Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
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A. Hanen - Nabokov- April 2023 + Intro by Radio Megapolis Toronto
am reading a book that nauseates me, similar to the disgust I experienced when reading Nabokov's book, Lolita, which immerses in the mind of a pedophile in the process of seducing his preteen step-daughter. The book that has my attention now is set in the 1600s, in what the colonizers renamed from Wendake, 'The Island' in the Huron language, to Ontario, Canada. The book, Orenda, centers on Bird, a Huron elder, Snowfalls, an Iroquoian child, and Christophe, a French Jesuit priest set on stealing their souls for Christianity. The book is rife with violence. Physical violence in the clash between the warring Huron and Iriquois is described in graphic detail. And the spiritual violence inflicted by the priest upon the people, a priest obsessed with converting the people to a view of life arising from a Stone Age tribe dwelling in the Middle East on stolen lands. It is this soul violence that makes me want to retch.
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov ---Exploring the surreal world of Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading, Jesan Sorrells and Claire Chandler analyze the novel's absurdist critique of totalitarianism and the societal pressures for conformity. They examine Nabokov's literary style, the challenge of translating Russian nuance into English, and how the narrative's exploration of meaning, individuality, and truth remains relevant for modern leaders. The episode draws powerful connections between the search for meaning in the 20th and 21st centuries, the impact of technological noise, and the leader's responsibility to pursue authenticity in an increasingly absurd world.Book Title: Invitation to a Beheading Author: Vladimir NabokovGuest Names: Jesan Sorrells (Host), Claire Chandler (Guest)---Time-Stamped Overview---00:00 Discussing influential dystopian literature11:20 Discussing Nabokov's complex themes13:03 Nabokov and totalitarian regimes22:52 Discussing the book's translation challenges24:25 Discussing multilingual communication challenges29:04 Discussion on Cincinnatus's imprisonment37:35 Bringing Jungian myth to academia43:36 Russian writers and dystopian themes49:18 Moving furniture and family tensions51:06 Cincinnatus C. helps move furniture01:01:30 Choosing truth over conformity01:06:42 Local debate over data centers01:12:31 Finding clarity amidst distractions01:16:12 Deconstruction and authority confusion01:20:41 Addressing lack of accountability01:28:53 The impact of AI on society01:34:00 Surviving social media surveillance01:40:11 Discussing societal complacency and noise01:47:02 Discussing Cincinnatus' writings01:48:37 Legacy and leadership importance01:53:28 End of the conversation---Opening theme composed by Felipe Sarro - Bach - Silotti - "Air" from Orchestra Suite No. 3, BWV 1068 Closing theme composed by Brian Sanyshyn of Brian Sanyshyn Music.---Pick up your copy of 12 Rules for Leaders: The Foundation of Intentional Leadership NOW on AMAZON!Check out the Leadership Lessons From the Great Books podcast reading list!---Subscribe to the Leadership Lessons From The Great Books Podcast: https://bit.ly/LLFTGBSubscribeCheck out Leadership ToolBox at: https://leadershiptoolbox.us/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
The podcast continues its spring season theater coverage this week! The hotly anticipated play from writer Lindsey Ferrentino, The Fear of 13, opened last week on Broadway at the James Earl Jones Theatre. Adapted from a documentary of the same name, the play is a semi-fictionalized depiction of the real-life events of Nick Yarris, a man who was wrongfully accused and convicted of rape and murder, and spent 22 years imprisoned, before finally being exonerated by DNA evidence. Two seasoned actors, Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson, bring this story to life, with Brody in the role of Yarris and Thompson playing a prison volunteer with whom he falls in love. For both actors, this was their Broadway debut, and they sat down with Senior Editor of Features and News, Marley Marius, to talk about it. They talk about the theater rituals and also the nerves that go into performing this work. “I've had a lot of trepidation if I'm going to be honest,” Brody said of telling Yarris' story, “just because of the enormity of the task.” They spoke about how this story is not only the story of Yarris, but an unfortunately relatable tale for so many folks in America who have family and loved ones in the carceral system. The pair reflected on the immense obligation of telling a real and alive person's story. Yarris, now a free man, has been highly instrumental in the rehearsal process, attending table reads and performances alike. He also joined the pair on the red carpet for opening night. When it comes to this kind of work “whether they're in the room or not, they are in the room,” Thompson explained, “So then when they're literally in the room, it's a completely different thing.” Crucial to Yarris' experience in prison was his love of reading, a love so strong he referred to it as an addiction to books. Thompson, in an homage to her character Jacki who is a PhD candidate in poetry, has created a little library of books in her dressing room. There, she keeps several volumes of Charles Simic poetry and has also been known to read Mary Oliver and Nabokov's Lolita (a problematic fav of hers). When they aren't in rehearsal or performances, Brody and Thompson have pretty distinct approaches to how they spend their time. Brody, a homebody and true multi-hyphenate, busies himself making music—or “beats” as Thompson fondly refers to them—and cooking sweet potato stews. Thompson, on the other hand, is looking forward to having a bit more free time now to see other shows on this season and find the little speakeasies tucked in and around the theater district. The Run-Through with Vogue is your go-to podcast where fashion meets culture. Hosted by Chloe Malle, Head of Editorial Content, Vogue U.S.; Chioma Nnadi, Head of British Vogue; and Nicole Phelps, Director of Vogue Runway, each episode features the latest fashion news and exclusive designer and celebrity interviews. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
En este episodio de El Buen Cruel, la literatura no se lee… se recorre como un territorio vivo.Diez autores nacidos en abril se convierten en estaciones de un mismo viaje: Andersen y la inocencia herida, Nabokov y la perturbación del deseo, Mistral y la memoria que arde, Vonnegut y la ironía frente al abismo… hasta llegar a voces que no escribieron para su tiempo, sino contra él.Este no es un episodio para escuchar de fondo.Es una invitación a detenerte, a cuestionar, a sentir.Y en este recorrido, agradecemos profundamente las opiniones de amigos y lectores, que enriquecen cada palabra y cada reflexión compartida en este episodio.Porque quizá la verdadera pregunta no es qué dijeron estos autores… sino por qué siguen incomodándonos hoy.
You might remember the Police referring to "that book by Nabokov." Well this isn't it. It's an earlier book about a Russian immigrant. With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review "Dance of Days" IPA by Atlas Brew Works, then take on Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin — a novel that's equal parts frustrating, funny, and quietly devastating.At first glance, Timofey Pnin looks like a classic “nice guy who finishes last”: awkward, socially out of place, and constantly overlooked. But as we dig deeper, the question becomes harder to answer. Is Pnin really a loser, or is he one of the only genuinely decent people in the story?We explore:* Whether Pnin is a victim of others… or of the narrator himself* The role of the unreliable narrator and what it does to your perception of the story* The strange structure of the novel—more like a series of vignettes than a traditional plot* The tension between Pnin's outward awkwardness and the profound suffering underneath* Why this might be a book you appreciate more after reading it than while reading itWe also wrestle with a bigger question: what's the relationship between intelligence, social success, and moral worth?And of course, we start with a beer.If you've ever struggled through a “classic” and wondered what you were missing, this one's for you.
This is the second of a series of posts about the literary alchemy of J. K. Rowling, a discussion jumpstarted by a post by ‘Iris' at a Strike fan website, an article that championed a Jungian perspective on this subject. The first post in this series, Literary Alchemy – A Primer for Those Interested in J. K. Rowling's Artistry, both explained what the ‘Iris' post asserted and reviewed much of the critical literature that the brevity of the S&E Files article prevented her from discussing. See that post for links to this material. The conversation between Nick Jeffery and John Granger above was recorded in the same spirit as the first post was written, namely, simultaneously a welcome to Strike fans and Rowling readers who have learned about literary alchemy only recently and an introduction to the work of the last twenty five years on this subject. Upcoming posts in the series will include a counter-point discussion in the debate Rowling is fostering about whether a psychological or spiritual perspective is better for understanding art and life and a review of the alchemical signatures that crowd Rowling-Galbraith's Hallmarked Man.This post is largely links to sources for points Nick and John discuss in their naturally enthusiastic and contrarian conversation, question by question. Enjoy!1. Welcome to the Conversation! (Nick) I just sent out an article about literary alchemy, John, in response to an article written by ‘Iris' and posted on the Strike-Ellacott Files website, a piece titled ‘What is Literary Alchemy? Spotting symbols that map Strike and Robin's growth.' What advice or guidance would you give to, say, Cormoran Strike readers who are brand new to the subject? * There are three types of alchemy and it is important to understand the common ground they share and the differences between them;* The first type is alchemy proper, which is to say ‘metallurgical alchemy,' the sacred science of purifying metals and the adept's soul via the creation of a Philosopher's Stone that will transform lead to gold and exude an elixir of life, the drinking of which will bestow immortality;* The second and third types of alchemy derive from interpretations of metallurgical alchemy's aims and the symbolic texts detailing the work in the hermetic laboratory;* Literary alchemy is the use of metallurgical alchemy's language, colors, sequences, and symbols in plays, poetry, and story to foster an edifying and transformative experience in the artist's theater or reading audience;* Psychological alchemy is Carl Jung's use of metallurgical alchemy's texts during and after WWII to illustrate his ideas of the integration of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the human mind;* Metallurgical alchemy was practiced in China, the Levant, India, and Europe within the revealed religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity until its degeneration in the late Medieval period and eventual evolution into the strictly materialist chemistry we know today;* Literary alchemy has been a continuous stream in literature from Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the Metaphysical poets through to Dickens, Yeats, the Inklings, Joyce, Nabokov, and J. K. Rowling;* The academic study of “alchemy in literature” was the province of Baconian and allegorical readings of Shakespeare (cf., Beryl Pogson, Peter Dawkins, Martin Lings) until the late 20th Century and the advent of academic specialists in ‘Hermetic Studies,' e.g., Stanton Linden, Lyndy Abraham, and Charles Nicholl (cf., Cauda Pavonis: A Journal of Hermetic Studies, 1982-2000).* Jung and his followers used their psychological interpretations of metallurgical alchemy as allegories of the soul to interpret mythology (cf., Erich Neumann, Marie-Louise Von Franz, Robert Johnson);* Jungian analysis of story using Jung's ideas of subconscious archetypes within a collective unconscious was popularized by Joseph Campbell in his guides to Joyce's Ulysses and his more well known works on mythology (e.g., The Hero With a Thousand Faces);* ‘Isis' in her S&E Files article, ‘What is Literary Alchemy?,' suggests that Rowling-Galbraith is writing an allegory of soul transformation in the Cormoran Strike series using metallurgical alchemy's symbols and sequences as understood by Carl Jung and his disciples rather than as used by English writers since the 13th Century;* It's a challenging theory, the depth of which is hard to grasp without an appreciation of the types of alchemy, what they have in common, and their differences in approach and subject matter.2. The Lake: (John) What I found most fascinating in your post, Nick, was your best guesses about where Rowling would have learned about literary alchemy. She claimed in 1998 that she'd read a lot of alchemical texts from which she set the “magical parameters” of the Hogwarts Saga; if you had only three chances to name one of those books, what would you choose? * Charles Nicholl's The Chemical Theatre;* Titus Burckhardt's Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul (or Mirror of the Intellect: Essays on Traditional Acience and Sacred Art);* Lyndy Abraham Summerhaze's Marvell and Alchemy or her Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery;* Martin Lings' The Secret of Shakespeare3. Carl Jung, Alchemy: (Nick) I see you're chafing at the bit, John, with book titles I haven't mentioned so let me name-drop the author not on my list because, as you pointed out, he wasn't really a literary alchemist so much as a psychologist who discussed alchemy as a means of illustrating his own ideas about the ‘Great Work.' You've written, though, that literary alchemy as with metallurgical alchemy is a subset of soul-allegories or Psychomachia. Don't Jung's ideas jibe with that? * Yes and no!