The podcast of 'House on Loon Lake' was both eerie yet fascinating. The hypnotizing voice of the narrator, and real-life encounters with the neighors and family of the Nason's, gave me chills up my spine. The dim music playing in the background struck my fantasies of life in the 1970's. Life then seemed so much more original, something untouchable today. New Hampshire raised, I've always had my suspicions about the true mysteries that lie around every corner in this desolate state. I grew up relatively close to Freedom, N.H. the town which is the foundation of this tale. It both intrigues and frightens me to hear such strange unsolved stories. I pass through Freedom occasionally during my summers, and never have I taken more than a passing glance. From now on, I may do more than gaze out my window, anticipating my arrival home.
The man who experienced everything first hand reminded me of the young boys in the movie "The Virgin Suicides". In the movie, a small group of neighborhood boys becomes infatuated with the lives of their neighbors, specifically a family called the Lisbons. The boys are obsessed with the five Lisbon girls, young women who are mysterious and beautiful. Suicide strikes, one by one, and the boys lives become nothing more than finding the clues to what put the girls on such a brink in life. What made them feel their ride was over? How do families detach so much that everything is a hazy blur? Or even a commonplace object, that seems so distant, and unwelcoming?
Now that I know the unknown lies so close to me, I wonder what mysteries lie within my own town. What happens to the forgotten? Or, those who were never able to salvage their family's mark? Such a strange thought. I must consider the comptemplation of life after death, the surreal and the supernatural. Hearing this case certainly leads me to continue my skepticism, and curiosity about such events. I would have loved to at least drive by the house of the Nason's, as Adam, the man who discovered everything up close and personal, describes the frightening, yet charming mystique, that this property possessed.
I am surrounded by questions and unsolved mysteries, that are calling for people, for the living, to unlock them. The more these stories begin to unrise from the bellows of the universe, the closer we come to distinguishing a more defined perception on the supernatural. It took something as small as a story, to make me feel as if I had been living eyes closed in such a truely interesting area. New England, New Hampshire specifically, is but a small glittering diamond hiding among cubic zirconia's.
Carrie,
ReplyDeleteExcellent post. This is exactly the type of response I am looking for. I loved your connection to other media (The Virgin Suicides). As much as that paragraph is unlike most of the others, it fits nicely because you connect the feeling of those boys to the feeling you got listening to the story. Connecting content, as much as it is valued, is not as important here as connecting feeling.
You talk a lot about how mysteries are everywhere very poetically. I am a bit hungry for description though of specific instances. I found a metal detector in the barn last summer, and although I got sick of swiping my arm back and forth and digging up nails, I did find a nearly perfect condition (considering where it came from) Canadian penny from 1877. As soon as I found it, I wondered how it had come to this place in northern New Hampshire. Then I wondered who had dropped it and whether or not they ever noticed if it was gone.
Metaphor at the end: top notch. Keep using devices like that in your description.
This is not a huge issue I assure you, but I would just catch up on some punctuation by reading their respective pages on wikipedia. With your ability for original response and description, a careful knowledge of how to use the arsenal of punctuation will do nothing but add tools to your bag.
-F
(I deleted the last one because there were far too many spelling errors in it, and that would just be so unbecoming of a writing prof)
Many thriller, mystery, supernatural, and horror writers including Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft have been mesmerized by the New England culture. Here is a real life example that fiction is based on reality.
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