Podcast appearances and mentions of Milan Kundera

It's a small world. The great David Rieff came to my San Francisco studio today for in person interview about his new anti-woke polemic Desire and Fate. And half way through our conversation, he brought up Daniel Bessner's This Is America piece which Bessner discussed on yesterday's show. I'm not sure what that tells us about wokeness, a subject which Rieff and I aren't in agreement. For him, it's the thing-in-itself which make sense of our current cultural malaise. Thus Desire and Fate, his attempt (with a great intro from John Banville) to wake us up from Wokeness. For me, it's a distraction. I've included the full transcript below. Lots of good stuff to chew on. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS * Rieff views "woke" ideology as primarily American and post-Protestant in nature, rather than stemming solely from French philosophy, emphasizing its connections to self-invention and subjective identity.* He argues that woke culture threatens high culture but not capitalism, noting that corporations have readily embraced a "baudlerized" version of identity politics that avoids class discussions.* Rieff sees woke culture as connected to the wellness movement, with both sharing a preoccupation with "psychic safety" and the metaphorical transformation of experience in which "words” become a form of “violence."* He suggests young people's material insecurity contributes to their focus on identity, as those facing bleak economic prospects turn inward when they "can't make their way in the world."* Rieff characterizes woke ideology as "apocalyptic but not pessimistic," contrasting it with his own genuine pessimism which he considers more realistic about human nature and more cheerful in its acceptance of life's limitations. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, as we digest Trump 2.0, we don't talk that much these days about woke and woke ideology. There was a civil war amongst progressives, I think, on the woke front in 2023 and 2024, but with Donald Trump 2.0 and his various escapades, let's just talk these days about woke. We have a new book, however, on the threat of woke by my guest, David Rieff. It's called Desire and Fate. He wrote it in 2023, came out in late 2024. David's visiting the Bay Area. He's an itinerant man traveling from the East Coast to Latin America and Europe. David, welcome to Keen on America. Do you regret writing this book given what's happened in the last few months in the United States?David Rieff: No, not at all, because I think that the road to moral and intellectual hell is trying to censor yourself according to what you think is useful. There's a famous story of Jean Paul Sartre that he said to the stupefaction of a journalist late in his life that he'd always known about the gulag, and the journalist pretty surprised said, well, why didn't you say anything? And Sartre said so as not to demoralize the French working class. And my own view is, you know, you say what you have to say about this and if I give some aid and comfort to people I don't like, well, so be it. Having said that, I also think a lot of these woke ideas have their, for all of Trump's and Trump's people's fierce opposition to woke, some of the identity politics, particularly around Jewish identity seems to me not that very different from woke. Strangely they seem to have taken, for example, there's a lot of the talk about anti-semitism on college campuses involves student safety which is a great woke trope that you feel unsafe and what people mean by that is not literally they're going to get shot or beaten up, they mean that they feel psychically unsafe. It's part of the kind of metaphorization of experience that unfortunately the United States is now completely in the grips of. But the same thing on the other side, people like Barry Weiss, for example, at the Free Press there, they talk in the same language of psychic safety. So I'm not sure there's, I think there are more similarities than either side is comfortable with.Andrew Keen: You describe Woke, David, as a cultural revolution and you associated in the beginning of the book with something called Lumpen-Rousseauism. As we joked before we went live, I'm not sure if there's anything in Rousseau which isn't Lumpen. But what exactly is this cultural revolution? And can we blame it on bad French philosophy or Swiss French?David Rieff: Well, Swiss-French philosophy, you know exactly. There is a funny anecdote, as I'm sure you know, that Rousseau made a visit to Edinburgh to see Hume and there's something in Hume's diaries where he talks about Rousseau pacing up and down in front of the fire and suddenly exclaiming, but David Hume is not a bad man. And Hume notes in his acerbic way, Rousseau was like walking around without his skin on. And I think some of the woke sensitivity stuff is very much people walking around without their skin on. They can't stand the idea of being offended. I don't see it as much - of course, the influence of that version of cultural relativism that the French like Deleuze and Guattari and other people put forward is part of the story, but I actually see it as much more of a post-Protestant thing. This idea, in that sense, some kind of strange combination of maybe some French philosophy, but also of the wellness movement, of this notion that health, including psychic health, was the ultimate good in a secular society. And then the other part, which again, it seems to be more American than French, which is this idea, and this is particularly true in the trans movement, that you can be anything you want to be. And so that if you feel yourself to be a different gender, well, that's who you are. And what matters is your own subjective sense of these things, and it's up to you. The outside world has no say in it, it's what you feel. And that in a sense, what I mean by post-Protestant is that, I mean, what's the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism? The fundamental difference is, it seems to me, that in Roman Catholic tradition, you need the priest to intercede with God, whereas in Protestant tradition, it is, except for the Anglicans, but for most of Protestantism, it's you and God. And in that sense it seems to me there are more of what I see in woke than this notion that some of the right-wing people like Chris Rufo and others have that this is cultural French cultural Marxism making its insidious way through the institutions.Andrew Keen: It's interesting you talk about the Protestant ethic and you mentioned Hume's remark about Rousseau not having his skin on. Do you think that Protestantism enabled people to grow thick skins?David Rieff: I mean, the Calvinist idea certainly did. In fact, there were all these ideas in Protestant culture, at least that's the classical interpretation of deferred gratification. Capitalism was supposed to be the work ethic, all of that stuff that Weber talks about. But I think it got in the modern version. It became something else. It stopped being about those forms of disciplines and started to be about self-invention. And in a sense, there's something very American about that because after all you know it's the Great Gatsby. It's what's the famous sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's: there are no second acts in American lives.Andrew Keen: This is the most incorrect thing anyone's ever said about America. I'm not sure if he meant it to be incorrect, did he? I don't know.David Rieff: I think what's true is that you get the American idea, you get to reinvent yourself. And this notion of the dream, the dream become reality. And many years ago when I was spending a lot of time in LA in the late 80s, early 90s, at LAX, there was a sign from the then mayor, Tom Bradley, about how, you know, if you can dream it, it can be true. And I think there's a lot in identitarian woke idea which is that we can - we're not constricted by history or reality. In fact, it's all the present and the future. And so to me again, woke seems to me much more recognizable as something American and by extension post-Protestant in the sense that you see the places where woke is most powerful are in the other, what the encampment kids would call settler colonies, Australia and Canada. And now in the UK of course, where it seems to me by DI or EDI as they call it over there is in many ways stronger in Britain even than it was in the US before Trump.Andrew Keen: Does it really matter though, David? I mean, that's my question. Does it matter? I mean it might matter if you have the good or the bad fortune to teach at a small, expensive liberal arts college. It might matter with some of your dinner parties in Tribeca or here in San Francisco, but for most people, who cares?David Rieff: It doesn't matter. I think it matters to culture and so what you think culture is worth, because a lot of the point of this book was to say there's nothing about woke that threatens capitalism, that threatens the neo-liberal order. I mean it's turning out that Donald Trump is a great deal bigger threat to the neoliberal order. Woke was to the contrary - woke is about talking about everything but class. And so a kind of baudlerized, de-radicalized version of woke became perfectly fine with corporate America. That's why this wonderful old line hard lefty Adolph Reed Jr. says somewhere that woke is about diversifying the ruling class. But I do think it's a threat to high culture because it's about equity. It's about representation. And so elite culture, which I have no shame in proclaiming my loyalty to, can't survive the woke onslaught. And it hasn't, in my view. If you look at just the kinds of books that are being written, the kinds of plays that are been put on, even the opera, the new operas that are being commissioned, they're all about representing the marginalized. They're about speaking for your group, whatever that group is, and doing away with various forms of cultural hierarchy. And I'm with Schoenberg: if it's for everybody, if it's art, Schoenberg said it's not for everybody, and if it's for everybody it's not art. And I think woke destroys that. Woke can live with schlock. I'm sorry, high culture can live with schlock, it always has, it always will. What it can't live with is kitsch. And by which I mean kitsch in Milan Kundera's definition, which is to have opinions that you feel better about yourself for holding. And that I think is inimical to culture. And I think woke is very destructive of those traditions. I mean, in the most obvious sense, it's destructive of the Western tradition, but you know, the high arts in places like Japan or Bengal, I don't think it's any more sympathetic to those things than it is to Shakespeare or John Donne or whatever. So yeah, I think it's a danger in that sense. Is it a danger to the peace of the world? No, of course not.Andrew Keen: Even in cultural terms, as you explain, it is an orthodoxy. If you want to work with the dominant cultural institutions, the newspapers, the universities, the publishing houses, you have to play by those rules, but the great artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians have never done that, so all it provides, I mean you brought up Kundera, all it provides is something that independent artists, creative people will sneer at, will make fun of, as you have in this new book.David Rieff: Well, I hope they'll make fun of it. But on the other hand, I'm an old guy who has the means to sneer. I don't have to please an editor. Someone will publish my books one way or another, whatever ones I have left to write. But if you're 25 years old, maybe you're going to sneer with your pals in the pub, but you're gonna have to toe the line if you want to be published in whatever the obvious mainstream place is and you're going to be attacked on social media. I think a lot of people who are very, young people who are skeptical of this are just so afraid of being attacked by their peers on various social media that they keep quiet. I don't know that it's true that, I'd sort of push back on that. I think non-conformists will out. I hope it's true. But I wonder, I mean, these traditions, once they die, they're very hard to rebuild. And, without going full T.S. Eliot on you, once you don't think you're part of the past, once the idea is that basically, pretty much anything that came before our modern contemporary sense of morality and fairness and right opinion is to be rejected and that, for example, the moral character of the artist should determine whether or not the art should be paid attention to - I don't know how you come back from that or if you come back from that. I'm not convinced you do. No, other arts will be around. And I mean, if I were writing a critical review of my own book, I'd say, look, this culture, this high culture that you, David Rieff, are writing an elegy for, eulogizing or memorializing was going to die anyway, and we're at the beginning of another Gutenbergian epoch, just as Gutenberg, we're sort of 20 years into Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg galaxy, and these other art forms will come, and they won't be like anything else. And that may be true.Andrew Keen: True, it may be true. In a sense then, to extend that critique, are you going full T.S. Eliot in this book?David Rieff: Yeah, I think Eliot was right. But it's not just Eliot, there are people who would be for the wokesters more acceptable like Mandelstam, for example, who said you're part of a conversation that's been going on long before you were born, that's going to be going on after you are, and I think that's what art is. I think the idea that we make some completely new thing is a childish fantasy. I think you belong to a tradition. There are periods - look, this is, I don't find much writing in English in prose fiction very interesting. I have to say I read the books that people talk about because I'm trying to understand what's going on but it doesn't interest me very much, but again, there have been periods of great mediocrity. Think of a period in the late 17th century in England when probably the best poet was this completely, rightly, justifiably forgotten figure, Colley Cibber. You had the great restoration period and then it all collapsed, so maybe it'll be that way. And also, as I say, maybe it's just as with the print revolution, that this new culture of social media will produce completely different forms. I mean, everything is mortal, not just us, but cultures and civilizations and all the rest of it. So I can imagine that, but this is the time I live in and the tradition I come from and I'm sorry it's gone, and I think what's replacing it is for the most part worse.Andrew Keen: You're critical in the book of what you, I'm quoting here, you talk about going from the grand inquisitor to the grand therapist. But you're very critical of the broader American therapeutic culture of acute sensitivity, the thin skin nature of, I guess, the Rousseau in this, whatever, it's lumpen Rousseauanism. So how do you interpret that without psychologizing, or are you psychologizing in the book? How are you making sense of our condition? In other words, can one critique criticize therapeutic culture without becoming oneself therapeutic?David Rieff: You mean the sort of Pogo line, we've met the enemy and it is us. Well, I suppose there's some truth to that. I don't know how much. I think that woke is in some important sense a subset of the wellness movement. And the wellness movement after all has tens and tens of millions of people who are in one sense or another influenced by it. And I think health, including psychic health, and we've moved from wellness as corporal health to wellness as being both soma and psyche. So, I mean, if that's psychologizing, I certainly think it's drawing the parallel or seeing woke in some ways as one of the children of the god of wellness. And that to me, I don't know how therapeutic that is. I think it's just that once you feel, I'm interested in what people feel. I'm not necessarily so interested in, I mean, I've got lots of opinions, but what I think I'm better at than having opinions is trying to understand why people think what they think. And I do think that once health becomes the ultimate good in a secular society and once death becomes the absolutely unacceptable other, and once you have the idea that there's no real distinction of any great validity between psychic and physical wellness, well then of course sensitivity to everything becomes almost an inevitable reaction.Andrew Keen: I was reading the book and I've been thinking about a lot of movements in America which are trying to bring people together, dealing with America, this divided America, as if it's a marriage in crisis. So some of the most effective or interesting, I think, thinkers on this, like Arlie Hochschild in Berkeley, use the language of therapy to bring or to try to bring America back together, even groups like the Braver Angels. Can therapy have any value or that therapeutic culture in a place like America where people are so bitterly divided, so hateful towards one another?David Rieff: Well, it's always been a country where, on the one hand, people have been, as you say, incredibly good at hatred and also a country of people who often construe themselves as misfits and heretics from the Puritans forward. And on the other hand, you have that small-town American idea, which sometimes I think is as important to woke and DI as as anything else which is that famous saying of small town America of all those years ago which was if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all. And to some extent that is, I think, a very powerful ancestor of these movements. Whether they're making any headway - of course I hope they are, but Hochschild is a very interesting figure, but I don't, it seems to me it's going all the other way, that people are increasingly only talking to each other.Andrew Keen: What this movement seems to want to do is get beyond - I use this word carefully, I'm not sure if they use it but I'm going to use it - ideology and that we're all prisoners of ideology. Is woke ideology or is it a kind of post-ideology?David Rieff: Well, it's a redemptive idea, a restorative idea. It's an idea that in that sense, there's a notion that it's time for the victims, for the first to be last and the last to be first. I mean, on some level, it is as simple as that. On another level, as I say, I do think it has a lot to do with metaphorization of experience, that people say silence is violence and words are violence and at that point what's violence? I mean there is a kind of level to me where people have gotten trapped in the kind of web of their own metaphors and now are living by them or living shackled to them or whatever image you're hoping for. But I don't know what it means to get beyond ideology. What, all men will be brothers, as in the Beethoven-Schiller symphony? I mean, it doesn't seem like that's the way things are going.Andrew Keen: Is the problem then, and I'm thinking out loud here, is the problem politics or not enough politics?David Rieff: Oh, I think the problem is that now we don't know, we've decided that everything is part, the personal is the political, as the feminists said, 50, 60 years ago. So the personal's political, so the political is the personal. So you have to live the exemplary moral life, or at least the life that doesn't offend anybody or that conforms to whatever the dominant views of what good opinions are, right opinions are. I think what we're in right now is much more the realm of kind of a new set of moral codes, much more than ideology in the kind of discrete sense of politics.Andrew Keen: Now let's come back to this idea of being thin-skinned. Why are people so thin-skinned?David Rieff: Because, I mean, there are lots of things to say about that. One thing, of course, that might be worth saying, is that the young generations, people who are between, let's say, 15 and 30, they're in real material trouble. It's gonna be very hard for them to own a house. It's hard for them to be independent and unless the baby boomers like myself will just transfer every penny to them, which doesn't seem very likely frankly, they're going to live considerably worse than generations before. So if you can't make your way in the world then maybe you make your way yourself or you work on yourself in that sort of therapeutic sense. You worry about your own identity because the only place you have in the world in some way is yourself, is that work, that obsession. I do think some of these material questions are important. There's a guy you may know who's not at all woke, a guy who teaches at the University of Washington called Danny Bessner. And I just did a show with him this morning. He's a smart guy and we have a kind of ironic correspondence over email and DM. And I once said to him, why are you so bitter about everything? And he said, you want to know why? Because I have two children and the likelihood is I'll never get a teaching job that won't require a three hour commute in order for me to live anywhere that I can afford to live. And I thought, and he couldn't be further from woke, he's a kind of Jacobin guy, Jacobin Magazine guy, and if he's left at all, it's kind of old left, but I think a lot of people feel that, that they feel their practical future, it looks pretty grim.Andrew Keen: But David, coming back to the idea of art, they're all suited to the world of art. They don't have to buy a big house and live in the suburbs. They can become poets. They can become filmmakers. They can put their stuff up on YouTube. They can record their music online. There are so many possibilities.David Rieff: It's hard to monetize that. Maybe now you're beginning to sound like the people you don't like. Now you're getting to sound like a capitalist.Andrew Keen: So what? Well, I don't care if I sound like a capitalist. You're not going to starve to death.David Rieff: Well, you might not like, I mean, it's fine to be a barista at 24. It's not so fine at 44. And are these people going to ever get out of this thing? I don't know. I wonder. Look, when I was starting as a writer, as long as you were incredibly diligent, and worked really hard, you could cobble together at least a basic living by accepting every assignment and people paid you bits and bobs of money, but put together, you could make a living. Now, the only way to make money, unless you're lucky enough to be on staff of a few remaining media outlets that remain, is you have to become an impresario, you have become an entrepreneur of your own stuff. And again, sure, do lots of people manage that? Yeah, but not as many as could have worked in that other system, and look at the fate of most newspapers, all folding. Look at the universities. We can talk about woke and how woke destroyed, in my view anyway, a lot of the humanities. But there's also a level in which people didn't want to study these things. So we're looking at the last generation in a lot places of a lot of these humanities departments and not just the ones that are associated with, I don't know, white supremacy or the white male past or whatever, but just the humanities full stop. So I know if that sounds like, maybe it sounds like a capitalist, but maybe it also sounds like you know there was a time when the poets - you know very well, poets never made a living, poets taught in universities. That's the way American poets made their money, including pretty famous poets like Eric Wolcott or Joseph Brodsky or writers, Toni Morrison taught at Princeton all those years, Joyce Carol Oates still alive, she still does. Most of these people couldn't make a living of their work and so the university provided that living.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Barry Weiss earlier. She's making a fortune as an anti-woke journalist. And Free Press seems to be thriving. Yascha Mounk's Persuasion is doing pretty well. Andrew Sullivan, another good example, making a fortune off of Substack. It seems as if the people willing to take risks, Barry Weiss leaving the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan leaving everything he's ever joined - that's...David Rieff: Look, are there going to be people who thrive in this new environment? Sure. And Barry Weiss turns out to be this kind of genius entrepreneur. She deserves full credit for that. Although even Barry Weiss, the paradox for me of Barry Weiss is, a lot of her early activism was saying that she felt unsafe with these anti-Israeli teachers at Columbia. So in a sense, she was using some of the same language as the woke use, psychic safety, because she didn't mean Joseph Massad was gonna come out from the blackboard and shoot her in the eye. She meant that she was offended and used the language of safety to describe that. And so in that sense, again, as I was saying to you earlier, I think there are more similarities here. And Trump, I think this is a genuine counterrevolution that Trump is trying to mount. I'm not very interested in the fascism, non-fascism debate. I'm rather skeptical of it.Andrew Keen: As Danny Bessner is. Yeah, I thought Danny's piece about that was brilliant.David Rieff: We just did a show about it today, that piece about why that's all rubbish. I was tempted, I wrote to a friend that guy you may know David Bell teaches French history -Andrew Keen: He's coming on the show next week. Well, you see, it's just a little community of like-minded people.David Rieff: There you go. Well, I wrote to David.Andrew Keen: And you mentioned his father in the book, Daniel.David Rieff: Yeah, well, his father is sort of one of the tutelary idols of the book. I had his father and I read his father and I learned an enormous amount. I think that book about the cultural contradictions of capitalism is one of the great prescient books about our times. But I wrote to David, I said, I actually sent him the Bessner piece which he was quite ambivalent about. But I said well, I'm not really convinced by the fascism of Trump, maybe just because Hitler read books, unlike Donald Trump. But it's a genuine counterrevolution. And what element will change the landscape in terms of DI and woke and identitarianism is not clear. These people are incredibly ambitious. They really mean to change this country, transform it.Andrew Keen: But from the book, David, Trump's attempts to cleanse, if that's the right word, the university, I would have thought you'd have rather admired that, all these-David Rieff: I agree with some of it.Andrew Keen: All these idiots writing the same article for 30 years about something that no one has any interest in.David Rieff: I look, my problem with Trump is that I do support a lot of that. I think some of the stuff that Christopher Rufo, one of the leading ideologues of this administration has uncovered about university programs and all of this crap, I think it's great that they're not paying for it anymore. The trouble is - you asked me before, is it that important? Is culture important compared to destroying the NATO alliance, blowing up the global trade regime? No. I don't think. So yeah, I like a lot of what they're doing about the university, I don't like, and I am very fiercely opposed to this crackdown on speech. That seems to be grotesque and revolting, but are they canceling supporting transgender theater in Galway? Yeah, I think it's great that they're canceling all that stuff. And so I'm not, that's my problem with Trump, is that some of that stuff I'm quite unashamedly happy about, but it's not nearly worth all the damage he's doing to this country and the world.Andrew Keen: Being very generous with your time, David. Finally, in the book you describe woke as, and I thought this was a very sharp way of describing it, describe it as being apocalyptic but not pessimistic. What did you mean by that? And then what is the opposite of woke? Would it be not apocalyptic, but cheerful?David Rieff: Well, I think genuine pessimists are cheerful, I would put myself among those. The model is Samuel Beckett, who just thinks things are so horrible that why not be cheerful about them, and even express one's pessimism in a relatively cheerful way. You remember the famous story that Thomas McCarthy used to tell about walking in the Luxembourg Gardens with Beckett and McCarthy says to him, great day, it's such a beautiful day, Sam. Beckett says, yeah, beautiful day. McCarthy says, makes you glad to be alive. And Beckett said, oh, I wouldn't go that far. And so, the genuine pessimist is quite cheerful. But coming back to woke, it's apocalyptic in the sense that everything is always at stake. But somehow it's also got this reformist idea that cultural revolution will cleanse away the sins of the supremacist patriarchal past and we'll head for the sunny uplands. I think I'm much too much of a pessimist to think that's possible in any regime, let alone this rather primitive cultural revolution called woke.Andrew Keen: But what would the opposite be?David Rieff: The opposite would be probably some sense that the best we're going to do is make our peace with the trash nature of existence, that life is finite in contrast with the wellness people who probably have a tendency towards the apocalyptic because death is an insult to them. So everything is staving off the bad news and that's where you get this idea that you can, like a lot of revolutions, you can change the nature of people. Look, the communist, Che Guevara talked about the new man. Well, I wonder if he thought it was so new when he was in Bolivia. I think these are - people need utopias, this is one of them, MAGA is another utopia by the way, and people don't seem to be able to do without them and that's - I wish it were otherwise but it isn't.Andrew Keen: I'm guessing the woke people would be offended by the idea of death, are they?David Rieff: Well, I think the woke people, in this synchronicity, people and a lot of people, they're insulted - how can this happen to me, wonderful me? And this is those jokes in the old days when the British could still be savage before they had to have, you know, Henry the Fifth be played by a black actor - why me? Well, why not you? That's just so alien to and it's probably alien to the American idea. You're supposed to - it's supposed to work out and the truth is it doesn't work out. But La Rochefoucauld says somewhere no one can stare for too long at death or the sun and maybe I'm asking too much.Andrew Keen: Maybe only Americans can find death unacceptable to use one of your words.David Rieff: Yes, perhaps.Andrew Keen: Well, David Rieff, congratulations on the new book. Fascinating, troubling, controversial as always. Desire and Fate. I know you're writing a book about Oppenheimer, very different kind of subject. We'll get you back on the show to talk Oppenheimer, where I guess there's not going to be a lot of Lumpen-Rousseauism.David Rieff: Very little, very little love and Rousseau in the quantum mechanics world, but thanks for having me.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

