Levin is a turbo nerd who runs away from social awkwardness to theorise on agrarian economics or whatever. Sound like anyone you know?? Anyway he finally touches grass and gets the girl.  Meanwhile we are falling out of love with Anna. It feels like something bad is gonna happen? The foreshadowing is very subtle, only experts in Media Literacy will be able to catch it. On Levin's journey away from intellectualism: Is the peasant life really that appealing? Does doing good need to come from the heart, not from the mind? Rich gets mad about Tolstoy basically shitting on effective altruism; benny offers a partial defence.  Nikolai's gruesome death: Kitty steps up and shows her worth. Is she meant to be the paragon a good Christian, or a good woman? Rich is now terrified of dying and wants to be euthanised. Anna & Vronsky's empty self-gratification: Tolstoy literally accuses Vronsky of jerking himself off with the whole 'amateur artist in Italy' pose. Anna gives in to passion, abandoning her 8yo child in the process. Seems bad. We notice we are falling out of love with Anna. Karenin's emotional repression cracks: First he gets big mad and is on the verge of joining the manosphere. Then he has a proper Christian moment and forgives both Anna and Vronsky; a move so powerful that Vronsky attempts to kill himself in shame. Then he backslides a little but it's progress. We are warming up this cold fish. This discussion covers parts 3, 4, and 5 of the book.  Tune in next week for the finale. Can't wait to see how this ends. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) yes I'm mad(00:02:35) Levin's journey from cerebral dork to touching grass(00:11:32) Leave effective altruism alone!(00:22:45) Trouble in paradise for the newlyweds(00:27:45) Nikolai's gruesome death as an argument for euthanasia(00:37:18) Karenin finally gets in touch with his emotions(00:51:48) Anna and Vronsky empty self-gratification spiral(01:03:51) Listener mail: Dawkins on Kafka redux   WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Anna Karenina finale: parts 6-8 The Library of Babel - Jorge Luis Borges

Benny decided it was time for the boys to read Leo Tolstoy's 800 page whopper Anna Karenina. Today we discuss parts 1 and 2 of the novel. Rich immediately fell in love with all the characters. He wants be Levin, be with Anna, and be... something with that majestic horse Frou Frou.  On the famous opening line: Are happy families alike? Are any of Tolstoy's families happy? Rich argues the line is actually about statistical mechanics.  On Stepan and Dolly: We meet our first unhappy family. Are they meant to be nodes who connect everyone else? Will they stick in there and make the marriage work? On Levin: Rich identifies with Levin, warts and all. Is this Tolstoy's mary-sue character? How did he fumble the bag so hard with Kitty? Speaking of, why can't Benny bowl without the gutters up? On Anna: Rich falls in love with Anna almost as quick as a Tolstoy character. Her elegance, intelligence, and her black dress. He loves her even more than Levin but Frou-Frou the horse gives her a run for her money. How does Tolstoy write such likeable characters? Is Anna's burgeoning relationship with Vronsky love? What to think of her cucked bureaucrat husband Alexei Karenin, who's obsessed with propriety? On fiery passion vs duty.CHAPTERS (00:00:00) AI rates our podcasting skills  (00:05:00) Opening line: are all happy families alike?  (00:11:58) Benny history snippet: Freeing the serfs  (00:13:44) Stepan and Dolly(00:20:10) Meeting the famous Anna Karenina  (00:27:15) Levin crushing on the Schchchcherbatskys  (00:36:15) Anna and Vronsky  (00:50:23) Alexei Karenin in denial(01:01:23) Where's all the sex?  (01:14:00) Tolstoy's writing   WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Anna Karenina - parts 3-5 Anna Karenina - parts 6-8 A new book!  

