Latest / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast / Episode 98: City Books

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Episode 98: City Books · The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast

0:12
SPEAKER_01: This is the Mooks and the Gripes podcast.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Hello, everybody.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: This is Trevor and like an X for the frozen sea within us, Paul.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Paul, how are you doing today?
0:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing well.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: I like that one.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: That's a great quote.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: And it actually feels kind of justified today because like I told you,
0:31
SPEAKER_02: there's a frozen sea all around me today.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: It's very chilly here in Denver.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Actually, no sea.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Frozen grass, I guess.
0:38
frozen air frozen grass frozen paul you warm enough so far so
0:43
good uh yeah we're
0:44
supposed to go to a hockey game later today so could be an
0:46
interesting uh commute
0:48
and then we'll go sit next to more ice so it's a very
0:50
ice-filled day oh man i'm
0:53
hoping to you know sit by the fire read a little bit it's not
0:58
quite as cold here in
1:00
the rocky mountains of utah side as it is in the rocky
1:03
mountains on denver side so
1:05
SPEAKER_01: right
1:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, the fire sounds pretty appealing.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I do love going to a hockey game, though, so I can't complain.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: That'll be fun.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: I hope you guys do well.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: I do, too.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Are you anticipating it?
1:17
SPEAKER_02: It's a tough game.
1:18
SPEAKER_02: They're playing the Dallas Stars,
1:19
SPEAKER_02: not to get too far into the weeds,
1:21
SPEAKER_02: but a big rival usually played very well against the Colorado Avalanche,
1:26
SPEAKER_02: and the Avs haven't been playing especially well.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:28
SPEAKER_02: they're doing well overall,
1:29
SPEAKER_02: but they're in a bit of a slump,
1:30
SPEAKER_02: so it could go either way,
1:31
SPEAKER_02: I think.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: We shall see.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: one thing I wanted to bring up here in a couple of episodes,
1:39
SPEAKER_01: we will be doing our 100th episode,
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Happy Birthday to Us.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe that's the wrong word.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: It's not really celebrating a birthday.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: That would be like in August or something like that, I guess.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Happy anniversary?
1:54
SPEAKER_01: Happy 100?
1:55
SPEAKER_01: That probably works.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: Happy centenary?
1:57
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: the centenary edition of the mooks and the gripes podcast.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: And as we said in the last episode,
2:04
SPEAKER_01: we,
2:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:05
SPEAKER_01: are happy to answer questions that you all send and man,
2:08
SPEAKER_01: we've gotten,
2:08
SPEAKER_01: it wasn't crickets.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Like we thought it might be, you got a lot of really fun, good questions.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: I think we already have more than we could cover in an episode,
2:19
even if we were doing rapid fire through the whole thing at the
2:23
same time,
2:24
SPEAKER_01: keep them coming.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: We will be selective and, you know, we appreciate all of them.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, and some of them are on a similar topic as another one.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully even if we don't answer your particular question,
2:37
SPEAKER_01: we still kind of will,
2:39
SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
2:39
we'd love to get some more as we gear up for that episode here
2:43
in about a month.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: And like you said, there was part of me that wondered how many we'd get.
2:47
I'm happy to see that people thought this was a fun idea
2:50
because we thought it would be.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's possible.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to promise anything, but even some of those we don't cover.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: Maybe,
2:55
SPEAKER_02: you know,
2:55
you or I or both of us could kind of just send out some answers
2:58
individually
2:59
SPEAKER_02: because we really appreciate everybody reaching out.
3:01
And it's been a lot of fun to see the types of questions people
3:04
are sending in too.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Or we could steal them for future ideas.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a good idea.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: As if they were our own.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, one day I was thinking about this question, Paul.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: I like the way you think.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Very cut through.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: So, but thank you so much to everyone for sending in what you have.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: And if you've got something on your mind,
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Let us know.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: But let's get down to this episode.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: We're going to maybe be a little bit faster than we sometimes are today.
3:32
And I really want to get into this subject because I had to cut
3:39
this down from like 40 books.
3:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: And...
3:42
SPEAKER_01: trying to think of why I was doing a cutting,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: what may put something on the outside,
3:47
SPEAKER_01: looking in,
3:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: But before we get to that point, what have you been reading, Paul?
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Same thing as me?
3:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
3:54
SPEAKER_02: I was going to say,
3:54
this has been a little harder because I've been reading the
3:57
same three books this
3:58
SPEAKER_02: whole month.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: I was thinking when I post my social media,
4:01
SPEAKER_02: what I've read this month,
4:02
the stack is going to be a lot tinier this month because a lot
4:04
of them I'm still
4:05
SPEAKER_02: making my way through.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: But
4:06
SPEAKER_02: I have been reading one new one called Pink Slime.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: Have you heard about this one?
4:12
SPEAKER_02: Fernanda Trios, translated by Heather Cleary.
4:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I kept seeing it pop up and I decided to give it a try.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: And it's really, really interesting so far.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: It's a strange,
4:21
beautiful little book about a woman who's basically just trying
4:25
to hold on as
4:26
SPEAKER_02: everything around her is just kind of crumbling apart.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: So
4:30
SPEAKER_02: you know, on the individual level, but on bigger levels too.
4:32
She's living in this city that's in the midst of some kind of a
4:35
strange plague or
4:38
SPEAKER_02: epidemic that is spread by the wind.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And
4:43
SPEAKER_02: At the same time,
4:44
SPEAKER_02: they're living in this kind of,
4:45
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if dystopia is the right word for it,
4:47
but it's a very interesting way that this book is written where
4:52
you kind of get
4:52
SPEAKER_02: little bits and pieces.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: So I'm still kind of piecing together exactly what's happening,
4:56
but there seems to be some kind of a corporate conglomerate or
4:59
something like that
5:00
that's manufacturing this gross pink kind of meat paste that is
5:05
about all that
5:06
SPEAKER_02: anybody can really afford to eat.
