Do You Even Lit?

"If I'm out of my mind, that's okay with me." 

Part 1 of our dive into Moses Herzog's breakdown. Like all the best books, Herzog follows a manic academic, freshly dumped by his second wife for his own one-legged best friend, who processes the whole disaster by firing off unsent letters to everyone from his mother to Eisenhower to Spinoza.

We get a peak into the 1964 version of the suffering olympics, which Rich obviously tries to tie back to New Zealand MPs and Nietzschean slave morality. 

Plus: how Christianity's meaning-making project curdled into Romanticism, then Hegelian historicism, then modern secular doomerism. 

Full transcripts are available at doyouevenlit.com, where you can filter and search episodes by key ideas, authors, and themes.

Timestamps
(00:00:00) how would a wizard signal being gay?
(00:04:11) announcing Herzog: Bellow's "bitch wife" genre and Jewish New York neuroticism
(00:09:30) sampling Herzog's letters and the appeal of saying what you really think
(00:14:22) the kaleidoscopic, disorienting structure of the opening chapters
(00:18:09) is Herzog a reliable narrator of his own infidelities?
(00:23:50) is Madeline really the schemer Herzog paints her as?
(00:27:38) the suffering Olympics: how Gersbach out-victims the man he betrayed
(00:36:56) Herzog's genius delusion, from Kanye West to Nietzsche
(00:48:05) tracing modern doomerism back to Christianity, via Romanticism and Hegel
(00:54:49) Bellow's own Marxist phase, and historicism's swing from hope to doom
(01:00:06) misunderstood genius or deluded narcissist? plus predictions for part 2
(01:04:47) outro: Rich's new site and building an AI oracle from your back catalog

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"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts."

— Middlemarch

The DYEL boys finally finished George Eliot's Middlemarch and finally answered the question of what this thing is about. At least we think we did: A 900-page long cope on being mid. 

Updated Website: We unveil the new Do You Even Lit website: doyouevenlit.com. It now has searchable tags by theme, book, and thinker and a breakdown of our most biggest obsessions: Christianity, David Foster Wallace, signalling, death, David Foster Wallace, and the sexual revolution.

Thwarted ambitions: Nobody seems to achieve what they set out to: Dorothea, Lydgate, Casaubon, even Bulstrode. We ask whether Eliot is simply describing reality or arguing against ambition.

Ordinary goodness: Related to the above, we unpack the famous final paragraph. Rich wonders if it's all just cope. And points out how it seems at odds with the real life of George Eliot, aka "Mary K", aka Mary-Ann Evans.

Full transcripts are available at doyouevenlit.com, where you can filter and search episodes by key ideas, authors, and themes.

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) shiny new website
(00:14:04) Bulstrode scandal and Lydgate's innocence
(00:24:42) Lydgate, a failure?
(00:28:06) Emphasise on Middle
(00:32:11) Is this book anti-ambition?
(00:40:42) close reading of the final paragraph
(00:59:52) Rosamond's (slight) redemption
(01:14:03) Next book
 

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NEXT UP:

Herzog by Saul Bellow

Rich reflects on his truly deranged reaction to the film, after entering a manic state and staying up all night penning a 2500 word rant.

Meanwhile Cam had a nice time at the cinema and gives it a soft seven. Benny liked it too, until he thought about it, and is now hopelessly hung up on whether you can fairly judge an adaptation of something you know so well.

Just after we recorded, Emily Wilson came out swinging with a review in the London Review of Books, in which she shares many of our disappointments:

Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words.

Oof. anyway, 7/10

Full transcripts are available at doyouevenlit.com, where you can filter and search episodes by key ideas, authors, etc.

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) a normal and proportionate reaction
(00:07:25) Homer's Odysseus vs the Matt Damon character
(00:22:59) nostalgia for Nolan blowing our teenage minds
(00:29:30) Making Zeus's law central to the entire plot
(00:39:46) do we like the treatment of the Gods
(00:45:52) woke casting discourse and post-Christian morality
(00:59:52) Half-hearted slaughter of the suitors
(01:05:53) final ratings + has book club ruined our ability to enjoy things

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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 UP:

Middlemarch finale

Herzog — Saul Bellow

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

Tackling Shakespeare's 1604 play Othello. It goes a lot better than last time, altho Rich gets a bit of a fright when the lead actor comes out in blackface.

Othello the outsider: Was interracial marriage an uncrossable divide for a man of Othello's station? What do we think of race-swapped casting? What exactly is a Moor anyway? A special investigation.

Iago as master manipulator: Why does he keep escalating his schemes? How did the most conniving man in Venice get the nickname 'honest Iago'? Is he too OP to be believable? We try to make sense of whether he's motivated by ambition, sexual jealousy, or is purely in it for the love of the game.

Sexual jealousy as a uniquely destabilising force: How does a general who can stare down an armed mob go to pieces over his wife's handkerchief? Benny runs through Othello's many epistemological mistakes. Cam gives us the evo psych line on why men have a deep-seated fear of being cucked. Some embarrassing personal confessions emerge.

Full transcripts are available at doyouevenlit.com, where you can filter and search episodes by key ideas, authors, etc.

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) when an old black ram is tupping your white ewe
(00:06:50) race-swapped casting and a brief history of blackface 
(00:16:26) So You've Been Passed Over For Promotion
(00:23:46) What does Iago actually want?
(00:30:04) the crusty handkerchief and 'eavesdropping conversation' gambit
(00:38:11) Confirmation bias and bad epistemology
(00:44:22) Let the bodies hit the floor
(00:49:21) Sexual jealousy as a uniquely destabilising force
(00:59:11) original vs modern translations discourse

 

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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 UP:

Middlemarch finale (hopefully some time before christmas, if Cam ever pulls his finger out of his ass)

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

"In such a crisis as this, some women begin to hate."

Let's go baby, things are getting steamy.  Rich isn't sure if he's turned on or terrified by Dorothea, Cam can't figure out whether he'd take blood money, and Ben is torn about whether marrying a psychopath is worth it if she's a hottie. 

The middle section of this 800-page whopper is a tournament of injured pride. Casaubon exits early, Will (stupidly?) can't take or give a hint, Rosamund becomes Lydgate's worst nightmare, and Fred ... somehow fumbles his way back into credibility?? 

Question of the ep: Is Mary Garth a stand in for George Eliot who, as it happens, was described by Henry James as "magnificently ugly, deliciously hideous." 

Listener mail: a non-native English speaker writes in to say Cam's sentences are hard to follow. Cam accepts the feedback with unusual grace.

Full transcript for this episode (and every episode) is available at doyouevenlit.com, where you can filter and search by key ideas, authors, etc.

(00:00:00) fiction as thought experiment (or: anti-thought experiment?)
(00:07:44) Dorothea's arc: the crisis of rejection
(00:18:00) Will Ladislaw in the vicinity
(00:26:23) Bulstrode's pawnbroker past revealed
(00:30:51) would you take the blood money?
(00:37:40) Featherstone's will surprise — enter Rigg
(00:44:45) Fred finds his feet with Caleb Garth
(00:47:56) Farebrother's impossible magnanimity
(00:51:36) is Mary Garth a George Eliot stand-in?
(00:55:03) Lydgate and Rosamund: the marriage goes off a cliff
(00:59:40) the sexual politics of Lydgate's mistake
(01:06:05) listener mail: Cam gets roasted

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 up 

- Finish Middlemarch 

- ???