C'est Milan Kundera qui le disait : l'Enfant, c'est une existence sans biographie. Cette phrase pourrait habiller en partie l'étrange récit d'Amado Komi. Vous le savez, souvent, pour ESM, on évoque des histoires d'identité revendiquées, secrètes ou malmenées pour cause d'assignation ou de préjugés, des identités qui se transforment au gré des exils, des impossibles retours ou simplement du temps qui passe. Vieux père, l'histoire filmée par Marine de Royer entre Ouagadougou et Paris, le théâtre et les visites médicales, mais aussi entre deux âges pose une sacrée question (un peu genrée, désolée)… à savoir : qu'est-ce qu'être un homme ?

C'est Milan Kundera qui le disait : l'Enfant, c'est une existence sans biographie. Cette phrase pourrait habiller en partie l'étrange récit d'Amado Komi. Vous le savez, souvent, pour ESM, on évoque des histoires d'identité revendiquées, secrètes ou malmenées pour cause d'assignation ou de préjugés, des identités qui se transforment au gré des exils, des impossibles retours ou simplement du temps qui passe. Vieux père, l'histoire filmée par Marine de Royer entre Ouagadougou et Paris, le théâtre et les visites médicales, mais aussi entre deux âges pose une sacrée question (un peu genrée, désolée)… à savoir : qu'est-ce qu'être un homme ?

