Hemingway, Ol' Matty uses both his Pinky and his Brain, and a variety of sources, to tear into bread (Background), meat/meat-substitute (Story), cheese (Characters), sauce (Themes) and seasoning (final thoughts/feelings), and amazingly managed to incorporate a vegetable. My boy's growing up. Should have had a demon eat his hand and steal his lunch a long time ago.

The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed. Nevertheless, it rings so earnestly it's like having stolen into her most personal journals. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef because the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder. Plath died by suicide a month after its first UK publication (believing her novel a failure due to its lukewarm initial reception). The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother.

In a way, it's a psychological journey to Hell and back, how Esther loses her mind, soul and identity and then through a personal odyssey filled with blood, lightning and ghosts from her past returns from the darkest depths unto a new dawn. No, Ol' Matty, that doesn't mean demon meat is the ideal meat for this either. GIVE UP THIS QUEST FOR VENGEANCE ELSE IT DESTROY YOU, MY FRIEND!

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you nit, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

Ol' Matty listened to The Bell Jar through Audible upon his first reading, performed absolutely perfectly by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Would recommend completely, and indeed found that he preferred her voice to his own damn eyeballs.

A none too impressive adaptation was made in 1979, and Kirsten Dunst hopes to make her directorial debut with her own adaption soon. I for one welcome this heartily, oft believing Dunst has an untapped, incredible dramatic calibre that's just enough to take on this most colossal of challenges.

Until next time, my Quixotes! Tuesday week Ol' Matty and his new arch-nemesis, the demon Breaderick, shall return with a metamorphosis and analysis of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Ol' Matty doesn't have a literature degree, but he does read a lot:

For wanting to look more into the bulk of this analysis, refer to:

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In the first official episode of Delicious Word Sandwich, which critics have acclaimed as "Wait, what is it?" and "Get out of my office", Ol' Matty is resurrected by his Librarian Overlords so that they may recover their treasured literary works from his corpse, which had been lost when Ol' Matty climbed Mount Kilimanjaro hoping to ask the snow leopard, as described (dead) in Hemingway's 1936 story, what exactly it was looking for. Apparently, Ol' Matty insisted, the final thoughts are "inscribed on the brain, the delicious, delicious brain". The guy eats books and only sometimes turns them into sandwiches, so I don't know what I expected.

Through painstaking analysis and an astounding and worryingly encyclopedic mind filled with the history of Hemingway and his stories, Ol' Matty breaks down the titan of Ernest's short-story work into bread (Background), meat/meat-substitute (Story), cheese (Characters), sauce (Themes) and seasoning (final thoughts/feelings), because he clearly has never heard of vegetables.

For his first full-fledged analysis, Ol' Matty thought it best to begin with a short-story, hoping to keep it short and sweet. Short and Sweet, that's what he said.

In 1936, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" was published in Esquire Magazine, and is considered the most artistically triumphant of all of Hemingway's works, many ranking it alongside his acclaimed novels such as "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea". This short-story tells the tale of a writer on his death-bed, reflecting on his life and who he has become, plagued more by his rotting regret than the gangrene in his leg. As he waits impatiently for the disappointing sensation of death, he talks with his wife, Helen, whose wealth he blames for corrupting his talent and worth, and passes in and out of consciousness into reverie of story's left untold, some better left as such, the women he's known and the talent he's wasted. In the end, it's a tale of one realising both the purity and the corruption that exists within a soul, among other things. Also, Ol' Matty experimented far too much trying to replicate the taste of gangrene.

Love stories? Love hearing about the tales of old with Ol' Matty but want to know them yourself? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Well, you nit, check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro and other stories" read by Stacey Keach (AKA Detective Mike Hammer) is available on Audible

A film adaptation starring Gregory Peck and directed by Henry King was made in 1952. It does not mirror the story's ending and does about as well as one would expect a film based on a short-story to do. Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner turn in good performances.

Until next time, my Quixotes! Tuesday week Ol' Matty and his new best friend, the demon Breaderick, shall return with a metamorphosis and analysis of Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar".

Ol' Matty doesn't have a literature degree, but he does read a lot:

If you want to read more about the best novels of 2018 as according to the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2018-in-review/the-best-books-of-2018

For more about V.S. Naipaul, a writer who seized his talent all the way: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/vs-naipaul-dead-died-author-death-house-mr-biswas-nobel-prize-literature-booker-a8488011.html

For more terrible sex scenes in literature (Seriously, Murakami's amazing but his sex-scenes stop his stories dead):

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Knowledge is power. So is food. Therefore eat knowledge. "Oh! The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss goes to many, many places - especially if you read it with Ol' Matty - but does it go through my digestive tract?

Come meet for the first time your ol' pal Ol' Matty, and together we shall read literature, carefully adapt them into a sandwich, because my doctor says my stomach can't take another hardback. So come feast on knowledge and yeast, as intellectual friends are want to do, in the very first book club sandwich.

Today, my Quixotes, 'tis an appeteaser, wherein we digest the topsy-turvy times, rhymes and life philosophy of Dr. Seuss as seen in his final published work, Oh! The Places You'll Go, bit by bit finding what ingredients he truly writ.

Along the way, bolstered by the whimsy of the good Doctor, we might just figure out how Ol' Matty's literary culinary science works.

If you're cold, cold heart is still embittered from life's death by a thousand paper cuts, then look no further than Colleghumor's "Oh! The Places You'll (Actually) Go": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIP8lFWa_mg

Love stories? Want to join the Book Club Sandwich but don't have the time or desire to sit down and read? Check out Audible, where you can drive to your destination and faraway lands all at once. P.S. Audible, please sponsor me.

https://www.audible.com.au/

Note, Audible had a wonderful audiobook of John Lithgow reading today's "Oh! The Places You'll Go", but we have been betrayed by the copyright villains. Whence my good friends at Audible renew this copyright, I shall let you know, Quixotes!

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