Everyone loves Gabriel García Márquez' 1967 genre-defining classic One Hundred Years of Solitude. At first we were charmed. But after trying to track a complex web of births and deaths and affairs and inc*stuous unions all taking place in the first 100 pages we found ourselves mired deep in the swamp. When we reached the halfway mark we recorded an episode so hopelessly confused that we had to junk it. As we trudged through the second half, we fantasised about the devastating critiques we would unleash. then right on the very cusp of recording this pod, we all sheepishly admitted we were kinda back on board again?? Come on a journey with us to Macondo: often maddening but always magical. The elephant in the room is magical realism: have we found our kryptonite? Rich accepts that we're meant to soak up the vibe rather than spergily analyse it, but still has problems with the genre. How can characters have meaningful stakes in an arbitrary world? is it even possible to write a non-fatalistic work? Can fiction be in some sense 'truer than true'? Cam advances the bold thesis that magic is cool, actually. On the cyclicality of human decline: do the characters matter as individuals, or are they fractals of Macondo itsef? Is this a biblical post-eden loss of innocence story? A nod to Spengler's theory of cyclical civilizational collapse? Is historical determinism total bullshit? We're not sure but we don't love the fatalism here. On the solipsism of the Buendia family: seriously, what's with all the inc*st?? why is there so little true love or tenderness? why couldn't they have called their kids Pedro or Juan or something? This book is supposedly critical of colonialism and material progress but Cam and Rich can't help coming away with a straussian reading in which GGM is mostly mocking his stupid inbred countrymen. On the belovedness of this book, and why it missed the mark for us: Is there something here that only Latin American people can understand? Do you need to be familiar with the history of Colombia? Is the book better in the original Spanish? Is it a dose-dependent thing? Plus: new book announcement. it's a big one   CHAPTERS (00:00:00) first impressions(00:06:40) The case against magical realism(00:26:08) Fiction is ‘truer’ than real life (Baudrillard redux)(00:31:45) Macondo as a fractal set of human failures(00:38:37) Spengler’s theory of cyclical history(00:43:00) biblical parallels: post-Eden loss of innocence(00:44:53) A Straussian reading contra the anti-progress themes(00:50:48) Back to Spengler: is historical determinism bullshit?(01:01:34) ‘The optimal amount of inc*st is non-zero’(01:10:55) Solipsism and lack of true connection amongst the Buendías(01:16:34) Do we like this book? Would we recommend it?(01:27:45) BIG SUMMER BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT   WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

