Thread 8: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

Well, this has turned out to be slightly longer than the dozen or so replies I expected when I started the first thread!

The Observer The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

2nd Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

3rd Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

4th Observer
‘I felt I was being gaslit’ – the landlord who helped Ray...

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Thread 6
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husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 7
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Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting.

To all - Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Please do not engage with possible visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail.

We have done amazingly well together - in the main that is, not mentioning any names but you know who you are! - for seven threads so far. I can't be on the threads as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion ticking along in a healthy and civil fashion is very welcome.

No saltiness. Keep to the path. Thank you.

Crikey, that's accurate. And the Tower is absolutely the consequence of her actions.

I should add that the whole tarot card reading episode doesn't add up. For a start there aren't any cards in a tarot pack which really correspond to 'the arts' or 'Mother Earth'

@SereneLilac
I made it up based on the different choices I think she can make but judging by what we have discovered, I don't think she'll choose Justice

Exactly! How long would it take to Google the names of the cards?

I think I’m the French correspondent :) Posted quite a lot of detail maybe thread 4 on the basis that I live down the road from the “French house”. I was in a local cafe yesterday, and amongst the English voices I heard a long conversation about the whole Salt Path/Village du Dropt connection. I suspect there’s a lot more to find out with not too much digging here!

I think her riposte to the Observer article is her attempt at justice for herself, but she doesn't understand that Justice is blind and unflinching, you can't worm your way out with excuses and half-truths.

Interesting that I have heard that in the 3rd book ( I have not read it) RW talks of the greed of humankind! That's OK coming from a redemption standpoint but I don't think redemption was evident?

It depends what tarot pack you use. There are lots and many of them have cards that don't correspond to the originals.

@HerculesMulligannn Thank you (and apologies to your husband; mine would probably sympathise too).

@Priorlake @FurryHappyKittens Yes, this is very much a 'your mileage may vary' issue, but I would think that almost every woman has at some point either changed their route, used a different form of transport, been walked home or done some kind of safety work. But people do feel very differently about the countryside.
There's also a bit more nuance later on, because actually I did walk on my own for a long time, but then got scared after having a child - and with hindsight I think peri-menopausal anxiety also played a part. Doing the walks was about trying to reclaim that - and I do think that familiarity really helps.

@TonstantWeader I hope it will - I'm talking to a couple of other publishers at the moment. But the hardback is now £8.50 on that second link if that helps.

I'm your friendly local doctor-but-not-a-neurologist correspondent.

I've never been in a musical though I used to be in the Gang Show so know lots of cheesy tunes. I've never written a book either though I've had lots of not-neurology articles published -- I don't think that's going to be very exciting for anyone!

Yes, that’s the thing that fascinates me. I mean, is it ‘Ok, shit, we’re stuck with the story of you imminently dying, so you keep away from interviews and we’ll try to come up with reasons why you’re miraculously not dead and walking 1000 miles for my third book’?

Or are they wordlessly acting out a public script that they’ve never talked explicitly about in private, because that keeps it all in a fuzzier, greyer mental terrain?

Are they even on the same page about it?

If it were a novel, you’d be looking for conflict within the couple. You’d have Moth getting sick of having to curtail things so he can look plausibly unwell and wanting to either say it was a misdiagnosis or come clean. Raynor poisoning his tea to keep him looking woozy and pallid. (Or vice versa. Raynor wanting to just tell Bill Cole they’re ending the tenancy early, Moth deciding to forestall criticism of their farmwork by telling him he hasn’t got long left? ) Because Raynor is the one bearing the brunt of the publicity. If it’s a strain, having to remember your script, she’s the one doing the vast majority of it.

NB I am, needless to say, not suggesting Raynor’s is poisoning anyone’s tea. I just think the couple psychology around longtime falsehood is really interesting. Like the Canoe Man couple.

Ooh intriguing....

Yes, exactly! And like you say, in a novel you'd be weaving in conflict between the couple -- but perhaps in real life, there is none and they're soulmates and totally on the same page. (Mind-boggling to imagine. 'So I think in the next book you'll be at death's door again, then we'll go for another walk and you'll be miraculously cured.' 'Perfect plan, my lovely. More tea?')