5:08
so there's that going on there's this epidemic that's spread by
5:10
the wind with i
5:11
think there's like an algae bloom off the coast that the wind
5:14
is kind of spreading
5:15
this so you can't get into this wind or you'll get infected so
5:19
all this kind of
5:19
SPEAKER_02: strange stuff is going on and then
5:22
SPEAKER_02: In between all that,
5:23
you're kind of getting some glimpses into some of her
5:25
relationships with her
5:26
SPEAKER_02: ex-husband who's currently in the hospital dealing with this illness.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: And then,
5:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:31
also she spends some time with this boy where she's a nanny and
5:34
he's got some
5:35
SPEAKER_02: special needs or some kind of issues going on.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of...
5:38
SPEAKER_02: interesting little bits going on in this book.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: And it's very beautifully written.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm just still trying to honestly get a grasp of exactly what's going on.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: But I won't spend too much time on it.
5:47
I'll just read like the first paragraph or two of this little
5:50
section just to give
5:51
SPEAKER_02: people an idea of how beautiful the language is.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: It says, when the fog rolled in, the port turned into a swamp.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: Shadows fell across the plaza,
6:00
filtering between the trees and leaving the long marks of their
6:03
fingers on all they touched.
6:05
Under each unbroken surface,
6:06
mold cleaved silent through wood,
6:09
rust bored into metal.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: Everything was rotting.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: We were too.
6:14
SPEAKER_02: If I didn't have Maro,
6:15
SPEAKER_02: and that's the little boy she watches,
6:17
SPEAKER_02: I'd spend all day wandering around,
6:18
SPEAKER_02: guided through the fog by the neon sign flickering in the distance.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: P-A-L space C-E space H-O-T-E.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: So Palace Hotel with the lights out.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: The missing letters hadn't changed, though it wasn't a hotel anymore.
6:31
Like so many other buildings in the city,
6:33
it had been taken over by squatters.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: What day was that?
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I can still hear the neon,
6:38
SPEAKER_02: its electric hum,
6:39
SPEAKER_02: and the crackle of another letter on the verge of shorting out.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: The squatters kept the sign lit, but not out of laziness or nostalgia.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: They did it to remind themselves they were alive.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: So hopefully that gives an idea.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: It's just really well written, very...
6:56
SPEAKER_02: Not creepy, necessarily.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
6:57
SPEAKER_02: a little bit of creepy,
6:58
but just kind of there's a little there's some dread and just
7:00
some kind of claustrophobia.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: But like I said, I'm about halfway through.
7:04
And honestly,
7:05
I'm still kind of trying to piece together exactly how it's all
7:08
going to work out.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: But it's been very intriguing.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm really enjoying it so far.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: That does sound intriguing.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: I've seen people post on it and you know,
7:14
SPEAKER_01: it's one of those books where,
7:16
SPEAKER_01: um,
7:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
7:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:19
SPEAKER_01: pink slime.
7:20
That's not like a title that calls to me,
7:22
but I saw Heather Cleary and I thought,
7:25
Oh,
7:25
okay.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: I want to, I'll, I'll check that out.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: And I don't remember,
7:28
SPEAKER_02: I should have looked up when it was written,
7:29
SPEAKER_02: but I,
7:30
SPEAKER_02: I get some strong kind of,
7:31
SPEAKER_02: you know,
7:32
SPEAKER_02: COVID pandemic vibes with just ideas of kind of isolating yourself,
7:36
SPEAKER_02: wearing masks,
7:37
SPEAKER_02: um,
7:38
This one is even worse because it's like they kind of have to
7:40
like block off any
7:41
SPEAKER_02: air that might come into their houses or apartments,
7:43
SPEAKER_02: because when that wind kicks up and starts spreading the stuff,
7:47
SPEAKER_02: it can get through the tiniest of cracks.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: But it's got some echoes of some of that.
7:50
So I don't know if it's kind of a little bit of a take on that
7:52
whole pandemic feel.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: It definitely has that feeling to it for sure.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Well,
7:59
SPEAKER_01: I am still doing Middlemarch,
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Lies and Sorcery,
8:03
SPEAKER_01: and Swan's Way,
8:06
SPEAKER_01: which I think could come up.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to bring it up today,
8:10
SPEAKER_01: but the Combré sections,
8:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
8:13
SPEAKER_01: all that talk about the steeples and,
8:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
8:17
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
8:17
SPEAKER_01: there's so much about the city and the water lily parks and river and
8:21
SPEAKER_01: The different ways to walk around like I love it.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: But those are the three that I read every single day,
8:27
SPEAKER_01: along with Brandon Sanderson's Winds and Truth,
8:29
SPEAKER_01: which I am very close to the end.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, only like 700 pages left.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think I've got like 200 pages, maybe.
8:40
But it is that part of his books where everything's coming
8:43
together quite quickly.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: And the chapters,
8:45
you're switching from place to place because everything's
8:49
coming to its climax,
8:51
SPEAKER_01: even though there's that many pages left,
8:53
SPEAKER_01: like a whole normal novel.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: Right.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: So I'll probably finish it soon.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: Are you feeling excited to be nearing the end or sad?
9:02
SPEAKER_02: A book that big from an author you love that much,
9:05
is it a little bittersweet or is it just exciting to see where
9:08
he's going to go?
9:10
SPEAKER_01: I would say right now I'm just excited to see where it all goes.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: Not feeling the sadness of it all.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Not yet.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Maybe when it's over.