we have very premium episode for you this week. welcoming special guest Nicole (@elocinationn), one of the great up-and-coming poasters of our time. We revisit one of her younger self's favourite books, Jonathan Safran Foer's ambitious 2002 novel Everything is Illuminated. On being disconnected from history: can you be traumatised by losing connection with your past? how reliable is our conception of history anyway? can the stories we tell ourselves be 'truer than true'? do we care about our own family genealogies? what are the challenges of trying to write about the Holocaust as a third-generation survivor? Foer's incredible ambition: How derivative is this book? does it really matter? Who are Foer's postmodernist forebears, and what did he do differently? Should more young authors try to swing for the fences like this? Plus we stumble upon the inspiration for borat, find out who invented the gloryhole, and MORE CHAPTERS (00:00:00) intro and why we chose the book(00:07:10) Alex as the proto-borat(00:25:50) playing at happy families with Brod and Yankel(00:33:56) traumatic impact of being disconnected from history(00:46:42) Lista and Alex's grandad: survivor guilt(01:02:21) Brod and the Kolker's violent love(01:16:00) Jonathan's grandad finally achieves release(01:28:10) Truth of fact, truth of feeling redux(01:35:53) How original is this book? mapping influences and forebears(01:52:18) final thoughts   WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: One Hundred Days of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This week we tackle another short story by Ted Chiang: From his 2019 Exhalation collection Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling. Luddism and cognitive tool breakthroughs: we go through the pros and cons. Rich wants to go to the moon. We're not sure how much of a luddite, or dare we say relativist, we should make Chiang out to be. Fallible memories: just how bad are our memories? Benny and Rich have opposing intuitions, Special guest episode coming soon! CHAPTERS (00:00:00) Summary (00:00:00) Chiang, a luddite? (00:00:00) Founding myths (00:00:00) Cognitive tools (00:00:00) Fallible memories (00:00:00) Final thoughts WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer One Hundred Days of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This week we wrap up our discussion of Ursula LeGuin's 1974 classic The Dispossessed. Simultaneity physics: just a mcguffin, or deeper thematic significance? How is it different to a block universe? Does this count as hard sci-fi? on the [redacted] scene: why would LeGuin include this? how are we supposed to feel about our hero Shevek? why would capitalism make me do this?? Final thoughts on the book: was Shevek's arc satisfying? who would we recommend it to? are we gonna read more LeGuin? Ted Chiang story coming soon. plus special guest episode! CHAPTERS (00:00:00) shevek’s arc or lack thereof (00:11:20) talking about THAT scene (00:16:40) Simultaneity theory unpacked (00:25:45) Final thoughts on the book (00:35:10) special guest announcement WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling - Ted Chiang Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer One Hundred Days of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A brilliant physicist grows disenchanted with the stifling anarchist society of his home planet, defecting to a capitalist world in the hopes of finding true freedom...but what he finds only horrifies him. Cam says Ursula K. Le Guin's 1974 award-winning piece of sociological fiction is a leftist pamphlet. Benny and Rich call bs. who's right? let us examine the textual evidence. On incentives: Are social sanctions powerful enough to get everyone to work voluntarily? Can an economy function without price signals and division of labour? How does crime and justice work with no police or courts? Do we have any existence proofs of flourishing anarchist societies? On family life: Is having your children raised by other people as grotesque as it sounds? How about mere copulation without monogamy? Or living in communal dorms? The boys are much more sympathetic to the idea of ditching compulsory education, but wonder if unschooling etc is a luxury belief. And the million-dollar question: from behind the veil of ignorance, would we rather be born on Anarres or Urras? A fun wonky discussion of the central ideological clash. In part 2 we'll try to talk more about the characters and the story. Also: a humiliating question in the reader mailbag! bold of you to assume we actually read books outside of the podcast. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) an ambiguous anarchist utopia (00:09:33) communal parenting, unschooling, and luxury beliefs (00:19:10) soft coercion through social norms (00:33:18) the free-rider problem and central planning (00:42:52) capitalism as the root cause of all antisocial behaviour (00:48:02) crime rate is zero if you don't have any laws hehe (00:59:42) has real syndicalist anarchism ever been tried? (01:04:37) how good is le guin’s worldbuilding (01:15:21) reader mailbag: which new releases from living authors do we read immediately? WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our hot takes, add your own, or ask a question. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling - Ted Chiang Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer One Hundred Days of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots.” After a break, the boys jump into the 1980s po-mo White Noise by Don DeLillo. We talk about the denial of death, toxic airborne events, and Baudrillardian copies of copies of copies (of copies...) Simulacra: The boys shake off their reddit I Love Science teenage years and start to embrace all things post-modernism. Namely, Baudrilliard's idea of the Simulacra where some "signs" no longer point to any underlying reality. Denial of Death: A fairly straight-forward retelling of Ernest Becker's Denial of Death: We're all terrified of death, so we build our entire lives to avoid confronting it. Cam and Benny try denying Becker's denial thesis. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) Chitter chatter (00:03:13) Quick summary (00:09:16) The most photographed barn in America (00:13:51) Post-modernism (00:16:35) Baudrillard's Simulacra (00:24:26) How po-mo is DeLillo himself (00:32:18) Fake preferences & signalling (00:36:36) Airborne Toxic Event (00:55:17) Fear of Death (01:17:50) Ending and Jack's arc (01:31:26) Final thoughts WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed Ted Chiang - Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated

This week we finally shut up about translations and get into some juicy themes and character analysis. Telemachus: why is he such a dweeb compared to his dad? Rich argues that he's doing the best he can growing up with an absent father. The others are less sympathetic. Odysseus: is his paranoid murderous rampage justified? what are his singular heroic attributes? Is he portrayed more as admirable or a hubristic figure? Why won't his men obey him? On homecoming: Why was Odysseus away for so long? Was he kinda dragging his heels on the return voyage? How much strange was he getting? What motivated him to finally come home? The Ancient Greek marshmallow test: exploring the recurring themes of self-denial, time preference, binding mechanisms, and whether playing the long game could arguably be the central theme of the whole poem. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) Telemachus the failson (00:19:39) why the poem spends so much time on household politics (00:29:31) Bronze Age morality redux: what have we learned? (00:36:28) The Ancient Greek Marshmallow Test (00:45:12) Odysseus’ slow homecoming (00:57:04) Godhood and rat bastard cunning (01:13:07) Suitor slaughtering time (01:17:25) Final thoughts on Odysseus and bronze age heroism (01:32:48) Listener mailbag and next book announcement WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: White Noise - Don DeLillo

