My substack worlds are colliding—can’t wait to listen to this!
Thanks also for the interviews with Natasha Joukovsky and Agnes Callard. I just finished The Portrait of a Mirror last night, and Open Socrates is high on my to-read list.
I did find Callard’s description of students’ inability to read *an entire book*, even a short one, extremely depressing. But it’s consistent with my own experience as a writing instructor for graduate students who don’t care about writing.
Reading books is my life. I always have a book in my bag. I love to hold the book in my hands, leaf through a book, or begin reading from any page. Reading can evoke so many emotions, but it can also calm down in some situations. The book is my savior, especially a poetry book. Thank you for your interview with Matt Yglesias.
The point about television’s use of violence as a suspense device - in supposed contrast to ‘the great books’ - seems to ignore the role of violence in the American canon. Melville, Faulkner, McCarthy, Twain and many others have the threat of violence at their core (even if we limit the survey to the 19th century). The more interesting question might be why violence is more central to the American canon than in other national literatures…
The question was in reference to modern culture. I agree with Yglesias; nearly everything on American television is saturated with violence as a suspense device, and I will add that centering the plot on violence makes the violence gratuitous and harmful.
Really interesting listen. Thank you, Matt Yglesias for this conversation. And I think you're being honest in your estimate at how long it took you to read Middlemarch. Many have taken weeks, months. A lifetime. But yes, a serious attempt at Middlemarch by a serious completer would take about twenty hours at a brisk pace, and well done for that. However, I think most serious Eliot aficionados over the past 150 years reading Middlemarch, have probably read it at a more leisurely pace of because George Eliot's thought-provoking, long philosophical sentences quite often make a reader pause, look up, stare into space for a bit and think: Ah, beautifully put!
It's great to linger a moment over that feeling, the experience of the emotion that the author has the power to induce in the reader. I think that's one of the things that makes a great novel, and it's also the opposite of the threat of violence that you discussed as being the omni-present engine of suspense in modern TV drama. Really enjoyed the conversation in this interview.
N.B. unabridged Middlemarch is beautifully read by Juliet Stevenson on Audible. You could speed her up, but don't. Don't. Pour yourself a glass of wine, (Eliot liked a glass) close your eyes, sit back and listen. Life-enhancing.
My substack worlds are colliding—can’t wait to listen to this!
Thanks also for the interviews with Natasha Joukovsky and Agnes Callard. I just finished The Portrait of a Mirror last night, and Open Socrates is high on my to-read list.
I did find Callard’s description of students’ inability to read *an entire book*, even a short one, extremely depressing. But it’s consistent with my own experience as a writing instructor for graduate students who don’t care about writing.
grad students not caring about writing is sad :(
Reading books is my life. I always have a book in my bag. I love to hold the book in my hands, leaf through a book, or begin reading from any page. Reading can evoke so many emotions, but it can also calm down in some situations. The book is my savior, especially a poetry book. Thank you for your interview with Matt Yglesias.
I am the same! I also keep a few books on the kindle app so that if I am ever stuck with my phone but no book, I can read there too.
Thank you for understanding.
The point about television’s use of violence as a suspense device - in supposed contrast to ‘the great books’ - seems to ignore the role of violence in the American canon. Melville, Faulkner, McCarthy, Twain and many others have the threat of violence at their core (even if we limit the survey to the 19th century). The more interesting question might be why violence is more central to the American canon than in other national literatures…
The question was in reference to modern culture. I agree with Yglesias; nearly everything on American television is saturated with violence as a suspense device, and I will add that centering the plot on violence makes the violence gratuitous and harmful.
It is not about violence "at the core" but as the primary or really only device for maintaining suspense.
Really interesting listen. Thank you, Matt Yglesias for this conversation. And I think you're being honest in your estimate at how long it took you to read Middlemarch. Many have taken weeks, months. A lifetime. But yes, a serious attempt at Middlemarch by a serious completer would take about twenty hours at a brisk pace, and well done for that. However, I think most serious Eliot aficionados over the past 150 years reading Middlemarch, have probably read it at a more leisurely pace of because George Eliot's thought-provoking, long philosophical sentences quite often make a reader pause, look up, stare into space for a bit and think: Ah, beautifully put!
It's great to linger a moment over that feeling, the experience of the emotion that the author has the power to induce in the reader. I think that's one of the things that makes a great novel, and it's also the opposite of the threat of violence that you discussed as being the omni-present engine of suspense in modern TV drama. Really enjoyed the conversation in this interview.
N.B. unabridged Middlemarch is beautifully read by Juliet Stevenson on Audible. You could speed her up, but don't. Don't. Pour yourself a glass of wine, (Eliot liked a glass) close your eyes, sit back and listen. Life-enhancing.