Ron Reads Boring Books
Are you tired? You will be. Because I will read to you a boring book and it will be worse than you doing nothing. This podcast is not intended to entertain you. It is intended to bore you. The length of each podcast will vary so you cannot plan your listening easily. Some reads will be short. Some will be excruciatingly long. There will be no intro or outro music. The only sound is my voice and other random sounds as they happen. I change my voice as I read the dialog. Also, I have a southern accent and do not read well. Thank you for listening.
Ron Reads Boring Books
What Lies Beyond the Rock Wall?
Jerry, an eleven-year-old boy on vacation with his widowed mother, becomes fascinated with a wild bay separate from the safe beach his mother prefers. When he discovers older local boys swimming through an underwater tunnel, he becomes determined to accomplish this challenging feat as his own private rite of passage.
• Jerry feels torn between staying with his protective mother and seeking independence
• He observes local boys swimming through an underwater tunnel and becomes fixated on matching this achievement
• Jerry trains relentlessly to hold his breath longer, practicing until his nose bleeds
• The tunnel becomes a symbolic challenge representing his transition toward maturity
• Despite fear and physical pain, Jerry successfully navigates the tunnel
• After his triumph, Jerry no longer needs external validation—his achievement is personal
• The story illustrates the delicate balance between maternal protection and a child's need for independence
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Are you tired? You will be Through the Tunnel by Doris Lessing Going to the shore. On the first morning of vacation, the young English boy stopped at the turning of the path and looked down at a wild and rocky bay and then over to the crowded beach he knew so well from other years. His mother walked on in front of him, carrying a bright striped bag in one hand. Her other arm, swinging loose, was very wide in the sun. The boy watched that white naked arm and turned his eyes, which had a frown behind them, toward the bay and back again to his mother. When she felt he was not with her, she swung around. When she felt it was not, he was not with her, she swung around.
Speaker 2:Oh, there you are, jerry she said she looked impatient and smiled. Why, darling, would you rather not come with me, would you rather?
Speaker 1:She frowned conscientiously, worrying over what amusements he might secretly be longing for, which he had been too busy or too careless to imagine. He was very familiar with that anxious, apologetic smile. Contrition sent him running after her, and yet as he ran, he looked back over his shoulder at the wild bay and all morning, as he played on the safe beach, he was thinking of it. Next morning, when it was time for the routine of swimming and sunbathing, his mother said Are you tired of the usual?
Speaker 1:beach. Jerry, would you like to go somewhere else? Oh no, he said quickly, smiling at her, out of that unfailing impulse of contrition, a sort of chivalry.
Speaker 2:Yet walking down the path with her, he blurted out I'd like to go to school and have a look at those rocks down there. I'd like to go and have a look at those rocks down there.
Speaker 1:She gave the idea her attention. It was a wild-looking place and there was no one there, but she said Of course, Jerry.
Speaker 2:When you have had enough, come to the big beach, or else go straight back to the villa, if you like.
Speaker 1:She walked away, that bare arm now slightly reddened from yesterday's sun swinging, and he almost ran after her again, feeling it unbearable that she should go by herself. But he did not. She was thinking, of course he's old enough to be safe without me. Have I been keeping him too close? She mustn't feel he ought to be with me. I must be careful. He was an only child, 11 years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion. She went, worrying off to her beach.
Speaker 1:As for jerry, once he saw that his mother had gained her beach, he began the steep descent to the bay, from where he was high up among red, brown rocks. It was a scoop of moving bluish, green fringed with white. As he went lower he saw that it spread among small promontories and inlets of rough, sharp rock and the crisping lapping showed stains of purple, lapping, crisping, sharp lapping, crisping sharp up inlets of rough, sharp rock and the crisping lapping surface, an edge of white surf and the shallow, luminous movement of water over white sand and beyond that, a solid, heavy blue. He ran straight into the water and began swimming. He was a good swimmer. He went out fast over the gleaming sand, over a middle region where rocks lay discolored monsters lay like discolored monsters under the surface. And then he was in the real sea, a warm sea where irregular cold currents from the deep water shocked his limbs. When he was so far out that he could not look back, not only on the little bay but past the promontory that was between it and the big beach, he floated on the buoyant surface and looked for his mother. There she was, a speck of yellow under an umbrella that looked like a slice of orange peel.
Speaker 1:He swam back to shore, relieved at being sure she was there, but all at once very lonely, on the small edge of a small, on the edge of a small cape that marked the side of the bay. Away from the promontory was a loose scatter of rocks. Above them some boys were stripping off their clothes. They came running naked down to the rocks. The English boy swam toward them but kept his distance at a stone's throw. They were of that coast.