* Jung's ideas of the soul and archetypes (or archetypal forms) are based on late 19th Century Volkischer German ideas, which is to say, modern and materialist (some say ‘vitalist') premises. His hostility to Christianity and Judaism was grounded in his acceptance of Darwinian evolution and derived philosophically from Nietzsche (see Richard Noll's The Jung Cult and The Aryan Christ).* He conflates the spiritual with the psychological, consequently, and embraces integrated individual psychological health as the telos of human existence, none of which is consistent with traditional metallurgical or literary alchemy (see Titus Burckhardt's Mirror of the Intellect, Philip Sherrard's ‘An Introduction to the Religious Thought of C. G. Jung,' and Harry Oldmeadow's ‘C.G. Jung & Mircea Eliade: ‘Priests without Surplices'? Reflections on the Place of Myth, Religion and Science in Their Work.'* Psychological alchemy, insomuch as it is ‘Jungian,' is well removed from the other two types of alchemy. Which is not to say that Rowling is not a Jungian and hence a Jungian psychological alchemist.4. Back into the Lake: (John) You covered in your article, though, Nick, the several reasons to think it possible, even probable that the evidence from Rowling's life suggests she is using Jungian ideas in her literary alchemy. Iris over at S&E Files obviously thinks that is the case. What are the for and against ideas with respect to Rowling being a Jungian? There's Plenty of Evidence That Rowling IS a Jungian Writer:John Granger's discussion in Troubled Blood: A Jungian Reading* Robin's name-dropping Jung in conversation about astrology;* The Jungian notes sounded throughout Strike 5: Archetypes, Synchronicity, Persona;* The connection between Jung's illustrated ‘New Book' and Talbot's ‘True Book;' and* Pointers to Cupid-Psyche myth as understood by Jungians (see below)The Advent of Prudence Dunleavy, Jungian Psychologist, in Ink Black Heart* Hard to imagine a more sympathetic portrait of a Jungian than half-sister Prudence!* She clearly was the genius behind the Rokeby reconciliation in Hallmarked ManThe Cupid and Psyche myth underpinning the Strike series* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus (note the discussion here of the Jungian understanding of this specific myth)* Ink Black Heart: Strike as Zeus to Robin's Leda and as Cupid to Mads' Psyche* ‘Rowling Points to Myth of Cupid and Psyche in order to Console Strike Fans Disappointed with Hallmarked Man‘* The Hallmarked Man‘s Mythological Template (Nick Jeffery, John Granger)Anything Else? Oh, yeah —* Rowling studied mythology in her ‘Classical Studies' program at UExeter and almost certainly encountered Jungian interpretation of myths there (e.g. the work of Neumann, Johnson, Campbell).* Rowling told Val McDermid if she had not become a successful writer she would have sought training and certification as a psychologist. * Her work reflects a broad reading in psychology (cf., Louise Freeman Davis' ‘J. K. Rowling and the Phantoms in the Brain,' ‘Cormoran Strike and the Itch that Cannot Be Scratched') and it is likely that she has read her fair share of Jung and Jungian authors during her studies.* Rowling benefited from psychological therapy and exercises herself when suffering from depression, the experience of and recovery from which she depicted in story via the Azkaban Dementors and Robin Ellacott's treatment for PTSD in Lethal White.And There is Plenty of Evidence That Rowling Is NOT a Jungian Writer:* Rowling has never been asked or revealed how she learned about literary alchemy; this includes, of course, any reference to Carl Jung, whose work was not focused on literary alchemy per se but a psychological interpretation or explanation of metallurgical alchemy's symbolism.* All that Rowling has revealed about her experiences as a patient seeking help with depression are about Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which treatment modality owes nothing to Jung or to Jung's students.* It is possible that Rowling encountered esoteric metallurgical alchemy, the precursor to literary alchemy, in her study of astrology, the complementary traditional sacred science to alchemy, a skill-set with which we know she was accomplished. That route to alchemy would have led her to Perennialist interpretations of alchemy, most notably Titus Burckhardt‘s Alchemy, Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul; the paperback cover of the Penguin Metaphysical Library edition of that book (1974) features an androgynous giant named REBIS standing on a dragon and a winged golden sphere (i.e., Rubeus, Norbert, Snitch).* As mentioned above, it is more likely that she encountered literary alchemy in her study of Shakespeare. The year she was studying for her A Levels, she traveled to see a production of King Lear which has prompted the idea that it was on her list of texts to prepare for her tests. The most challenging interpretation of Lear then in print was Charles Nicholl's The Chemical Theatre (1980), a book that explains almost every scene in perhaps Shakespeare's greatest tragedy as a parallel step in the Great Work of alchemy. If the budding astrologer was fascinated by this allegorical interpretation of the Bard, the most popular work in print at that time that championed reading Shakespeare as the author of soul allegories was Perennialist Martin Lings‘ The Secret of Shakespeare (1984).* Literary Alchemy is a tool set employed not only by Shakespeare but by a host of Rowling favorite authors to include Dickens, Nabokov, Lewis, and Tolkien. This view of alchemy, that is, as an allegorical depiction of the soul's transformation that affects that same cathartic experience in its theater or reading audiences, is the one found in Rowling's work, which is well removed from psychological alchemy, an analytic art which, though it springs from metallurgical alchemical texts, does not aim at the transformation at work in the sacred art or the science of traditional alchemy. * Rowling's use of chiastic structures and psychomachian allegory, tools that complement literary alchemy in spiritual perspective and aim, make a Jungian rather than a literary and Perennialist view of alchemy seem unlikely.* Alchemy: Jung, Burckhardt, or Maclean? John Granger, April 2007* Rowling's Soul Triptych Psychomachia: Is It From Shakespeare's ‘Macbeth'? John Granger, September 20245. The Debate at King's Cross: (Nick) So, John, you've mentioned Jung quite a few times in your posts about the Mythological framework of the Strike series and even written about the Jungian ideas of animus and anima with respect to Cormoran and Robin's relationship. You seem fairly confident, though, that Rowling is writing from the traditional esoteric ideas of alchemy a la Shakespeare rather than Jung's. Why is that? * Everything you just said!* As noted, Jung's ideas are modern and psychological while the stream of literary alchemy in English Literature is almost exclusively more Medieval and pointedly spiritual;* The Most Notable Exception: Angela Carter's The Passion of the New Eve (1977), that reads like a Jungian ‘Red Book' slide-show (think Bombyx Mori) or a transgender Odyssey written for feminists. Rowling has never mentioned her to my knowledge but it would be surprising if she hadn't read this book more than once. What Alana Bolton Cooke wrote about Carter's Passion could be said about Rowling's literary alchemy if she is a Jungian writer (or about Galbraith's fictional Elizabeth Tassel?):Angela Carter in The Passion of New Eve (1977) uses the exoteric phases of alchemy and Carl G. Jung's theory of esoteric alchemy as a means of demonstrating allegorically the idea ofrebirth and renewal. The purpose of this allegorical method is to produce an 'alchemical' change of thought in the reader about sexuality and gender associated with women's repression and liberation. In the novel Carter develops themes and ideas explored in her essay, The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (1979), an analysis of the Marquis de Sade's pornography and its affect on the roles of men and women in society. The clash of opposites involved in combining alchemical symbolism, feminism and pornography within the fiction can be seen as representative of the state of chaos present in alchemy before the beginning of change. The circular narrative and alchemical structure of the fiction creates a literary version of the alchemical process as it brings together opposites involved in chaos, represented by events and characterisation that the protagonist, Evelyn/Eve, experiences, until, in the manner of alchemy, harmony is reached. The harmony created represents women's empowerment. Carter uses Evelyn's individuation process to encourage growth within the reader by altering patterns of thought to bring about change through self-confrontation and self-knowledge. The structure of Carter's fiction, thus, corresponds to the process of esoteric alchemy contained within the structure, imagery and symbolism of exoteric alchemy. The fiction is designed to stimulate the unconscious of the reader and make conscious hitherto unknown and repressed thoughts about gender and sexuality to bring about change in the lives of men and women.* I think what Rowling said she was trying to do with Harry Potter's meeting with Dumbledore at the dream-like King's Cross strongly suggests she is aware of the two approaches and wants readers to discuss them – but that she has made her own choice, however conflicted she may be.* In her 2008 interview with Adeel Amini, Rowling said that her hope for Harry's post-mortem conversation with Dumbledore at King's Cross was to stimulate “a debate” among readers about whether it was a psychological moment, that is, a fantasy in which Harry understands what he's been missing all along, or a spiritual event in which he is actually speaking with the late Headmaster:Enough Potter-plot, I think. Moving on to a slightly more contentious issue, Rowling has categorically said that she does believe in a higher power, a statement reinforced by her childhood church-going (“Till I was 17,” she clarifies). It must be difficult to reconcile her religious beliefs with those that denounce Harry Potter as anti-Christian, I wonder aloud. Rowling's expression does not change a fraction. “There was a Christian commentator who said, which I thought was very interesting, that Harry Potter had been the Christian church's biggest missed opportunity. And I thought, there's someone who actually has their eyes open.“I think he said it before the publication of the seventh book, and with the publication of the seventh book I think that clarified a lot of people's view on where I was standing. But I should emphasise that I am not pushing a specifically Christian agenda, and indeed till the very last moment in book seven, one can interpret what happens to Harry after he presents himself with death as him going into an unconscious state in which his subconscious reveals to him what he already knew.” I hum in faux-comprehension of what she's referring to; luckily my clued-in companion is nodding wildly. Proceed. “Any re-reading of Chapter 35 will show you that there's nothing that the Dumbledore he sees tells him that he couldn't have guessed for himself or already realised, and of course there's a key piece of information that Dumbledore doesn't articulate that Harry has realised. So you can deliberately interpret it that way, or you can say that he did go into a state of limbo beyond which there was another life, and that idea was expressed repeatedly, and most explicitly at the end of book five, Order of the Phoenix, where Harry understands that there is an ‘on', that you do go on. “I wanted there to be a debate there, so of my three main characters - when they come into the room which examines death at the Ministry of Magic - Hermione, the ultimate sceptic and a hyperrational person, hears nothing behind the veil and is scared of it. Ron is just uneasy; Ron is someone who does not grapple with anything deeper than beer, if he can avoid it. Harry's drawn to it, and therein lies Harry's slightly reckless, almost morbid streak, because Harry does have a hint of that dangerous adolescent trait which is the attraction to death.” Heavy. Obviously with this ambiguity, you do get a fair degree of misinterpretation as well; there is a certain section that does dislike Harry Potter intensely. “Oh, vehemently,” says Rowling, before muttering under her breath “…and they send death threats.”