Raynor/Sally definitely has good storytelling instincts, though. In a novel, making Tim's diagnosis concurrent with losing their home and then going on the walk is of course exactly what you'd do, as well as making the diagnosis more serious and definite. From a storytelling perspective, it makes perfect sense...just not so much from the 'unflinching honesty' perspective!

I imagine an ‘angel’ pack or some Tarot offshoot. There are many.

I agree. I think it's a generational thing.

I'm near 60, and my generation of women were taught to be fearless. An adage from my childhood was the biggest thing to fear was being afraid (my grandmother taught me that). The cultural shift today has the emphasis on being a victim and being fearful.

I work with young women and keep hearing the phrase "I'm only a girl" a lot. What the hell does that actually mean? It sounds like a self imposed limit. What happened to the pioneer spirit? Sometimes I feel that some young girls today have almost willingly embrace Victorian values.

I regularly walk home alone at night and close to midnight too. I work in Art Events and our receptions and private views often finish at 11pm. I get the train home and walk from the station home as I guess do countless women who work at night do... nurses, doctors, hospitality workers, chefs, theatre actresses, etc.

Like an oracle deck. But there's a chance she completely made up the cards and a chance that she didn't have a reading at all. Who knows what to believe

'So I think in the next book you'll be at death's door again, then we'll go for another walk and you'll be miraculously cured.' 'Perfect plan, my lovely. More tea?'

I think this must be broadly how the conversation goes @FrogFrogFrog

Yes, absolutely. And as someone pointed out on this or another thread, the basic ‘plot’ was there from the email that RW wrote to the Big Issue, so it predates her book deal and can’t be ascribed to any over-zealous/unscrupulous agent or editor advocating the massaging of timelines, the omission of awkwardnesses about the reasons for their eviction etc etc.

There’s absolutely a good storytelling instinct at work, an excellent ‘hook’ and a great inciting incident — of course, in a novel your editor would say it was too implausible for your husband to get a terminal diagnosis two days after you lose your home and livelihood through your overly-trusting nature, but in memoir, you can do it!

Blimey making up a Tarot card reading - a sense a new low is opening up as is £15.99 to rent the bloody movie £15.99 on You Tube !

I'm so glad you have posted this. I'm currently reading bits and pieces from it as have been drawn to it due to the controversy. Found it unreadably bad the first time I tried it!

Can I ask what you thought about the way she portrays their relationship? It all seems utterly saccharine. She says things like, 'whilst others changed partners like clothes, Moth and I needed noone else' (paraphrase) and comments like 'others spent weekends shopping at Tesco whereas our lives were full of adventure' (paraphrase) made me roll my eyes and I gave up the first time... they really looked down on their mere mortal friends' relationships!

I suspect that they do care what people think of them and that there is some insecurity at least within Raysal. I sensed discomfort between Raysal and Gillian Anderson in interviews and wondered if there was dislike from either or insecurity and jealousy from Raysal. Raymoth have curated an image around themselves over the years, including purchasing the property in France and right down to the powder blue range in Wales. This has apparently been beyond their means, given the loans, debts and thefts. That image doesn't include being seen as a thief (beyond the jolly japes of running off from campsites and shops), living in a council property or applying for benefits beyond Tax Credits.

Lies are told to gain advantage but also to shape how we are seen by others, like claiming to be cider makers and rewilders in Cornwall. Even now there is no mea culpa in Raysal's statement, just more smoke and mirrors in an attempt to maintain the image. People can't think badly of them if the true them is hidden from view, or if the gullible don't believe it when it is finally exposed.

When I think about it I'm not sure RW was legally obliged to reveal the alleged embezzlement in the book. It was indirectly linked to the loss of home but there was a truth of sorts in the way that she worked around it and presented it.

If RW is reading these posts I believe there's always a way forward from terrible mistakes but you have to admit to yourself that you made them and ask forgiveness from those you have hurt..including the victims of petty theft.

Also, 'I'm Reviewing the Situation'

Outrageous!