Piše Meta Kušar, bereta Višnja Fičor in Aleksander Golja. Esej je tista sočna in krepčilna literarna zvrst, ki je potrebna tako pisatelju in dramatiku kot tudi pesniku. Nič manj oseben ni kot lirika, samo besede so drugače stkane. Niti, na katere se tke, niso zgodba, ampak misli, ideje, prepričanja, ki se razgalijo in s tem osvojijo bralca. Leta 2014 je Drago Jančar izdal eseje Pisanja in znamenja. V desetih letih je globalizacija pokazala nove trike, vendar prav nič ne moti, da so v knjigi Zakaj pisati tudi esej iz leta 1989 in še nekaj starejših od deset let, saj tako doživljamo tudi lucidnost in kvaliteto našega opazovanja pred desetletjem in več. Vem, da se literarni ustvarjalec pogosteje sprašuje, kakšno vlogo ima literatura, kot pa bralec. Kritiki in založniki imajo spet svoje razloge, grobe do literature in umetnika. Nekateri kritiki bi želeli agitacijo, drugi, da bi umetnik zarjovel kot lev. O vseh različnih zahtevah časa razmišlja Jančar v uvodnem eseju, tudi o informacijski džungli in o nenadomestljivosti evropske kulture, literaturo postavi v njen center, in upa na ljudi, tudi mlade, ki naj bi vse manj brali, da začutijo smisel in bogastvo in neštete velike in filigranske vrednote v knjigi iz papirja, ki daje zgodbo, poezijo in esej. Jančarjevi eseji o pisanju so močna izpoved o stoletnem divjanju v Evropi, v katerem je umrlo milijone ljudi; premnogim je bilo vzeto življenje, ki so ga ljubili, in jim je bilo vsiljeno nekaj neživljenjskega, mrtvega. Povsem razločno je bilo videti, da smo umrli Boga, Hudiča pa smo pustili pri življenju. Še dobro, ker zdaj vsakega človeka posebej sili ugotavljati, koliko zla je sposoben bližjemu storiti. Hudič nam kaže, kaj nas bo učilo sočutja, dejansko prav to, da zagledamo lastno neusmiljenost. Jančar v svojem pisanju stoji ob Brodskem, ki pravi: Estetika je mati etike. Ko gre človek resno skozi Jančarjeve eseje v knjigi Zakaj pisati, ga je sram, da ni bral, kar omenja, da ni slišal za pomembna srečanja pisateljev in za nagrade, ki so bile avtorju podeljene. Precej nonšalantno so mnogi, celo politiki, metali na Evropsko zvezo svoj cinizem, kot prej na samostojno Slovenijo. Nekaj jih je, več kot se nam zdi, ki jih pekli slaba vest, ko čezatlantskega prijateljstva ni več in smo postali zajedavci Amerike. Za vse, ki se o zgodovini Evrope in o Srednji Evropi niso v šoli dovolj naučili, velja, naj berejo Jančarjeve eseje. Poučili se bodo, da je Milan Kundera v The New York Review of Books leta 1984 objavil esej Tragedija Srednje Evrope. Bralci so ga brali z navdušenjem, ker so spoznali njeno kulturno identiteto in odprtost. Osem let pred tem, leta 1976, je Tomaž Šalamun v knjigi Praznik objavil pesem Naša vera: Srednja Evropa! / Grozni sentimentalni kraji, totalna katastrofa! / Z ljudstvi, / natrpanimi v živinske vagone, peljanimi na izlet / v koncentracijska taborišča pod plin, ali podobne / neokusnosti med hlipanjem in krpanjem nogavic!... Takrat je zagrabil drugačen fenomen Srednje Evrope, ki se nam kaže zdaj, leta 2025. Ta fenomen je v Jančarjevih esejih nenehno prisoten. Seveda pa ne pozabi niti na opazovanje Habsburškega mita v moderni avstrijski književnosti iz leta 1963. Pisatelj, ki skozi vso knjigo slavi demokracijo, hkrati pa priznava, da je bil v »kulturnem pomenu« tudi jugonostalgik. A vedno zgrožen nad diktaturo v Jugoslaviji, sicer blažjo kot na Madžarskem in Češkem, a še vedno diktaturo, ki je državo pognala v prepad. Drago Jančar je človek, ki je nenehno hrepenel po politični svobodi in zanjo marsikaj storil, a je spoznal, kot pravi »narodni značaj vseh malih narodov, kjer se ljudje raje ukvarjajo drug z drugim, kakor pa z velikim svetom okoli sebe«. Eseji v knjigi Zakaj pisati veliko povedo o slovenski vodilni družbi, »ki najraje jaha politično demagogijo in nezaceljene rane naroda izrablja za surova obračunavanja«. Vsi se še spomnimo, koliko energije in lucidnega pisanja je Drago Jančar v devetdesetih letih namenil svoji publicistiki, kolumnam v Delu – in nekega dne, brez pojasnila uredništva, ni objavil nobene več. To kar je napisal leta 2021: »Torej sem na robu, opazujem življenje, pišem o njem, naj bo to v zgodovinskem ali današnjem času,« bo veljalo še za sleherne prihodnje eseje. Kdor natančno ne gleda zgodovine, si ni mislil, da bo najnovejši udarec gibanju 'woke', prebujenstvo, prišel prav iz države z močno demokracijo. Puritanstvo v Ameriki je prastaro, od časa do časa se zbudi kot neprecepljena otroška bolezen, in zdaj je udarilo v literaturo. Ne samo v moderno, ampak tudi v klasiko, ki je generacijam dajala smisel in ohranjala lepoto. Jančarjevi eseji nagovarjajo k življenju. Kdo je krivec za vse te norosti, ki so seveda tudi nezaslišane grozote? Oba akterja hladne vojne in vsi mi opazovalci, ki razločno vidimo, kot tudi pisatelj, ki jih je napisal, da je vajeti prevzel diktat ega nad vso raznovrstnostjo nezavednega. Potem sta tu še pragmatizem, ki ga pisatelj prepoznava vsepovsod, in elementarna nehvaležnost brez sočutja, ki para dušo tako ustvarjalcem umetnosti kot občinstvu. In še nekaj nam povedo eseji v knjigi Zakaj pisati: Naše razcapanosti ne more nihče več popraviti, če je ne bo začel popravljati vsak sam. Ali bi si lahko želeli več, kot je razmišljanje pisatelja o preteklih časih v Jugoslaviji, o tranziciji in o težkih rečeh, ki se (spet) dogajajo zdaj.

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is DR Shores, author of the book Shallow Stock. Raised on the Yorkshire coastline in the United Kingdom, D R Shores studied engineering prior to a twenty-five year career in business. Literature has always been a passion, with a taste ranging from Sigrid Nunez and Thomas Harris to established twentieth-century classics from Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ayn Rand and Milan Kundera. Now living with his family and introverted dog in the east midlands area of England, his other interests include music, current affairs, volunteering and keeping fit.   In my book review, I stated Shallow Stock is a suspense thriller that will keep you reading well into the wee hours of the morning! I loved the story and the intricate plotlines. As an author, I was also intrigued by how all the threads came together in the end.   The story has a Hatfield and McCoy vibe. Two families are at 'war' and have been for several generations. They each own a competing corporation and work tirelessly to out do one another. Wynter McGlynn is the CEO of one. Julian Dayton is the CEO of the other. Both currently have issues holding onto their positions of power and see the other as their biggest obstacle. The competition is fierce, but is it fair? And what happens when the finger pointing starts?   From black tie balls to crooked politicians to a city-wide triathlon to human trafficking to board meetings to interesting family dynamics, this book will lead you down a road you won't want to miss. And even when you think you've gotten the very last surprise, Shores finds a way to offer you a tidbit more. It's a great read!   Subscribe to Online for Authors to learn about more great books! https://www.youtube.com/@onlineforauthors?sub_confirmation=1   Join the Novels N Latte Book Club community to discuss this and other books with like-minded readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3576519880426290   You can follow Author DR Shores: Website: https://shallowstock.com FB: @Shallow Stock X: @d_r_shores IG: @d_r_shores LinkedIn: @Duncan Shores   Purchase Shallow Stock on Amazon: Paperback: https://amzn.to/4boTcp8 Ebook: https://amzn.to/3EYiEpe   Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor IG: @terimbrown_author X: @terimbrown1   #drshores #shallowstock #suspense #thriller #terimbrownauthor #authorpodcast #onlineforauthors #characterdriven #researchjunkie #awardwinningauthor #podcasthost #podcast #readerpodcast #bookpodcast #writerpodcast #author #books #goodreads #bookclub #fiction #writer #bookreview   *As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Que privilégio que é conseguir entrevistar uma escritora da qual ficámos fãs. Já me tinham recomendado o livro “Não Fossem as Sílabas do Sábado” e há boas notícias: o livro chegou a Portugal, em breve vem outro e há tantos outros desta advogada e escritora brasileira que nesta conversa (via zoom) se dá a conhecer enquanto leitora. Valeu.Os livros que a Mariana escolheu:Por escrito, Elvira Vigna;Os meus sentimentos, Maria Dulce Cardoso;As horas, Michael Cunningham;O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo, José Saramago.Outras referências:Lygia Fagundes Telles;A insustentável leveza do ser, Milan Kundera;Lobo Antunes:Os Cus de Judas;Eu Hei-de Amar uma Pedra;Uma casa no fim do mundo, Michael Cunningham;José Luis Peixoto;Tatiana Salem Levy;A Pediatra, Andrea Del Fuego;O Som e a Fúria, William Faulkner;A visão das plantas, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida.Os que escreveu:Idílico;Delicada uma de nós;Fadas e copos no canto da casa;Se Deus me chamar não vou;É sempre a hora da nossa morte amém;A árvore mais sozinha do mundo (em breve em Portugal);Participou com um conto na antologia O dia escuro.Não Fossem as Sílabas do Sábado (em Portugal) O que recomendei:Autobiografia não autorizada (1 e 2), Duce Maria Cardoso;Lucy Barton, Elisabeth Strout;Toda a Ferida é uma Beleza, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida.Os livros aqui:www.wook.pt

Los títulos de la entrega de hoy de La ContraPortada, el especial de libros de La ContraCrónica son: 0:00 Introducción 2:41 "La extraña muerte de la Inglaterra liberal" de George Dangerfield - https://amzn.to/426PHjS 22:26 "El libro de los amores ridículos" de Milan Kundera - https://amzn.to/4bXcWAf 26:51 "Tiempo pasado" de Beatriz Sarlo - https://amzn.to/41u36kL y "Trilogía de Auschwitz" de Primo Levi - https://amzn.to/4fB5JWL 39:18 "La masai blanca" de Corinne Hofmann - https://amzn.to/4hFDyHg Consulta los mejores libros de la semana en La ContraBiblioteca - https://diazvillanueva.com/la-contrabiblioteca/ · Canal de Telegram: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Contra la Revolución Francesa”… https://amzn.to/4aF0LpZ · “Hispanos. Breve historia de los pueblos de habla hispana”… https://amzn.to/428js1G · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK · “La ContraHistoria del comunismo”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... @diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #liberal #primolevi Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Piet Meeuse studeerde Nederlands MO-A en filosofie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Hij studeerde af met een doctoraalscriptie over een taaltheorie van Novalis. Zijn eigen werk, dat verschijnt bij de Bezige Bij, bestaat uit essays, verhalen en romans. Voor De jacht op Proteus ontving hij in 1993 de Busken Huetprijs en voor Doorkijkjes: over de werkelijkheid van beelden de Jan Greshoff-prijs (1996). Meeuse vertaalde daarnaast Paul Valéry, Francis Ponge, Milan Kundera, Hermann Broch, Hans Magnus Enzensberger en eveneens Gaston Bachelard (onder andere Vliegdroom en Het Nest). Ook was Meeuse lid van de adviesraad van het Letterenfonds en is hij sinds 2003 als docent essayistiek verbonden aan de Schrijversvakschool te Amsterdam.