* I think that “debate” she's trying to foster is between the psychological, call it ‘Jungian' “just inside your head” subconscious perspective, and the authentically spiritual view of her work (well, of art and human existence, too, of course). And that this debate is one she has had for most of her life. Check out her comments about the “greatest missed opportunity” and explain to me how that doesn't line up with her preferring the spiritual, albeit “not explicitly Christian,” to the psychological and humanist. 7. Jungian Readings of Rowling's Work: (Nick) John, you're familiar with what has been written by Potter Pundits because of your PhD critical literature surveys; what are the better ones about Rowling and Jungian psychology and what do they emphasize? Here are seven off the top of my head (and Thesis ‘Works Cited' drafts):* Grynbaum, G.A. (2000). The Secrets of Harry Potter. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal: Reviews From a Jungian Perspective of Books, Films and Culture, [online] 19 (4) pp. 17-48* Patrick, Christopher and Sarah (2007), ‘Exploring the Dark Side: Harry Potter and the Psychology of Evil,' in Mulholland (ed.), The Psychology of Harry Potter, BenBella Books, pp 221-232* Gerhold, C. (2011). The Hero's Journey Through Adolescence: A Jungian Archetypal Analysis of “Harry Potter.” PsyD. The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. * Rectenwald, Bob (2019). ‘Carl Jung's Impact on the Work of J. K. Rowling' * Skipper, Alicia and Kate Fulton (2021) ‘Out from the Shadows into the Light: Persona and Shadow in Harry Potter‘ in Anne Mamary (ed.) The Alchemical Harry Potter: Essays on Transfiguration in J. K. Rowling's Novels, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2021, pp 79-96* The Unfolding Journey, Jung's Shadow Self in Harry Potter: Confronting the Darkness Within (YouTube video)* My own Troubled Blood: A Jungian ReadingBob Rectenwald's piece is the best of the six I didn't write but it shares the several faults all the Jungian pieces make:* the first failing of even the best Jungian readers is the assumption that Rowling is a Jungian, which is an open question;* the next is that Jung's ideas (and Joseph Campbell's) are indisputably true; and* the last is, when alchemy is mentioned, the critics do not clarify either the commonalities of or the differences between literary alchemy, psychological alchemy, and Jungian analytic psychology. * Note, though, that Rowling, while aware of such Jungian tropes as the Hero's Journey, tweeks it shamelessly, adding a symbol of Christ and resurrection scene in every Potter story (cf., How Harry Cast His Spell, ‘The Harry's Journey,' pp 21-28).* Read her brief PotterMore piece on alchemy and note that it is written in such a way that it can be read as confirmation of either a psychological or spiritual perspective on alchemy and art:One interpretation of the ‘instructions' left by the alchemists is that they are symbolic of a spiritual journey, leading the alchemist from ignorance (base metal) to enlightenment (gold). There seems to have been a mystical element to the work the alchemist was engaged upon, which set it apart from chemistry (of which it was undoubtedly both an offshoot and forerunner).This “original writing” by Rowling, especially the words “spiritual” and “mystical,” suggests that she is a Perennialist rather than a Jungian, at least with respect to her understanding of alchemy. But the debate is still possible with Jungians who read those words as cyphers for the subsconscious contact they hold we have with archetypes.8. Back to the Alchemy: (John) I think the real question of whether Rowling's literary alchemy is predominantly literary and spiritual or psychological in orientation comes down to the postmodern confusion about the immaterial aspects of the human person, which is to say, the soul (or mind, psyche) and the spirit. Rowling's recent work may seem prosaic or secular to a casual reader who compares it to the relatively otherworldly and “obviously” symbolic Potter books, but she loads each Strike book with Shakespearean romance of soul and spirit, i.e., alchemical dramas, and hermetic tropes. I'm writing a piece now about the lions, dogs, incest, and the red man and white woman in Hallmarked Man, each of which are touchstones of alchemy. I think, though, that your work with Rowling's favorite books and her epigraph sources, Nick, point to a strong spiritual rather than psychological foundation in Rowling's work —* Louisa May Alcott, Little Women* Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle* The Victorian Women Poets in Running Grave* Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh* Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book* The Jungian love of the I Ching, Running Grave's epigraph source9. Jung in Running Grave: (Nick) Rowling's favorite writers, from Shakespeare and Nabokov to C. S. Lewis and Victorian Women poets, all clearly believe in a world-transcending spiritual realm. Given the quantity of the Jungian scholarship in Rowling Studies that Iris referred to and you've mentioned, it's curious -- if Rowling is aware of it and is resistant to it -- that she doesn't push back against it explicitly in her work. Can you think of a character that seems something like Jung in the books, someone as bad as Prudence Dunleavey is good? I can think of three:* United Humanitarian Church's guru Jonathan Wace in Running Grave: his “psychologizing of religion,” the comparative religion avenue to denial of any true faith, the psychological critical analysis of a patient using mythological tropes (”Artemis”), the cult leader, and the abuser of women and children -- he's a ringer for Jung! * Paul Satchwell, one-eyed serpent with a one-track mind, in Leamington Spa, a true Jungian artist working psycho-sexual motifs graphically on canvas:Naked figures twisted and cavorted in scenes from Greek mythology. Persephone struggled in the arms of Hades as he carried her down into the underworld; Andromeda strained against chains binding her to rock as a dragonish creature rose from the waves to devour her; Leda lay supine in bulrushes as Zeus, in the form of a swan, impregnated her.Two lines of Joni Mitchell floated back to Robin as she looked at the paintings: “When I first saw your gallery, I liked the ones of ladies…”Except that Robin wasn't sure she liked the paintings. The female figures were all black-haired, olive-skinned, heavy-breasted and partially or entirely naked. The paintings were accomplished, but Robin found them slightly lascivious. Each of the women wore a similar expression of vacant abandon, and Satchwell seemed to have a definite preference for those myths that featured bondage, rape or abduction. (Troubled Blood, 542)* And then there are the Masons, kind of an old school Jungian cult in Hallmarked Man. Like the UHC and “harmless” fraternal and charitable group with Christian touches but which doesn't change a man or human nature per Hardacre (and which harbors the rich and powerful like Lord Branfoot). * Coupled with Prudence, the Front of Jungian Beliefs, we get the front and back of Jung in Rowling's work, a characteristic touch of Rowling nuance as she did with Islam in Hallmarked Man.10. Conclusion: (John) I'm obviously not a Jung fan and I don't think Rowling is writing Jungian psychomachia in alchemical symbols a la Angela Carter, but I see how people would come to a contrary conclusion; Rowling's ‘spiritual not religious' public statements and political positions with respect to Same Sex Attraction and abortion line up much more easily with New Age and Jungian types than with any kind of orthodox Christianity. The great thing about essays like Isis' at S&E Files is that it brings more people into the conversation of what literary alchemy is and the various approaches to it. You've been reading about literary alchemy for several years now, Nick; what do you think the person whose first encounter with the subject was the S&E Files article do to hone their alchemy detection skills? * “Read your books and online talks, John!”* How Metallurgical Alchemy Worked and How it Became Literary Alchemy (from Deathly Hallows Lectures, Chapter 1):Alchemy, in a nutshell, was the science for the perfection or sanctification of the alchemist's soul. This heroic venture I need to say straight off is all but impossible today because the way we look at reality, at ‘things' per se makes the Great Work itself almost an absurdity. Unlike the medieval alchemists, we moderns and postmoderns see things with a clear subject/object distinction, that is, we believe that you and I and that table are entirely different things and between them is there is no connection or relation. The knowing subject is one thing and the observed object is completely ‘other.'To the alchemist that is not the case. His efforts in changing lead to gold are based on the premise that he as the subject will go through the same types of changes and purifications as the materials he is working with. In sympathy with these metallurgical transitions and resolutions of contraries, his soul will be purified in correspondence as long as he is working in a prayerful state within the Mysteries (sacraments) of his revealed tradition.Now, historically there was an Arabic alchemy, a Chinese alchemy, a Kabbalistic, as well as a Christian alchemy; each differs superficially with respect to their spiritual traditions but in every one, the alchemist was working with a sacred natural science or physics to advance his spiritual purification. This was only possible because he looked at the metal he was working with as something with which he was not ‘other' but with which he was in relationship, artifex and artifact in sacred art imitating and accelerating the work of the Creator creating a bridge, so that, as lead changes to gold or material perfection, his soul was going through similar transformations and purifications.The common ground is the logos in every created thing, to include persons (cf. John 1:9), which are all continuous with the Logos fabric of reality. As much as the alchemist identifies with this metaphysical ground, purifying himself of the ‘old man' or ego-driven individual and identifying himself with the spiritual Heart or light within him, that light will become his dominant quality, hence his “illumination” or “enlightenment”. And lead or solid darkness turning into gold, hard light.How does this edifying magic become the scaffolding for Harry's adventures? Largely through the genius of William Shakespeare. Hermetic wisdom and alchemical efforts were such commonplaces in Elizabethan England that Shakespeare and his contemporaries recognized, I think. that the magic of staged drama is essentially alchemical. If we groundlings are all watching what's going on up on the stage and everything is working the way it's supposed to, the subject-object distinction dissolves inasmuch as we identify with the characters and their agonies through our logos-imaginations. As they go through their changes, like the metals in a crucible, we identify with them and pass through the same cathartic moment.As the great dramatists of that period realized, “if what we're doing is alchemical, why don't we use alchemical imagery and language, too?” And, voila, literary alchemy is born. This stream of English literature in which narrator or characters and the reader or audience in correspondence pass through the stages of the alchemical work, the black the white and the red (basically dissolution, purification, and then perfection) runs through the next five centuries of poetry, stage work, stories and novels. You may not have recognized it, but its a big part of things you have read.* Literary Alchemy: Sacred Science, Sacred Art, and ‘The Alembic of Story':A Perennialist Explanation of J. K. Rowling's Signature Hermetic Symbolism This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe
Muchos de los libros que hablaban de relaciones entre mujeres jóvenes y hombres mayores fueron escritos por hombres, como Lolita, de Nabokov. Pero eso ha cambiado. En los últimos años, distintas escritoras han explorado, con herramientas críticas, las relaciones descompensadas, ya sea por edad, estatus o clase. Novelas como Comerás flores, de Lucía Solla, abordan el maltrato psicológico y otras como El consentimiento, de Vanessa Springora, la pederastia. Hablamos con Silvia Hernando, que ha publicado el reportaje Amor y sexo con desnivel en Babelia y con Ana Marcos, autora del libro A mí no me ha pasado nada. CRÉDITOS Dirección: Ana Alonso Diseño de sonido: Nicolás Tsabertidis
Lolita, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, still stirs controversy seven decades after its first publication. The basic storyline is infamous. WSHU's Book Critic Joan Baum says what often gets overlooked is Nabokov's eloquent writing and his examination of how unchecked desire destroys lives.