WOKE classics professor DESTROYED by three random guys who've never read homer before!!! just kidding we love it. there is so much Discourse around the much-hyped Emily Wilson translation of Homer's epic poem that we can't really avoid it, but it does lead to lots of interesting discussion around the choices translators make. Criticisms of the Wilson translation: is she really importing her feminist beliefs into the text? has she stripped the grandeur out to take 'complicated' Odysseus down a peg? what are the connotations of sluts and slaves? is the fancy language of other translators really just stylistic anachronism? who would win in a fight between the yass queens and the greek statue avatars? Odysseus the hero: what's with all the false modesty? where is the line between seeking glory and outright hubris? did he do the Cyclops dirty or did the rude savage get what was coming to him? a comparison of the Greek heroic obsession with honour and social status vs Byronic heroes and modern superheroes. Bronze age morality: which ethical framework does it correspond to? is the hospitality stuff a useful cultural adaptation? same for the tit-for-tat honour culture? do the greek gods enforce morality, or they more like regular capricious people who happen to have super powers? what are the other big differences to judeo-christian morality? This episode is pretty light on actual plot and character stuff but I promise we will get into it much more next week: especially the ousting of the suitors, cunning Penelope, Telemachus arc, etc. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) intro and initial reactions (00:04:52) does Wilson strip the majesty out of the poem? (00:19:50) wading into the woke and anti-woke accusations (00:36:32) Civilisation vs barbarism: sympathy for the Cyclops (00:47:57) Walking the line between fame and hubris (00:54:00) Bronze age morality: you gotta give respect to get respect WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: White Noise - Don DeLillo

"For how could the nose, which had been on his face but yesterday, and able then neither to drive nor to walk independently, now be going about in uniform?"We take a break from reading novels and take a quick nose dive into Gogol's famous 1830s short story, talking absurdity, bureaucracy, and Russian wives.Status and bureaucracies: The most straight forward reading is a satire 19th century Russian bureaucracies and status seeking. Benny outlines outlines the table of ranks and the boys consider the pros and cons. Inconsistencies and the absurd: Rich is frustrated with the lack of internal inconsistency and doesn't buy George Saunders defence of the story as self-aware of its limitations. Gogol's nose: Perhaps the story can be understood via a more personal lens. Benny points out Gogol's insecurities about his own noise which may be reflected in Major Kovalyov’s obsession with his appearance. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) Chitter chatter (00:07:14) Quick summary of The Nose (00:11:05) Is this story even good? (00:16:00) Absurdism and surrealism (00:21:20) George Saunders defends The Nose (00:24:32) The Table of Ranks (00:29:18) Gogol's nose (00:36:15) Listener feedback WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: The Odyssey - Homer (Emily Wilson translation) White Noise - Don DeLillo  

"He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die." Wrapping up the second half of our discussion on Cormac McCarthy's 1985 classic, in which various chickens come home to roost.The Glanton gang's downfall: on the run from the Sonoran cavalry, mercy killings, greed and symbolism of coins, the takeover of the ferry, the Yuma strike back, the judge's apocalypse-chic fashion, the Idiot plays his part (??). On violence and human nature: Rich makes the base case that humans don't have a 'true' nature but respond to local incentives, Benny finds some logic in the conservative tradition for avoiding a major upset to the fragile equilibrium of modern civilisation, and Cam adds game theoretic reasons for having a government or third party that can make credible threats of violence. What makes the Kid different: Rich thinks he isn't any more moral than the rest of the gang, but we end up coming up with a pretty good explanation for why the judge singles him out for opprobrium and considers him such a disappointment. On the sunset of the Wild West: the kid becomes the man, the cycle of violence perpetuates itself, mass slaughter of the buffalo, McCarthy's satirical skewering of manifest destiny, interpreting of the epilogue and the last dance. Also: some general thoughts on tackling our first McCarthy, his idiosyncratic writing style, and the ambiguity around his antagonist's true identity.   CHAPTERS (00:00:00) chitter chatter (00:09:08) The Glanton gang’s downfall (00:25:00) The Idiot (00:32:33) Cultural technologies for reducing violence (00:45:33) What makes the Kid different? (01:03:06) Greed, exploitation, and the end of the Wild West (01:13:13) The Bonepickers: the cycle of violence repeats (01:22:12) The last dance: Is the judge a supernatural being? (01:49:40) Summing up and last-minute token criticism WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: The Nose - Gogol (short story) The Odyssey - Homer (Emily Wilson translation) White Noise - Don DeLillo  

