Our thanks to David and Colleen for recommending this week’s episode! This installment from our Listener Library is an episode of Quiet Please entitled “Let the Lilies Consider,” in which a man accused of murdering his wife insists that she has become a large lily. Wyllis Cooper wrote this surreal tale of love and strange botany. Will the man’s story exonerate him? What truly happened? Is this story halfway between scripture and Star Trek? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think!
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Sorry you guys didn’t dig the ending (and sorry we creeped out your wife with the postcard). Cooper’s Christianity was undoubtedly an influence on a few episodes of Quiet Please but it’s never bothered me (despite my own atheism). I think Quiet Please set the bar very high for itself and an episode that lacks ambiguity might seem like a letdown in comparison to other episodes. I still love his episode but I can see why it might not be everyone’s favorite.
“Not a favorite episode of Quiet Please” is definitely praising with faint damnation. 😀 Thank you again for getting more episodes of this amazing show into my ears. My quibbles over this ending aside, it is an unquestionable collection of phenomenal writing and performances!
I love this episode. I was 90 percent on board until we taped the podcast and Joshua’s insight brought me around to 100 percent. I had to have the brilliance pointed out to me by someone who reads and stuff.
And “Quiet Please” is just so crazy good.
I’m with Eric here and I liked this one a lot. Joshua’s thoughts of the spiritual context of Cooper’s writing and how the point the narrator makes at the beginning about being more interested in souls than flowers strongly endorses Eric’s smart explanation. I really enjoyed how sublime the messaging was and how the flowers, the nature of pure love brought the lovers together with them to forever dispel their conflict. I like how the unambivalent ending points to this.
I thought this was kind of silly, but now that I see the religious angle, it does kind of grate. Its saying that even if you don’t believe, you will come around and be ‘saved’.
You say plants aren’t scary and the first thing I thought of was 1951’s The Thing From Another World where the alien is described as an intellectual “super carrot”. First carrots and now lillies… thanks a lot guys.
I will concede that vegetables are scarier than flowers.
I got sour early on when I guessed the ending “She’s a flower” really early on. But my attitude changed after the scene where he only planted a few, but there were more than ever. And then when she burned them down and there were even more. One lily? Not scary. Too many? It turns out that scares me!
One quibble. I don’t think they were saying “love me… love me…” I thought they were saying “love you… love you…”
We’ll have to go back to the tape, but I think they said both at different points in the story.