Phi Fic means Philosophical Fiction. Each episode, we have a candid dicussion on a heady work of of fiction, full of SPOILERS. Join host Nathan Hanks and readers Cezary Baraniecki, Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Mary Claire, plus the occasional guest.
"What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together!” - Bleak House At over 900 pages, 300,000 words, and nearly 50 characters, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is less a novel and more a temporary hobby. Set in a foggy, dirty Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #42 An Unwritten Novel by Virginia Woolf
NEW CHAPTER IN PHI FIC! We are adding shorter discussions in between our more expansive literary discussions. These more abbreviated talks will cover short stories, essays, articles and whatever else lights out fancy! Life’s what you see in people’s eyes…” -An Unwritten Novel Today we discuss Virginia Woolf’s short story An Unwritten Novel. There Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #41 Paradise Lost by John Milton
TWITTER AND HELL “...Farewell, happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor—one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” --Satan in Paradise Lost, Book 1 In this episode, we read Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #40 The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
WAS THIS HIS BEST? In this episode we discuss Ernest Hemingway’s last published work in his lifetime: The Old Man and the Sea. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and contributed to his being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954. And all of us wondered as read and reread and debated—of all Hemingway’s writings, was this the one that should have achieved those awards? The Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #39 Point Omega by Don DeLillo
PSYCHO AND THE IRAQ WAR! “The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw.” -Point Omega In this episode, we work through and analyze Point Omega by Don Delillo, a short oblique and arresting novel wrestling with the meaning and effect of human perception, consciousness, space and time. The story follows documentary filmmaker, Joe Finley, when he Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #38 Howard’s End by EM Forster
SO SORRY FOR BEING AWAY TOO LONG! GUESS WHY? BEGINS WITH "P" AND ENDS WITH "C". In this episode we discuss EM Forster’s novel Howard’s End as well as take a look at the 1992 movie of the novel starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. “Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him—” --Howard’s End The story revolves around three families: the Schlegels–– Continue Reading …
Phi Fic#37 The Sound and the Fury
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS BOOK? In this episode we struggle, spin and madly rub our eyes as we work through the puzzling and enigmatic beauty of William Faulkner’s "The Sound and the Fury". Father said clocks slay time. He said time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. -The Sound and the Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #36 The Canterbury Tales–Part Two
In this episode, we are discussing the Pardoner's Tale from the Canterbury Tales, a book of stories by the Late Medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer. This follows up on our last episode, where we discussed other selections from the book, which is about a group of not-quite-pious pilgrims traveling to Canterbury Cathedral who pass the time by telling each other stories. Here is a Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #35 12 Stories by James Baldwin
Join us with Mark Linsenmeyer in a previous discussion on two short stories by James Baldwin: “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon” and “Sonny’s Blues.” Both are included in the collection Going to meet the Man (1965). This is an unprecedented and critical time to listen to this remarkable man. For the first time in my life I felt that no force jeopardized my right, Continue Reading …
PhiFic #34 The Canterbury Tales-Part One
It happened in that season that one day In Southwark, at The Tabard, as I lay Ready to go on pilgrimage and start For Canterbury, most devout at heart, At night there came into that hostelry Some nine and twenty in a company Of sundry folk happening then to fall In fellowship, and they were pilgrims all That toward Canterbury meant to Continue Reading …
PhiFic #33 Repost: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
We are Reposting our Discussion on The Machine Stops by EM Forster because The Machine is stopping. Stay Safe! 'Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #32 Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
There was some element of loneliness involved—so easy to be loved—so hard to love. -Tender is the Night This episode we are reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Reflected upon by Ernest Hemingway: “…in retrospect, Tender is the Night gets better and better,” which came a good time after his first comment to F. Scott: “Not as good as you can do.” The Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #31 Sula by Toni Morrison
Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be. -Sula In this heart wrenching and brilliant novel by Toni Morrison, we are carried through a world called The Bottom: That was the way it got started. Not the town, of course, but that Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #30 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez Part 2
Only then did he discover that Amaranta Úrsula was not his sister but his aunt, and that Sir Francis Drake had attacked Riohacha only so that they could seek each other through the most intricate labyrinths of blood until they would engender the mythological animal that was to bring the line to an end. Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #29 (Part 1 of 2) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
...time was not passing...it was turning in a circle... -One Hundred Years of Solitude In this episode we discuss the classic Latin American novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude. which has been described by the scholar Robery Keily in the New York Times, as a “book [of] history, not of governments or of formal institutions of the sort which keeps Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #28 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
I see what is right and approve, but I do what is wrong. -A Clockwork Orange In this episode we are discussing “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. As many of us know from the infamous 1962 book and the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film based on it, the story takes place in a dystopian futuristic Britain. It tracks the dark, torturous, amoral acts performed by our hero--or Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #27 Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
The places that we have known belong now only to the little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a particular form is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #25 “At the Mountains of Madness” by H. P. Lovecraft
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. –H.P. Lovecraft In this episode, we discuss At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft. Considered one of the greatest writers of horror and creator the science fiction horror genre, Lovecraft was primarily a short story writer during the early Continue Reading …
PhiFic #24 “Ulysses” by James Joyce
If Socrates leaves his house today he will find the sage seated on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps will tend. Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. –Ulysses As Nathan notes, Ulysses is “the Continue Reading …
Mortality and the Man Who Fell to Earth
Lights are gone, distant, dark. Crowds of anxious, beautiful, stylish, crazily costumed fans in bright purple, piercing pink, screaming yellow and orange chiffons—capes and crowns of diamonds, darkened eyes of sparkle and thick lashes--they dance, vibrate in unison—praying for that moment. Madison Square Garden. The Stage Blasts Bright. Station to Station roars through the Continue Reading …