Livros mencionados: Os Cinco, Enid Blyton; Os Sete, Enid Blyton; Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle; Uma Aventura, Ana Maria Magalhães e Isabel Alçada; Clube das Chaves, Maria Teresa Maia Gonzalez e Maria do Rosário Pedreira; Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling; O Princepezinho, Antoine Saint-Exupery; Senhor Deus, Esta é a Ana, Flynn; Terapia, David Lodge; As Benevolentes, Jonathan Littell; Os Hereges, Leonardo Padura; O Homem que Gostava de Cães, Leonardo Padura; Trilogia M Mussolini, Antonio Scurati; O Alfaiate do Panamá, John le Carré; O Epigrama de Estaline, Robert Littell; A Arte da Guerra, Sun Tzu; A Sociedade do Cansaço, Byung-Chul Han; Um Feiticeiro da Terramar, Ursula K. Le Guin; Lisboa Reykjavík, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir; Cem Anos de Solidão, Gabriel García Marquéz; A Insustentável Leveza do Ser, Milan Kundera; Mystic River, Dennis Lehane; 1984, George Orwell; A História de Uma Serva, Margaret Atwood; Grande Sertão Veredas, João Guimarães Rosa. Sigam-nos no instagram: @leiturasembadanas Edição de som: Tale House

En este nuevo episodio de Biblioteca Personal, nos adentramos en la vida y obra de Milan Kundera, un escritor que logró dominar el arte de la novela y ser uno de los intelectuales más emblemáticos de su tiempo. Nacido en la antigua Checoslovaquia, Kundera se convirtió en una figura literaria universal, pero siempre evadió las etiquetas y los compromisos políticos, buscando únicamente la verdad en la narrativa. Desde La insoportable levedad del ser hasta Los testamentos traicionados, El olvido y La risa, entre otros, sus novelas se enmarcan en la categoría de tragicómicas, y mezclan a su vez un contenido profundo, denso y ligero, llenas de buen humor e ironía, que han generado todo tipo de interpretaciones que siempre cuestionó Kundera. Sus personajes viven en mundos donde las decisiones más trascendentales se entrelazan con lo absurdo, donde las pasiones se mezclan con el desencanto, y donde las grandes preguntas de la vida surgen entre risas y tragedias. Este episodio es un homenaje a la maestría de Kundera para mostrar cómo dominó el arte de la novela, ilustrando complejidades humanas a través de una lente irónica, y nos invita a reflexionar sobre cómo su visión de la vida sigue vigente y esencial para entender el mundo contemporáneo. Escúchalo ahora en Biblioteca Personal

Le maître de la littérature belge nous a quittés ce dimanche ; Pierre Mertens avait 85 ans. Il venait de publier son dernier roman, 'Paysage sans Véronique', paru aux Impressions Nouvelles, qui était en gestation en lui depuis le décès de Véronique Pierroton dans une chambre d'hôtel à Ostende. Il ne croyait pas à la thèse du suicide de son amie. Je suis soulagée qu'il ait pu tenir son roman en mains avant de fermer les yeux pour de bon. Né le 9 octobre 1939 à Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, l'écrivain était docteur en Droit, spécialiste du Droit international et directeur du Centre de Sociologie de la Littérature à l'Université libre de Bruxelles. Juriste engagé, il s'exprimait régulièrement sur la scène publique et n'hésitait pas à mêler fiction et témoignages historiques dans son œuvre, comme dans sa splendide nouvelle 'L'ami de mon amie'. Né de père résistant et de mère juive, il aura été un 'enfant caché' durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale et n'en parlera jamais avant ses septante ans. Jean-Pierre Orban évoque cette page de son histoire dans 'Le siècle pour mémoire', une biographie magistrale et passionnante, publiée en 2018, qui retrace sa vie et son œuvre. Prix Médicis pour 'Les Eblouissements' en 1987, Prix Rossel pour son premier roman 'L'Inde ou l'Amérique', il était membre de l'Académie royale de Langue et de Littérature françaises de Belgique et nommé chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République française. Voici pour les honneurs. C'était surtout un homme drôle, d'une intelligence verbale prodigieuse, ouvert aux autres et d'une remarquable écoute des écrivains. J'ai eu la chance de le recevoir plusieurs fois dans mes émissions. Il parlait avec bonheur de ses écrivains fétiches, Kafka, le premier, l'annonciateur pour lui de la littérature dans sa vie, Pasolini dont il imitait la voix d'étoupe, Milan Kundera qui lui fut proche. Il détaillait aussi les alliances entre la médecine et la littérature et se faisait alors le chantre de Tchekhov et de son humanité à toute épreuve. Il signait un splendide texte sur Alban Berg, qui mourut d'une piqûre de guêpe à 50 ans. Car la musique était sa seconde passion et sa rencontre avec Arvo Pärt lui fut un émerveillement. Avec 'Une paix royale', il passa, comme il le disait lui-même, de la chronique littéraire à la chronique judicaire. Œuvre majeure où il replongea dans le bain de l'enfance et du vélo, la petite reine qui lui fit croiser la route du roi Baudouin dont la voiture accrocha le vélo du garçon. Signe des dieux et des déesses, il donna dans 'Une paix royale' un portrait émouvant du roi Léopold et d'une Belgique menacée par les eaux d'un grand chambardement maritime. La veuve de Léopold n'apprécia pas certains passages. Il faut lire ou relire cette oeuvre flamboyante et baroque où l'écriture de Pierre Mertens est à son acmé. Pierre Mertens rend sa plume et nul ne peut s'en saisir. Il nous reste ses romans comme héritage et sa voix enjouée dans nos échanges passés. Photo : Discours de Pierre Mertens au Prix Rossel, 2012 - BELGA IMAGE/ KRISTOF VAN ACCOM Merci pour votre écoute Par Ouïe-Dire c'est également en direct tous les jours de la semaine de 22h à 23h sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez tous les épisodes de Par Ouïe-Dire sur notre plateforme Auvio.be : https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/272 Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

Í yfirgefnu bílaverkstæði við Skeljanes í Reykjavík hefur hópur sviðslistafólks komið sér fyrir með starfsemi undir yfirskriftinni Tóma rýmið. Þar hafa þau æfingaaðstöðu og rými til þess að prófa áfram og sýna verk á mismunandi stigum í undirbúningsferlinu. Hluti af starfsemi Tóma rýmisins felst í mánaðarlegum tilraunakvöldum, þar sem meðlimir hópsins bera á borð verk í vinnslu eða gera tilraunir í samtali við áhorfendur. Tilraunakvöld janúarmánaðar fer fram í Tóma rýminu í kvöld. Þar verður áhorfendum meðal annars boðið upp á brot úr leikverkinu Skeljar, eftir Magnús Thorlacius, og lifandi tónlistarmyndband úr smiðju systkinana Snæfríðar Sólar og Kormáks Jarls, en gestum býðst líka að skella sér í sánu við sjóinn eftir viðburðinn. Við hittum þau Snæfríði og Magnús og heyrum nánar af starfsemi Tóma rýmisins. Við ætlum líka að kynna okkur tónlistarkonuna Molly Drake sem var algjörlega óþekkt sem listakona á meðan hún lifði. Molly var bresk millistéttarhúsmóðir í litlu sveitaþorpi nálægt Birmingham þegar hún samdi nær alla sína tónlist. Hún skrifaði ljóð og lagatexta og samdi melódíur á heimilispíanóið, fyrst og fremst fyrir sjálfa sig. Molly datt aldrei í hug að gefa tónlistina sína út en þökk sé eiginmanni hennar eru til upptökur sem hann tók upp á heimili þeirra. Þessar upptökur voru gefnar út löngu eftir dauða Mollyar, þegar sonur hennar, Nick Drake, var orðinn heimsfrægur tónlistarmaður. Gauti Kristmannsson verður líka með okkur í dag og fjallar að þessu sinni um Vesturlönd í gíslingu - eða harmleik um Mið-Evrópu, tvær ritgerðir tékkneska rithöfundarins Milan Kundera, í þýðingu Friðriks Rafnssonar. Umsjón: Halla Harðardóttir og Melkorka Ólafsdóttir

