This short story is part of the curriculum for AICE literature, I've never tried an audio book, but I will say you did an amazing job and being read to genuinely helped me understand the theme and purpose of the short story
This has always been my favourite short story, ever since I read it many years ago. And I havent read it for a long, long time. As before when I've read it, it brought me to tears when I heard your reading. Because I too have had dreams very similar to the paradisical garden in the protagonist's waking dream. And I've woken up feeling bereft that the dream ended and just wanting to go back into it. I think the descriptions of the trees, leaves, the golden light, and of course the wonderful garden itself are both ineffably beautiful and sad. It moves me deeply. Thank you Tony for doing it justice with your gorgeous voice. ❤️
Don't listen to anyone who says you 'waffle'. Your chats are very interesting, specially about H G Wells coming from Kent. I live in Kent and I didn't know that! Thank you.
A haunting story. I'm afraid I, too, will now be tormented by the thought that there is a door through which paradise, freedom, pure joy exists. I have but to find it. And have the courage to go through it. Thank you for your excellent choice of story and your excellent rendering of it.
To me the door in the wall was the path to happiness that Wallace never took. He gave up what really mattered for a meaningless existence. Your voice really do justice to his anguish and deep longing for paradise lost. Always enjoyed your comments and takes on the story and author. So waffle on.
I wish I had said that instead of the big long message which expressed the exact same sentiment!!! Great minds think alike! Isn’t this channel the best in paranormal fiction!?! I think so But I always make a fool of myself when I leave a comment because I’m trying to express my gratitude in a clever way (trying too hard) & it always backfires on me......
@@janetcw9808 That is so sweet of you! I actually deleted my original comment!!! It was criticised- so it was for the best! Thank you so much! You have made you feel better about myself! Angel blessings angel girl!🌹🕊🤍🕊🌹
I found it a very sad story to be honest. He was searching for a happier and more meaningful life and each time it was within his reach he let the call of the big wild world influence his decision. You read it very well. With great heart and feeling. Thank you.
Well what a lovely thing to see so many people touched by this ethereal story, we all aspire to a moving, unreachable idea which will provide the happiness we all seek, thank you Tony
Lovely poignant story. There’s such a draw to a hidden world and to a paradise. William Morris writes about another marvelous utopia in News from Nowhere. I appreciate your comments at the end. I’m gluten-free but like your kind of waffles! 😌 Thank you!
Amen!! What a Testimony for Christ!! My daughter is Autistic & loves to sing hymns & many Children’s Bible songs especially with us & others. I’m so proud of you too! God will surely bless you!!
What a wonderful story, Tony. You’re telling of this tale has deeply affected me and reminded me of a time in my earlier years when I thought there was the possibility of so much more.
Your comment went straight to my heart and hit me in the soul. Wow. Thank you, and thank you, Tony! I love everything you do, and your commentaries at the end are a favorite aspect.
I enjoyed this story a lot. It just goes to shows how we can get caught up in our supposedly important lives, putting off the pleasures in life, and end up regretting it. We only have so much time to seek happiness before death catches us out. Tony...your talks are far from waffle. Apart from being very informative they make us feel, or make me feel anyway, that we are getting to know you. It's a nice feeling. As you can see, I also have a propensity to waffle, but it's sincere waffle. I'd be lost without your stories that inspire my much more inferior writing. Keep it coming, that ghost story book sounds interesting. Looking forward to it 😊
That was just perfect Tony, as usual! I always genuinely look forward to your stories And I’ve been out with my girlfriends tonight, In West Kensington where I live, And coincidentally, where this story - or part of it is set!!! Anyway you have no idea how grateful I am because I’ve been looking forward To a story from either you or Jasper or Simon from bite sized audio.... in my opinion, the holy Trinity of entertainment on RU-vid! That’s how I genuinely feel! So many thanks and blessings galore! Much appreciated!🙏☺️ 🕊✨☮️💜🤍💜☯️✨🕊
One of my all time favourite’s … it’s my second time of listening to you read it☺️ for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world yet lose his soul? Probably mis-remembered, but that is how I’d sum up the “message” of the story, if there is one … more things in heaven and earth if you will, and perhaps materialistic gains, fame and laurel leaves are not such glittering prizes after all is said and done. By the by, don’t stop your rambles at the end of the stories, I am sure that, like me, many people get the heads up about other interesting authors, podcasters and the like that have hitherto evaded us … I find listening to the end not only very enjoyable but fruitful too.
Does anyone else remember a song called 'Greendoor' from the 50's. I was fascinated by that song as a small child. I wonder if Wells' story provoked it though of course there was no garden behind it, there was 'an ole piano playing hot'. Why green? I wish I could find my own green door.