9:21
I guess with him,
9:22
the next 1,300 page will come out the day after tomorrow anyway.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know because he's starting his next trilogy,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: which will be a Mistborn trilogy from,
9:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:32
SPEAKER_01: era three.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: And he said, and he, I think he'll, you know, he's going to do it.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: He,
9:36
SPEAKER_01: he knows his plans,
9:36
but he's going to write all three of them before he publishes
9:40
any of them so that
9:41
SPEAKER_01: he can have the benefit like he did with his first Mistborn trilogy of,
9:44
SPEAKER_01: uh,
9:45
SPEAKER_01: making sure every book works exactly the way he wants to together.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: And so he's not going to publish that one until like 2028, he said.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know what we're at between now and then.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he's got some stuff up his sleeve,
10:01
SPEAKER_01: but probably based on what I've seen and heard from you.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: But at any rate,
10:06
but the other one that I started and I'm enjoying because I
10:10
just thought I need to
10:11
SPEAKER_01: do more than just read a bunch of big books.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to, you know, get some of these littler ones out of the way too.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: That's the wrong word out of the way.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, get that one done.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: Antonio Di Benedetto's The Suicides.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: I've loved Zama.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: I love the Silentiary.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: And this is the third part of the thematic trilogy of expectation.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: And just like the other ones, what a horrible narrator we have to follow.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: He's just a horrible man.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: but in an intriguing way.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
10:47
SPEAKER_01: I think I'll finish that one over the weekend because it's very short,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: but also very compelling.
10:52
I'm excited to kind of put my thoughts together on that and see
10:55
how it fits in with
10:55
the other two in that trilogy that Esther Allen has been
10:59
translating for us over
11:01
SPEAKER_01: the last decade,
11:03
SPEAKER_01: basically.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: It's been awesome.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: I've only read the first one,
11:07
SPEAKER_02: but I have the second two and keep meaning to...
11:11
SPEAKER_02: I think I might actually go back and
11:13
reread zama again and then kind of you know make my way through
11:16
them eventually but
11:18
yeah when that's a different question yeah right exactly though
11:22
i don't know if you
11:23
would need to i mean that that would be a fun thing to do but i
11:26
don't they are very
11:27
much their own books yeah that's true like i don't you know i
11:31
don't even know if he
11:32
SPEAKER_01: was like i'm writing a trilogy or if it's like huh
11:35
SPEAKER_01: these things go together kind of in,
11:37
SPEAKER_01: in theme,
11:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:38
SPEAKER_01: of,
11:39
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:39
SPEAKER_01: all that,
11:40
SPEAKER_01: but good point.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Good point.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: All right,
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Paul,
11:44
we are here today because we want to talk about city books and
11:50
as has been our practice,
11:52
That's basically all that we said to each other when we said,
11:57
what do we want to talk about?
11:59
SPEAKER_01: And so I have no idea how you thought about this topic,
12:03
SPEAKER_01: how you cut something and let another thing in,
12:05
SPEAKER_01: what your parameters were.
12:08
But as per usual as well,
12:10
that's one of the things I'm most excited to talk about.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: What is a city book to you?
12:16
SPEAKER_01: What is a potential city book for someone else?
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Not that anything would be wrong necessarily,
12:22
SPEAKER_01: but what was it that you used to come up with your list?
12:27
Did you have any discipline or was it just like it just needed
12:31
to say the word city
12:32
SPEAKER_01: in the title,
12:32
SPEAKER_01: which there are millions of those?
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: No,
12:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
12:35
SPEAKER_02: it was an interesting process because like you said,
12:37
SPEAKER_02: I had a lot because I opened it up.
12:39
Generally,
12:40
at first,
12:40
I was just thinking of like any book set in the city.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Like you said,
12:44
SPEAKER_02: what books have city in the title,
12:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
12:45
SPEAKER_02: just I started broad and then kept kind of trying to narrow it down.
12:49
And so what I ended up kind of trying to do is figure out the
12:54
books that kind of
12:55
SPEAKER_02: had the strongest ability.
12:57
that most viscerally made me feel like I was in the cities that
13:00
were being
13:01
SPEAKER_02: described or where the setting took place.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: Cause there were just so many choices,
13:04
but the ones I settled on were those where I had really strong
13:07
memories as I read
13:08
the books where the city in which it took place was almost a
13:12
character or,
13:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:14
where you just had like those place memories where you could
13:16
just picture it so perfectly.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: So yeah,
13:18
SPEAKER_02: and most of my choices,
13:19
SPEAKER_02: it was,
13:20
SPEAKER_02: it was that type of thing where the city is an actual character and,
13:23
either helped create the mood of the book or left me with just
13:27
really strong
13:27
SPEAKER_02: impressions about the culture or the people who lived there,
13:31
SPEAKER_02: things like that.
13:32
So,
13:33
yeah,
13:33
even then it was hard to narrow it down because I was thinking
13:36
about it.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: There's so many good cities as characters, I guess you'd say, in books.
13:43
But yeah,
13:43
and then I was trying to also,
13:45
if there was like a tiebreaker situation,
13:48
SPEAKER_02: There's still some that I've talked about before,
13:50
but I was trying to think of a few at least that were like
13:52
covering books that I
13:53
hadn't brought up quite as often because I thought this was a
13:56
good prompt to kind
13:57
of think of some books outside of maybe some of the ones that I
14:00
usually touch on.
14:01
So a couple of the ones I bring up,
14:03
I don't think I've ever mentioned on the podcast before.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: So that was another thing I was trying to do.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: We'll see how successful I was.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, how about you?
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, lots of different things going on in my mind.
14:13
Similar to you,
14:14
initially,
14:15
what are some books where the city really stands out as a setting?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: And then,
14:21
SPEAKER_01: oh,
14:21
maybe I should think about it where it's maybe a little bit
14:24
more than that,
14:26
SPEAKER_01: but how?
14:27
And as I started to make my list and trying to figure out which
14:30
ones really kind of fit into it,
14:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: I'll probably be all over the place.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: However,
14:36
to discipline myself just a little bit and then stray away from
14:40
it at will,
14:41
SPEAKER_01: I did take as inspiration kind of maybe what I'll call the honorary.