A version of this essay has been published by Open Magazine at https://openthemagazine.com/columns/shadow-warrior/I have been thinking about the ongoing vilification of Hindus in the media/social media for some time, e.g. the Economist magazine's bizarre choice of Bangladesh as its country of the year while Bangladeshis are genociding Hindus. The simplest way I could account for it is as the very opposite of Milan Kundera's acclaimed novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. There is some karma at play here, and it is very heavy.The nation of immigrants, or to be more precise, its Deep State, is apparently turning against some of its most successful immigrants: law-abiding, tax-paying, docile ones. Irony, while others go on murderous sprees. In an insightful article in Open magazine, Amit Majmudar explains Why They Hate Us.There has been an astonishing outpouring of pure hatred against Indians in general, and Hindus in particular, on the Internet in the wake of Sriram Krishnan's seemingly accurate statement that country caps on H1-B visas are counterproductive. But this was merely a spike: for at least a year, Hindus have been vilified and name-called as “pajeets” and “street-shi**ers” on the net.It is intriguing that in 2024, both Jews and Hindus have been targeted: Jews by the extreme left on Gaza, and Hindus by both the extreme left and the extreme right, on what is, basically, a non-issue. H1-B is a very minor issue compared to, say, the wars and the US national debt.In fact, the H1-B brouhaha may well turn out to be a medium-term plus for India if it compels young Indians to seek employment at home. It will of course be a minus for the million-plus Indian-origin individuals who are in line for Green Cards, given the per-country cap of 9800 per year: mathematically, it will take them over a century to gain permanent residence.From the host country's point of view too, it is necessary to distinguish between generally desirable immigrants who contribute to the national wealth, as opposed to others who are a net burden on the exchequer, as I wrote recently.On reflection I attribute the withering assault on Hindus to four things: racism, religious bigotry, economics and geo-economics, and narrative-building.Presumably, all this had something to do with British colonial propaganda, which painted India as an utterly horrifying and pestilential country. Motivated and prejudiced imperialists ranging from James Mill to Winston Churchill were considered truthful historians. And it continues. I mentioned above the Economist magazine's baffling decision to certify Bangladesh's Islamist reign of terror.In another instance, in the Financial Times, a British chess correspondent (a nonagenarian named Leonard Barden), was underwhelmed by D Gukesh's staggering feat of becoming world champion at a teenager, and seemed to suggest that a) Gukesh won because his opponent Ding Liren of China was ill, b) Gukesh would have lost to either of two Americans, Caruana and Nakamura (both immigrants to the US, incidentally) if they had been in the fray. Barden, who probably remembers imperial times, also seemed to think poorly of the emerging Indian challenge in chess. These Anglosphere prejudices affect Americans.I also have some personal experience of American racism, as someone who went to the US on a student visa, got his Green Card and stayed on for twenty years before returning to India. A factor in my return was alienation, and the feeling of being an unwanted outsider, engendered by casual racism, even though on the face of it, I had a great life: good job in Silicon Valley, nice house, dream car. Obama's and Biden's regimes did nothing to change that feeling. Trump's second coming may not either.RacismIn general, I find Americans to be very nice people, gregarious, friendly and thoughtful: I had a number of good friends when I lived there. But I also think that racism is inbuilt into the culture (after all, it has not been that long since Brown v. Board of Education, Bull Connor, Jim Crow, George Wallace; and earlier the Asian Exclusion Act).There have been many acts of discrimination and racism against Hindus (although the term “Hindoo” [sic] included Sikhs and Muslims as well). See, e.g., the serious anti-Indian riots in Bellingham, WA in 1907 when “500 working class white men violently expelled Hindoo migrants from the city”. (both images courtesy @Hindoohistory on Twitter).Another remarkable story was the saga of Bhagat Singh Dhind, a Sikh, who was granted US citizenship three times, only to have it be taken away twice. The first time, in 1913, it was because, although ‘Hindoos' are Caucasians, they are not white. The second time, because the Supreme Court ruled in 1923 (US v Bhagat Singh Thind) that it would retrospectively cancel the citizenship of some 77 naturalized ‘Hindoos' based on the 1917 Immigration Act.The “Barred Zone” provision in that 1917 Act denied citizenship to Indians and Southeast Asians by making a large swathe of territory in Asia verboten. Curiously, Japanese, Koreans and some Chinese were exempt. Iranians, some Afghans (and some Baloch, if you look at the map closely) were deemed white. So far as I know, that is still the working definition of “white” in the US. (source: qz.com)There were real human costs: there is the sad story of Vaishno Das Bagai, a San Francisco businessman, who was rendered stateless after denaturalization, and seeing no way out (he was a Ghadar Party activist against British rule in India) committed suicide.Anyway, Dhind, evidently a persistent fellow, got his citizenship a third time because he had served in the US Army in World War I. Third time lucky: his citizenship was not revoked again.After the Luce-Celler Act of 1946, 100 Indians and 100 Filipinos a year were allowed to immigrate to the US, with the prospect of future naturalization as US citizens. Race based limitations were replaced with a quota system by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (aka McCarran-Walter Act), but it still retained significant caps based on national origin; that Act also introduced the H-1 category for skilled immigrants.As a result of all this, the number of Indian immigrants to the US (e.g. nurses) started going up. The general euphoria surrounding the Civil Rights Movement also conferred a certain respect upon Gandhi, because Martin Luther King reportedly was inspired by his non-violent techniques of protest.But that did not mean US blacks made common cause with Indians, because often unofficial ‘minority quotas' were achieved by bringing in Indians and Chinese, which in effect meant blacks did not get the jobs they legitimately spilled their blood for.I was one of those who went through the ‘labor certification' process in the 1980s, when it was relatively easy to get a Green Card because there were very few Indians applying. The trickle became a flood after the Y2K issue when a lot of Indians arrived on H1-Bs.I personally experienced mild forms of public racism, for instance from Latinos in New Jersey calling me a ‘dot-head', to an unseen voice shouting “No Indians wanted here” when I was being shown apartments in NJ. This was around the time Navroze Mody was beaten to death in Hoboken, NJ by ‘Dotbusters'.Later, there were whites asking if I were leaving the country when I walked out of a mall with a suitcase in Fremont, California. When I said yes, they expressed their approval.Religious bigotryThe death of former US President Jimmy Carter at the age of 100 is a reminder of the power of fundamentalist Christians in the US. He was a faithful member of the Baptist Church, and in his eulogies, he was praised as a simple and decent man who upheld his Christian beliefs.But the impression of Baptists, and American evangelists in general, in India is vastly different. They were implicated in the story of the fervid young American man who attempted to evangelize the famously hostile tribals of North Sentinel Island. They promptly shot him dead with arrows for his pains.The result of Christian conversion in India has often been negative, contrary to pious platitudes. It has created severe fissures in society, turning family members against each other. The net result of conversion has been to create separatism.Verrier Elwin, a missionary, converted large numbers of people in the Northeast of India, and the result has been calls for a separate Christian nation in that area. Sheikh Hasina, before being deposed, claimed that there were plans afoot for a Christian “Zo” nation, for Zo/Kuki/Mizo/Naga converted tribals, to be carved out of India and Bangladesh.There are precedents, of course: the Christian nations of South Sudan (from Sudan) and East Timor (from Indonesia).The Indian state of Manipur which has seen a lot of conversion recently, is also troubled, with armed Kuki Christian terrorists killing Hindu Meiteis. .The bottom line is that the very precepts of Abrahamisms, of an exclusive god (or god-equivalent), an in-group out-group dichotomy, and the demonization of non-believers as the Other, are antithetical to the Hindu spirit of inclusivity and tolerance.Hindumisia or Hindu hatred is rampant in the West, and increasingly on the Internet. The evolution of this hostility can be seen in a taxonomy of monotheistic religions:* paleo-Abrahamisms: Zoroastrianism, Judaism* meso-Abrahamisms: Christian, Islamic religions* neo-Abrahamisms: Communism, Fascism, Nazism, DMK-ism, Ambedkarism, and so onThe arrival of Christians in India was far from peaceful; the historical record shows that the Jesuit Francis Xavier was proud of his idol-breaking. Claude Buchanan made up lurid tales about his alleged encounters with Hindu practices; William Bentinck and his alleged abolition of sati were lionized far beyond reason, because sati was a very isolated practice.The continued deprecation of Hindus by Christians can be seen vividly in Kerala, where Christians are considerably more prosperous than Hindus (data from C I Issac, himself a Christian and a historian). Here's an American of Kerala Christian descent hating on Hindus, perhaps unaware that “Thomas in India” is pure fiction, and that Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Christians in India, was a fanatic and a bigot. ‘Syrian' Christians of Kerala who claim (without proof) to be ‘upper caste' converts discriminate harshly against ‘lower-caste' converts to this day. Hardly all ‘children of god'.Incidentally, there may be other, political, considerations here. This woman is apparently married into the family of Sydney Blumenthal, which is part of the Clinton entourage, i.e. Democrat royalty. Tablet magazine discussed the ‘permission structure' used by Democrats, especially Obama, to manufacture consent. Hindus may be getting ‘punished' for supporting Trump.I personally experienced Christian bigotry against Hindus at age 10 in Kerala. My classmate Philip (a local Malayali) told me casually: “All your gods are our devils”. Reflexively, I told him, “Your gods are our devils, too”, although no Hindu had ever told me Christian gods were devils.Others have told me identical stories from places like Hyderabad. This meme likely came from Francis Xavier himself. It may well be taught to impressionable children as an article of faith in church catechism.Francis Xavier invited the Inquisition to Goa, and many, if not most, of the victims were Hindus. Here's an account from Empire of the Soul by Paul William Roberts:“The palace in which these holy terrorists ensconced themselves was known locally as Vadlem Gor – the Big House. It became a symbol of fear… People in the street often heard screams of agony piercing the night… Children were flogged and slowly dismembered in front of their parents, whose eyelids had been sliced off to make sure they missed nothing. Extremities were amputated carefully, so that a person would remain conscious even when all that remained was a torso and head. Male genitalia were removed and burned in front of wives, breasts hacked off and vaginas penetrated by swords while husbands were forced to watch”.Below is a tweet by another American presumably suffused with Christian compassion. I am reminded of a Kerala Christian woman repeatedly trying to convert a Scheduled Caste friend, using similar memes denigrating Kali. Finally, my friend got fed up and asked her: “You worship the mutilated corpse of a dead Arab stuck on a stick. And that's better?”. Her jaw dropped, and she blubbered: “But… but, that's a metaphor”. My friend retorted: “Then realize that Kali is a metaphor too”. Not much self-awareness on the part of the would-be converter.Therefore, the religion factor, of Hindus being the ultimate Other, cannot be overstated. There is basically no way to reconcile the Hindu world view with the Christian. Dharma is incompatible with Abrahamisms/Semitisms. And no, it's not Jimmy Carter who's relevant, it's Francis Xavier.Economics and Geo-economicsThere is a serious issue with the engineering community in the US, which has nothing to do with the H1-B program. Engineers have been unable to unite, create a cartel, keep their numbers low and value to the consumer high, and bargain to keep salaries high. This is a signal failure on the part of the US engineers, and blaming others isn't going to solve the problem.Consider, in contrast, doctors (and to a lesser extent, nurses). They keep their numbers very low, successfully portray their contribution to society as very high, and keep out foreign doctors as much as possible: the result is that their salaries are astronomical (a recent Medscape survey suggests that the top-earning specialty, Orthopedics, earns an average of $568,000 a year. And that's the average).In contrast, according to Forbes in 2023 the highest-paid engineering specialty, Petroleum Engineering, earned only $145,000, and in fact wages had actually declined. Even much-ballyhooed software engineers ($103,000 ) and AI engineers ($128,000) make very little. And lest you think H1-B depresses wages, there are almost no H1-B petroleum engineers. The bottom line is that engineering is not a high-income occupation in the US. Why? No syndicate.How about nurses? According to a report, Nurse Anesthetists make an average of $214,000.And there are plenty of Indian-origin doctors and nurses in the US. Why does this not create a hue-and-cry? The answer is two-fold: one, the scarcity value, and two, those in medicine have created a narrative, and the public has bought it, that their services are so valuable that the nation must spend 20% of its GDP on what is, by objective measures, pretty poor outcomes in health: ranking tenth out of 10 in high-income countries, at very high cost.There have been grumbles about the helplessness of American engineers for years: I remember forty years ago some guy whose name I forget constantly complaining in the IEEE's email groups about immigrant engineers enabling employers to lower the salaries they pay.In addition, engineers regularly go through boom-and-bust cycles. They have no leverage. I remember after a boom period in the 1970s, unemployed aerospace engineers were driving taxis. If there is another ‘AI winter', then we'll find unemployed AI engineers on the street as well, despite massive demand right now.It is true that there may be subtle intricacies, too. The US companies that contract out their positions to H1-B engineers may well be paying prevailing wages, say $60 an hour. But there are middlemen: big IT services companies who take on the contracts, and provide ‘body-shopping' services. They may well be severely underpaying the actual engineers at only, say, $35 an hour, in a bizarre revivification of ‘indentured labor', i.e. wage slavery. It is difficult for those on H1–Bs to change employers, so they are stuck.There is a larger geo-economic angle as well. The US likes being the top dog in GDP, as it has been since 1945. Unfortunately, through the fecklessness of all Presidents from Nixon onwards, they have somehow allowed China to ascend to a strong #2 position. At this point, I suspect the Deep State has concluded that it would be impossible to dislodge China, given its manufacturing clout.I wrote a year ago that a condominium with China may well be the best Plan B for the US. Let us consider what has happened to the other countries that were at the top of the economic pyramid: Germany and Japan.The 1985 Plaza Accord whereby the US dollar was depreciated led to a Lost Decade for Japan, which has turned into a Lost Four Decades; that country which was booming in the 1980s lost, and never regained its momentum.Germany was doing pretty well until the Ukraine War and the arrival of the Electric Vehicle boom. But at this point, it has more or less lost its machine tools business, its automobile business; add its social and political views, and its future looks grim.If this is what has happened to #3 and #4, we can expect that an aspiring #3, namely India, will face a concerted effort to ruin it. It is in the interests of both the US and China to suppress a potential competitor, especially when there is the tiresome mantra of “India is the fastest growing large economy in the world”.The Bangladesh coup, which benefits both the US and China by creating a massive new war front on India's East, is therefore possibly the result of a tacit collusion between the Deep State and the CCP. Similarly, the sudden spike in anti-Hindu rhetoric and this H1-B hoo-haa may well be financed by Xinhua, and it clearly benefits the Democrats, as it has driven a wedge between Christian fundamentalist MAGA types and other Trump supporters. It also puts the Indian-origin and/or Hindu members of Trump's team on notice: they better self-censor.Even immigrant Elon Musk, not to mention Vivek Ramaswamy, Kash Patel, Jay Bhattacharyya, and the non-Indian Hindu Tulsi Gabbard, are all in the firing line of the Deep State. Even though the IEEE has been moaning about depressed engineering salaries for half a century, it is curious that this became a cause celebre just days before Trump's accession to the Presidency.Narrative-buildingThere was a sobering incident in New York's subways on December 22nd, when a woman, now identified as 61 year old Debrina Kawam, was set on fire by an illegal immigrant, Sebastian Zapeta, from Guatemala, who had been deported earlier but came back to the US. I saw a video purportedly of her burning to death, shockingly without screaming, rolling on the ground to douse the flames, or anything else. She just stood and burned, as Zapeta fanned the flames.A New York City subway policeman walked by. The people who were busy capturing the footage on their smartphones did not intervene or help. It reminded me of Kitty Genovese, a 28 year old woman who was raped and stabbed to death on March 13, 1964, in full view of onlookers in the apartment block where she lived in Queens, New York. Nobody bothered to intervene as she died, screaming.It is really odd when people refuse to get involved in helping a dying person. There's something morally wrong here, and it should have been worth exploring in the very articulate media.Yes, Debrina Kawam's baffling story got widespread airplay immediately after it happened, but it died surprisingly quickly. Here's the Google Trends index of interest in that story.The big new story was H1-B, which shot up and displaced the subway murder story. Note the respective timelines: the Google Trends below is about H1-B. It is hard to believe this was an organic shift. It was “manufacturing consent” with placement aforethought.I wrote recently about how narratives are created out of thin air with the intent of manufacturing consent. The abrupt U-turn on Sheikh Hasina was one of the examples. Now the neat and abrupt switch from the NYC subway burning-alive also points to something that is deliberately planted to divert attention away from inconvenient questions.Let us now see how the H1-B narrative survives the New Orleans story of the son of immigrants, ex-soldier, and ISIS member driving a truck and ploughing into a New Year crowd, killing many. Of course, the narrative will carefully not say anything rude about the religion of the alleged perpetrator, because there will be… consequences.ConclusionThe furious drama and narrative about H1-B will subside soon; ironically, it may well be to the benefit of the Indian nation if this kind of propaganda reduces the attractiveness of the US for talented would-be Indian immigrants, who might stay on at home and build innovative companies. Canada and Britain have already ceased to be desired destinations.However, the underlying issues of racism, religious bigotry, economic warfare and astroturfed narrative are real and will not go away. These are danger signals about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for Indian migrants to the US, and that's a sad start to 2025.3450 words, Jan 2, 2025Here's the AI-generated podcast from NotebookLM by Google: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

What says “Merry Christmas” more than a sexy tale of infidelity and alienation set against the backdrop of soviet invasion and oppression?  In the Criterion Collection?  Not much. Join us as we discuss Phillip Kaufman's adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel of Prague Spring and its aftermath, starring some distractingly beautiful people. Join the Random Acts of Cinema Discord server here! *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Nobuhiko Obayashi's House (1977).

Daniele Zovi"Sulle Alpi"Un viaggio sentimentaleIllustrazioni di Piero MacolaRaffaello Cortina Editorewww.raffaellocortina.it“Le strade si ramificano in strade più piccole e in sentieri ancora più piccoli”, ha scritto Milan Kundera. “Per i sentieri vanno i boscaioli. Sulle strade ci sono panchine dalle quali si vede un paesaggio pieno di pecore e mucche al pascolo. È l'Europa, è il cuore dell'Europa, sono le Alpi.”Daniele Zovi in questo libro si mette in cammino tracciando un itinerario che è anche interiore, alla scoperta di un mondo vicino e al tempo stesso lontano, simbolico e reale. Racconta gli erbari di Camillo Sbarbaro, lichenologo di fama internazionale oltre che poeta: dei veri e propri “campionari del mondo” perché, come scriveva, “far raccolta di piante è farla di luoghi”; e poi il passo del Monginevro, quello probabilmente attraversato da Annibale e i suoi elefanti; la luce del Monte Bianco descritta da Goethe; la comunità walser a Macugnaga; le sculture di Marco Martalar: leoni, aquile, draghi costruiti con i resti dei boschi devastati dalla tempesta Vaia. Osserva la natura, ascolta gli animali, scopre il silenzio, immagina le vite degli altri: quello che racconta è un percorso sentimentale e conoscitivo che appare inesauribile. Daniele Zovi, scrittore e divulgatore, si è laureato in Scienze forestali a Padova e per quarant'anni ha prestato servizio nel Corpo forestale dello Stato. Ha pubblicato diversi libri dedicati al mondo naturale. Nelle nostre edizioni ha pubblicato Sulle Alpi (2024).IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarewww.ilpostodelleparole.itDiventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.

