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.
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 …
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 …
Combat & Classics #19: Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
Is human life “nada”—nothing? In their discussion of Hemingway’s (very) short story, Brian, Lise, and Jeff examine the contrast between youth and old age and the states of being hurried versus unhurried. How are those distinctions related to the question of whether there is a difference between those who need a clean, well-lighted place and those who do not? Get more C&C Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #22 “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf
She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxicabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #20 “Lord Jim” by Joseph Conrad
It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the outstretched hand, and Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #16 Stories by Clarice Lispector
This time we discuss two works by the remarkable Clarice Lispector—born to a Jewish family in Ukraine shortly before they emigrated to Brazil, where she became one of its most important writers. We read two of her works, the novella The Hour of the Star (1977), and the short story “The Departure of the Train” (1974). I know there are girls who sell their bodies, their only Continue Reading …
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. They have hope. The Culture has statistics. So says Linter, one of the chief protagonists in The State of the Art. In the story, a group of Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #7 “The Call of Cthulhu” by H. P. Lovecraft
Get ready for the frightening, the horrifying, the sublime—the (in)famous Cthulhu! It’s time for H.P. Lovecraft! Join us as we read the tome of this scandalous mythos, this perturbing unrealism—The Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft opens his work about the green, gelatinous, multi-dimensional creature with fear for all us human sycophants: The most merciful thing in the world, I Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #4 “Grendel” by John Gardner
What’s with these self-aware monsters anyway? Both Frankenstein and Grendel bemoan their fates as the necessary evils in this world—so that goodness may exist, perhaps? Listen as we join their struggle, and Mary calms Laura’s frantic worry about Gardner’s use of the “other” to make his philosophical point while the guys argue about who is the real monster here: Grendel or Continue Reading …
Phi Fic #3 Frankenstein (PEL Crossover Special)
PEL welcomes a new podcast to our fledgling network: Phi Fic, which grew out of our Not School Philosophical Fiction group, featuring Nathan Hanks (who you'll likely recognize from our Not School anouncments, Mary Claire (who helps edit the PEL blog), Daniel St. Pierre, Laura Davis, and Cezary Baraniecki. This time they discuss Mary Shelley's classic novel, and are joined by Continue Reading …