14:50
It's not going to come up in my discussion because I've already
14:52
talked about it a
14:53
SPEAKER_01: lot over the past year,
14:54
SPEAKER_01: including in my top 10 of the year episode,
14:57
SPEAKER_01: but Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was wondering about that one.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Because that book just had so much about it, about cities.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
15:07
SPEAKER_01: they're fictional,
15:08
but they really do kind of talk about how the city itself can
15:13
both shape a life and
15:14
SPEAKER_01: also be shaped by the lives.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: But there's a quote in here that I really, really like.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: And I'll share it as maybe an inspiration for where I tried to go.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: Cities,
15:26
SPEAKER_01: like dreams,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: are made of desires and fears,
15:31
SPEAKER_01: even if the thread of their discourse is secret,
15:34
SPEAKER_01: their rules are absurd,
15:37
SPEAKER_01: their perspectives deceitful,
15:39
SPEAKER_01: and everything conceals something else.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: there are a lot of really good quotes in invisible cities.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
15:48
SPEAKER_01: but I just kind of thought I want to,
15:50
SPEAKER_01: I want to,
15:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:53
look at books where I kind of feel like the city is part of why
15:56
the characters feel
15:57
the way they do or are doing the things that they're doing and
16:01
just see where that
16:02
SPEAKER_01: takes us.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: But I have some fictional cities on my list.
16:04
So it's,
16:05
but you know,
16:06
maybe,
16:06
maybe they still match what we experience in our real cities.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Um,
16:13
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that was kind of where I went.
16:16
Now,
16:16
an area I didn't go,
16:19
even though I think we could have,
16:20
and maybe you did.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, this is a good moment to see where we're at.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't quite put words around it,
16:28
SPEAKER_01: but I was talking to my wife this morning and I said,
16:32
SPEAKER_01: it's interesting because a lot of the books,
16:34
SPEAKER_01: like the city books,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:37
SPEAKER_01: tend to be written in my mind.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: And I know this isn't exclusively true, but by men.
16:43
But a lot of these other books,
16:45
you know,
16:46
where maybe,
16:47
you know,
16:48
a tree grows in Brooklyn.
16:49
I mean,
16:49
yeah,
16:50
that's a city book,
16:51
but there's something like I can't put a word around.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: She goes, oh, like a neighborhood book.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, yes, yeah, that's exactly it.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's interesting.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: A house on Mango Street,
17:02
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:02
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
17:02
SPEAKER_01: the place,
17:05
SPEAKER_01: but it's almost like the community or the neighborhood.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: And I thought,
17:08
SPEAKER_01: to the extent that we don't go into any of those,
17:11
SPEAKER_01: that could be its own separate topic.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: But I just throwing this out there, I'm no expert.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: And I always, you know, I'm like, I don't want to open up a can of worms.
17:22
But it does seem to me that a lot more of those kinds of books
17:24
are written by women.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what that says or what that means, or even if it's true.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: But it was an impression I had.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking of the books on my list.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think at least one of them.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: could apply in that way.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: So I'll talk about that when we get to it.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you got to save it now for our next neighborhood book.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: No, we can do whatever we want to.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Well,
17:49
SPEAKER_02: this one definitely covers more than just that,
17:51
SPEAKER_02: but it's very interesting that to your wife's point,
17:54
SPEAKER_02: I think,
17:55
SPEAKER_02: at least in this book's case,
17:56
SPEAKER_02: I think both are true,
17:58
but I think that's very much the neighborhood is an interesting
18:00
angle for sure.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: And I do love those kinds of books.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: I love A Good Neighborhood book.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: They're some of my favorite.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: But so are the cities.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: There's just something there.
18:11
Maybe listeners can provide some of their insights or
18:15
perspectives on that,
18:17
SPEAKER_01: as well as share your city books and how you think of city books.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
18:24
But maybe a good way for us to continue to explore city books
18:29
is through a list.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: I've got it.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: I've got so many,
18:33
SPEAKER_01: Paul,
18:34
SPEAKER_01: but I did narrow it down to five specifically to talk about,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: to save myself in the show notes,
18:38
SPEAKER_01: especially,
18:39
SPEAKER_01: but also,
18:40
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:40
SPEAKER_01: I'll bring up a lot at the end of like,
18:42
SPEAKER_01: I think about this.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: That's what I was going to ask you.
18:45
If we have a little wiggle room at the end,
18:46
that'll get the show notes bolstered a little bit.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: That's for sure.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: But I did try to discipline myself with five that I'll go into.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Not like, you know, I'm going to spend 10 minutes on any one of them.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: But what's one of yours?
19:00
SPEAKER_01: What's one of yours that you want to use?
19:02
SPEAKER_01: And let's explore this concept.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: So the first one,
19:05
SPEAKER_02: or not the first one I thought of,
19:06
but the first one I'm going to bring up is A Confederacy of
19:08
Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
19:11
As anybody who's read it knows,
19:13
this is very much a wonderful New Orleans book.
19:16
SPEAKER_02: that just does such a great job of painting descriptions of the city.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And as I've talked about before,
19:22
New Orleans is one of my very favorite places in the US because
19:25
it's one of the few
19:26
places in the US that I've been that does feel different from
19:29
anywhere else that
19:30
SPEAKER_02: I've ever been.
19:30
And that's getting increasingly rare these days in the day and
19:34
age of Starbucks and
19:35
SPEAKER_02: McDonald's and things like that.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: New Orleans still has these pockets where it just feels
19:40
SPEAKER_02: unlike anywhere else that I've been.