Speaker 1:All of them were burned, smooth, dark, brown and speaking a language he did not understand. To be with them of them was a craving that filled his whole body. He swam a little closer. They turned and watched him with narrowed, alert, dark eyes. Then one smiled and waved it was enough. In a minute he had swum in and was on the rocks beside them, smiling with with a desperate, nervous supplication. They shouted cheerful greetings at him and then, as he preserved his nervous, uncomprehending smile, they understood that he was a foreigner strayed from his own beach. Then they proceeded to forget him. But he was happy he was with them.
Speaker 1:They began diving again and again from a high point into a well of blue sea between rough, pointed rocks. After they had dived and come up, they swam around, hauled themselves up and waited their turn to dive again. They were big boys, men to Jerry. He dived and they watched him. And when he swam around to take his place they way for him, he felt he was accepted and he dived again carefully, proud of himself up.
Speaker 1:The others stood about watching Jerry. After waiting for the sleek brown head to appear, let out a yell of warning, they looked at him idly and turned their eyes back toward the water. After a long time the boy came up on the other side of a big dark rock, letting the air out of his lungs in a sputtering gasp and shout of triumph. Immediately the rest of them dived.
Speaker 1:In One moment the morning seemed full of chattering boys. The next the air and the surface of the water were empty. But through the heavy, blue, dark shapes could be seen moving and groping. Jerry dived shot past the school of underwater swimmers. Jerry dived, shot past the school of underwater swimmers, saw a black wall of rock looming at him. Touched, it bobbed up at once to the surface on the far side of the barrier of rock and he understood that they had swum through some sort, some gap or hole in it. He plunged down again. He could see nothing through the stinging salt water but the blank rock. When he came up, the boys were all on the diving rock preparing to attempt to feed again. And now, in a panic of failure, he yelled up in English Look at me, look look at me, look.
Speaker 1:And he began splashing and kicking in the water like a foolish dog. They looked down gravely frowning. He knew the frown At moments of failure when he clowned to claim his mother's attention. It was with just this grave, embarrassing inspection that she rewarded him Through his hot shame, feeling the pleading grin on his face like a scar that he could never remove. He looked up at the group of big brown boys on the rock and shouted Bonjour, merci Au revoir, bonjour, bonjour.
Speaker 1:While he looked at his fingers around his ears, while he hooked his fingers around his ears and waggled them, water surged into his mouth. He choked, sank, came up. The rock, lately weighted with boys, seemed to rear up out of the water as their weight was removed. They were flying down past him now into the water. The air was full of falling bodies, then the rock was empty in the hot sunlight. He counted one, two, three. At fifty he was terrified. They must all be drowning beneath him in the watery caves of the rock. At a hundred he stared around him at the empty hillside, wondering if he should yell for help. He counted faster and faster to hurry them up, to bring them to the surface quickly, to drown them quickly. Anything rather than the terror of counting on and on into the blue emptiness of the morning. And then at 160, the water beyond the rock was full of boys, blowing like brown whales. They swam back to the shore without a look at him.
Speaker 1:He climbed back to the diving rock and sat down, feeling the hot roughness of it under his thighs. The boys were gathering up their bits of clothing and running off along the shore to another, up their bits of clothing and running off along the shore to another promontory. They were leaving to get away from him. He cried openly, fists in his eyes. There was no one to see him and he cried himself out.
Speaker 1:It seemed to him that a long time had passed and he swam out to where he could see his mother. Yes, she was still there, a yellow spot under an orange umbrella. He swam back to the big rock, climbed up and dived into the blue pool among the fanged and angry boulders. Down he went until he touched the wall of rock again, but the salt was so painful in his eyes that he could not see. Touched the wall of rock again, but the salt was so painful in his eyes that he could not see. He came to the surface, swam to shore and went back to the villa to wait for his mother Soon. She walked slowly up the pass, swinging her striped bag, the flushed naked arm dangling beside her. I want some swimming goggles, he said.
Speaker 2:I want some swimming goggles.
Speaker 1:He panted defiant and beseeching. She gave him a patient, inquisitive look, as she said casually.
Speaker 1:Well, of course darling, but now, now, now he must have them this minute and no other time. He nagged and pestered until she went with him to a shop. As soon as she had bought the goggles, he grabbed them from her as if she were going to claim them for herself, and was off running down the steep path to the bay. Jerry swam out to the big barrier rock, adjusted the goggles and dived. The impact of the water broke the rubber-enclosed vacuum and the goggles came loose. He understood that he must swim down to the base of the rock. From the surface of the water he fixed the goggles tight and firm, filled his lungs and floated face down on the water. Now he could see. It was as if he had eyes of a different kind, fish eyes that showed everything clear and delicate and wavering in the bright water Under him. Six or seven feet down was a floor of perfectly clean, shining white sand, rippled firm and hard by the tides. Two grayish shapes steered there like long rounded pieces of wood or slate. They were fish. He saw them nose towards each other, poised, motionless, and dart forward, swerve off and come around again. It was like a water dance. A few inches above them, the water sparkled as a sequence were dropping through it. Fish again, myriads of minute fish the length of his fingernail were drifting through the water and in a moment he could feel the innumerable tiny touches of them against his limbs. It was like swimming in flaked silver.