What a fascinating story. I'm intrigued by the idea that the adult man was as entranced by the paradise as the five-year-old boy, although the actual things he experienced there would only appeal to a child: playmates, monkeys, tame large cats etc. So in a way, this was more childhood than paradise? Don't we all (as we grow increasingly older in an awful world) yearn to return to our childhoods, and that's not our toys or being a child at all, it's being in a world where we feel safe. Although of course we can never go back because if we try to everything that made us safe is gone: parents, neighbourhoods, way of life. It's a very sad story I think. But who knows, perhaps in those final moments we all get to walk through the green door. I do hope so.
I agree with you. The saddest part of my parents passing was leaving behind neighbours of 50 years and the house being sold. I can never again go through that front door up to my beloved bedroom and my dads attic retreat. I haven’t really come to terms with all that entails.
Masterful story telling of a masterful story, informative, amusing commentary giving serious food for thought. Thank you, Tony, for broadening our horizons and enriching our lives. Lots of pumkins and thumbs up to you.!
You don't waffle at all...I find your commentary after you've read a story really interesting and informative and I like hearing how you interpret the meaning of a story. I miss not having this 'chatty' bit on the other ghost story/weird tales channels I also listen to so please continue 🙂
I've been listening to your podcast on Stitcher for...gosh...for a couple years now. I'm sure you hear it a lot, but you talk me to sleep almost every night. Your voice is perfection in any accent you do. 😊 I just now came to find your youtube channel so I could make a suggestion. One of my all time fave classic stories is The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood. It would sound so amazing in your voice, so I hope you will consider it. Oh, also, I'm so glad you're reading The Picture of Dorian Grey. I love that story and had actually been pining to hear you read it, so my last couple weeks have been glorious. 🥰Thank you so much for your work. It's so helpful to so many people, I'm sure.
I thoroughly enjoy your random waffling about not much! I enjoy it as much as the story. Really fascinating about the story and the writers, but also a little window into life with baby seagulls and other northern things. Great company, thank you.
Waffle indeed. The cheek of it. I find your views at the end of your podcasts really interesting and entertaining and if this isn’t to the taste of some listeners then I would advise them to go and listen to someone else! No one is forcing them to listen . Keep talking it’s great. The stories and the narration are excellent. The door in the wall was very strange but thought evoking too. It’s the kind of story you find yourself thinking about long after you have listened to it. H G Wells was born ahead of his time. He was a genius. So please keep narrating exactly as you do now. It’s all amazing. Thank you.
Speculative trivia: There is a line in the early chapters of Brideshead Revisited. Charles is nineteen and falling in love with life, love and - bi-curiously perhaps - with Sebastian. He is being inexorably drawn into Sebastian's forbidden set and his romantic world. The line reads: "But I was in search of love in those days, and went full of curiosity and the faint unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window in the heart of that grey city." Of course, a literary scholar might suggest that the line alludes, albeit obliquely, to Charles's aforementioned bi-curiosity. It probably does. But I find myself wondering now if Evelyn Waugh was also referencing H.G.Wells in the process. The timeline would certainly fit, and any story by Wells would have been a well-known and referenced one at the time that Brideshead was written.
Oh that was a wonderful story! And I agree with everyone about the 'after chat' it's essential listening! I look forward to it! 😄 The description here of the visit to the garden reminded me strongly of ' near death experiences' which often feel like a homecoming, and have folk not wanting to return to the 'real' world..I wonder if Wells drew on personal experience or knew someone who described this...?
H G Wells also lived in Leigh-on-Sea for a while when he had an affair with Rebecca West. She bore him a son Anthony. His familiarity with the Essex side of the Thames Estuary shows up in the War of the Worlds. I'm from Leigh so I had a waffle of my own to add! Loved your analysis. 😊
Love H G Wells, and especially your interpretation -- know him primarily from Sci Fi, of course, but even his Sci Fi stories frequently seem just a whisper away from horror. I always enjoy your chats, both informative and just chatty. You're totally right on the difference between writing dialogue and actual discussion and speech. My husband has ADHD and I've always thought it would be interesting to write a horror story as told by an ADHD brain. He'll be telling me about something that happened at work and go on tangents that to him are related, about how, at his previous job they ran things like xyz, or how when he was younger, etc. Even when the main current of the story is (I hope he forgives me here) uninteresting, there's still an undefined tension, a suspense, to a diversion like that...... I hope the baby seagulls are ok. :(
We had the most beautiful cedar waxwing that flew straight into our sliding glass door and sat, stunned, on our deck, for quite a long time. So long that I had to remove myself to another room to stop myself from creating a problem by trying to fix it. I was just working out how to explain a wild bird adoption to my husband when it finally flew off. I cannot imagine how many seagulls I would have if I lived in your part of the world....
I think we all have a childhood vision of Paradise, the Garden of Eden or similar fantasy but what we really long for is a return to the womb, when we had no responsibilties and no worries. Being born is bloody, painful and traumatic for both mother and child. We resist being born into a cold, harsh world, but we retain a memory of the safe, warm, comfortable womb. We then suffer a sense of guilt, when we wonder what we did, what terrible sins we committed, to be so cruelly ejected from Paradise.
I am loving this story and your reading of it, Tony! It sounds familiar, did you upload it before Feb 11th? H.G. Wells wrote some great short stories that I am becoming familiar with thanks to your channel and others like it! Thanks for taking the time to read this great story! Hope you have a great week ahead!
@@ClassicGhost Interesting 'cause I only listen on youtube. There's a harpist I'd love you to listen to and perhaps have your friends check out her channel - it's ru-vid.com - I never met her, but I think she's exceptional at what she does, like you. She even gives tutorials about how to play and fix your harp! I don't play it or have one but I think she's well worth a listen. I hope she gets more subscribers.
….The fact that the door always appears just when he’s being offered something important (worldly) brings up the quote: “What profit it a man if he gain the whole world, yet lose his soul?”…..”The door” represents faith.
Hello again Mr or should I say Count Walker. Lol Anyway, I really ENJOYED the Narration and story. Wells and I have some things in common. For 1, I consider myself a Socialist, however I call myself a Social Democrat. I believe STRONGLY in social programs. And 2, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, at the age of 9. At that age growing up really fast, meant realizing that my life, for the rest of my life literally lay within a tiny glass vial and syringe. As a child not an easy thing to cope with. But I learned quickly enough. Thank you, for the WONDERFUL Narration and Scarie!!!!!
It’s 4am here and I haven’t slept so of course I had to come here to stay sane (debatable) And I remembered a story I read long ago and thought I’d run it by you. It’s definitely one of a kind. Clive Barker is the author and the title is “In the Hills, the Cities”. Hope all is well with you and yours. We still have wayyyy too much snow on the ground for my liking. Cheers💜
I was resting when this came on ...half asleep w/my cats & you said *Wells* & a mind picture of *Orson Wells* appeared. I thought I didn't know Orson Wells wrote Time machine...that did not sound correct. Then I heard an outdoor sound & I thought it was my yard cats jumping from the oak onto the ground by my window. I jumped up (we have owls here) I turned on porch light & it was deer ... wild deer in the yard everywhere ... that's alright. Then I realized it was *HG Wells* not Orson Wells...I'm getting my Wells confused *THX Tony* you are always available day or night ... 🤔
Wells lived for a few years in Surrey, in Woking. 'The War of the Worlds' begins with the landing of the Martian spaceships on Horsell Common, just outside the town. In Woking Town Centre, there is a reconstruction of the spaceship. The unnamed narrator escapes Woking and refers to other Surrey towns, such as Weybridge and Walton, until he manages to make his way to London, to Primrose Hill.
Does remind me of the myth of how good childhood is.Then As you get older you realise childhood if often exaggerated or maid easy for you.very interesting.
I’m from Kent in Washington state. So, definitely Kentish! Funny he was a prolific womanizer, Wells….. I just stumbled upon his photo and was surprised by his look. Handsome cad. Didn’t match with the crazy books.
So does ole HG fall under the rake category? I didn’t me that about u. I just go around referring to people as rakesh rouges. If they ask how I am, I say, “decently reasonable or reasonably decent.” Love the wordplay.
Tony, I think you would be perfect reading something by Charles Williams. I don't know his short fiction but his novel.,"War In Heaven'" (1930) is a dazzling horror story that is somehow witty and fantastical as well.
What an infantile name, "woo woo." So glad I left that ridiculous movement behind. It's a recipe for runaway, unchecked pride. At any rate the story seems like an allegory for imagination and how the rules of even success in the drab, corporate Victorian world increasingly blocked out imagination and freedom and encouraged many a loss of sanity (that and lead, at least), and the intense value of this gift our modern adulthood is designed to eclipse from so many "dreamers and men of vision." The Shire is, IIRC, based on Tolkien's happiest memories of rural England; the houses built in the hills for neolithic people who (because of poor nutrition) were smaller are of course famously located up in Scotland, I believe.
