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

Philip K. Dick is a sci-fi legend, but the boys have only ever seen the film adaptations of his work (Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly).

Dick's 1969 classic Ubik has us divided. Benny is mad that major premises are introduced and then abandoned, internal logic is sloppy, and the twist ending is lazy writing. Rich and Cam are charmed by the imperfections and think it heightens the sense of (un)reality.

Is Ubik a metaphor for God? What are the parallels to Gnosticism, and who is the demiurge behind the false reality of half-life? Do people who experience psychotic breaks even know that it's happening? What does Plato have to do with all of this?

“He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside.”

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) intro to the world of Ubik
• (00:08:35) critique of PKD’s worldbuilding
• (00:20:10) Cold storage and half-life suspended animation
• 00:25:00) Why is everything decaying? entropy and platonic essences
• (00:34:43) Joe Chip’s search for Ubik + the battle between Jory and Ella
• (00:43:10) Christian parallels and PKD’s gnostic epiphany
• (00:58:35) Arguing whether the twist ending is lazy writing
• (01:06:28) Is PKD under or overrated?
• (01:09:54) Psychosis, psychedelics, and paranoia

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douevenlit@gmail.com

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

The Fall - Camus

Hamlet - Shakespeare

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.”

(who amongst us, etc)

This week we're talking Kafka's 1915 novella The Metamorphosis.

Rich swoons over Gregor and is deeply moved by his plight. Cam wonders whether the giant freaky bug might bear some responsibility for events. Benny starts out sorta lukewarm on the whole thing but comes around in the end.

Is this story meant to be a depiction of depression? An autobiographical work about an artist becoming alienated from his philistine family? A Marxist commentary on capitalism? A subconscious Freudian incest thriller?

We fearlessly explore all of these interpretations... and if you can believe it, even more

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) reinterpreting kafka thru the lens of richard dawkins tweets
• (00:01:50) what kinda filthy vermin are we dealing with here??
• (00:06:57) arguing about what Gregor’s initial reaction means
• 00:15:44) part two synopsis: I didn't choose the bug life
• (00:19:17) Cam’s incest theory: who is the real parasite?
• (00:25:15) Metamorphosis as kafka's autobiographical self-therapy
• (00:36:30) Alienation and depression
• (00:44:12) genuinely upset about Gregor’s plight
• (00:50:48) Is kafka meant to be funny?
• (00:54:23) Refreshing subversion of realism
• (01:01:29) closing thoughts

Send us mail: doyouevenlitbro@gmail.com

NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

Ubik - Philip K Dick The Fall - Camus Hamlet - Shakespeare

Wrapping up Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which we all loved.

Nature vs nurture: the monster as proto-incel, to what extent do we feel sympathy for him, should Victor have made him a bride, self-loathing and recrimination, and whether hot people are actually more virtuous than ugly people.

Also: why rousseau was a giant piece of shit, the monster as Byronic hero, importance of pariahs and moral entrepreneurs, pitbull discourse, etc

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) just grave robber problems
• (00:05:20) peephole language learning montage
• (00:09:00) Nature vs nurture debate
• 00:17:00) Cam’s crank theory that hot people are more virtuous
• (00:24:11) Frankenstein as the original incel
• (00:28:40) pitbull digression
• (00:33:31) Ethics of making frank a bride and letting him go
• (00:42:20) The monster as the true Byronic hero
• (00:52:50) Sympathy for the devil
• (00:59:02) Romantic heroes as moral entrepreneurs

Send us mail: doyouevenlitbro@gmail.com

COMING UP

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

Ubik - Philip K Dick

The Fall - Camus

Discussing chapters 1-10 of Mary Shelley's 1818 genre mash-up Frankenstein.

On Mary Shelley's stacked genetics, the 'scenius' with Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, questions over authorship including a suspiciously accurate depiction of post-nut clarity.

Forbidden knowledge: are infohazards real, taking accountability for new technology, guilt and the disgust instinct, strong parallels with AGI, arguments for and against creating new species. Can we defend a parochial concern for our own family/friends/species?

Is the monster innately evil? Or a product of his environment?

We love this book. hyped to hear the monster's side of the story in part 2.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) pop culture Frankenstein and namespace collision
• (00:04:55) synopsis
• (00:07:56) Initial reactions
• 00:11:20) Suspiciously accurate depiction of post-nut clarity
• (00:13:38) Mary Shelley’s elite genetics
• (00:16:54) Forbidden knowledge and infohazards
• (00:26:08) Victor as deadbeat dad
• (00:31:15) AGI comparison: how do we feel about creating a new species?
• (00:38:00) The burden of guilt (the bumblebee incident)
• (00:41:27) Nature vs nurture and rebelling against god
• (00:45:08) Back to the question of AGI and creating new species
• (00:55:35) Parochialism and expanding moral circles
• (01:03:45) Cultural legacy of this book
• (01:08:43) should Zuckerberg and friends try to model consequences of AI?

Send us mail: doyouevenlitbro@gmail.com

COMING UP

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

Ubik - Philip K Dick

The Fall - Camus

Wandering through Samuel Beckett's 1953 absurdist play Waiting for Godot.

Did Beckett actually have an interpretation in mind, or did he deliberately write a maximally vague story that everyone could map their own interests onto?

How well does the humour hold up over time? Where does Beckett rank in the canon of absurdist and existentialist writers? What proportion of reported suicides are actually autoerotic asphyxiation accidents? etc

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) gooning oneself to death
• (00:05:28) synopsis (nothing happens, twice)
• (00:07:32) Initial reactions + arguing about interpretation
• 00:17:16) What are we waiting for?
• (00:22:09) Religious, Freudian, Marxist interpretations
• (00:26:56) tHaT’s sOOO RANdoM!!
• (00:31:00) Beckett’s fame
• (00:35:01) Beckett vs Camus
• (00:38:02) The One True Interpretation

Our final session with W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge (chapters 5-7).

Elliot Templeton as the last relic of a dying age. Was he really happy? We consider his self-worship and clout-chasing Catholicism as a counterpoint to Larry's spirituality. Rest in power queen.

Sophie MacDonald attempts to climb off the wheel of suffering via more prosaic means. Did she get what she wanted? An argument over whether Isabel is a total psycho or only a minor-league bitch.

Larry's spiritual journey as a synthesis of the best parts of the Eastern tradition. Was this whole book just a delivery mechanism for Vedic philosophy? On the transmigration of souls, God as a deadbeat dad, and whether it's bad for society to encourage serenity-maxxing.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) tattoo discourse
• (00:02:18) The sad (?) saga of Elliott Templeton
• (00:16:31) The sad saga of Sophie MacDonald
• (00:29:25) Is this whole book just a delivery vehicle for vedic philosophy?
• (00:36:18) Larry’s struggle with the problem of evil
• (00:42:11) Oneness and universality of transcendent experience
• (00:47:03) Buddhism as a mind-killing philosophy
• (00:52:22) The boys experience with meditating

Discussing chapters 4 and 5 of W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge.

Larry becomes aloof and reserved. Is he really bringing anything to the table besides his sexy forearms? Has he gone full woo-woo granola cruncher? Why can Kosti only talk about spirituality when he's drunk? Why aren't muses a thing these days?

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) Synopsis
• (00:02:23) What do we think of Larry now?
• (00:13:54) Curing Gray’s headache
• (00:16:50) Christian mysticism as thinly veiled Buddhism
• (00:20:05) What does Kosti’s character represent?
• (00:28:30) Why we can take Larry more seriously than typical hippie
• (00:33:10) This book would hit way harder at age 18 or 20
• (00:41:28) What happened to muses? (these old service sector jobs)