Speaker 1:The great rock the big boys had swum through rose sheer out of the white sand, black, tufted lightly with greenish weed. He could see no gap in it. He swam down to its base. Again and again he rose, took a big chest full of air and went down. Again and again he groped over the surface of the rock, feeling it almost, hugging it, in desperate need to find the entrance. And then once, while he was clinging to the black wall, his knees came up and he shot his feet out forward and they met no obstacle. He had found, found the hole.
Speaker 1:He gained the surface, clambered about the stones that littered the barrier rock until he found a big one and, with his arms, let himself down over the side of the rock. He dropped with the weight straight to the sand beach, sandy floor, clinging tight to the anchor of stone. He lay on his side and looked under the dark shelf at the place where his feet had gone. He could see the hole. It was an irregular dark gap, but he could not see deep into it. He let go of his anchor, clung with his hands to the edges of the hole and tried to push himself in. He got his head in, found his shoulders jammed, moved them in sideways and was inside as far as his wrist. He could see nothing ahead. Something soft and clammy touched his mouth. He saw a dark frond moving against the grayish rock and panic filled him. He thought of octopuses, of clinging weed. He pushed himself out backward and caught a glimpse, as he retreated, of a harmless tentacle of seaweed drifting in the mouth of the tunnel. But it was enough.
Speaker 1:He reached the sunlight, swam to shore and lay on the diving rock. He looked down into the blue well of water. He knew he must find his way through that cave or hole or tunnel and out the other side. First, he thought he must learn to control his breathing, let himself down into the water with another big stone in his arm so that he could lie effortlessly on the bottom of the sea. He counted one, two, three. He counted steadily. He could hear the movement of blood in his chest 51, 52. His chest was hurting. He let go of the rock and went up into the air. He saw that the sun was low. He rushed to the villa and found his mother at her supper. She said only did you enjoy yourself, did you enjoy yourself? And he said yes.
Speaker 1:All night the boy dreamed of the water-filled cave in the rock, and as soon as breakfast was over he went to the bay. That night his nose bled badly. For hours he had been underwater learning to hold his breath. Now he felt weak and dizzy. His mother said I shouldn't.
Speaker 1:Ah His mother said I shouldn't overdo things, darling. If I were you. That day and the next, jerry exercised his lungs as if everything, the whole of his life, all that he would become, depended on it. Again, his nose bled at night and his mother insisted on his coming with her the next day. It was a torment to him to waste a day of his careful training, but he stayed with her.
Speaker 1:On that other beach now seemed a place for small children, a place where his mother might lie safe in the sun. It was not his beach. He did not ask for permission on the following day to go to his beach. He went before his mother could consider the complicated rights and wrongs of the matter. A day's rest, he discovered, had improved his count by ten. The big boys had made the passage while he counted a hundred and sixty.
Speaker 1:He had been counting fast in his fright. Probably now, if he tried, he tried, he could get through that long tunnel. But he was not going to try yet. A curious, most unchildlike persistence, a controlled impatience, made him wait. In the meantime he lay underwater on the white sand, littered now by stones he had brought down from the upper air, and studied the entrance to the tunnel. He knew every jut and corner of it, as far as it was possible to see. It was as if he had already felt its sharpness about his shoulders. He sat by the clock in the villa when his mother was not near and checked his time. He was incredulous and then proud to find he could hold his breath without strain for two minutes. The words two minutes, authorized by the clock, brought him close to the adventure that was so necessary to him In another four days.
Speaker 1:His mother said casually one morning they must go home On the day before they left. He would do it. He would do it if it killed him and he said defiantly to himself. He said defiantly to himself. But two days before they were to leave, a day of triumph, when he increased his count by 15, his nose bled so badly that he turned dizzy and had to lie limply over the big rock like a bit of seaweed, watching the thick red blood flow onto the rock and trickle slowly down to the sea.
Speaker 1:He was frightened. Supposing he turned dizzy in the tunnel. Supposing he died there trapped. Supposing his head went around in the hot sun and he almost gave up. He thought he would return to the house and lie down and next summer perhaps, when he had another year's growth in him, then he would go through the hole. He was trembling with fear that he would not go and he was trembling with horror at the long, long tunnel under the rock. He was trembling with fear that he would not go Under the sea, even in the open sunlight. The barrier rock seemed very wide and very heavy. Tons of rock pressed down on where he would go and if he died there he would lie until one day perhaps Not before next year those big boys would swim into it and find it blocked.
