The Garden God


 All five parts of my reading of Forrest Reid's supernatural teen romance "The Garden God" (1905). This is a somewhat controversial work, when it was published same-sex romances were illegal and, whilst there is no sex and it is all sighing and gazing rather than anything else, it was still incendiary ground for any author to tread upon.

Even today the work is challenging, given that the main characters in the flashback sequences are about 16-years old. Teen romance novels have become very popular of late, but some of us are sufficiently old and crusty that we would sooner ignore adolescent crushes! However, this work follows the same intensely lyrical style that Oscar Wilde adopted, including the same great love of Greek mythology that weaves throughout this short story, and the vivid embrace of nature imagery. Reid, like his fellow Irishman Wilde, was clearly deeply wedded to the countryside.

The supernatural elements are low-key, mostly centred around the possibility that a garden statue of a Greek deity is somehow influencing the protagonist's life and maybe incarnating in fleshly form. There are also hints of reincarnation and a mild spectral element at the end. There is a strong flavour of animism about this work too. If this reflects the actual beliefs of the author or was simply an idea that Reid was toying with for some fiction, I do not know. I have yet to find any reliable information about his spiritual outlook on life.

I normally upload books one section at a time, but this one is so short that I decided to experiment with a full upload to see if listeners enjoyed that approach more.
















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