This week we're reading three of Anton Chekhov's most beloved short stories: The Man in the Case, Gooseberries, and About Love (The Little Trilogy, 1898).

We get a minor assist from George Saunders and his fantastic book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain but have no shortage of stuff to discuss.

Talking big 5 personality traits, the degree to which people oppress themselves, why Rich fell out of love with the early retirement movement, whether it's OK to be happy in a world full of suffering, and if having to settle in romantic relationships is antithetical to true love. Also: Cam takes a controversial and brave stance against home-wreckers.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) intro
• (00:01:54) ’The Man in the Case’ synopsis
• 00:07:12) Are some personality types just better than others?
• (00:12:52) Belyakov fumbles the bag with Varenka
• (00:24:07) Is everybody trapped in a case of their own making
• (00:34:58) Mavra and the tranquil village
• (00:40:15) Gooseberries synopsis
• (00:42:30) The pitfalls of the ’early retirement’ movement
• (00:52:55) theorising on happiness
• (01:01:57) Ivan the big fat hypocrite
• (01:07:23) ’About Love’ synopsis
• (01:11:44) Did Alyohin make the right decision?
• (01:22:10) Can love by analysed rationally
• (01:33:49) our favourite story of the trilogy
• (01:37:59) accessibility of chekhov

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own or just say hi.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

My Struggle, volume 1 - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Hemingway's 1929 semi-autobiographical classic tackles two big timeless themes: love and war.

Two out of three of us can relate to the first one, but war feels pretty alien to us. How would the boys do if they were conscripted? What made WWI so uniquely dispiriting? What is it about this novel that so faithfully captures the experience of war?

We also talk quite a bit about Hemingway's laconic characters and terse writing style. How representative is this of his broader work? What do we think of the 'iceberg method'? Why did he go with the most depressing possible ending?

and MORE

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) first reactions and synopsis
• (00:06:02) Hemingway’s understated style and the ’Iceberg method’
• (00:19:10) What made WWI a uniquely dispiriting war?
• (00:28:35) Catherine and Henry are the same person
• (00:38:44) downer ending
• (00:46:45) A catalogue of arbitrary and meaningless death
• (00:57:34) Final thoughts and next book

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

My Struggle, volume 1 - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Not too much plot to cover in parts 5 and 6; mostly we're hashing out our final thoughts on the book and Dostoevsky's legacy.

First up is the controversial epilogue. The boys are not sure how believable Rodya's redemption is. It feels kinda cheap? Dostoevsky is not very good at character development but maybe it doesn't matter. Sonya is a perfectly implausible character who exists only as a sort of a prop for Rodya. How on earth does Dosto have a reputation for writing realistic characters? Again, it prob doesn't matter.

Svidrigailov sneaks up on us as perhaps the most interesting (or at least the most underrated) character in the book. We talk about the three incredible scenes that bring his journey to an end: kidnapping Donya, the feverish hotel dream, and the dramatic exit.

Finally quite a bit of discussion about whether Dostoevsky is actually any good as a thinker. Rich is not sold: the critique of utilitarianism is unfair, blind deference to tradition leaves no room for progress, and God has been pretty neatly replaced by secular humanism. Benny pushes back and adds some nuance to the problem Dosto was trying to describe, and Cam talks about how he still feels the tension between nihilism and common-sense morality.

Don't miss the surprise guest appearance from Cam's manager. Is this the week he gets busted? will he live to skive off another day?? Tune in now to find out.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) intriguing and important discussion on different translations (do NOT skip)
• (00:13:15) Epilogue: Raskolnikov speedruns character development
• (00:36:03) Sonya character analysis
• (00:42:21) how realistic are dostoevsky’s characters?
• (00:49:24) Svidrigailov meets his twisted end
• (01:06:46) Are dostoevsky’s philosophical ideas actually any good
• (01:17:26) Commonsense morality, nihilism and metaethics

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Candide — Voltaire

A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

we're just normal men. We're just innocent men!

In parts 3 and 4 of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1866 Crime and Punishment we get a lot more meat on Raskolnikov's 'extraordinary man' thesis.

How does it overlap with the concept of the Übermensch in Nietzsche and Hegel? Are we too deeply steeped in Christian morality to become 'extraordinary' without destroying ourselves?

We reconsider Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, and Luzhin through this lens.

Plus: cam's obligatory sibling inc*st fantasies, rich tries to give dostoyevsky writing advice, etc

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) hangry
• (00:02:00) the Extraordinary Man thesis
• (00:06:28) Nietzsche, hegel and the RETVRN to bronze age morality
• (00:13:35) Can you be an extraordinary man without breaking yourself?
• (00:23:05) Svidrigailov introduction
• (00:29:45) What would you do if your best friend killed someone
• (00:34:32) lil dick Luzhin
• (00:44:30) Lazarus story (the ultimate flipperoo)
• (00:49:00) Porfiry’s police procedural: pragmatic pressure or pure punishment?
• (00:59:32) could this be a shorter book
• (01:05:33) Listener mail: revisiting Hamlet’s soliloquy

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Crime and Punishment - parts 5 and 6

Candide — Voltaire

A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

Cracking into the first two parts of Dostoevsky's 1866 classic Crime and Punishment.

The first surprising thing is that this is a conservative/reactionary book: it mocks the fancy new ideas of the youth, the spirit of revolution, naive utilitarianism, etc. Jordan Peterson laps this shit up. But did the moral panic over materialism hold up? Does modern society in any way compare with the turmoil of Dostoevsky's Russia, or are we at the end of history? How relevant are Dostoevsky's concerns today?