Hell aint half full. Hear me. Ye carry war of a madman's making onto a foreign land. Yell wake more than the dogs. Rich is a big McCarthy head. For Benny and Cam, it's their first taste, and we're going straight to the top shelf: the 1985 epic historical novel Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West. In this discussion we cover the first half of the book (chapters 1-12) as a meditation on violence, manifest destiny, self-mythology, and McCarthy's own cunning plot to positioning himself within the literary canon. At the centre of it all there is the judge: a towering, hairless enigma who might be a false god, or a devil... or something even worse. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) quick background (00:06:07) introducing the Kid and the judge 00:12:46) why did Captain White’s expedition fail so badly? (00:24:54) Comanche war party run-on sentence fever dream (00:34:12) Sometime come the mother, sometime come the wolf (00:42:00) the strangely egalitarian Glanton Gang (00:56:13) Judge Holden piss-infused gunpowder volcano massacre (01:15:19) Decoding the story of the harness-maker and the traveller (01:28:01) Goodhart’s law in scalp-hunting bounties (01:34:48) First impressions of McCarthy (01:37:32) Listener mail: Knausgaard and autofiction rant revisited WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: The Odyssey - Homer (Emily Wilson translation)  

A bit of festive fun looking back on the year that was. Which books have stayed with us? Which were forgettable? What was the best reading/watching we did outside of book club? What did we learn about podcasting? Are we gonna keep posting this stuff in public? and MORE CHAPTERS (00:00:00) festive chit chat (00:07:35) Revealing our favourite books of the year 00:34:13) Biggest STINKER of the year (00:48:25) Our #1 (non-book club) book/essay/blog (00:59:39) Favourite film or TV (01:10:05) Navel-gazing on the book club meta and podcasting lessons learned WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy The Odyssey - Homer (Emily Wilson translation)

A paradox: how can an author—say, Walker Percy—get the reader to care about a protagonist—say, Binx Bolling—who is stuck in a malaise and doesn't himself particularly care about anything? A corollary: how can a book club have an engaging discussion when they don't particularly care about said book and said protagonist? Honestly you might as well skip the first 10 minutes or so in which we half-assedly try to talk about the actual plot elements. Luckily Cam saves the day with an impromptu lecture on Kierkegaard and we get to yapping about the meaning of life instead: Is it patronising to claim that everyone is living in a state of despair? Is self-gratification and individualism actually bad? What are the main avenues for having a meaningful life? How does society stigmatise or incentivise meaning-making activities? Has the existentialist project more or less been a success? Which of Popper's three worlds does 'meaning' fall into? I can't be bothered doing chapter markers for this one so just take a leap of faith you cowards   WRITE US: We love listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy The Odyssey - Homer (Emily Wilson translation)

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul... You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.” Nabokov had a lot of trouble getting anyone to publish a story about a grown man falling in love with a 12 year old. After multiple bans and scandals, Lolita caught fire in America, and is now considered perhaps his greatest work (altho you still cop some dodgy glances reading it on the train). The great central tension is between Humbert Humbert the monster and HH the sensitive and sympathetic aesthete. How reliable is HH as a narrator? Is he deluding himself? Did he successfully hoodwink certain critics? Is he truly capable of love and redemption, or is everything staged for effect? On the murder mystery: is HH really any better than his nemesis Clare Quilty? What's the significance of trying to kill one's shadow? Did we catch Quilty's lurking presence throughout these pages? Does he even exist at all? What's the message of this story? On didactic vs aesthetic fiction, whether this book is meant to be moralising, Nabokov's instructions to the reader, and an overall vibe check on how we feel about his tricks after reading both Pale Fire and Lolita. CHAPTERS (00:00:00) life imitates art (00:04:11) the two faces of Humbert Humbert 00:13:42) is HH an unreliable narrator? (00:26:32) Trying to distinguish between love and lust (00:36:50) Sympathy for the pedo (00:40:32) the questionable reality of Clare Quilty (01:04:49) Quilty vs HH (01:08:45) Does Lolita have a moral? (death of the author redux) (01:14:22) comparison to Pale Fire and Nabokov vibe check WRITE US: We love to share listener feedback. Send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes, add your own, or just say hi. NEXT ON THE READING LIST: The Moviegoer - Walker Percy

These days every bestselling author writes novels about how their dad was too strict and they got bullied for bringing stinky indian food to school etc. But Karl Ove Knausgaard walked so millennial narcissists could run. This week we get absorbed in part 1 of his epic six-part autobiographical novel My Struggle, published in 2009. The big central question: what makes a book which spends five pages describing the author making a cup of coffee so good? The prose is nice but prosaic, there are few major insights, and no plot beats or narrative tension. But we (mostly) agree that it is in fact a good or even great book.On the performance art aspect to Knausgaard's project, the barriers to being truly sincere and honest, pathological self-awareness, why early memories are so often dominated by shame, nostalgia for premature ejaculation, and MORE.   CHAPTERS (00:00:00) intro (00:00:56) patient zero for the autofiction disease 00:11:40) My Struggle as performance art (00:20:20) Shame and pathological self-consciousness (00:30:38) what is it exactly that makes Knausgaard so good? (00:40:12) next book announcement WRITE US: We love to share listener feedback on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or add your own or just say hi.   NEXT ON THE READING LIST: Lolita - Nabokov The Moviegoer - Walker Percy