PART III AVAILABLE NOW, AD-FREE, ON PATREON!This week we're revisiting one of the wildest and most disturbing cases we've ever covered: the abductions of Jan Broberg. This re-release is part two of our three-part investigative series exploring the disturbing patterns shared between the stories of Sally Horner, Jan Broberg, and the character known as "Lolita" or "Dolly" in the infamous novel Lolita.Make sure to check out last week's episode first, TSFU Ep. 187 - KIDNAPPED: Sally Horner & The Real Story Behind Lolita (Part I), where Ash told the story of Sally Horner, the real child whose 1948 kidnapping would later echo inside Nabokov's controversial novel. In the final installment of this series, we'll put all three stories side by side and expose the shared blueprint of authority, grooming, isolation, social camouflage, narrative control, and public misunderstanding that links them.Originally released in 2022, this episode dives into the case made famous by Netflix's documentary Abducted in Plain Sight. Ash told Cam about how trusted family friend Robert Berchtold groomed not just Jan, but her entire family... before abducting her at ages 12 and 14.The deeper you look, the more unbelievable it gets: secret affairs with both of Jan's parents, manipulation of an entire community, and a predator who managed to convince nearly everyone around him that he should be trusted. Berchtold had been abusing young girls since he was a child himself, and the adults around him repeatedly enabled it.TW: For everything mentioned above... this is an upsetting topic that I found very difficult to research, make sure to take care of yourselves
San Jose Sharks legendary goalie Evgeni Nabokov speaks to coaching young Sharks talent, how the Olympic break can effect players, and the differences between the game when he dominated vs nowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
San Jose Sharks legendary goalie Evgeni Nabokov speaks to coaching young Sharks talent, how the Olympic break can effect players, and the differences between the game when he dominated vs nowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New year, new (old) Deuce! The Notes: Look, the holidays are limping into their chill, winter's grave, and they took the notes with them. This episode is a bus, man. You get on, and you don't know where you're gonna end up, but you do know it'll be somewhere different. Kinda like Forrest Gump, but with buses. We get into it, just listen. As for what sparse, gasping attempts at notes we did collect, here you go: Nelson's old cat is yelling! Raymond Carver pulls a double-reverse TS Eliot! Literary cat fiction! No skips, all bangers! Chekov's gun vs Nabokov's cat! Bus tangent! This bus is prison rules! Don't be the most edible one in the room, kids! Alpha dog 2026! The D&D of bus buddies past! Just sticking it in! Contact Us! Follow Us! Love Us! Email: doubledeucepod@gmail.com Twitter & Instagram: @doubledeucepod Bluesky: @doubledeucepod.bsky.social Facebook: www.facebook.com/DoubleDeucePod/ Patreon: patreon.com/DoubleDeucePod Also, please subscribe/rate/review/share us! We're on Apple, Android, Libsyn, Stitcher, Google, Spotify, Amazon, Radio.com, RadioPublic, pretty much anywhere they got podcasts, you can find the Deuce! Podcast logo art by Jason Keezer! Find his art online at Keezograms! Intro & Outro featuring Rob Schulte! Check out his many podcasts! Brought to you in part by sponsorship from Courtney Shipley, Official Superfans Stefan Rider, Amber Fraley, Nate Copt, and listeners like you! Join a tier on our Patreon! Advertise with us! www.magicmind.com/doubledeuce for 20% off all purchases and subscriptions. Check out the Lawrence Times's 785 Collective at https://lawrencekstimes.com/785collective/ for a list of local LFK podcasts including this one!
This is a recap of the top 10 posts on Hacker News on December 24, 2025. This podcast was generated by wondercraft.ai (00:30): Tell HN: Merry ChristmasOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46380168&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(01:51): Unifi Travel RouterOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46371135&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(03:12): Nvidia buying AI chip startup Groq for about $20B in cashOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46379183&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(04:34): Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in ZigOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46380075&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(05:55): Show HN: Minimalist editor that lives in browser, stores everything in the URLOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46378554&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(07:17): Show HN: Vibium – Browser automation for AI and humans, by Selenium's creatorOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46377597&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(08:38): Fabrice Bellard: Biography (2009) [pdf]Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46377862&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(09:59): When Compilers Surprise YouOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46375384&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(11:21): Don't Become the MachineOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46372153&utm_source=wondercraft_ai(12:42): Nabokov's guide to foreigners learning RussianOriginal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46371423&utm_source=wondercraft_aiThis is a third-party project, independent from HN and YC. Text and audio generated using AI, by wondercraft.ai. Create your own studio quality podcast with text as the only input in seconds at app.wondercraft.ai. Issues or feedback? We'd love to hear from you: team@wondercraft.ai
Merry Christmas! In between looking at houses to rent and packing up the Granger house in Oklahoma City, Nick and John put together this yuletide conversation about perhaps the most neglected of Rowling's influences, Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. John was a reluctant reader, but, while listening to the audio book, reading the Gutenberg.com file on his computer, and digging the codex out of his packed boxes of books, the author of Harry Potter's Bookshelf was totally won over to Nick's enthusiasm for Castle.In fact, John now argues that, even if Rowling didn't read it until she was writing Goblet of Fire as some have claimed, I Capture the Castle may be the best single book to understand what it is that Rowling-Galbraith attempts to do in her fiction. Just as Dodie Smith has her characters explain overtly and the story itself delivers covertly, When Rowling writes a story, like Smith it is inevitably one that is a marriage of Bronte and Austen, wonderfully accessible and engaging, but with important touches in the ‘Enigmatist' style of Joyce and Nabokov, full of puzzles and twists in the fashion of God's creative work (from the Estecean logos within every man [John 1:9] continuous with the Logos) rather than a portrait of creation per se. Can you say ‘non liturgical Sacred Art'?And if you accept, per Nick's cogent argument, that Rowling read Castle many times as a young wannabe writer? Then this book becomes a touchstone of both Lake and Shed readings of Rowling's work — and Smith one of the the most important influences on The Presence.Merry Christmas, again, to all our faithful readers and listeners! Thank you for your prayers and notes of support and encouragement to John and for making 2025 a benchmark year at Hogwarts Professor. And just you wait for the exciting surprises we have in hand for 2026!Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Twelve Questions and ‘Links Down Below' Referred to in Nick and John's I Capture the Castle Conversation:Question 1. So, Nick, we spoke during our Aurora Leigh recording about your long term project to read all the books that Rowling has admitted to have read (link down below!), first question why? and secondly how is that going?Rowling's Admitted Literary InfluencesWhat I want is a single internet page reference, frankly, of ‘Rowling's Admitted Literary Influences' or ‘Confessed Favorites' or just ‘Books I have Read and Liked' for my thesis writing so I needn't do an information dump that will add fifty-plus citations to my Works Cited pages and do nothing for the argument I'm making.Here, then, is my best attempt at a collection, one in alphabetical order by last name of author cited, with a link to at least one source or interview in which Rowling is quoted as liking that writer. It is not meant as anything like a comprehensive gathering of Rowling's comments about any author; the Austen entry alone would be longer than the whole list should be if I went that route. Each author gets one, maybe two notes just to justify their entry on the list.‘A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh' Nick Jeffery Talking about ‘A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh' Question 2. ... which has led me to three works that she has read from the point of view of writers starting out, and growing in their craft. Which leads us to this series of three chats covering Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and the Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott. I read Castle during the summer. Amid all the disruptions at Granger Towers, have you managed to read it yet? How did you find it?Capturing Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle: Elizabeth Baird-Hardy (October 2011)Certain elements of the story will certainly resonate with those of us who have been to Hogwarts a fair few times: a castle with an odd combination of ancient and modern elements, but no electricity; eccentric family members who are all loved despite their individual oddities (including Topaz's resemblance to Fleur Delacour); travel by train; a character named Rose who may have been one of the reasons Rowling chose the name for Ron and Hermione's daughter; descriptions of food that make even somewhat questionable British cuisine sound tasty; and inanimate objects that have their own personalities (the old dress frame, which Rose and Cassandra call Miss Blossom, is voiced by Cassandra and sounds much like the talking mirror in Harry's room at the Leaky Caldron).But far more than some similar pieces, I Capture the Castle lends something less tangible to Rowling's writing. The novel has a tone that, like the Hogwarts adventures, seamlessly winds together the comic and the crushing in a way that is reflective of life, particularly life as we see it when we are younger. Cassandra's voice is, indeed, engaging, and readers will no doubt see how the narrative voice of Harry's story has some of the same features.A J. K. Rowling Reading of I Capture the Castle: Nick Jeffery (December 2025)Parallels abound for Potter fans. The Mortmain's eccentric household mirrors the Weasleys' chaotic warmth: loved despite quirks, from Topaz's nude communing with nature (evoking a less veiled Fleur Delacour) to Mortmain's intellectual withdrawal. Food descriptions—meagre yet tantalising—prefigure Hogwarts feasts, turning humble meals into sensory delights. Inanimate objects gain voice: the family dress-frame “Miss Blossom” offers advice, akin to the chatty mirrors or portraits in Rowling's world. Even names resonate—Rose Mortmain perhaps inspiring Ron and Hermione's daughter—and train journeys punctuate the plot.The Blocked Writer: James Mortmain, a father who spent his fame early and now reads detective novels in an irritable stupor, mirrors the “faded glory” or “lost genius” archetypes seen in Rowling's secondary characters, such as Xenophilius Lovegood and Jasper Chiswell.The Bohemian Stepmother: Topaz, who strides through the countryside in only wellington boots, shares the whimsical, slightly unhinged energy of a character like Luna Lovegood or Fleur Delacour.Material Yearning: The desperate desire of Cassandra's sister, Rose, to marry into wealth reflects the very real, non-magical pressures of class and poverty that Rowling weaves into Harry Potter, Casual Vacancy, Strike and The Ickabog.Leda Strike parallels: Leda Fox-Cotton the bohemian London photographer, adopts Stephen, the working-class orphan, and saves him from both unrequited love and the responsibility that comes with the Mortmain family.Question 3. [story of finishing the book last night by candle light in my electricity free castle] So, in short Nick, I thought it astonishing! I didn't read your piece until I'd finished reading Capture, of course, but I see there is some dispute about when Rowling first read it and its consequent influence on her as a writer. Can you bring us up to speed on the subject and where you land on this controversy?* She First Read It on her Prisoner of Azkaban Tour of United States?tom saysOctober 21, 2011 at 4:00 amIf I recall correctly, Rowling did not encounter this book until 1999 (between PoA & Goblet) when, on a book tour, a fan gave her a copy. This is pertinent to any speculation about how ‘Castle' might have influenced the Potter series.* Rowling Website: “Books I Read and Re-Read as a Child”Question 4. Which, when you consider the other books on that virtual bookshelf -- works by Colette, Austen, Shakespeare, Goudge, Nesbit, and Sewell's Black Beauty, something of a ‘Rowling's Favorite Books and Authors as a Young Reader' collection, I think we have to assume she is saying, “I read this book as a child or adolescent and loved it.” Taking that as our jumping off place, John, and having read my piece, do you wish you had read it before writing Harry Potter's Bookshelf?Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books behind the Hogwarts Adventures John Granger 2009Literary Allusion in Harry Potter Beatrice Groves 2017Question 5. So, yes, I certainly do think it belongs -- with Aurora Leigh and Little Women -- on the ‘Rowling Reader Essential Reading List.' The part I thought most interesting in your piece was, of course, the Shed elements I missed. Rowling famously said that she loved Jo Marsh in Little Women because, in addition to the shared name and the character being a wannabe writer, she was plain, a characteristic with which the young, plain Jane Rowling easily identified. What correspondences do you think Little Jo would have found between her life and Cassandra Mortmain's?* Nick Jeffery's Kanreki discussion of Rowling's House on Edge of Estate with Two Children, Bad Dad ‘Golden Thread' (Lethal White)Question 6. Have I missed any, John?* Rockefeller Chapel, University of ChicagoQuestion 7. Forgive me for thinking, Nick, that Cassandra's time in church taking in the silence there with all her senses may be the biggest take-away for the young Rowling; if the Church of England left their chapel doors open in the 70s as churches I grew up in did in the US, it's hard to imagine Jo the Reader not running next door to see what she felt there after reading that passage. (Chapter 13, conversation with vicar, pp 234-238). The correspondence with Beatrice Groves' favorite scene in the Strike novels was fairly plain, no? What other scenes and characters do you see in Rowling's work that echo those in Castle?* Chapter 13, I Capture the Castle: Cassandra's Conversation with the Vicar and time in the Chapel vis a vis Strike in the Chapel after Charlotte's Death* Beatrice Groves on Running Grave's Chapel Scene: ‘Strike's Church Going'Question 8. I'm guessing, John, you found some I have overlooked?Question 9. The Mortmain, Colly, and Cotton cryptonyms as well as Topaz and Cassandra, the embedded text complete with intratextuual references (Simon on psycho-analysis), the angelic servant-orphan living under the stairs (or Dobby's lair!) an orphan with a secret power he cannot see in himself, the great Transformation spell the children cast on their father, an experiment in psychomachia a la the Shrieking Shack or Chamber of Secrets, the hand-kiss we see at story's end from Smith, love delayed but expressed (Silkworm finish?), the haunting sense of the supernatural everywhere especially in the invocation that Rose makes to the gargoyle and Cassandra's Midsummer Night's Eve ritual with Simon, the parallels abound. Ghosts!* Please note that John gave “cotton” a different idiomatic meaning than it has; the correct meaning is at least as interesting given the Cotton family's remarkable fondness for all of the Mortmains!* Kanreki ‘Embedded Text' Golden Thread discussion 1: Crimes of Grindelwald* Kanreki ‘Embedded Text' Golden Thread discussion 2: Golden Thread Survey, Part II* Rose makes an elevated Faustian prayer to a Gargoyle Devil: Chapter IV, pp 43-46* Cassandra and Simon celebrate Midsummer Night's Eve: Chapter XII, pp 199-224Let's talk about the intersection of Lake and Shed, though, the shared space of Rowling's bibliography, works that shaped her core beliefs and act as springs in her Lake of inspiration and which give her many, even most of the tools of intentional artistry she deploys in the Shed. What did you make of the Bronte-Austen challenge that Rose makes explicitly in the story to her sister, the writer and avid reader?“How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel.” [said Rose]I said I'd rather be in a Charlotte Bronte.“Which would be nicest—Jane with a touch of Charlotte, or Charlotte with a touch of Jane?”This is the kind of discussion I like very much but I wanted to get on with my journal, so I just said: “Fifty percent each way would be perfect,” and started to write determinedly.Question 10. So, I'm deferring to both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and J. K Rowling. Elizabeth Barrett Browning valued intense emotion, social commentary, and a grand scope in literature, which led her to favour the passionate depth of the Brontës over the more restrained, ironical style of Jane Austen. Rowling about her two dogs: “Emma? She's a bundle of love and joy. Her sister, Bronte, is a bundle of opinions, stubbornness and hard boundaries.”Set in the 30s, written in the early 40s, but it seems astonishingly modern. Because her father is a writer, a literary novelist of the modern school, do you think there are other more contemporary novelists Dodie Smith was engaging than Austen and Bronte?Question 11. Mortmain is definitely Joyce, then, though Proust gets the call-out, and perhaps the most important possible take-away Rowling the attentive young reader would have made would have been Smith's embedded admiration for Joyce the “Enigmatist” she puts in Simon's mouth at story's end (Chapter XVI, pp 336-337) and her implicit criticism of literary novels and correction of that failing. Rowling's re-invention of the Schoolboy novel with its hidden alchemical, chiastic, soul-in-crisis-allegories and embedded Christian symbolism can all be seen as her brilliant interpretation of Simon's explanation of art to Cassandra and her dedication to writing a book like I Capture the Castle.* Reference to James Joyce by Simon Cotton, Chapter IX, p 139:* The Simon and Cassandra conversation about her father's novels, call it ‘The Writer as Enigmatist imitating God in His Work:' Chapter XVI, pp 331-334* On Imagination as Transpersonal Faculty and Non-Liturgical Sacred ArtSacred art differs from modern and postmodern conceptions of art most specifically, though, in what it is representing. Sacred art is not representing the natural world as the senses perceive it or abstractions of what the individual and subjective mind “sees,” but is an imitation of the Divine art of creation. The artist “therefore imitates nature not in its external forms but in its manner of operation as asserted so categorically by St. Thomas Aquinas [who] insists that the artist must not imitate nature but must be accomplished in ‘imitating nature in her manner of operation'” (Nasr 2007, 206, cf. “Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation: Art is the principle of manufacture” (Summa Theologia Q. 117, a. I). Schuon described naturalist art which imitates God's creation in nature by faithful depiction of it, consequently, as “clearly luciferian.” “Man must imitate the creative act, not the thing created,” Aquinas' “manner of operation” rather than God's operation manifested in created things in order to produce ‘creations'which are not would-be duplications of those of God, but rather a reflection of them according to a real analogy, revealing the transcendental aspect of things; and this revelation is the only sufficient reason of art, apart from any practical uses such and such objects may serve. There is here a metaphysical inversion of relation [the inverse analogy connecting the principial and manifested orders in consequence of which the highest realities are manifested in their remotest reflections[1]]: for God, His creature is a reflection or an ‘exteriorized' aspect of Himself; for the artist, on the contrary, the work is a reflection of an inner reality of which he himself is only an outward aspect; God creates His own image, while man, so to speak, fashions his own essence, at least symbolically. On the principial plane, the inner manifests the outer, but on the manifested plane, the outer fashions the inner (Schuon 1953, 81, 96).The traditional artist, then, in imitation of God's “exteriorizing” His interior Logos in the manifested space-time plane, that is, nature, instead of depicting imitations of nature in his craft, submits to creating within the revealed forms of his craft, which forms qua intellections correspond to his inner essence or logos.[2] The work produced in imitation of God's “manner of operation” then resembles the symbolic or iconographic quality of everything existent in being a transparency whose allegorical and anagogical content within its traditional forms is relatively easy to access and a consequent support and edifying shock-reminder to man on his spiritual journey. The spiritual function of art is that “it exteriorizes truths and beauties in view of our interiorization… or simply, so that the human soul might, through given phenomena, make contact with the heavenly archetypes, and thereby with its own archetype” (Schuon 1995a, 45-46).Rowling in her novels, crafted with tools all taken from the chest of a traditional Sacred Artist, is writing non-liturgical Sacred Art. Films and all the story experiences derived of adaptations of imaginative literature to screened images, are by necessity Profane Art, which is to say per the meaning of “profane,” outside the temple or not edifying spiritually. Film making is the depiction of how human beings encounter the time-space world through the senses, not an imitation of how God creates and a depiction of the spiritual aspect of the world, a liminal point of entry to its spiritual dimension. Whence my describing it as a “neo-iconoclasm.”I want to close this off with our sharing our favorite scene or conversation in Castle with the hope that our Serious Reader audience will read Capture and share their favorites. You go first, Nick.* Cassandra and Rose Mortmain, country hicks in the Big City of London: Chapter VI, pp 76-77Question 12. And yours, John?* Cassandra Mortmain ‘Moat Swimming' with Neil Cotton, Chapter X, 170-174* Cassandra seeing her dead mother (think Harry before the Mirror of Erised at Christmas time?): Chapter XV, pp 306-308Hogwarts Professor 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 hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe
Del “Apolo y Dafne” de Garcilaso de la Vega al “Lolita” de Vladímir Nabokov, pasando por “Orgullo y Prejuicio” de Jane Austen o “Romeo y Julieta” de William Shakespeare: los amores desiguales, con diferencia de edad, de poder, de estatus, o de clase social llevan siglos protagonizando la literatura. Amores en los que es difícil diferenciar el cuidado de la vigilancia, las atenciones del control, o los regalos del chantaje.Vuelve nuestro monográfico de literatura “Puro Cuento”, con Marta Jiménez Serrano, para hablar de amantes tóxicos y sugar daddies de libro. Lo hacemos con dos de las autoras del año: Lucía Solla Sobral y “Comerás flores” y Bárbara Arena, que acaba de publicar “Un adiós”. Y nos despedimos con el Oráculo de Silvia que nos cuenta qué leeremos en el futuro. Más información aquí: https://www.eldiario.es/132_c41a0c Haz posible Carne Cruda: http://bit.ly/ProduceCC
Ilaria Palomba"Restituzione"Prefazione di Gianpaolo G. MastropasquaPostfazione di Silvio RaffoInterno Libriwww.internolibri.comTu giocavi con la via della sparizione,dicevi di amare il mio respiro.L'incanto smisurato nella pioggia,non dicevi quando saresti venuto,se saresti partito o tornato,ci saremmo rivisti in altre lune.Lo sai, nella notte, torneremo a essere.Restituzione, Ilaria Palomba dà voce a una soggettività fragile e scorticata, capace di trasformare il trauma in linguaggio e la frattura in poesia. Il libro è un atto lirico e politico insieme: l'autrice restituisce a se stessa – e al lettore – il senso di un'identità smarrita e ritrovata, dopo il crollo psichico e la reclusione ospedaliera. Il corpo, la memoria, il dolore, l'infanzia, l'amore, la scrittura: ogni frammento torna al centro di una narrazione poetica che si fa ricomposizione e sguardo. Il verso è netto, tagliente, a tratti visionario, eppure sempre ancorato alla concretezza del vivere e del sopravvivere. Palomba racconta la soglia tra follia e lucidità, la violenza subita e quella introiettata, ma anche la possibilità di una tregua, di una parola che cura. Restituzione è un'opera senza compiacimenti, senza retorica, ma profondamente necessaria: una discesa nell'abisso che, proprio nella sua oscurità, indica una via per tornare alla luce. Ilaria Palomba, pugliese d'origine, romana d'adozione, classe '87, ha pubblicato i romanzi: Fatti male (Gaffi), Homo homini virus (Meridiano Zero, Premio Carver), Una volta l'estate (Meridiano Zero) scritto a quattro mani con Luigi Annibaldi, Disturbi di luminosità (Gaffi), Brama (Perrone), Vuoto (Les Flâneurs, Premio Oscar del libro, premio speciale romanzo sperimentale al Terre di Puglia, presentato al Premio Strega), Purgatorio (AlterEgo, presentato al Premio Strega); le sillogi poetiche Mancanza (Augh!), Deserto (Fusibilia, Premio Profumi di Poesia), Città metafisiche (Ensemble), Microcosmi (Ensemble, Menzione d'onore al Premio Semeria, Premio Virginia Woolf al Nabokov), Scisma (Les Flâneurs, Premio ASAS, Premio del presidente della giuria al Bologna in Lettere, presentato al Premio Strega Poesia); il saggio Io sono un'opera d'arte, viaggio nel mondo della performance art (Dal Sud). Collabora con La Fionda ed è tra i fondatori di Suite italiana.Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/
Jaymee Jay returns to Wake the Dead to discuss the satanic agenda of the infantilization of our society & at the same time normalizing the sexualization of children. This diabolical plot has been unfolding in America since the 1930s with Shirley Temple's Baby Burlesk short films. Continued with Kinsey and Nabokov's novel Lolita, the sexualization of children has been blatant while somehow occulted. Today we have 4 year old girls imitating Lady Gaga and adults who are sexually aroused by wearing diapers. All we have to do is simply open our eyes to see this agenda unfolding all around us.Jaymee has no internet presence besides being a guest on various podcasts. Search the internet for her name to find her work.Please donate to Sean McCannhttps://onegreatworknetwork.com/sean-mccann/donate/BTC (bitcoin) address: 3Ptmi463Pu6HH1duop7rCKaxBriQkb4inahttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/wakethedeadhttps://www.paypal.com/paypalme/seanmccannabisVisit Wake the Dead's store!https://wakethedead.creator-spring.com/Find Sean McCann on X:https://twitter.com/SeanWakeTheDeadJoin the Wake the Dead telegram:https://t.me/wakethedeadpodcastJoin the Wake the Dead guilded server:https://www.guilded.gg/i/kJWaQzmp
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2025 is: writhe RYTHE verb To writhe is to twist one's body from side to side. The word is often used when the body or a bodily part is twisting in pain. // The injured player lay on the football field, writhing in pain. // At the instruction of their teacher, the children rolled the fallen log aside to reveal worms and other small critters writhing in the soft earth. See the entry > Examples: “The creatures named after writers are mostly bugs, which makes sense. There are a lot of those little guys writhing around, and I imagine most of them escaped our attention for long enough that science had to start reaching for new names. And a lot of them are wasps: Dante has two wasps named after him; Marx has two, Didion has one, Dickens has two, Zola has two, Thoreau has seven, and Shakespeare has three wasps and a bacterium. Nabokov has a lot of butterflies, naturally.” — James Folta, LitHub.com, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Writhe wound its way to us from the Old English verb wrīthan, meaning “to twist,” and that ancestral meaning lives on in the word's current uses, most of which have to do with twists of one kind or another. Among the oldest of these uses is the meaning “to twist into coils or folds,” but in modern use writhing is more often about the physical contortions of one suffering from debilitating pain or attempting to remove oneself from a tight grasp (as, say, a snake from a hawk's talons). The word is also not infrequently applied to the twisting bodies of dancers. The closest relation of writhe in modern English lacks any of the painful connotations often present in writhe: wreath comes from Old English writha, which shares an ancestor with wrīthan.
What does it costs to live inside a fantasy built by men? On this episode we prod that viper's nest. David Lynch loved Kubrick's film adaptation of Nabokov's Lolita, so much so that he conjured his own Dolores Haze with Laura Palmer. JOIN PATREON We move between fantasy and wreckage. Between Desire, danger, and the American girl—through the eyes of genius. So put your heart shaped glasses on, pop a lolly in your mouth, and settle in. It's about to get disturbing.Mentioned: The Black Dahlia Lynch discusses Lolita Star Dream Girl
Los empleados de la biblioteca de Don Asensio en Hoy por Hoy van de bronca en bronca. Hoy venía como invitado el escritor argentino Pedro Mairal con su nueva novela "Los nuevos" (Destino). A uno de los empleados se le ocurrió de decir que venía el autor de 'La uruguaya' y se le recriminó porque no es un autor de una sola novela ¿Es injusto que a un autor solo se le relacione con una de sus obras? Cervantes el del Quijote, Nabokov el de Lolita, García Márquez el de cien años de soledad, Harper Lee la de Matar a un ruiseñor, Isabel Allende la de la casa de los espíritus, Cortázar el de Rayuela o como es el caso, Mairal el de la Uruguaya. El debate está servido, pero con mucho humor
Thanks to his invention of Europe's first typographic printing method, and his pioneering work on the first printed Bible, the fifteenth-century German inventor Johannes Gutenberg has a fame and reputation that continues to this day. In 1997, Time magazine credited him with the most important innovation of the past one thousand years. However, due to scant and vague documentation, Gutenberg's actual life and career have been clouded in myth and speculation. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Eric Marshall White about his new book, Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books, which seeks to correct the record by analyzing Gutenberg and the books that remain his lasting monument. PLUS HOL pays tribute to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's beautifully told tale of a dark and ugly obsession (and #14 on the list of the Greatest Books of All Time), by repeating excerpts from three previous interviews, in which Jenny Minton Quigley, Jim Shepard, and Joshua Ferris talk about Nabokov and his highly controversial novel. Join Jacke on a trip through literary England (signup closing soon)! The History of Literature Podcast Tour is happening in May 2026! Act now to join Jacke and fellow literature fans on an eight-day journey through literary England in partnership with John Shors Travel. Scheduled stops include The Charles Dickens Museum, Dr. Johnson's house, Jane Austen's Bath, Tolkien's Oxford, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and more. Find out more by emailing jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or masahiko@johnshorstravel.com, or by contacting us through our website historyofliterature.com. Or visit the History of Literature Podcast Tour itinerary at John Shors Travel. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate . The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Matt Berninger from The National is my guest on this episode of That's How I Remember It. Matt checked in from a tour bus at the End of the Road festival in the UK and we talked about his great solo record Get Sunk, lyric monitors, Rizzo from Grease, roller skating, hotel bars, reading novels to plot your future, memory as fantasy and collage, writing about childhood, early 2000s NYC, and Nabokov cocktails. He also shared a traumatic Valentine's Day story. So happy to have Matt on the show, it was a really fun conversation. Listen and subscribe!
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
Este episódio de podcast fala sobre a arte feita por inteligência artificial e sobre o futuro da criatividade humana. Em 2018, a exclusividade humana no campo da arte foi posta à prova. A casa de leilão Christie's vendeu, pela primeira vez, uma obra de arte feita por IA. O item, arrematado por 432 mil dólares, era a impressão de uma gravura gerada por um um programa de inteligência artificial que "estudou" pinturas históricas. As artes plásticas não são o único campo invadido pela IA. Nichos literários como o dos romances eróticos têm abundância de títulos escritos com ajuda de robôs. Isso sem falar em áreas não artísticas da escrita, como e-mails, relatórios, petições e memorandos, estas tomadas por aplicações de inteligência artificial. Ao mesmo tempo, atividades como as artes plásticas e a literatura são profundamente subjetivas. Isso impede que robôs, ao menos no estágio atual, criem coisas genuínas e inovadoras. Assim, abre-se uma encruzilhada. Será que o universo das artes vai se tornar um feudo onde só humanos entram? Ou será que a inteligência artificial vai reinar aí também?Episódios relacionados90: Era uma vez um Google bonzinho133: Inteligência artificial artificialMergulhe mais fundoEscrever é humano: Como dar vida à sua escrita em tempo de robôs (link para compra)Little Martians, de Vanessa Rosa (link para o site)Entrevistados do episódioSérgio RodriguesJornalista, escritor e colunista da Folha de S. Paulo. Criador do blog Todoprosa. Autor de livros como "O Drible", "A vida futura", e o recém lançado "Escrever É Humano: Como dar vida à sua escrita em tempo de robôs".Vanessa RosaArtista visual brasileira radicada nos Estados Unidos. Criadora do universo Little Martians.Ficha técnicaProdução e edição: Matheus MarcolinoLocução adicional: Priscila PastreMixagem de som: Vitor CoroaTrilha sonora tema: Paulo GamaDesign das capas dos aplicativos e do site: Cláudia FurnariDireção, roteiro e sonorização: Tomás Chiaverini
In Serendipity (Reaktion) Carol Mavor uses Anne Frank's journal, discovered in the Secret Annex after the Second World War, Emily Dickinson's poems, scribbled on salvaged envelopes hidden in a drawer, Lolita, rescued from incineration by Nabokov's wife Véra and her own memory of eating a frozen hot chocolate in New York's Serendipity 3, a dessert café favoured by Andy Warhol, to muse upon the serendipitous afterlives of objects. Mavor, Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Manchester and prolific author of books and articles about art and culture, was in conversation about fragments, remnants and what remains with novelist, essayist and translator Lauren Elkin.