本期岛上主播：何润哲 2024年，中法建交60周年之际，跳岛FM与法国驻华大使馆共同推出 「法兰西特派！La dépêche française ! 」 特别企划，用6期节目带领中文听众领略法国文学的独特魅力。作为整个系列的收官之作，本期节目迎来了首位来岛上作客的法国作家—— 大卫·冯金诺斯。 被誉为巴黎的"伍迪·艾伦"，冯金诺斯身负电影导演与百万畅销书作家两大头衔，如今已有五本作品被译为中文。在本次对谈中，主播何润哲将与他一起，沿着他的文学创作脉络，探究虚构与纪实，小说与生活之间微妙而隽永的联结。 生活之上，为什么还需要小说？ 冯金诺斯的创作充满变化，如同一场漫无目的的文学游戏。他落笔轻盈，却始终不忘探索创作的本质。他化身成《马丁一家》中灵感枯竭的小说家，随机选择路人作主角；他建起一座《退稿图书馆》，以"书之书"的形态拷问着人与文学间的关联；他多方收集材料，为天才艺术家《夏洛特》重述一段情感史。他始终在追问：身为创作者，该如何游走与现实与想象之间？生活与文学之间，究竟有怎样的关联？ 《微妙》与《回忆》让我们看到他创作的更多面向：人物情感的隐秘辗转，他人与自我生命的互相照见……他写文学，也写生活，因为对他来说，“每个人都能成为小说”。如果有一天，你的生活停滞不前，不如去小说里看看，答案也许就在那里。 【时间轴】 03:08 冯金诺斯的阅读习惯：冬天和夏天读不一样的书！ 05:25 《马丁一家》：每个人都可以成为一本小说？ 10:35 非典型的浪漫爱情故事《微妙》——人应如何与意外相处？ 14:07 为什么说“文学是某种形式的不忠”？ 15:30 爱情故事过时了吗？如何在当下书写浪漫？ 17:14 《夏洛特》：想象如何重构艺术家的真实生命？ 23:01 《退稿图书馆》：金钱将会怎样影响我们与文学的关系？ 26:52 《回忆》：如何借助他人的记忆，理解自己的生活？ 29:52 现代影像记录的便利会影响我们的记忆吗? 31:28 冯金诺斯对人名的研究大揭秘 【节目中提到的】 - 书籍 《微妙》《夏洛特》《回忆录》《退稿图书馆》《马丁一家》[法] 大卫·冯金诺斯 - 人物 路易斯·菲利普·米肖，魁北克作家。年轻时曾因脑瘫经历了一系列重大手术。现已出版奇幻文学作品《新魔法》。 卢基诺·维斯孔蒂，意大利电影与舞台剧导演，代表作有《魂断威尼斯》《诸神的黄昏》等。 夏洛特·萨洛蒙，犹太裔德国画家，第二次世界大战期间在奥斯维辛集中营被迫害致死。代表作有图像小说《人生？如戏？》。 帕特里克·莫迪亚诺，法国小说家，2014年获得诺贝尔文学奖。代表作有《暗夜街》等。 弗朗西斯·斯科特·基·菲茨杰拉德，美国小说家。代表作有《了不起的盖茨比》等。 川端康成，日本新感觉派作家、文学批评家，1968年成为首位日本人诺贝尔文学奖得主。代表作有《雪国》《古都》等。 文森特·威廉·梵高，荷兰后印象派画家。代表作有《星夜》《向日葵》等。 米兰·昆德拉（Milan Kundera），捷克裔法国籍作家，代表作有《生命中不能承受之轻》《笑忘书》等。 弗朗茨·卡夫卡（Franz Kafka），出生于奥匈帝国的德语小说家。代表作有《城堡》《变形记》等。 费奥多尔·米哈伊洛维奇·陀思妥耶夫斯基（Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevskiy），俄国作家，代表作有《罪与罚》《白痴》《卡拉马佐夫兄弟》等。 - 影视 《魂断威尼斯》 【出品方】中信出版集团文学事业部 【制作人】何润哲 广岛乱 【文案编辑】Viann 【运营编辑】黄鱼 不理 【后期剪辑】Viann 茄汁鱼 【配音】刘照坤 【音乐】钱子恒 【视觉顾问】孙晓曦 【视觉指导】汐和 【平面设计】心心

Cestovatel a etnograf Miloslav Stingl byl jediným Čechem, kterého indiánský kmen jmenoval svým čestným náčelníkem. V dobách hluboké totality procestoval 150 zemí a čtrnáctkrát objel svět, v zahraničí strávil celkem 19 let. Mohl se pochlubit jazykovým talentem: ovládal 17 světových jazyků a dialektů. Milovníky literatury asi překvapí, že nejpřekládanějším českým autorem všech dob nebyl Milan Kundera ani Karel Čapek, ale právě Miloslav Stingl. Narodil se 19. prosince 1930.Všechny díly podcastu Příběhy z kalendáře můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Milan Kundera patřil bezpochyby k nejvýznamnějším českým literátům 20. století. Spisovatel a publicista Milan Uhde na něj v Úžasných životech vzpomíná jako na komplikovaného člověka, který nebyl černobílý, svým dílem a poctivým řemeslem je však nepřehlédnutelný.

Je hned několik českých spisovatelů, o kterých se říká, že nezískali Nobelovu cenu jen kvůli nepříznivým politickým okolnostem. Milan Kundera je jedním z nich.

Je hned několik českých spisovatelů, o kterých se říká, že nezískali Nobelovu cenu jen kvůli nepříznivým politickým okolnostem. Milan Kundera je jedním z nich.

Je hned několik českých spisovatelů, o kterých se říká, že nezískali Nobelovu cenu jen kvůli nepříznivým politickým okolnostem. Milan Kundera je jedním z nich.

The memoir is a fascinating form to explore. I'm always intrigued as to how an author can adapt their life and fit it into the confines of a page. How does one capture all its complexities, contradictions, and fleeting moments, in a narrative that feels both honest and coherent? My guest today is Susanna Crossman, a British-French writer, essayist, and clinical arts therapist, who has just published Home is Where We Start with Penguin Random House. The book is her own account of growing up in ‘the fallout of the Utopian Dream' – in a politically revolutionary Community in the late 1970s. In the fascinating work, she blends memoir and social commentary, weaving philosophical ideas into the wider narrative of her own experiences with community and disillusionment. It was great talking with Susanna today, and I'm so pleased to be able to share her insightful, nuanced thoughts about literature in general. Susanna has recently started a Substack, which you can check out here. Susanna Crossman's four books were: On The Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1937) The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (1984) Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar (1951) What is Ancient Philosophy?, Pierre Hadot (1995) Lit with Charles loves reviews. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review of your own, and follow me on Instagram at @litwithcharles. Let's get more people listening – and reading!

It was like watching SEAL Team Six spelunk into a dangerous war zone and release the hostages from inside the bunker. Millions of us wandered out. We felt as though a great weight had been lifted. The sun shined once again after one long, dark winter. We were half-celebrating, half in a state of shock. “You mean … we're finally free?” Yes, said the soldiers. You are free.And as the author jotted out those words above, she thought to herself, can I actually write that? Will people say I am exploiting the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust or still being held in Gaza? Will they say I don't know real suffering, and how dare I write such a thing? Yes, they will say that. But no, it won't matter anymore.The truth is that I was always free to write it. I just had to do it outside of the doomsday cult the Left has become. It wasn't some orb out in the middle of the Mojave. It was every major institution in America. And they most certainly aren't giving up without a fight. Heed the words of Peter Boghossian:Trump drove so many mad, from the Never Trumpers to the Woke Left, because they destroyed themselves trying to destroy him. Their biggest problem was that they were never fighting the real Trump. They were fighting one they invented, a supervillain whose mere presence could end democracy itself.It's hard to imagine such smart people losing their critical thinking ability. Power will do that to you, though. No one gives it up willingly. But still, you'd think some of them might have had an inkling America was ready for change by now.It's like that Milan Kundera quote about Totalitarianism:That's what's happened to America in the past four years. Our SEAL Team Six came just in time to liberate us from the tyranny of the minority.Did Rick Wilson really go into election night thinking Trump would lose that badly? How could he have been so confident to make this video the day before Election Day?How could the disconnect from reality be that profound? And when he was thoroughly and completely humiliated, along with all the other Never Trumpers, he blamed the voters. He blamed America.Meanwhile, a wellness check is needed on Jojo from Jerz, another who was so certain her daily rages on X, which earned her so many likes, represented, in any way, the majority in America:The country can't be run by people like Jojo from Jerz. She's just too crazy. No reality has ever once entered the chat. And there are too many just like her that control the entire Democratic Party.Even if Trump only serves one term and JD Vance is somehow beaten by a Democrat (I wouldn't hold my breath), they can always be credited as the liberators who freed all of us, our culture, our economy, our institutions from a cult.For those living in agony for the last four years, you can come out, come out wherever you are.A Mental Health CrisisJust before the election, Mark Halperin predicted a mental health crisis in this country if Donald Trump should win the election.At first, I thought he was exaggerating, but as I watched the reaction on the Left in the wake of another shocking win, I realized he wasn't. Isn't it just possible there is something wrong with the messenger if these folks are shocked yet again by a Donald Trump victory? I was shocked along with them in 2016, but by 2020, I got it.The more educated people are, the more they rely on NPR, the New York Times, NBC News, CNN, the New Yorker, New York Magazine, and the Hollywood trades—the less likely they are to see things as they really are rather than how they want them to be. And while it's true reality distortion exists on the Right, it's nowhere near the same level.The media is turning the so-called “4B movement” into a bigger story than it actually is because that, too, is a way to sell fear. These young women are the equivalent of an adolescent who is mad at her parents and refuses to eat her vegetables. NO, I WON'T DO IT!They somehow think this will cause any man in America one second of grief. The last thing they want is to have sex with any of them. Moreover, it's funny that they would think Conservatives would be mad that they aren't having sex and getting pregnant because all that means is less abortions.All of them are using whatever weapon they have to exact revenge on anyone who voted for Trump. They are people who already see themselves as victims. They see Trump and his voters as victimizers. They're living out some kind of fantasy where they can cosplay oppression. In a weird way, Trump gave them exactly what they needed.Inside Woketopia, the more marginalized you are, the more elevated you are. Black and trans people are treated like holy icons. Much is made of how to talk to them, how to make sure they feel safe around you because your white skin is so triggering. Each of them uses their marginalized status as a way to impose their will upon the rest of us. It's blasphemy to criticize or confront them.And herein lies the problem for the Democrats. They can't confront the crazy, let alone eradicate it. They are too afraid of the activists and the bullies on social media. They're afraid their careers will be over, like everyone else inside the doomsday cult.A Trump win makes them all believe that they have, in one election, lost all of their power. That's why you see so many Instagram posts about suicide hotlines but only for LGBTQIA or Queer women, or BIPOC. No white woman or man will get any sympathy for daring to use the moment to suggest they are in worse pain.But the psychosis is real. Watch this mother use her children to draw sympathy from them — yes, from them. Their hysteria and pain feed her need to feel like a victim. This bad thing just happened to HER, so everyone should have to pay, even her own kids.These kids will one day realize that they have been raised by a virulent narcissist, which is what drives this movement more than anything, and perhaps they will be among those who lead the next liberation should America once again be overtaken by a cult.The End of DaysThe women on the Left have centered their entire movement on the act of aborting a child they helped produce, as though the fetus itself, that got there through no fault of its own, is their oppressor. They worry for their daughter's inability to get an abortion, as though that's something every girl should want.// This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

Hlustaðu á þáttinn í fullri lengd inni á www.patreon.com/skodanabraedur Friðrik Rafnsson er þýðandi tveggja minna uppáhalds rithöfunda Milan Kundera og Michel Houellebecq. Í þessum þætti förum við yfir ítarlega yfir þessa tvo menn og Friðrik segir okkur frá hugmyndum þeirra, bókum og persónuleikum. Hann hitti Kundera oft og hefur þýtt hverja einustu bók hans. Houellebecq hitti hann líka þegar hann kom til Íslands árið 2012. Fyrri hluti þáttarins fjallar um Kundera og síðan skiptum við yfir í Houellebecq um miðbik. Þetta var dásamlegt að taka upp. Takk fyrir mig og Guð blessi ykkur kæra bræðralag.