We argue quite a bit about that but we're more aligned on the brilliance of Dostoevsky as psychologist, and especially the character of Rodya 'mister schiz' Raskolnikov: what causes his mind to fracture so spectacularly? What motivates him to do the deed? why does Rich kinda relate to him?

plus a masterclass on freestyle rap. and much more

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) opening rap
• (00:04:23) history class with professor chugg
• (00:12:13) Part 1 summary and reactions
• (00:23:25) what motivates Rodya ’ mister schizo’ Raskolnikov?
• (00:28:50) Dosto subtweets bentham and SBF
• (00:40:46) Part 2 summary
• (00:52:00) Parallels between Raskolnikov and Marmeladov
• (00:56:08) Rodya’s amorality
• (01:05:02) Arguing whether we live in tumultuous times comparable to Dosto’s era
• (01:14:05) Moral panic over materialism
• (01:21:45) Rodya’s altruism

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Crime and Punishment - parts 3 and 4, then parts 5 and 6

Candide, by Voltaire

The beauty of this book is immeasurable, and its kindness is infinite.

We all love Susanna Clarke's 2012 metaphysical thriller, which feels like a mashup of Borges/C.S. Lewis/Gone Girl.

Venture deeper into the labyrinth with us:

Piranesi as amateur scientist: On indigenous knowledge, the dangers of naïve empiricism, achieving dominion over nature, and whether the Other kind of had a point.

Metaphysics of the House: Are abstractions real, revisiting Plato's world of perfect forms, and whether the world is fundamentally Good.

Identity and mental illness: The illusion of stable personhood over time, repressed memories as trauma response, and how a person with dementia or psychosis can maintain a consistent internal worldview.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) meet the Beloved Child of the House
• (00:09:55) Piranesi as amateur scientist
• (00:19:48) metaphysics of the House and Plato’s theory of forms
• (00:38:13) C.S. Lewis allusions
• (00:41:21) The BIG REVEAL (spoilers)
• (00:46:30) The illusion of stable personhood
• (00:55:02) Internal consistency of dementia or psychosis patients
• (01:02:30) Piranesi’s escape and reintegration
• (01:09:11) Is the world (or the House) fundamentally Good?

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

We wanna start reading listener feedback out on the pod, so send us a note at douevenlit@gmail.com to correct our bad takes or share your own.

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky (reading in three parts over six weeks)

holy shit this was hard. Our first attempt at shakespeare and it was a doozy!

Rich struggled through the original text and only had the vaguest idea what was going on. Cam watched every single movie adaptation and studied for two weeks but still got casually mogged by his girlfriend.

By the time we got done with the discussion we were all actually hyped to read more shakespeare so something must have gone right.

Covering such topics as:

The impenetrability of Shakespearean english, whether it's better to read modern translations or the original text, our favourite lines and soliloquies, shitting on the Freudian reading, connections to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and Hamlet as the archetypal annoying theatre kid.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) intro
• (00:03:53) ye olde Shakesperean english vs modern translations
• (00:14:52) Cam’s film corner segment
• (00:18:07) Hamlet’s pathological indecisiveness
• (00:23:27) To be, or not to be?
• (00:25:34) shitting on the Freudian/oedipal reading
• (00:32:12) Ophelia and Gertrude’s motivations
• (00:34:06) protestant heaven loophole
• (00:42:15) favourite lines and famous quotes
• (00:45:05) Influence on DFW and other theatre kids
• (00:48:12) There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so
• (00:51:44) we rescue the freudian/oedipal reading!
• (00:53:08) what does the clusterfuck of an ending signify
• (00:58:07) will we engage with W. Shakespeare again in future
• (01:03:37) Terrence Howard penis size analysis

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS:

THE ADDRESS I SAID IN THE RECORDING IS WRONG! it has since been changed to douevenlit@gmail.com

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky

This one starts slow but it ends up being one of my favourite book clubs ever.

Camus' last finished novel was The Fall (1956). It has a lot of personal resonance for Rich and the other boys loved it too.

Loss of innocence: how much of our behaviour comes down to signalling? Is there such a thing as genuine altruism? Is it dangerous to learn about this stuff? Was David Foster Wallace's 'new sincerity' idea doomed from the outset?

Escaping the double bind: Choosing which status games to play, finding solace in sports and other explicit games, why hedonism doesn't work, moving awareness away from the self and towards others, dissolving the problem of a meaningless universe.

Performative castigation: Is Jean-Baptiste's judge-penitent stance actually coherent? The pitfalls of woke ideology, recursive traps of judging people, and why virtue signalling is good, actually.

Religious interpretations: The biblical fall, Jean-Baptiste as antichrist, the death of God, and organised religion as laundering scheme.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) worst opening segue competition
• (00:03:25) Is the pre-fall Jean-Baptiste a virtuous person?
• (00:07:22) Some personal reflections
• 00:17:10) Signalling theory and loss of innocence
• (00:30:19) How to cope with a bottomless pit of suffering
• (00:37:17) David Foster Wallace and the curse of pathological self-awareness
• (00:51:41) Judging the judge-penitent: has Jean-Baptiste really solved his problem?
• (01:02:48) Pro and anti-religious interpretations
• (01:14:24) Free will and (dis)continuity of personal identity
• (01:26:50) Strategies for escaping from the spiral of self-awareness
• (01:32:20) Is the idea of a meaningless universe a reductionist mistake?

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NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Hamlet - Shakespeare

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky