Jean Ray’s The Mainz Psalter was originally published in 1930. We read the story in Jeff and Ann Vandermeer’s anothology, The Weird, and the translation is by Lowell Blair. The story tells the grizzly tale of The Mainz Psalter, a ship en route to Greenland under the ownership of the shadowy figure of the schoolmaster, with a purpose that remains a mystery to its crew. As the ship sails deeper into northern waters, reality begins to bend in peculiar directions and the crew’s number dwindles. Those who remain have doubts as to whether this is indeed the reality they had known.
Over the course of the episode, we discuss the literary lineage of Jean Ray’s tale, its relationship with cosmic horror, and the peculiar treatment of religion within the text.
Bibliography:
Lyrical Ballads (1798) by William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge
‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’ (1927) by H. P. Lovecraft
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