Peel me a Book
Let's Peel
The Hearing Trumpet
Not quite a feminist parable. Not quite a surreal comedy.
Perfect if you want to listen to the end of the world through a silver trumpet and laugh until the apocalypse sounds like liberation.
Synopsis
“People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.”
Written in the 1950s but published in 1974, The Hearing Trumpet is Leonora Carrington’s most beloved novel — a hilarious, mystical rebellion against age, patriarchy, and common sense. Ninety-two-year-old Marian Leatherby receives a hearing trumpet from her friend Carmella, and suddenly the world grows louder, stranger, and more divine. Sent to an institution for eccentric old women, Marian discovers that the convent hides alchemical secrets, holy grails, and perhaps the apocalypse itself. What begins as absurd comedy swells into cosmic myth — a story where sisterhood, dreams, and cats orchestrate the end of civilization as we know it.
Mood:
anarchic · visionary · comic · transcendent
Tone:
mischievous · prophetic · tender · wild
It Feels Like
Body:
light-headed, full-hearted — laughter as revelation.
Tempo:
a slow waltz that suddenly turns into a swarm of bees.
Texture:
velvet fur brushed against the grain — soft, defiant, alive.
A Little Taste
“I was so pleased to have a hearing trumpet at last. Carmella was right; it changed my life completely. I could hear conversations I was never meant to hear, whispers from distant corners, the creak of stars turning in the firmament. The world, previously a silent film, was suddenly full of voices. They came from the earth, from the trees, from the cats, and sometimes, most disturbingly, from the furniture. Everything was speaking, and though I couldn’t always understand the language, I felt it was extremely important that I listen. The world was talking to itself about its own ending, and I was the only one paying attention.”
The Aftertaste
To be old enough to finally be free of reason.
To watch the apocalypse arrive with the serene joy of a cat.
To feel that friendship can be a kind of magic — and magic, a kind of feminism.
To taste a world where absurdity is the most honest religion.
Peel With a Drink
To Be Read With A chalice of cold saffron milk with honey and absinthe, stirred until it glows like liquid moonlight. Sweet, herbal, impossible — a drink that feels like it remembers your dreams.
Sip it slowly. It hums.
Peel With a Reel
The Holy Mountain (1973, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky) — surreal ritual, divine chaos, and cosmic satire that mirrors Carrington’s apocalyptic humour.
Orlando (1992, dir. Sally Potter) — time, gender, and transformation folded into an elegant fever dream.
Peel with a Beat
Peel me a Book
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Remedios Varo
where invention becomes ritual, and every brushstroke dreams itself alive.
Let's Peel
The Hearing Trumpet
Not quite a feminist parable. Not quite a surreal comedy.
Perfect if you want to listen to the end of the world through a silver trumpet and laugh until the apocalypse sounds like liberation.
Synopsis
“People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats.”
Written in the 1950s but published in 1974, The Hearing Trumpet is Leonora Carrington’s most beloved novel — a hilarious, mystical rebellion against age, patriarchy, and common sense. Ninety-two-year-old Marian Leatherby receives a hearing trumpet from her friend Carmella, and suddenly the world grows louder, stranger, and more divine. Sent to an institution for eccentric old women, Marian discovers that the convent hides alchemical secrets, holy grails, and perhaps the apocalypse itself. What begins as absurd comedy swells into cosmic myth — a story where sisterhood, dreams, and cats orchestrate the end of civilization as we know it.
Mood:
anarchic · visionary · comic · transcendent
Tone:
mischievous · prophetic · tender · wild
It Feels Like
Body:
light-headed, full-hearted — laughter as revelation.
Tempo:
a slow waltz that suddenly turns into a swarm of bees.
Texture:
velvet fur brushed against the grain — soft, defiant, alive.
A Little Taste
“I was so pleased to have a hearing trumpet at last. Carmella was right; it changed my life completely. I could hear conversations I was never meant to hear, whispers from distant corners, the creak of stars turning in the firmament. The world, previously a silent film, was suddenly full of voices. They came from the earth, from the trees, from the cats, and sometimes, most disturbingly, from the furniture. Everything was speaking, and though I couldn’t always understand the language, I felt it was extremely important that I listen. The world was talking to itself about its own ending, and I was the only one paying attention.”
The Aftertaste
To be old enough to finally be free of reason.
To watch the apocalypse arrive with the serene joy of a cat.
To feel that friendship can be a kind of magic — and magic, a kind of feminism.
To taste a world where absurdity is the most honest religion.
Peel With a Drink
To Be Read With A chalice of cold saffron milk with honey and absinthe, stirred until it glows like liquid moonlight. Sweet, herbal, impossible — a drink that feels like it remembers your dreams.
Sip it slowly. It hums.
Peel With a Reel
The Holy Mountain (1973, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky) — surreal ritual, divine chaos, and cosmic satire that mirrors Carrington’s apocalyptic humour.
Orlando (1992, dir. Sally Potter) — time, gender, and transformation folded into an elegant fever dream.