In the chaotic flurry of consternation, excitement, and viral postmortems that followed the US election, two notions stood out to me as slightly contradictory yet strangely connected: the dreaded concept of “post-truth,” and the prescience of a philosopher who supposedly predicted Trump 18 years ago. “Post-truth” describes the blatant disregard for facts that has been Continue Reading …
Listen to Phi-Fi Discuss ‘The Lottery’ Sunday, July 19th
Our Philosophical Fiction group in PEL's Not School are getting together this Sunday to discuss Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." You can ask questions and listen live, July 19th at 12pm(cst), via Google Hangouts: https://plus.google.com/events/cacpmko958gpvg1ejapacp25roc?authkey=CKCSpKumwPXn9wE Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her Continue Reading …
Philosophical Fiction Reading: Woolf’s To The Lighthouse
We are going to read To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf for our conversation this March in Philosophical Fiction. A few regulars and I chose a book from our List of Suggestions to read before our conversation where we'll go over the plot, discuss the characters, recall apt passages, and try to get at what everything is all about anyway. To The Lighthouse will be my first Continue Reading …
Reading Fiction in February, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ by Flannery O’Connor
Our Philosophical Fiction story for February is 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' by Flannery O'Connor, where a grandmother and her family go on vacation yet encounter an outlaw known as The Misfit. "The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind. Bailey was the Continue Reading …
Fiction Conversation on ‘The Map and the Territory’
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq was our novel up for conversation this December, and you can hear Nathan, Dan and Kimberly discuss the story in Philosophical Fiction from PEL’s Not School, on the Free Stuff for Citizens page (under "Not School Discussion Group Audio"). We sum up the plot, quote key passages, and discuss the story of Jed Martin; a man at the “at Continue Reading …
Not School Fiction Group: Roberto Bolano’s “Distant Star” (Phi-Fi #9)
Featuring Nathan Hanks, Philip, Daniel, Dan J., Kimberly, and Cezary. Recorded November 9, 2014. A novel about Chile, Art, and literally killer poets. That is how [Carlos Wieder, the sky-writing murderer poet] was; he believed that Nature intervenes actively in history, shaping it, buffeting our lives, although in our pitiful ignorance we usually attribute these blows to Continue Reading …