Speaker 1:He put on his goggles, fitted them tight, tested the vacuum. His hands were shaking. Then he chose the biggest stone he could carry and slipped over the edge of the rock until half of him was in the cool and closing water and half in the hot sun. He looked up at the empty sky, filled his lungs once, twice and then sank fast to the bottom with the stone. He let it go and began to count. He took the edges of the hole in his hands and drew himself into it, wriggling his shoulders Sidewise, as he remembered he must, kicking himself along with his feet. Soon he was clear inside.
Speaker 1:He was in a small rock-bound hole filled with yellowish-gray water. The water was pushing him up against the roof. The roof was sharp and pained his back. He pulled himself along with his hands fast, fast, and used his legs as levers. His head knocked against something. A sharp pain dizzied him. His head knocked against something. A sharp pain dizzied him.
Speaker 1:50, 51, 52. He was without light and the water seemed to press upon him with the weight of rock. 71, 72. There was no strain on his lungs. He felt like an inflated balloon. His lungs were so light and easy, but his head was pulsing. He was being continually pressed against the sharp roof, which felt slimy as well as sharp.
Speaker 1:Again, he thought of octopuses and wondered if the tunnel might be filled with weed that would tangle him. He gave himself a panicky, convulsive kick forward, ducked his head and swam. His feet and hands moved freely as if in open water. The hole must have widened out. He thought he must be swimming fast and he was frightened of banging his head if the tunnel narrowed. A hundred, a hundred and one. The water paled. Victory filled him. His lungs were beginning to hurt. A few more strokes and he would be out. He was counting wildly.
Speaker 1:He said at 115, and then, a long time later, 115 again. The water was a clear jewel green around him. Then he saw above his head a crack running up through the rock. Sunlight was falling through it, showing the clean, dark rock of the tunnel, a single muscle shell, and darkness ahead. He was at the end of what he could do. He looked up at the crack as if it were filled with air and not water, as if he could put his mouth to it to draw air. 115, heard himself say inside his head, but he had said that long ago. He must go on into the blackness ahead or he would drown. His head was swelling, his lungs cracking.
Speaker 1:115, 115 pounded through his head and he feebly clutched at rocks in the dark, pulling himself forward and leaving the brief space of sunlit water behind. He felt he was dying. He was no longer quite conscious. He struggled on in the darkness between lapses into unconsciousness. An immense swelling pain filled his head and then the darkness cracked with an explosion of green light. His hands groping forward meant nothing and his feet kicking back propelled him out into the open sea.
Speaker 1:He drifted to the surface, his face turned up to the air. He was gasping like a fish. He felt he was sink now and drowned. He could not swim the few feet back to the rock. Then he was clutching it and pulling himself onto it.
Speaker 1:He lay face down, gasping. He could see nothing but a red-veined, clotted dark. His eyes must have burst. He thought they were full of blood. He tore off his goggles and a gout of blood went into the sea. His nose was bleeding and the blood had filled the goggles. He scooped up handfuls of water from the cool salty sea to splash his face and did not know whether it was blood or salt water he tasted.
Speaker 1:After a time his heart quieted, his eyes cleared and he sat up. He could see the local boys diving and playing half a mile away. He could see the local boys diving and playing half a mile away. He did not want them. He wanted nothing but to get back home and lie down. In a short while Jerry swam to shore and climbed slowly up the path to the villa. He flung himself on his bed and slept, waking at the sound of feet on the path outside. His mother was coming back. He rushed to the bathroom, thinking she must not see his face with bloodstains or tear stains on it. He came out of the bathroom and met her as she walked to the villa, smiling. Her eyes lit up.
Speaker 1:Have a nice morning she said, laying her hands on his warm brown shoulder a moment.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, thank you. You look pale a bit. And then sharp and anxious how did you bang your head? Oh, I just banged it he told her.
Speaker 1:She looked at him closely. He was strained, his eyes were glazed, looking she was worried. Then she said to herself oh don't fuss, nothing can happen, he can swim like a fish. They sat down to lunch together, mommy, he said.
Speaker 2:I can stay underwater for two minutes, three minutes at least.
Speaker 1:It came bursting out of him.
Speaker 2:Can you darling? She said Well, I shouldn't overdo it. I don't think you ought to swim anymore today.
Speaker 1:She was ready for a battle of wills, but he gave in at once. It was no longer of the least importance to go to the bay. You've been listening to Ron Reed's Boring Books Through the Tunnel by Doris Lessing. Thank you for listening. Please like and share and subscribe to this podcast. Thank you.