Ad Verbrugge in gesprek met Martin de Haan, vertaler van het werk van Milan Kundera en nu ook van het essay 'Een gekidnapt westen' (1983), dat voor het eerst in het Nederlands wordt uitgebracht. Tevens te gast Paul Scheffer, emeritus hoogleraar Europese Studies, die tijdens de Koude Oorlog correspondent was in Warschau. Bronnen en links bij deze uitzending: - Bestel hier het boek 'Een gekidnapt westen' van Milan Kundera vertaald door Martin de Haan en Edgar de Bruin: https://www.uitgeverijtenhave.nl/boek/een-gekidnapt-westen/ - Beluister hier het gesprek met historicus Guido van Hengel over 'Een gekidnapt Westen' op OVT: https://www.nporadio1.nl/fragmenten/ovt/9d0de5ae-d12a-4495-a06c-97e77ce4896e/2024-09-21-midden-europa-als-een-gekidnapt-westen - Beluister hier De Groene Amsterdammer Podcast met historicus Guido van Hengel over 'Een gekidnapt Westen': https://www.groene.nl/podcasts/de-groene-amsterdammer-podcast/afleveringen/de-tragedie-van-midden-europa - Lees hier het artikel 'Ruslands angstaanjagende vreemdheid' van Guido van Hengel: https://www.groene.nl/artikel/ruslands-angstaanjagende-vreemdheid - Lees hier het artikel 'De grenzen van het woord: over tijdschriften, dissidenten en de Europese culturele ruimte' van Carlos Reijnen: https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_tst001201101_01/_tst001201101_01_0010.php

(01:24) Een gekidnapt Westen, dat is Midden-Europa volgens Milan Kundera in zijn gelijknamige essay uit 1983. Nu is dit essay in het Nederlands verschenen. Guido van Hengel vertelt over de invloed van dit essay en wat het ons nu nog vertelt over Midden-Europa.  (15:11) De documentaire 'Poème Électronique' gaat over de ontstaansgeschiedenis van de elektronische muziek. Ruim tien jaar voordat Otis Redding zong dat hij on the dock of the bay zat, werd er in het Eindhovense Natuurkundig Laboratorium al volledig elektronische muziek gecomponeerd en opgenomen.    Meer info: https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/ovt/luister/afleveringen/2024/22-09-2024.html#   (https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/ovt/luister/afleveringen/2024/22-09-2024.html)  

In this 244th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.In this week's episode, we discuss excess deaths from 2021 on, and what the insurance industry is recommending that we do (more of the same treatments that got us into this mess!). Related: Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health during Covid, asks why “facing a common enemy” didn't bring us together, while celebrating the Covid “vaccines,” drugs, and tests. Scientific American endorses Harris, saying she's the right choice for your health. Kundera makes no distinction between legal and illegal vandalism. Bret puts forward further arguments for why it is the time to Rescue the Republic, and why fear is not the way forward. Heather reads about serpent badassery at the equinox.*****Our sponsors:Brain.fm: intense music that boosts productivity. Unlock your brain's full potential free for 30 days by going to brain.fm/DARKHORSECaraway: Non-toxic, beautiful, light ceramic cookware. Go to Carawayhome.com/DarkHorse for 10% off your order.Seed: Start a new healthy habit today with Seed probiotics. Use code 25DarkHorse at https://seed.com/darkhorse to get 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic.*****Join us on Locals! Get access to our Discord server, exclusive live streams, live chats for all streams, and early access to many podcasts: https://darkhorse.locals.com/Heather's newsletter, Natural Selections (subscribe to get free weekly essays in your inbox): https://naturalselections.substack.comOur book, A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, is available everywhere books are sold, including from Amazon: https://a.co/d/dunx3atCheck out our store! Epic tabby, digital book burning, saddle up the dire wolves, and more: https://darkhorsestore.org*****Mentioned in this episode:Excess deaths: https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/life-insurance/excess-mortality-may-stay-high-for-a-decade-swiss-re-warns-505653.aspxThe Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/covid-political-polarization-public-trust-vaccine/679806/Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vote-for-kamala-harris-to-support-science-health-and-the-environment/Milan Kundera on vandals (1967 essay): https://www.amazon.com/Kidnapped-West-Tragedy-Central-Europe/dp/0063272954/ref=sr_1_1Faces of protest: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/facesofprotestThe equinox: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/the-equinoxCounty Highway: https://www.countyhighway.comRescue the Republic: https://jointheresistance.orgSupport the show

Un muerto confirmado en las inundaciones en Chequia. Muere Věra Kunderová, viuda de Milan Kundera. Vivat Messi, una obra en homenaje al argentino en el teatro Hybernia.

durée : 01:11:11 - Fictions / Théâtre et Cie - En hommage à Don Quichotte et Sancho Panza, nous avons choisi de faire entendre leurs héritiers, Jacques et son maître, saluant une œuvre fondée sur "la raison, le pluralisme de la pensée et la tolérance" comme l'écrit Milan Kundera. - invités : François Morel Chroniqueur radio, chanteur et comédien; Anne Alvaro comédienne

durée : 01:11:11 - Fictions / Théâtre et Cie - En hommage à Don Quichotte et Sancho Panza, nous avons choisi de faire entendre leurs héritiers, Jacques et son maître, saluant une œuvre fondée sur "la raison, le pluralisme de la pensée et la tolérance" comme l'écrit Milan Kundera. - invités : François Morel Chroniqueur radio, chanteur et comédien; Anne Alvaro comédienne

Sto let starý mikrofon, dopis, který psal do brněnského rozhlasu Milan Kundera nebo první novinářský průkaz. Rovných sto exponátů a příběhů se vejde do malé místnosti v budově brněnského rozhlasu na Beethovenově ulici, kam už od neděle 1. září můžete zavítat na novou výstavu. Ta připomene – stejně jako náš rozhlasový seriál – století pravidelného rozhlasového vysílání z Brna. Na výstavu do trezoru v suterénu rozhlasu se vypravili i naši reportéři.

Milan Kundera sosteneva che il romanzo non fosse altro che “la lunga ricerca di alcune definizioni sfuggenti”. Questo tentativo di rincorrere un'idea vale anche per la forma saggistica, in particolare per il libro intitolato “Praga, poesia che scompare”, in cui l'autore ceco, già esule in Francia, va alla ricerca della propria identità letteraria, eleggendo Praga a simbolo di un'utopia, quella dell'Europa centrale e delle minoranze, cancellate dagli assetti politici del secondo Novecento. Praga rappresenta, come ci spiega Giorgio Pinotti, “l'idea della massima diversità culturale contenuta nel minimo spazio”; ma è anche la metafora di una patria perduta per chi come Kundera ha scelto di abitare uno spazio translinguistico e transnazionale.Praha © 2024 by Giovanni Cascavilla is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Milan Kundera nebo Bernd Posselt? A co třeba Bílý lev pro Karla prvního a posledního? A mají se vyznamenání dávat in memoriam? Dočká se jednou řádu TGM i Karel IV.? A co Mašíni? Sněmovna a Senát letos poslaly na Hrad rekordní počet návrhů na státní vyznamenání. Rozhodnutí je na prezidentovi, ale debata kolem toho byla hutná a historických perel bylo požehnaně. 

Last month, we ran an episode here by one of our amazing reporters, Eli Lake, that took us back to the tumultuous year of 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson dropped out of his own reelection race, and the resulting turmoil at the Democratic convention that followed that summer in Chicago. At the time of that episode, of course, Biden was still in the race, and Eli was guiding us through that history lesson in order to help us make sense of the present moment, and to indicate what might happen next.  Today, Eli is back on Honestly to do what he does best: look back in time and help us make sense of our baffling present. VP Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. She has the wind at her back, though she hasn't given a single interview, and every day someone else announces they've been coconut-pilled. But in her anointment to the top of the ticket, there's been a strange and silent rewriting of history by the press and party loyalists with the support of a lot of tech companies, who together are changing our collective understanding of the present and of the very recent past. Eli argues this has happened before. And not in America. . . but in the Soviet Union, and also in the works of brilliant writers like Milan Kundera and George Orwell, who imagined something, he argues, like what we're seeing right now. While that might sound like hyperbole, listen and decide for yourself. Because whether you agree or disagree with Eli's conclusions, I'm confident you will learn so much from listening to this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Todos los años acudimos a la Gala del premio Ateneo de Novela Ateneo de Sevilla. Es una oportunidad de conocer en directo los ganadores del Ateneo sénior y el Ateneo Joven, siempre con autores y escritoras que se presentan en noviembre con sus novelas, publicadas con la calidad de siempre por Algaida. Sixto Sánchez Lorenzo y Angélica Yuste se incorporan a una lista ilustre de grandes novelistas que han ganado este galardón.Aquí en el Club, como nos consta que sois muchos los que, aparte de leer, escribís, le prestamos atención a libros que den consejos útiles para mejorar en este oficio de contar historias. Y Vanessa Montfort, que curiosamente ganó el premio Ateneo de Sevilla con Mitología de Nueva York, ha publicado Cómo se escriben las grandes novelas, un manual para saber desenvolverse ante la página en blanco, para distinguir si se es autor de mapa o de brújula, para armar una trama que atrape o para crear personajes originales.Mirando a clásicos de la talla de Virgina Woolf, Milan Kundera o Stephen King, Vanessa nos enseña un puñado de secretos. Y en la sección de Audiolibros, Elísabet Benavent, una autora que ha vendido más de cuatro millones de libros con sus historias, regresa a las mesas de novedades con Esnob.

O escritor checo e francês morreu há 1 ano.

This episode is about the liminal space we find ourselves in when we're in the process of becoming.I talk about the temptation to maintain the status quo, the importance of trusting in our desires, and the power of leaning wholly into our ever-changing selves.I hope this episode gives you comfort, reassurance, or reminds you that you can trust that the key to clicking back into place is to just keep becoming who we are.Mentioned:The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9717.The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_BeingWitchy Business is my monthly group coaching experience to help entrepreneurs cultivate the courage and openness necessary for integrity in this personal growth crucible called entrepreneurship. Send me an email if you're interested in joining myself and many amazing entrepreneurs: nataliekmiller@gmail.comMake Magic:Take comfort in knowing you're not alone. Trust in your desires and intuitions, and allow yourself to embrace the lightness of becoming. Reach out for support if you need it, and remember, the only way out is through. Keep becoming who you are meant to be.

¿Qué es mejor: ser leve o liviano? "La Insoportable Levedad del Ser" de Milan Kundera es una novela que sigue las vidas entrelazadas de cuatro personajes en la Checoslovaquia comunista y poscomunista. La obra reflexiona sobre temas como la libertad, la responsabilidad, la identidad y la búsqueda de significado en un mundo existencialmente incierto. Episodios exclusivos + Club de Lectura: www.patreon.com/Bibliotequeando

Cet été, on vous propose de re-découvrir cet épisode qui aborde la difficulté de faire des choix, une émotion qu'on rencontre quotidiennement au travail.Bonne émission et bon été !Choisir, c'est renoncer. Et notre quotidien est rythmé par les décisions : de notre paire de chaussures le matin (ces nuages là, ça veut dire qu'il va pleuvoir ?) à notre sandwich du midi (sauce blanche ou harissa ?), en passant par l'enfer des étalages de yaourts au supermarché (mais c'est quoi en fait le skyr ?), ou encore la nouvelle série dans laquelle on va se plonger (5 saisons de 20 épisodes, ça a intérêt à être bien).Dans ces moments de choix, comment savoir si l'on prend la bonne décision ? Et pourquoi on pense davantage à ce que l'on risque de perdre, au lieu de se réjouir de ce que l'on va gagner ? Comment en arrive-t-on à se sentir paralysé.e par le doute ? Et comment réussir à aller de l'avant, même quand on n'est pas sûr ?Pour répondre à ces questions, la journaliste Héloïse Weisz donne la parole à Adèle qui a du mal à faire des choix concernant ses relations amoureuses, ainsi qu'à Marianne Habib, maîtresse de conférence en psychologie du développement cognitif à l'Université Paris 8, Rémy Oudghiri, sociologue et Stefano Palminteri, chercheur en neurosciences.Pour aller plus loin : L'étude de Baptiste Blain sur la manière dont la fatigue influence nos décisionsL'article “La prise de décision : une nouvelle répartition des tâches dans notre cortex préfrontal ?” de l'équipe “Motivation, Cerveau et Comportement”, co-dirigée par Mathias Pessiglione (Inserm) à l'ICMUne étude sur les modules du cerveau concernés par la prise de décisionUne étude sur la procrastination Une étude qui explique comment la fatigue influence notre prise de décision Le livre “L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être” de Milan Kundera, aux éditions GallimardLe livre “Alice au pays des merveilles” de Lewis Carroll, aux éditions Le livre de pocheSi vous avez aimé cet épisode, n'hésitez pas à écouter “Peut-on vivre heureux dans l'incertitude ?”, un autre épisode d'Émotions pour apprendre à vivre avec nos questions sans réponses !Héloise Weisz a tourné et écrit cet épisode. Clémence Reliat était à la réalisation sonore. Lena Coutrot est la productrice d'Émotions, accompagnée d'Elsa Berthault. Nicolas de Gélis a composé la musique du générique d'Émotions, et il a été réalisé par Anna Buy. Merci à Gauthier Sénécal, Renata Coccia et Ludovic Billy pour leur participation. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Milan Kundera ve své slavné eseji Unesený Západ, publikované v 80. letech minulého století ve Francii, tvrdil, že střední Evropa je v jádru západní Evropa, která byla na východ „unesena“. Země střední Evropy leží podle Kundery zeměpisně uprostřed, ale kulturně patří na Západ, protože jsou stejně tak dědičkami renesance a osvícenství.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. - Milan Kundera Check out John Lee Dumas' award winning Podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire on your favorite podcast directory. For world class free courses and resources to help you on your Entrepreneurial journey visit EOFire.com

durée : 00:52:52 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - Mort en 1924, Franz Kafka a-t-il été le prophète qui annonçait à travers son œuvre le monde totalitaire des régimes politiques qui allaient régner à l'Est du rideau de fer vingt ans après sa mort ? L'écrivain tchèque Milan Kundera apporte un autre éclairage sur la lecture des textes de Kafka. - invités : Milan Kundera Écrivain

durée : 00:55:16 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - Retrouver les traces de la vie et de l'œuvre de Franz Kafka à Prague, c'est la mission de cette série “Un homme, une ville” en compagnie de l'écrivain tchèque Milan Kundera. À travers le vieux Prague, on découvre, en studio, ce qui fait l'identité même de Kafka et de son rapport à sa ville natale. - invités : Milan Kundera Écrivain

durée : 00:52:55 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - Qui lit Kafka pour le plaisir aujourd'hui ? C'est la question qu'en 1978 Milan Kundera pose d'emblée dans le deuxième volet d'”Un homme, une ville” consacré à Franz Kafka et Prague. Il plaide pour le plaisir d'une lecture naïve de Kafka que l'on a eu tort de situer dans un contexte philosophique. - invités : Milan Kundera Écrivain