19:42
And I think this book does a really nice job of capturing a
19:44
little bit of that.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: So it follows Ignatius J.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Riley,
19:48
SPEAKER_02: who's this comic slash tragic character,
19:52
SPEAKER_02: who's just one of the most memorable I've come across.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And I'll read the description that Tool uses to introduce him,
19:59
SPEAKER_02: which is a great example of the writing in this book.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: It says,
20:02
SPEAKER_02: here at any rate is Ignatius Riley,
20:04
SPEAKER_02: without progenitor in any literature I know of,
20:06
SPEAKER_02: slob extraordinary,
20:08
SPEAKER_02: a mad Oliver Hardy,
20:09
SPEAKER_02: A fat Don Quixote,
20:11
SPEAKER_02: a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one,
20:13
SPEAKER_02: who is in violent revolt against the entire modern age,
20:16
lying in his flannel nightshirt in a back bedroom on
20:19
Constantinople Street in New Orleans,
20:21
SPEAKER_02: who,
20:22
SPEAKER_02: between gigantic seizures of flatulence and erectations,
20:26
SPEAKER_02: is filling dozens of Big Chief tablets with invective.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: So I just love that description.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: And as a character,
20:32
SPEAKER_02: he is just so funny and more than just funny,
20:35
SPEAKER_02: but he's a 30 year old guy who lives at home with his mom.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: And it is set in early 1960s, New Orleans.
20:42
And so much of the novel takes place as we're following him
20:45
around as he's kind of
20:46
SPEAKER_02: half-heartedly looking for jobs in New Orleans,
20:49
which is kind of this vehicle we get to kind of explore the
20:52
city through his eyes.
20:53
And so there's all kinds of great descriptions of various
20:56
colorful characters who
20:57
SPEAKER_02: live in the French Quarter,
20:58
SPEAKER_02: and elsewhere in the city.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: And apparently I didn't realize this,
21:02
SPEAKER_02: but a lot of it is at least somewhat,
21:04
SPEAKER_02: um,
21:04
SPEAKER_02: autobiographical about tool.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: He grew up in new Orleans.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: Um,
21:09
SPEAKER_02: and apparently it,
21:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:11
SPEAKER_02: as we're following Ignatius,
21:12
SPEAKER_02: the character,
21:13
SPEAKER_02: he kind of is looking,
21:14
SPEAKER_02: like I said,
21:14
SPEAKER_02: for work and he goes to like the levy pants manufacturing plant.
21:18
And then he ends up selling lucky hot dogs on the streets of
21:20
the French quarter.
21:22
And apparently those kinds of mirror some of the jobs that tool
21:25
had growing up.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: Um,
21:27
SPEAKER_02: And so I think,
21:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:28
SPEAKER_02: maybe that's where you can get some of the...
21:30
That's maybe part of the reason the character is so strong is
21:32
because Tool had
21:33
SPEAKER_02: lived this life.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: And so anyway, yeah, it's just such a good book.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: When I went to New Orleans,
21:41
SPEAKER_02: I was delighted to find Lucky Hot Dog stands around the French Quarter.
21:45
And I got my picture taken with one because it was just so cool
21:48
to like kind of
21:49
SPEAKER_02: walk in the footsteps of Mr.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Ignatius Riley.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I think it's just...
21:55
There's so many quintessential New Orleans books that it would
21:57
be hard to define one of them.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, Faulkner is heavily identified and many other great authors.
22:03
But I think this is one of those books that kind of in a comic
22:05
and kind of
22:06
SPEAKER_02: exaggerated and silly way mirrors the city,
22:11
which is also sometimes very bizarre and dysfunctional and all
22:14
these things that
22:15
SPEAKER_02: Ignatius Reilly is.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, you've read that one, right?
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was on my honorable mention list.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: And one that I moved off my list relatively late in the game.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so we almost had to go there.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's such a vivid place and setting in my mind as well.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: It's been a while since I read it.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: I need to reread it.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Me too.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: As I was reading...
22:45
passages from it and kind of just doing a little research to
22:48
remind myself of some
22:49
SPEAKER_02: of the details.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: It was really giving me a strong inkling to pick it up again.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: And New Orleans does have a lot of great books set in there.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: I can mention them now or later.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: For example, The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy.
23:04
Like I was thinking that would be a great one because it also
23:06
spends a lot of time
23:07
in the French Quarter dealing with a bunch of the oddball
23:10
characters who are
23:10
SPEAKER_02: hanging out at bars and different things.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: So as I was thinking about this book,
23:14
SPEAKER_02: and city books in general.
23:15
It's funny how there's echoes of other city books that kind of
23:18
ping in your mind,
23:19
SPEAKER_02: which I think was kind of fun about this exercise too.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, what's your first book?
23:26
SPEAKER_01: All right.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: This is one I don't think I've brought up on the podcast before,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: but it is one of my,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:33
SPEAKER_01: a book that really struck me.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say one of my favorites.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's the case or not,
23:36
but one that I certainly really enjoyed and really loved what
23:39
it made me think of.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: And it is The City and the City by China Mieville.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Such an interesting concept.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: And for people who are like...
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go read that right now.
23:54
Maybe don't listen to me for too long because part of the fun
23:57
is understanding what's going on.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not going to spoil it too much.
24:02
I just want to be able to discuss it a little bit and what's
24:05
going on here.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: It takes place in a fictional Eastern European city called Bezel.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: And we have a detective who is investigating a murder.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, in this setting, Bezel has a twin city called Ulcoma.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Very different, different culture, different people, a lot of things.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: And then there's a legendary city called Orsini,
24:36
SPEAKER_01: which it is said exists in the spaces between Bezel and Ulcoma.
24:43
And one of the things that I loved about this was it took me a
24:46
while to try to wrap
24:48
SPEAKER_01: my mind around how this could happen physically because it really can't.