In "Step 88: Rorty's Solidarity," the concluding episode of our three-part series on Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), host Ryder Richards explores Part III, Chapters 7–9, where Rorty tackles cruelty and solidarity. Rorty argues that solidarity isn't a universal human essence but a contingent creation, forged through imaginative identification with others' pain via narratives like novels. We delve into vivid examples: Nabokov's Lolita and its “tingles” of aesthetic bliss, which reveal cruelty through inattention and inspire moral empathy; Orwell's 1984, where O'Brien's intelligent cruelty underscores the fragility of liberal hope; and Sellars' “we-intentions,” showing how solidarity expands “us” through shared stories, not abstract truths.Rorty's appeal lies in his witty, pragmatic blend of literary insight and moral hope, empowering us to craft kinder worlds without metaphysical crutches. Yet, Ryder remains skeptical, critiquing how Rorty's vision has materialized but been subverted in 2025. While his liberal ironist thrives in self-creation and anti-cruelty movements, mimetic identities—adopting others' vocabularies for social gain—and weaponized solidarity, where anti-cruelty fuels division, distort his utopia. This episode traces Rorty's narrative-driven philosophy from language and selfhood to community, urging listeners to question vocabularies while imagining a broader “we.” Join us for a compelling finale to this philosophical journey, available on LetUsThinkAboutIt. 0:00 Intro 2:23 Noticing Cruelty through Narrative: Nabokov 7:18 Fragility of Liberal Hope: Orwell 11:50 Creating Solidarity: Sellars 15:48 Rorty's Legacy: subversion and capture 20:28 Outro
Trigger Warning: This episode contains detailed discussions of child sexual abuse, rape, trauma, and the failures of the justice system.In this powerful and deeply affecting conversation, Neige Sinno speaks with Adam Biles about her landmark book Sad Tiger, recently published in English in a luminous translation by Natasha Lehrer. A searing literary interrogation of the years of abuse Sinno suffered at the hands of her stepfather, Sad Tiger explores the limits of testimony, the insufficiencies of language, and the deep societal denial that silences victims. Sinno reflects on the ethics and formal challenges of writing about trauma, the intellectual and emotional paradoxes of bearing witness, and how literary form can both expose and protect. The conversation touches on Nabokov's Lolita, the myth of the “monster,” and how society colludes in refusing to see evil when it wears a familiar face. Courageous, lucid, and unflinching, Sinno's presence and insights make this an unforgettable episode.Buy Sad Tiger: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/sad-tigerNeige Sinno is a French writer who has studied American literature in the United States and Mexico, and worked as a translator and literature professor. She is the author of two previous books, Le Camion and La Vie des rats. Born in France, she has lived in Mexico for the past 20 years. Her 2023 book, Triste tigre, won several of France's top literary prizes and became the publishing sensation of the year. It will be published in English as Sad Tiger by Seven Stories, in a translation by Natasha Lehrer.Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company.Listen to Alex Freiman's latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
durée : 00:19:16 - Lectures du soir - 5ème et dernière émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit l'éditeur et traducteur Michel Parfenov, qui parle d'un des derniers romans de Vladimir Nabokov Ada ou l'ardeur.
durée : 00:19:51 - Lectures du soir - 4ème émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit l'écrivain Geneviève Brisac, qui parle des conférences et cours qu'a donnés Vladimir Nabokov aux Etats-Unis dans les années 50.
durée : 00:19:42 - Lectures du soir - 3ème émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit Laure Troubetzkoy (maître de conférence de littérature russe), qui parle d'une nouvelle inédite de Nabokov, La pluie de Pâques.
durée : 00:19:59 - Lectures du soir - 2ème émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit Anne Wiazemsky, qui parle essentiellement de son autobiographie Autres rivages.
durée : 00:19:32 - Lectures du soir - 1ère émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit Nata Minor, psychanalyste et traductrice du russe, qui parle des rapports entre Nabokov et Pouchkine.
durée : 00:24:49 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - Dans cet épisode de "Fassbinder Melodrama", Franck Venaille explore "Despair", film de 1978 adapté de Nabokov, où un industriel en crise identitaire traque son double sur fond de montée du nazisme. Un voyage mental entre un homme et sa propre souffrance, dédié à Antonin Artaud. - réalisation : Emily Vallat - invités : François Cuel
En la Setmana de la Llengua, consagrada aquest cop al binomi llengua i ensenyament, recordem professors i mestres de llengua i literatura a dins i fora dels llibres, amb noms que van de Matilda a Stoner i de Nabokov a Guillem Sala. En parlem amb Anna Ballbona, Paula Carreras, Adolf Beltran i tamb
Talking in-depth with author, publisher, and academic Udith Dematagoda, on his intellectual journey from post-punk bands to postwar literary writers, from international development contracts to pursing a PhD on Nabokov, from Scottish council estates to the specter of Marxist ghosts. A romantic, Udith shares his biography, the crossroads of class, diasporic experience, being driven not by ideology, but by aesthetic integrity. The son of a Sri Lankan political exile in Scotland, code-switching between posh-accented academia and the swear-punctuated slang of the personal, discovering reading as a lifeline from juvenile delinquency. On Agonist, his novel of post-internet disintegration, the imagination flooded by the digital hose. On the aesthetics of fascism, the dialectic between technology and masculinity, and the enduring value of Conrad. On the flattening tendencies of ideology and longing for transcendence. From literary engineering to integrity, on Neruda to Nabokov's politics. On cosmopolitism, hybridization, from Vienna to Tokyo and back to novel publishin. On transgression and techno-pessimism, the diabolic nature of AI….ExcerptsOn Artistic IntegrityI'm an extremely romantic and impractical person, right? Artistic integrity is probably the most important thing to me, I think, because, my, as I said, my ambitions are just very like, artistic, right?On Techo-Pessimism They just come from the depths of hell. The true face of this horrid, diabolical kind of thing….I'm a complete technological pessimist.I would describe myself as a sort of Luddite in the original sense, in the sense of I insist like the, just because one is you're able to do something. There's no sense. I think a lot of people. techno optimists are really motivated by hatred and raison du monde of human nature of creativity, of, everything that's human, right? And then this is a secret kind of motivation, but one that's really apparent to me…I think it's because the people that are driving these things really have a sort of fundamental raison du monde towards something which they feel alienated by for whatever reason…On Agonist I was very frustrated about being on the internet and taking away from what I had to do.Artistically, intellectually, et cetera, wasting time on the internet… And then I just decided I'm gonna write everything I see that's annoys me into this notebook. And I just filled that notebook up over a year. [Agnoist] is a fever dream of the internet, which tries to confront how people try to communicate and just are not able to, and what underlies this thing, this kind of collective text that we're all offering, whether we like it or not. And how diabolical it is.On Masculinity, Fascism, and Technology So this is the book I've been working on for six years now on masculinity, fascism, and technology. The general thesis of the book is that fascism is equally an aesthetic philosophy as it is in ideology. It's why it describes an ideological aesthetic.On International Development And this isn't a controversial position to say that, international development is just rear guard colonialism, that's all it is. It's just soft power for rear, for the type of colonialism, which no longer requires colonial administrators with boots on the ground.It just requires technical assistance and expertise and con consultants, et cetera. USAID in particular, when I worked within that world was absolutely known to be not even thinly disguised kind of front for the securities state, the projects that they funded, et cetera. That's not that was common knowledge. USAID was just front basically for the American State Department and also the CIA and NSA, et cetera.On Readership I'm happy that there's people that read my work and they enjoy it, and that's fine. I don't really need to have the validation of what, whatever it is. I don't know, like the sort of journalistic class or like the academic class or what, whatever it is, I don't really care.I'm not really that bothered by that. Honestly I would like that people read my work and that's fine, I think but attaining ambitions for me is setting it to accomplish something that I think is interesting artistically in getting as close to that as possible…AgonistHyperidean PressUdith Dematagoda Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe
This is the first episode of Eminent Americans where I've had the pleasure of talking to both the subject of a published profile and the profile writer at the same time. Kevin LaTorre, a return guest on the show, recently wrote “The 6,069 Fictions of Justin Smith-Ruiu,” a long piece about philosopher and metafictionist Justin Smith-Ruiu. Or maybe Justin wrote it himself, appropriating Kevin's name and likeness as another one of his authorial alter-egos. Maybe “Kevin” doesn't even exist. I mean, I think he does, since I've talked to him before on zoom, and perused his digital profile, but what if he's just a gifted improviser who was hired by Justin to play Kevin on my podcast? What if the plan all along was to create a real-seeming “Kevin LaTorre” persona, with a fully fleshed out online profile, in order to add yet another layer of semi-unreality to the many layers of the Hinternet, Justin's vast and sprawling endeavor.This seems unlikely, given that “Kevin” and I don't even talk about Justin in our first podcast interview, but who knows? If you're going to create a plausible “Kevin LaTorre” in the world, then you need to have him doing plausibly Kevin LaTorre-esque things, like coming on my podcast to discuss his “faith,” the essayist “Jia Tolentino,” and “climate change.”Anyhoo — such are the questions one begins to ask oneself after one has spent more than a certain amount of time in Justin's world. The conversation, which I really enjoyed, is primarily about Justin and his Hinternet project. We also talk about the challenges that Kevin faced in profiling Justin, Justin's disillusionment with academia, and Justin's scooter accident of a few years ago, which marked a profound break in his life and career. And much, much more.Hinternet posts we discuss include (descriptors and parentheticals from Kevin)* His re-version story* His past audio-mixing history* This metafiction: "The Storyteller"* His case against euthanasia (by far, the most technoskeptic take I've read from him)* His case for pacifism (by far the most dissident-left stance he has, I think -- antiwar in a pro-war Democratic party)* His reflection on his post-2020 developments (where he uses the "old-time religion" of love which sums up plenty about him lately)The show notes, according to ChatGPT:
