This Spoken World
By Thomas Sebald
This Spoken WorldMar 30, 2021
Treasure Island (Part 5, Chapter 26) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"Dead men don't bite..."
Treasure Island (Part 5, Chapter 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“And there’s an end to Captain Silver!...”
Treasure Island (Part 5, Chapter 24) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"What hope had I left of reaching land?..."
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 23) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“But one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five...”
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 22) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"If I am right, he’s going now to see Ben Gunn..."
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 21) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"Out, lads, out, and fight ’em in the open!..."
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 20) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“We want that treasure, and we’ll have it..."
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 19) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“First ship that ever I lost...”
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 18) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Strike my colours! No, sir, not I...”
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 17) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"Israel was Flint’s gunner...”
Treasure Island (Part 4, Chapter 16) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Jim Hawkins is gone...”
Treasure Island (Part 3, Chapter 15) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Well, I don’t understand one word that you’ve been saying, but that’s neither here nor there..."
Treasure Island (Part 3, Chapter 13) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“It’s a black conscience that can make you feared of me..."
Treasure Island (Part 3, Chapter 13) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"Now, we’ve only one man to rely on.”
“And who is that?”
“Silver, sir...”
Treasure Island (Part 2, Chapter 12) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you...”
Treasure Island (Part 2, Chapter 11) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"A brave lad you were, and smart too, and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on..."
Treasure Island (Part 2, Chapter 10) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”
Treasure Island (Part 2, Chapter 9) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"I don’t like treasure voyages on any account, and I don’t like them, above all, when they are secret, and when the secret has been told to the parrot..."
Treasure Island (Part 2, Chapter 8) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“You and me should get on well, Hawkins..."
Treasure Island (Part 2, Chapter 7) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"I engaged him on the spot to be ship’s cook. Long John Silver, he is called, and has lost a leg..."
Treasure Island (Part 1, Chapter 6) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island..."
Treasure Island (Part 1, Chapter 5) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"Oh, shiver my soul!...”
Treasure Island (Part 1, Chapter 4) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"It was like any other seaman’s chest on the outside..."
Treasure Island (Part 1, Chapter 3) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"At one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober..."
Treasure Island (Part 1, Chapter 2) by Robert Louis Stevenson
"You know an old shipmate, Bill, surely..."
Treasure Island (Part 1, Chapter 1) by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 9), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.."
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 8), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together...”
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 7), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?...”
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 6), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!...”
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 5), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart..."
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 4), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired...”
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 3), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey..."
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 2), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to...”
The Great Gatsby (Chapter 1), by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Gatsby? What Gatsby?"
Cat-skin, by the Brothers Grimm
Special guest Susie Duecker tells the story of a runaway princess disguised as a kitchen maid, with a cloak made from the fur of a thousand creatures...
The Juniper Tree, by the Brothers Grimm
"My mother killed her little son...
My father grieved when I was gone...
My sister loved me best of all...
She laid her kerchief over me
And took my bones that they may lie
Underneath the juniper tree...
Kywitt! Kywitt!
What a beautiful bird am I!"
Wassilissa the Beautiful, by Alexander Afanasyev
Special guest Maya Danks tells the story of a beautiful maiden tormented by an evil stepmother and stepsisters... and by the legendary witch Baba Yaga...
The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, by the Brothers Grimm
Special guest Maura Atwood tells the story of a young man whose dearest wish is to find out what it means to shudder...
Rumplestiltskin, by the Brothers Grimm
"If during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child..."
Clever Gretel, by the Brothers Grimm
An (unconfirmed) sequel to Hansel and Gretel...
How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, by the Brothers Grimm
Before the Justice League, before the Avengers, there were... these guys?...
The Lost Half-Hour, by Henry Beston
“Dear me–why, I’ve lost half an hour this morning!”
Briar Rose, by the Brothers Grimm
The classic story of a disgruntled fairy, a cursed princess, an enchanted sleep, and a magical kiss...
Bluebeard, by Charles Perrault
"The floor was all covered with blood..."
The Nose, by the Brothers Grimm
The story of a helpful dwarf, three magical gifts, a crafty princess, three old soldiers who only want to retire in peace, a two fruit trees with very strangely specific powers...
Rapunzel, by the Brothers Grimm
"Let it cost what it may..."
Hansel and Gretel, by the Brothers Grimm
There are some key details missing from this version of the story:
1. Hansel fools the witch into thinking that he's not getting any fatter by taking advantage of her poor eyesight, sticking a bone out through the bars of his cage whenever she comes to check his plumpness.
2. Hansel and Gretel both regain their strength during their imprisonment because Hansel shares his food with Gretel when the witch isn't looking.
3. GRETEL. PUSHES. THE. WITCH. INTO. THE. OVEN.
King Thrushbeard, by the Brothers Grimm
“Be comforted. The evil days are past..."
The Bremen Town Musicians, by the Brothers Grimm
"You can find something better than death everywhere..."