24:53
But I think that's part of the fun of the book is what does
24:58
this mean to have these
24:59
SPEAKER_01: twin cities and something in between?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: And so here is a little bit of a quote from it.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: It said, "'It's not just us keeping them apart.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: It's everyone in Bezel and everyone in Ilkoma.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: Every minute, every day, we're only the last ditch.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: It's everyone in the cities who does most of the work.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: It works because you don't blink.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: That's why unseeing and unsensing are so vital.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: No one can admit it doesn't work.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't admit it, it does.'"
25:32
SPEAKER_01: But if you breach,
25:32
SPEAKER_01: even if it's not your fault,
25:34
SPEAKER_01: for more than the shortest time,
25:36
SPEAKER_01: you can't come back from that.
25:39
And so the idea here is that these two cities exist in the
25:42
exact same space.
25:45
And it's through unseeing the people and places that are the
25:52
other city that
25:54
that you're able to exist within your own city and somehow
25:57
they're able to travel
25:58
SPEAKER_01: back and forth,
25:58
SPEAKER_01: especially as,
25:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:59
SPEAKER_01: he's a,
26:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:01
SPEAKER_01: he's investigating a crime.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Um,
26:04
but to maintain this barrier between two places that exist
26:09
right within one another
26:11
SPEAKER_01: requires everybody to,
26:13
SPEAKER_01: to work toward that.
26:14
And the implications of that for our real life cities and the
26:18
places that we ignore
26:19
SPEAKER_01: or don't see,
26:20
SPEAKER_01: um,
26:22
SPEAKER_01: It was such a strong book about actual cities to me.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: I really loved this book.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: It's a fantasy.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: It's fun.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: It's a police procedural kind of investigation.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: There's all kinds of things going on in it,
26:39
SPEAKER_01: but at its heart is this really interesting concept that is very serious.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
26:46
he is an author that I've known about for decades and have
26:49
always wanted to read
26:50
SPEAKER_02: and have yet to read a single book by him.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: I remember when Perdido Street Station came back clear back in 2000.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: That was, I think, the first time I'd heard about him.
26:59
And it probably was on Palimpsest that we bring up so often
27:01
that I heard about it,
27:02
maybe.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: But wherever it was, I heard a lot about that one.
27:06
And I've always been intrigued by him,
27:08
but I've yet to ever read his books.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: That one sounds really good.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I would recommend it as a starting point.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I haven't read all of his books or anything like that.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: In fact, right now, I know I haven't read Perdido Street Station.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: I know I've read a couple of other ones, but it was really strong.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: Made me want to read more of his work and keep exploring him.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Incidentally, I've always said his name just in my mind, China Mieville.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Turns out that is how he says it.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: But the reason that I know that is I looked up on YouTube...
27:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, interview with China at Mieville.
27:45
And there's like three or four interviews between him and Keanu
27:48
Reeves that just
27:49
SPEAKER_01: came out not too long ago.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, figure out what is going on here.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you'll have to do some research and maybe report back.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: It did,
28:01
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
28:01
SPEAKER_01: just as I'm sitting there thinking about it,
28:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever seen the John Wick movies,
28:05
SPEAKER_01: but The City and the City,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: I think there's some resonance between all of that.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's what they're talking about.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe.
28:16
It may be a bit of a stretch,
28:17
but Matrix has some kind of interdimensionality too.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's interesting.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: I'll be curious to hear what you think.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: All right.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, what else do you got?
28:26
So my second book is actually a nonfiction book and it's called
28:30
Behind the
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful Forevers by Catherine Boo.
28:33
And this is one of the ones I don't believe I've ever brought
28:35
it up in the past.
28:37
It came out back in 2012 to much acclaim and it eventually
28:41
ended up winning the
28:41
SPEAKER_02: National Book Award and quite a few other awards.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: So it was...
28:44
SPEAKER_02: very well known at the time.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: Like I said,
28:47
SPEAKER_02: it's a nonfiction book that's set in at that time,
28:50
SPEAKER_02: at least the present day and focuses on a slum inside of Mumbai,
28:56
SPEAKER_02: India called Anawadi.
28:58
And so it's interesting because it's almost a city within a
29:01
city book because yes,
29:03
SPEAKER_02: the slum does,
29:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:05
SPEAKER_02: sit inside of Mumbai,
29:07
SPEAKER_02: but it is very much its own community and,
29:10
SPEAKER_02: and,
29:10
It's really interesting because it sits directly next to the
29:13
international airport
29:15
SPEAKER_02: there in Mumbai.
29:16
And the book itself ends up focusing on several of the
29:20
characters who live there.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: One of them is a young trash picker who makes his living,
29:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:26
SPEAKER_02: literally going through the trash and selling it.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: There's another woman who ends up kind of
29:31
SPEAKER_02: described as a slum lord,
29:32
but she's basically trying to figure out a way to kind of make
29:35
a living in a very
29:36
SPEAKER_02: different way within this area.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: But it's just,
29:39
SPEAKER_02: there's so many strong characters,
29:40
SPEAKER_02: which is fascinating,
29:41
SPEAKER_02: but the slum city itself was what has stuck with me out of this book,
29:46
SPEAKER_02: just both because of the horrific conditions that these people live in,
29:50
SPEAKER_02: but also it does,
29:51
Catherine Boo does a nice job of highlighting their ingenuity
29:54
and their creativity
29:55
and their resilience as they're making their livings in this
29:58
terrible environment.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: So
30:00
Apparently,
30:00
this slum was an area that was initially created and kind of settled.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: People were working on the airports.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Migrant workers came in to work on the airport.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: And then they basically just never left.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: And over time, the city just kept building up and building up.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: And so by the point that this book was written,
30:16
it was this extremely crowded area that was just filled with a
30:19
very primitive,
30:20
SPEAKER_02: basic housing.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, these, you know, I don't even know.
