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.
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
For our discussion of this historically difficult but wholly worthwhile classic, Nathan, Laura, and Daniel are joined by Phillip Cherny. It was recorded for our original Not School group, long before that group evolved into a podcast.
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Phi Fic #23 “To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf
This discussion first appeared in our Not School Group and the readers at the time were Nathan, Laura, Daniel, and Dan Johnson. As an early recording, please bear with the sound quality—many thanks!
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Phi Fic #22 “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf
Listen as Dylan Casey from The Partially Examined Life Podcast joins us to discuss this remarkable novel, in which many scholars believe Woolf found her voice. Written in a stream of consciousness, the plot of the book is written inside the souls, struggles. and angst of the characters.
Phi Fic #21 “Foe” by J.M. Coetzee
Join us as we delve into Coetzee’s rich, complex exploration of story and authorship in this novel that presents an origin story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Coetzee writes about Susan Barton, a castaway at sea who discovers an island inhabited by two men, Robinson Crusoe and Friday. Once rescued, she seeks the renowned author Daniel Defoe to help tell her story, but struggles to communicate her experiences.
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Phi Fic #20 “Lord Jim” by Joseph Conrad
It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. –Lord Jim
Listen along as we discuss this richly complex novel of responsibility, guilt, shame, and redemption.
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Phi Fic #19 “Death in Venice” by Thomas Mann
To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence… –Death in Venice
Join us for our discussion of the extraordinary novella of beauty, desire, and morality.
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Phi Fic #18 “The Trouble with Being Born” by E.M. Cioran
“This very second has vanished forever, lost in the anonymous mass of the irrevocable. It will never return. I suffer from this, and I do not. Everything is unique—and insignificant.” –Emil Cioran
Join us as we dive into this beautiful work of nonfiction (yes, we veered from the path a bit) and luxuriate in the charmingly dismal prose of one of life’s master skeptics.
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Phi Fic #17 “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino
“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it…”
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Phi Fic #16 Stories by Clarice Lispector
Our chinwag this time concerns two works by the remarkable Clarice Lispector, the novella The Hour of the Star and the short story “The Departure of the Train.”
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Phi Fic #15 “The State of the Art” by Iain M. Banks
This time, we talk about a novella in the late, great Iain M. Banks’s famed Culture sci-fi series, which is centered around a utopian, post-scarcity society that spans various planets (and other habitats) within the Milky Way galaxy.
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Phi Fic #14 “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov
For this month’s episode, we discuss Isaac Asimov’s famous short story that (repeatedly) asks the question: Can we find a way to reverse entropy?
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Phi Fic #13 “The House of the Dead” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
This time, the group discusses The House of the Dead, Dostoevsky’s semi-autobiographical novel about life in a labor camp.
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Phi Fic #12 Stories by James Baldwin
For this month’s reading we chose two short stories by James Baldwin: “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon” and “Sonny’s Blues.” Both stories are included in the collection Going to meet the Man (1965). Unfortunately, Daniel had to be absent this time, but we did get Mark Linsenmayer to join us!
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Phi Fic #11 “The Body Artist” by Don DeLillo
Our book this time is The Body Artist by Don Delillo, an absorbing look at Lauren, a performance artist, and her experience of loss at her husband’s death.
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Phi Fic #10 “The Fall” by Albert Camus
We discuss the novel about what you do when you’re “called” and how you live afterward. You can listen along while Cezary, Daniel, Laura, Mary, and Nathan discuss The Fall by Albert Camus, which Sartre claimed was “perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood” of Camus’s books.
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Phi Fic #9 “The Grand Inquisitor” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
We discuss the poem within The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
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Phi Fic #8 “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler
For this month’s discussion, Daniel had us read Erewhon by Samuel Butler. We had a discussion that we all enjoyed much more than reading the book.
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Phi Fic #7 “The Call of Cthulhu” by H. P. Lovecraft
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” —H.P. Lovecraft
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Phi Fic #6 “The Beast in the Jungle” by Henry James
Join the Phi Fic group for a discussion of The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James.
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Phi Fic #5 “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov
So, you think Lolita was Nabokov’s best? We humbly submit a solid contender. Structured as a 999-line poem followed by an extensive afterword and index, Pale Fire has been described by the critic Harold Bloom as “the surest demonstration of [Nabokov’s] genius…”
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