"The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we explore the concept of time through the lens of one of the most imaginative books of our time, Einstein's Dreams. The novel portrays Albert Einstein as a young scientist grappling with his dreams as he works on his theory of relativity. This episode promises to spark deep reflection, ignite your curiosity, and challenge your perception of time. We cover a wide range of topics including: The hidden costs of immortality Contemplating a world where every day is a fresh start Why it's easy to forget to appreciate the things you have How death ultimately gives our life meaning Our most obnoxious literary opinions And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode. Links from the Episode: Mentioned in the Show: Click (4:32) Books Mentioned: Einstein's Dreams Tao Te Ching (1:33) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Sovereign Individual (12:59) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Fourth Turning (13:01) (Book Episode) Logicomix (22:41) (Book Episode) East of Eden (30:30) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Unbearable Lightness of Being (32:11) The First World War (34:50) The Brothers K (34:51) Musashi (34:53) Infinite Jest (37:34) (Book Episode 1) (Book Episode 2) (Nat's Book Notes) Atlas Shrugged (37:58) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) Gödel, Escher, Bach (43:45) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) People Mentioned: Alan Lightman John Steinbeck (18:31) Werner Heisenberg (23:29) Milan Kundera (32:23) David Perell (44:29) Show Topics: (0:00) In today's episode, we're covering Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. Adil shares his experience going through the book for the 3rd time, noting its unique approach devoid of traditional characters yet filled with intense emotional resonance across the theme of 'time'. (2:43) The stories challenge the way we think about time, with each chapter introducing a unique time variable that initially appears distinct on the surface. However, beneath the surface, these chapters resonate with aspects of our own reality. We list off a few chapters that were top of mind for us. (6:10) Death is what gives life meaning. We explore this concept by diving into one of the short stories where nobody dies. If you know that time is infinite, how would you spend that time?  (8:45) Which chapter(s) of Einstein's Dreams did we connect with the most?  (11:16) We discuss the concept of sleep training, contemplating the ideal scenario where babies would sleep according to their natural rhythms. However, balancing the baby's freedom to sleep spontaneously with the demands of a structured work and life schedule can be a struggle. (12:32) Nat, Neil, and Adil ponder the scenario if everyone were to just live one day. You wouldn't know seasons, and all you'll ever know is what the current day brings. (16:08) Connections between Einstein's Dreams and a previous read on the podcast, The Fourth Turning.  (17:51) Despite not having main characters (aside from Einstein and Besso), this book still manages to drive a lot of emotions. We admire Lightman's ability to write in a soft, empathetic way, while painting the picture for readers very effectively.  (19:59) Were these short stories from the book thoughts that Einstein may have had in real life as he worked towards his theories on time and relativity? (23:45) We touch on a story from the book where every day is truly a fresh start, and there is no knowledge of the past or future.  (26:45) Doing everything as if it's for the first time will give you excitement, but it's also meaningful to act as if you're doing something for the very last time.  (28:25) Einstein's theory of general relativity, and how at the time of this theory, it was still unknown in the world of physics that the world is constantly expanding rather than fixed. (30:27) Though it may not be the longest book, it still hits hard. Nat, Neil, and Adil share their appreciation for Einstein's Dreams being impactful despite the length. It's one of those books that can make you feel a different way each time you read it. (36:47) Shoutout to Jack for the book recommendation on Musashi! If you have any book recommendations that you'd like us to pick up for the show, you can submit them to us here.  (38:55) You can get away with a lot in books, but what about a 35,000 word speech? We talk about John Galt's mighty speech in Atlas Shrugged. So long as you give the readers a reason to finish the book and recommend it to others, you can really do what you want within the pages.  (44:17) That concludes this thought-provoking episode! Next up, we're tackling Martin Gilbert's The First World War. Make sure to give our new Instagram page a follow and shoot us a book recommendation. If you have any recs, please send them our way! If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS, @adilmajid, @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!

Would you like to learn more about Czech culture and practice your Czech? In this episode, Eliška prepared for you a story about a famous Czech writer and his most significant piece. Ahoj! Vítej v dnešní epizodě. Jak se máš? … The post (294***) Eliška: Milan Kundera appeared first on slowczech.

¡Wow, gente! Sacar este episodio adelante fue un maratón: entre apagones eléctricos, enfermedades y la vida misma… por poco nos rendimos. Por suerte nuestros amigos de Auditorium se las ingeniaron para sacarlo adelante y así lo hicimos. El sonido en este episodio es un poco distinto pues fue grabado a distancia, pero la conversación con la BRILLANTE Ana Teresa Rodríguez Lebrón compensa por todo. Este episodio no se lo van a querer perder… Y quédense para la sección de “El libro en Puerto Rico” porque les traemos un anuncio de un EVENTAZO literario en nuestro país. ¡Gracias por acompañarnos a leer!

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object - Milan Kundera Check out John Lee Dumas' award winning Podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire on your favorite podcast directory. For world class free courses and resources to help you on your Entrepreneurial journey visit EOFire.com

Un viaje musical a un mundo perdido, encerrado en una vieja y polvorienta librería imaginaria, por donde pasan los fantasmas de Milan Kundera, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Albert Camus, Fiódor Dostoyevski y León Tolstói.Escuchar audio

He is a writer, an actor, a poet, a storyteller, an anti-storyteller -- and he cares about both the world outside and the one inside. Danish Husain joins Amit Varma in episode 359 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his life and learnings. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Danish Husain on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Wikipedia and IMDb. 2. TheHoshrubaRepertory, Qissebaazi and Poetrification. 3. Danish Husain interviewed by Irfan for Jashn-e-Rekhta. 4. The art of storytelling -- Danish Husain interviewed by Purva Naresh. 5. 'Becoming the story when performing it' -- Danish Husain interviewed by Roanna Gonsalves. 6. The 27 Club. 7. Self-Portrait — AK Ramanujan. 8. The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter -- Mark Strand. 9. Collected Poems — Mark Strand. 10. Man's Search For Meaning -- Viktor E Frankl. 11. The Importance of Satya — Episode 241 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Uday Bhatia). 12. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 13. Aadha Gaon — Rahi Masoom Raza. 14. Out of Place: A Memoir -- Edward Said. 15. The Incredible Insights of Timur Kuran — Episode 349 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. Private Truths, Public Lies — Timur Kuran. 17. Varun Grover Is in the House — Episode 292 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 19. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 20. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? — Amit Varma. 21. Santosh Desai is Watching You -- Episode 356 of The Seen and the Unseen. 22. The Life and Times of Nilanjana Roy — Episode 284 of The Seen and the Unseen. 23. Bombay--London--New York -- Amitava Kumar. 24. Fighting Fake News — Episode 133 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratik Sinha). 25. Sample SSR conspiracy theory: He's alive! 26. Life is Elsewhere -- Milan Kundera. 27. The Four Quadrants of Conformism — Paul Graham. 28. Ignaz Semmelweis on Britannica and Wikipedia. 29. India's Tryst With Pandemics -- Episode 205 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chinmay Tumbe). 30. Age of Pandemics — Chinmay Tumbe. 31. Kashi Ka Assi — Kashinath Singh. 32. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 33. Scene: 75 -- Rahi Masoom Raza (translated by Poonam Saxena). 34. Folktales From India — Edited by AK Ramanujan. 35. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 36. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 37. Stage.in. 38. The Age of Average -- Alex Murrell. 39. Nothing is Indian! Everything is Indian! -- Episode 12 of Everything is Everything. 40. Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages — Peggy Mohan. 41. Understanding India Through Its Languages — Episode 232 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Peggy Mohan). 42. Early Indians — Tony Joseph. 43. Early Indians — Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph). 44. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen. 45. ‘Indian languages carry the legacy of caste' — Chandra Bhan Prasad interviewed by Sheela Bhatt. 46. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya). 47. Premchand, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie on Amazon. 48. Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Saul Bellow, Henry Miller and Octavio Paz on Amazon.. 49. Midnight's Children -- Salman Rushdie. 50. Selected Poems -- Dom Moraes. 51. Theatres of Independence -- Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker. 52. Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chugtai on Amazon. 53. Toba Tek Singh -- Saadat Hasan Manto. 55. How Music Works -- David Byrne. 56. Danish Husain's anecdote about Mahatma Gandhi and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. 57. Poems -- Louise Glück. 58. Harmony in the Boudoir -- Mark Strand. 59. And Then One Day: A Memoir -- Naseeruddin Shah. 60. Kohrra -- Created by Sudip Sharma and directed by Randeep Jha.. 61. If You Are a Creator, This Is Your Time -- Amit Varma. 62. Make Me a Canteen for My Soul — Episode 304 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sameer Seth and Yash Bhanage). 63.  The Aaron Levie tweet on the market for cars. 64. 'A feeble no may mean yes': Indian court overturns rape conviction -- Michael Safi. 65. Grace is Poetry -- Danish Husain.  66. Train-Track Figure -- Kay Ryan. 67. अंधा कबाड़ी -- नून मीम राशिद. 68. The Conjurer of Meaning -- Danish Husain. 69. Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians -- Edited by Sudeep Sen. 67. Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English: 2022 -- Edited by Sukrita Paul Kumar & Vinita Agrawal. 68. मत बुरा उस को कहो गरचे वो अच्छा भी नहीं -- कलीम आजिज़. 69. शम्-ए-तन्हा की तरह सुब्ह के तारे जैसे -- इरफ़ान सिद्दीक़ी.. 70. हुस्न-ए-मह गरचे ब-हंगाम-ए-कमाल अच्छा है -- मिर्ज़ा ग़ालिब. 71. हिरास -- साहिर लुधियानवी. 72. Separation -- WS Merwin 73. वो जो इक शर्त थी वहशत की उठा दी गई क्या -- इरफ़ान सिद्दीक़ी. 74. तुम्हें डर है. -- गोरख पाण्डेय. 75. शायद कि ये ज़माना उन्हें पूजने लगे -- अब्दुल वहाब सुख़न. 76. Kya sitam hai waqt ka -- Madan Mohan Danish. 77. फ़राज़ अब कोई सौदा कोई जुनूँ भी नहीं -- फ़राज़. 78. कौन-सी बात कहाँ , कैसे कही जाती है -- वसीम बरेलवी. 79. A Plain Landscape -- Danish Husain. 80. इतिहास की कगार -- दानिश हुसैन. 81. Jawaab -- Kumar Ambuj (translated by Danish Husain). 82. Your Touch -- Danish Husain. 83. The Joke -- Milan Kundera. 84. Herzog -- Saul Bellow. 85. Edward Said, Mary Oliver and Toni Morrison on Amazon. 86. Step Across This Line -- Salman Rushdie. 87. Harishankar Parsai, John Kenneth Galbraith and AS Byatt on Amazon. 88. Garam Hawa -- MS Sathyu. 89. Shatranj Ke Khilari -- Satyajit Ray. 90. The Godfather -- Francis Ford Coppolla. 91. Do Ankhen Barah Haath -- V Shantaram. 92. Mandi -- Shyam Benegal. 93. Party -- Govind Nihalani. 94. Khosla Ka Ghosla! -- Dibakar Banerjee. This episode is sponsored by the Pune Public Policy Festival 2024, which takes place on January 19 & 20, 2024. The theme this year is Trade-offs! Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new video podcast. Check out Everything is Everything on YouTube. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘The Actor as a Builder of Worlds' by Simahina.