Yeah, it's big brain time. This week we're reading 'Understand' from Ted Chiang's 2002 collection Stories of Your Life and Others. what is the ceiling on human intelligence? can we jooce it up? did Chiang inspire the whole AI doomer movement? would superintelligence beings have to annihilate each other instead of cooperating? Do we buy the orthogonality thesis? Also: introducing David Deutsch's 'universal explainer' theory of intelligence, which gives radically different answers to all of the above. Is the dumbest guy you know really capable of making novel advances in quantum physics? The answer may surprise you. On abstractions and 'chunking': how important is working memory? Should we expect our high-level explanations to converge on a theory of everything? Would super-smart people really communicate in short series of grunts? Could they hack their own autonomic nervous systems or incept a linguistic killshot? tl;dr: gestalt gestalt gestalt gestalt gestalt gestalt. gestalt gestalt? gestalt gestalt, gestalt.   CHAPTERS (00:00:00) intro and synopsis (00:05:13) Can you jooce up human intelligence 00:14:53) How would super-smart people communicate? (00:22:01) ’chunking’ abstractions towards a theory of everything (00:39:23) behavioral priming gone WILD (Greco vs Reynolds grunt battle) (00:51:23) why can’t we all just get along?? (00:55:40) reconciling David Deutsch’s ’universal explainer’ theory with IQ (01:16:42) unresolved AI safety concerns   SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: We love to share listener feedback on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own or just say hello.   NEXT ON THE READING LIST: My Struggle, volume 1 - Karl Ove Knausgaard Lolita - Nabokov The Moviegoer - Walker Percy    

This week we're reading three of Anton Chekhov's most beloved short stories: The Man in the Case, Gooseberries, and About Love (The Little Trilogy, 1898). We get a minor assist from George Saunders and his fantastic book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain but have no shortage of stuff to discuss. Talking big 5 personality traits, the degree to which people oppress themselves, why Rich fell out of love with the early retirement movement, whether it's OK to be happy in a world full of suffering, and if having to settle in romantic relationships is antithetical to true love. Also: Cam takes a controversial and brave stance against home-wreckers.   CHAPTERS (00:00:00) intro (00:01:54) ’The Man in the Case’ synopsis 00:07:12) Are some personality types just better than others? (00:12:52) Belyakov fumbles the bag with Varenka (00:24:07) Is everybody trapped in a case of their own making (00:34:58) Mavra and the tranquil village (00:40:15) Gooseberries synopsis (00:42:30) The pitfalls of the ’early retirement’ movement (00:52:55) theorising on happiness (01:01:57) Ivan the big fat hypocrite (01:07:23) ’About Love’ synopsis (01:11:44) Did Alyohin make the right decision? (01:22:10) Can love by analysed rationally (01:33:49) our favourite story of the trilogy (01:37:59) accessibility of chekhov   SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own or just say hi.   NEXT ON THE READING LIST: My Struggle, volume 1 - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Hemingway's 1929 semi-autobiographical classic tackles two big timeless themes: love and war. Two out of three of us can relate to the first one, but war feels pretty alien to us. How would the boys do if they were conscripted? What made WWI so uniquely dispiriting? What is it about this novel that so faithfully captures the experience of war? We also talk quite a bit about Hemingway's laconic characters and terse writing style. How representative is this of his broader work? What do we think of the 'iceberg method'? Why did he go with the most depressing possible ending? and MORE CHAPTERS (00:00:00) first reactions and synopsis (00:06:02) Hemingway’s understated style and the ’Iceberg method’ (00:19:10) What made WWI a uniquely dispiriting war? (00:28:35) Catherine and Henry are the same person (00:38:44) downer ending (00:46:45) A catalogue of arbitrary and meaningless death (00:57:34) Final thoughts and next book   SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS: We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own.    NEXT ON THE READING LIST: My Struggle, volume 1 - Karl Ove Knausgaard