The queens talk with gay literary icon Edmund White about his new book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir. (Miguel Murphy joins in the fun, too!)Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Miguel's SHORE DITCH is available from Barrow Street.You can purchase Edmund White's new book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir, at BookWoman here. Bookwoman was founded to increase access to queer and feminist literature in Texas nearly fifty years ago. Read Colm Tóibín's essay, "On the Casual Brilliance of Edmund White"Read a tribute to Gary Indiana in The Guardian here. Need a quick definition refresher of auto fiction? Here you go! Miguel mentions that composer Arnold Schoenberg's archive destroyed in LA fires, and you can read more about that here. Here's a dishy roundup of Nabokov's insults of DostoevskyFor a bit more about Larry Kramer's objections to The Farewell Symphony, read on.Learn more about Richard Howard and his poetry here. Edmund White and Michael Carroll talk about their relationship, and their experiences writing gay fiction here.And here's the Interview Magazine article we mention in the episode, in which gay writers ask Edmund White a question: “Tall Blonde With a Big Dick”: 18 Men Ask Edmund White Some Sexy Questions" Finally, check out the fabulous Garth Greenwell's website: https://www.garthgreenwell.com
It's The Stacks Book Club Day, and we're unpacking Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov with returning guest Ira Madison III. This literary classic is widely studied, but why? We explore what makes this novel a classic, why it's still taught today, and what Nabokov wanted readers to take away from his most infamous work.There are spoilers on this episode.Be sure to listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our March book club pick will be.You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:https://thestackspodcast.com/2025/2/26/ep-360-lolitaConnect with Ira: Instagram | WebsiteConnect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | SubscribeSUPPORT THE STACKSJoin The Stacks Pack on PatreonTo support The Stacks and find out more from this week's sponsors, click here.Purchasing books through Bookshop.org or Amazon earns The Stacks a small commission.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Joseph O'Neill@JosephONeillxGet Godwin from https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741344/godwin-by-joseph-oneill/Gateway books Sylvia Plath - Poetry Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce Seamus Heaney Current reads Karen Russel - The Antidote Looking forward to rereading Nabokov and Pynchon Desert Island Books Complete Shakespeare Joyce - DublinersInvisible Man - Ellis Pnin - Nabokov Collected poems - Wallace Stevens Frank Kermode - Collected writing Beckett - Nohow OnMuriel Spark Borges - Ficciones Madame Bovary Levinas - Totality and Infinity
We've arrived at the big one, the breakthrough book of 1985 – White Noise. In Episodes 21 and 22, DDSWTNP extend our White Noise “residency” and turn in-depth attention to DeLillo's most popular piece of fiction in another double episode. Episode 21: White Noise (1) takes an expansive view of the novel's narrative and goes into depth on (among many other subjects) the iconic opening chapter's commentary on America and Americana, the meaning of Mylex suits, Jack's relationships with Heinrich and Orest Mercator, and what it means to be a rat, a snake, a fascist, and a scholar of Hitler in this book's universe. Episode 22: White Noise (2) interprets passages mainly from the book's second half, including scenes featuring the dark humor of Vernon Dickey and of SIMUVAC, the meaning of DeLillo's desired title “Panasonic,” Jack's shooting of Willie Mink (and what it owes to Nabokov), a riveting fire and a fascinating trash compactor cube, and the Dostoevskyan interrogation of belief by Sister Hermann Marie. Every minute features original ideas on the enduring meanings of White Noise in so many political, social, technological, and moral dimensions – what it teaches us about the roots and implications of our many epistemological crises, how it does all this in writing that somehow manages to be self-conscious, philosophical, hilarious, and warm all at once. Texts and artifacts discussed and mentioned in these episodes: Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press, 1973). Adam Begley, “Don DeLillo: The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” The Paris Review 128 (1993): 274-306. (DeLillo: “And White Noise develops a trite adultery plot that enmeshes the hero, justifying his fears about the death energies contained in plots. When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book's plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body or flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way.”) Buddha, Ādittapariyāya Sutta (“Fire Sermon Discourse”). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80dittapariy%C4%81ya_Sutta Don DeLillo, White Noise: Text and Criticism, Mark Osteen, ed. (Penguin, 1998). ---. “The Sightings.” Weekend Magazine (August 4, 1979), 26-30. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge, 1966). Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” (1922). Édouard Manet's Olympia (1863). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(Manet) Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955). Mark Osteen, “‘The Natural Language of the Culture': Exploring Commodities through White Noise.” Approaches to Teaching DeLillo's White Noise, eds. Tim Engles and John N. Duvall (MLA, 2006), pp. 192-203. Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation,” January 11, 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjECSv8KFN4 (“I've spoken of the ‘shining city' all my political life . . .”) Mark L. Sample, “Unseen and Unremarked On: Don DeLillo and the Failure of the Digital Humanities.” https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/be12b589-a9ca-4897-9475-f8c0b03ca648(See this article for DeLillo's list of alternate titles, including “Panasonic” and “Matshushita” (Panasonic's parent corporation).)
We've arrived at the big one, the breakthrough book of 1985 – White Noise. In Episodes 21 and 22, DDSWTNP extend our White Noise “residency” and turn in-depth attention to DeLillo's most popular piece of fiction in another double episode. Episode 21: White Noise (1) takes an expansive view of the novel's narrative and goes into depth on (among many other subjects) the iconic opening chapter's commentary on America and Americana, the meaning of Mylex suits, Jack's relationships with Heinrich and Orest Mercator, and what it means to be a rat, a snake, a fascist, and a scholar of Hitler in this book's universe. Episode 22: White Noise (2) interprets passages mainly from the book's second half, including scenes featuring the dark humor of Vernon Dickey and of SIMUVAC, the meaning of DeLillo's desired title “Panasonic,” Jack's shooting of Willie Mink (and what it owes to Nabokov), a riveting fire and a fascinating trash compactor cube, and the Dostoevskyan interrogation of belief by Sister Hermann Marie. Every minute features original ideas on the enduring meanings of White Noise in so many political, social, technological, and moral dimensions – what it teaches us about the roots and implications of our many epistemological crises, how it does all this in writing that somehow manages to be self-conscious, philosophical, hilarious, and warm all at once. Texts and artifacts discussed and mentioned in these episodes: Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press, 1973). Adam Begley, “Don DeLillo: The Art of Fiction CXXXV,” The Paris Review 128 (1993): 274-306. (DeLillo: “And White Noise develops a trite adultery plot that enmeshes the hero, justifying his fears about the death energies contained in plots. When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book's plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body or flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way.”) Buddha, Ādittapariyāya Sutta (“Fire Sermon Discourse”). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80dittapariy%C4%81ya_Sutta Don DeLillo, White Noise: Text and Criticism, Mark Osteen, ed. (Penguin, 1998). ---. “The Sightings.” Weekend Magazine (August 4, 1979), 26-30. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge, 1966). Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” (1922). Édouard Manet's Olympia (1863). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(Manet) Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955). Mark Osteen, “‘The Natural Language of the Culture': Exploring Commodities through White Noise.” Approaches to Teaching DeLillo's White Noise, eds. Tim Engles and John N. Duvall (MLA, 2006), pp. 192-203. Ronald Reagan, “Farewell Address to the Nation,” January 11, 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjECSv8KFN4 (“I've spoken of the ‘shining city' all my political life . . .”) Mark L. Sample, “Unseen and Unremarked On: Don DeLillo and the Failure of the Digital Humanities.” https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/be12b589-a9ca-4897-9475-f8c0b03ca648(See this article for DeLillo's list of alternate titles, including “Panasonic” and “Matshushita” (Panasonic's parent corporation).)
“I admire Freud greatly,” the novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “as a comic writer.” For Nabokov, Sigmund Freud was “the Viennese witch-doctor,” objectionable for “the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world” of his ideas. Author Joshua Ferris (The Dinner Party, Then We Came to the End) joins Jacke for a discussion of the author of Lolita and his special hatred for “the Austrian crank with a shabby umbrella.” [This episode was originally released on September 30, 2017. It is presented here without commercial interruptions.] Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jak na Nowojorczyka przystało, narodził się w jednym z nowojorskich hoteli nieopodal Times Square, w czasach kiedy na Manhattanie powstające wieżowce pięły się do nieba, a spełnienie się wielkiego amerykańskiego snu było bardziej realne niż kiedykolwiek wcześniej czy później w historii. Na początku utożsamiał miejski szyk, wyrafinowanie, dystans i poczucie humoru, ale po II wojnie światowej nabrał dziennikarskiego rozpędu i na jego łamach ukazywały się ikoniczne i przełomowe teksty, kontestujące mit Ameryki. Ciągnęli do niego nie tylko wielcy reporterzy, ale też wielcy pisarze – Lem, Pynchon, Updike, Nabokov, Plath, Márquez – choć temu ostatniemu się nie udało…a kilka miesięcy po odrzuceniu tekstu przez redaktorów nowojorskiego pisma, dostał literackiego Nobla….tym tygodnikiem jest The New Yorker. "The New Yorker. Biografia pisma, które zmieniło Amerykę" to nowa książka Michała Choińskiego, który jest gościem tego odcinka. Prowadzenie: Agata Kasprolewicz Gość: Michał Choiński "The New Yorker. Biografia pisma, które zmieniło Amerykę" Michała Choińskiego, wydawnictwo Znak. --------------------------------------------- Raport o stanie świata to audycja, która istnieje dzięki naszym Patronom, dołącz się do zbiórki ➡️ https://patronite.pl/DariuszRosiak Subskrybuj newsletter Raportu o stanie świata ➡️ https://dariuszrosiak.substack.com Koszulki i kubki Raportu ➡️ https://patronite-sklep.pl/kolekcja/raport-o-stanie-swiata/ [Autopromocja]
The 2024 Sharks Legends Game was... legendary. If only Joe Thornton scored three more goals. Nabokov spectacular in net, a loud homecoming for Pavelski, and smiles on the ice and in the stands. Erik Kuhre and AJ Strong chat about an exceptional night before another exceptional night! Teal Town USA - A San Jose Sharks' post-game podcast, for the fans, by the fans! Subscribe to catch us after every Sharks game and our weekly wrap-up show, The Pucknologists! Check us out on YouTube and remember to Like, Subscribe, and hit that Notification bell to be alerted every time we go live!
Aleksandr Skorobogatov is the author of Russian Gothic, available from Rare Bird. Translated by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse. Skorobogatov was born in Grodno in what is now Belorussia. He is one of the most original Russian writers of the post-communist era. An heir to Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Pelevin, and Sorokin--the surreal line of the Russian literary canon--his novels have been published to great acclaim in Russian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Greek, Serbian, and Spanish. He won the prestigious International Literary Award Città di Penne for the Italian edition of Russian Gothic, which also received the Best Novel of the Year Award from Yunost. Cocaine (2017) won Belgium's Cutting Edge Award for 'Best Book International'. His most recent novel, Raccoon, was published by De Geus in 2020. De Tijd has called Skorobogatov "the best Russian writer of the moment." He lives and works in Belgium. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Twitter Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices