Book-related media is a corner of the internet that never fails to grip me, comfort me, or stimulate my internal dialogue after I have finished a book and before I want to start a new one, and one of my favourite types of these media are podcasts. Opening Lines is a podcast that achieves exactly that, thoughtfully and succinctly. Producer and writer John Yorke hosts the show and crafts immersive fourteen-minute episodes that discuss a selected literary work without fuss, and more importantly, without spoilers.
Inviting insights from individuals who are experts in their literary fields, Opening Lines succeeds in examining works that have left their mark in the literary, social, and cultural scenes such as Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gaslight and Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel Anna Karenina, to name a few. I was delighted to recognise the voice of one of our own academics on the show, Dr Alexandra Smith, a professor in Russian Studies at the University of Edinburgh, who features on an episode discussing Alexander Pushkin’s 400-line narrative poem The Bronze Horseman. As Yorke notes the importance of visual storytelling to this poem, Dr Smith reveals that Pushkin’s manuscripts contained “doodles and drawings” which aid his representation of “modernity” and innovation to a narrative challenging dictatorship in utilising a new type of protagonist – now widely common – that Pushkin helps establish; the average individual through whom a reader may vicariously live through. This is only one of the ways in which Yorke’s conversations are to be as socially important as they are in literature.
The episode discussing Hamilton’s thriller Gaslight – released on International Women’s Day – was of particular liking to me because of Yorke’s observation of the play’s cultural resonance in invoking such a powerful response to the extent that it inspired the widely known and used term ‘gaslighting’. The fact that this popular word – sometimes misused – is rooted in a man’s mental abuse of his wife as he repeatedly switches a light on and off to cause her to doubt her sanity, really informs us of the term’s severely exploitative nature and context. It is a word which should not be used lightly. The awareness of discussions that link literature to cultural habits, social assumptions and linguistic trends is precisely why Opening Lines offers itself to more than just the literary community, but also to society itself.
Without being pretentious or dry, Opening Lines is a convenient and thought-provoking podcast that I see myself listening to for academic purposes, to get out of a reading slump, or even just to see if that specific book is worth reading or purchasing. While I would suggest a focus towards lesser-known authors’ or perhaps more contemporary works for future episodes, I highly recommend this podcast.
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