30:24
just tin roofs and cardboard walls and just whatever they could
30:28
kind of get to live in.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: And so Catherine Boo spent a couple of years living,
30:34
SPEAKER_02: or maybe not living,
30:35
but going down there all the time and kind of just getting to
30:37
really know the
30:37
inhabitants of the city and just kind of following how they
30:41
managed to scrabble
30:42
SPEAKER_02: together a life amidst all this poverty and disease and hunger.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: And it's a very violent place.
30:48
And there's also the authorities are constantly coming in and
30:51
doing these sweeps
30:51
SPEAKER_02: where they'll just take bulldozers and level big
30:54
SPEAKER_02: areas of the city.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: And so obviously, it's a very political and socially focused book.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: But she just does such a wonderful job of amidst that,
31:03
SPEAKER_02: like highlighting the bigger issues at play,
31:05
SPEAKER_02: but also really spending some time with the people that live
31:08
SPEAKER_02: like I said, in these very brutal circumstances.
31:11
So I just had a couple of quotes that I thought were really
31:13
good that she sprinkled in.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: And it says,
31:16
SPEAKER_02: in America and Europe,
31:17
SPEAKER_02: it was said,
31:18
people know what is going to happen when they turn on the water
31:21
tap or flick on the
31:22
SPEAKER_02: light switch.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: In India,
31:24
SPEAKER_02: a land of few safe assumptions,
31:26
chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted,
31:29
SPEAKER_02: creative problem solvers.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: So that was one.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: Then she says, what was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere too.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: In the age of global market capitalism,
31:39
SPEAKER_02: hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived,
31:41
SPEAKER_02: which blunted a sense of common predicament.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: Poor people didn't unite.
31:46
They competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as
31:49
slender as they were provisional.
31:51
And this under city strife created only the faintest ripple in
31:54
the fabric of the
31:54
SPEAKER_02: society at large.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: The gates of the rich occasionally rattled, remained unbreached.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: The politicians held forth on the middle class.
32:02
The poor took down one another and the world's great unequal
32:05
cities soldiered on in
32:07
SPEAKER_02: relative peace.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: So it's just, she's so good.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: She's such a good writer.
32:13
And I think that maybe echoes a little bit about what you were
32:15
talking about with
32:16
SPEAKER_02: the China Mieville with the gates of the rich occasionally rattled,
32:19
SPEAKER_02: but remained unbreached.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: you know,
32:21
the idea that there are these separate cities where much of
32:25
Mumbai is going on
32:26
SPEAKER_02: about its business and the rich are just fine,
32:28
SPEAKER_02: the middle class are doing their thing.
32:30
And they don't even really think about this whole group of
32:34
people who are just
32:35
SPEAKER_02: living in this horrific place and making a living.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: And it is interesting because she doesn't glorify any part of it and
32:45
SPEAKER_02: Like I was talking about the resiliency,
32:47
but a lot of is what she just talked about where how economic
32:51
circumstances and
32:52
SPEAKER_02: capitalism have kind of forced a lot of these people,
32:54
SPEAKER_02: even though they're poor,
32:54
SPEAKER_02: they don't unite in a common cause.
32:56
SPEAKER_02: They are having to just fight for every scrap, even amongst themselves.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: So obviously not a very feel good book, but a very important book.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, very, very deserving, I would say, of the National Book Award.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: It's stuck with me for now, what, 15 years since I read it.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: It's really good.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: Have you read that one?
33:14
SPEAKER_01: I haven't read that one.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've heard about it.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: And I do like I don't think you mentioned the subtitle is Life,
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity,
33:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:27
SPEAKER_01: just,
33:28
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:28
SPEAKER_01: the very term,
33:29
SPEAKER_01: the very word Undercity.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: And all that that suggests about hierarchy and place.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, you're right.
33:37
I think it goes very much with the city and the city in some of
33:41
that exploration of
33:43
SPEAKER_01: what do we live next to,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: but try to ignore.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a very powerful.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: And like I said, just.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:50
SPEAKER_02: I think in different hands,
33:51
SPEAKER_02: it could have been,
33:52
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:52
SPEAKER_02: poverty porn or something like that,
33:54
SPEAKER_02: where you're kind of just like looking at these people and only,
33:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
33:58
SPEAKER_02: kind of thinking about the parts that to you seem so brutal.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: And there is that,
34:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
34:03
SPEAKER_02: she does not shrink away from any of the brutality,
34:05
SPEAKER_02: but like I said,
34:05
I think she does an amazing job of focusing in on the
34:09
individual people who live
34:10
there and kind of giving a glimpse into individual lives and
34:12
how there's very
34:13
SPEAKER_02: different ways that these people are,
34:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:15
SPEAKER_02: scrabbling out a living and making it work for them.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, really good stuff.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm going to rearrange my list just a little bit.
34:23
This is one that was on my list,
34:25
but in terms of just when I'll bring it up.
34:26
I want to move up The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K.
34:32
Le Guin.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: Um,
34:34
because I feel like it just thematically fits so well with the
34:38
books that we're,
34:39
SPEAKER_01: we're talking about right now.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, have you read this little story?
34:43
SPEAKER_01: I've not.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Paul, such a good one.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Classic.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, very, you know, lots of debates about it online.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, I love it.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
34:55
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the premise?
34:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to spoil it too much.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: I don't.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: I've read some of Ursula Le Guin's stuff,
35:01
SPEAKER_02: like the Earthsea trilogy and a few others,
35:04
SPEAKER_02: but no,
35:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm not familiar with this one.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: All right.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tiptoe around some things.
35:12
Though,
35:13
honestly,
35:13
the fun here is the writing is absolutely vibrant and just powerful.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Here's how it begins.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring,
35:23
SPEAKER_01: the festival of summer came to the city Omelas,
35:26
SPEAKER_01: bright-towered by the sea.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: The ringing of the boats in harbour sparkled with flags.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: In streets,
35:32
SPEAKER_01: between houses with red roofs and painted walls,
35:35
SPEAKER_01: between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees,
35:39
SPEAKER_01: past great parks and public buildings,
35:42
SPEAKER_01: processions moved.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And so we have this city by the bay,
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Omelis,
35:47
SPEAKER_01: that is just,
35:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
35:48
SPEAKER_01: everything she uses to describe it is just wonderful.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: The people, the place, it's a fairytale city, you know, a fable.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: But she goes a little bit deeper to talk about the joy here.
36:04
And one of the parts that I like is she says,
36:06
Joyous,
36:07
how is one to tell about joy?
36:09
SPEAKER_01: How describe the citizens of Omelis?
36:12
SPEAKER_01: They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: But we do not say the words of cheer much anymore.
36:18
And just kind of goes on to really emphasize that this is
36:23
genuinely a utopia.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: This is a great place.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: This isn't happiness in ignorance.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: This isn't happiness because they've been hoodwinked or they,
36:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:34
this isn't like in the Lego movie where everything is awesome
36:40
kind of situation.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: And she just continues to kind of push on that.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: She says,
36:55
SPEAKER_01: this is the treason of the artist,
36:58
SPEAKER_01: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: And so she really pushes through to say these are happy.
37:06
They are not naive and happy children,
37:10
though their children were in fact happy.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: And again, she just continues to dig into all these things.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: They're free.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: It's not because of religion.
37:21
It's not because of this massive similarity on all these
37:25
different things.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this is religion.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: Clergy.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: No.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: It just goes through so much of this.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: But there is a catch in this city that is the cost of this happiness.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And the question that the title is asking is,
37:51
SPEAKER_01: if you know this catch,
37:53
which every single person who lives in Omelas at a certain time
37:59
in their life is
38:00
SPEAKER_01: introduced to this catch,
38:03
SPEAKER_01: And then was able to choose,
38:04
do I stay in this perfect place or do I walk away because the
38:08
cost is too high?
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And man,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: it is a powerful little short story that,
38:15
SPEAKER_01: again,
38:16
deals with the city and the people within it and the beauties
38:21
of this city,
38:22
but the cost of maintaining this city and this joy that its
38:27
inhabitants feel.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: I read it quite often.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: It is a really...
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Really good story for so many reasons.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that sounds amazing.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it's probably in a few different collections.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: In which collection do you have it?
38:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, it says it's from the wind 12 quarters.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: But it's short enough.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: If you Google it, you'll find multiple places where you can just read it.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: No, for sure.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: I'll have to check that one out too.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: All right.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Are you doing it right now?
39:06
SPEAKER_01: I'll be back.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: I'll report back after I read it.
39:10
Now,
39:11
my next one is one that I have talked about,
39:12
but I just couldn't leave it off the list.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: And I guess I'm cheating a little bit because really it's four books.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: So basically it's My Brilliant Friend,
39:22
SPEAKER_02: but also The Neapolitan Quartet as a whole by Alina Ferrante,
39:26
SPEAKER_02: translated by Ann Goldstein.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: I know I've talked about these,
39:30
SPEAKER_02: you know,
39:31
SPEAKER_02: here and there over the course of our podcast,
39:34
SPEAKER_02: but this is just one of those books.
39:36
Like I said,
39:36
there's no way I could leave this off if we're talking about
39:38
city books.
39:39
And this is the one that made me think about what your wife
39:42
said about city book
39:44
SPEAKER_02: versus a neighborhood book,
39:45
SPEAKER_02: because it's very much both.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: As most people probably know the premise by now,
39:50
it follows two young girls or starts out following two young
39:53
girls living in kind
39:55
SPEAKER_02: of post-war Naples.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: and then goes on from there.
40:00
But as I was kind of thinking about this and looking up
40:03
different books and doing research,
40:05
SPEAKER_02: I stumbled across Europa Editions,
40:07
SPEAKER_02: who puts it out here in the US.
40:09
They put out a list a few years ago called 10 Great Novels
40:12
Every Urbanist Should Read.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: And this was on there.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: And I love their description of the book in that little...
40:19
SPEAKER_02: Article they wrote,
40:20
SPEAKER_02: so it says,
40:21
SPEAKER_02: Opening in post-war Naples,
40:22
SPEAKER_02: a city of astonishing scarcity,
40:24
SPEAKER_02: we follow Elena Greco into the late 1950s.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Greco,
40:29
SPEAKER_02: the daughter of the porter,
40:30
SPEAKER_02: grows up in a neighborhood shaped by ordinary violence,
40:33
SPEAKER_02: gossip,
40:33
SPEAKER_02: and deprivation.
40:35
This is a book that gracefully untangles entrenched patterns of
40:38
urban poverty and
40:40
reveals how generational legacies of sexism and illiteracy
40:43
distort a city's power
40:44
SPEAKER_02: dynamics and stunt its very best minds.
40:48
Look especially for how Ferrante portrays Naples' education
40:51
system and how the
40:52
SPEAKER_02: politics of language,
40:53
SPEAKER_02: dialect versus polished Italian,
40:55
SPEAKER_02: influence how characters navigate the city.
40:58
And I thought that was just a great summary of so much of what
41:01
I was thinking about
41:02
SPEAKER_02: with this book,
41:03
SPEAKER_02: of just these two girls are born into these pre-established things,
41:07
SPEAKER_02: the gender dynamics,
41:12
SPEAKER_02: let's face it,
41:12
SPEAKER_02: the misogyny that takes place there,
41:14
SPEAKER_02: the poverty they're born into,
41:17
SPEAKER_02: Like they said,
41:17
SPEAKER_02: the way that the education system kind of predestined in some ways,
41:22
the way that these children who are born into a particular
41:25
neighborhood are likely
41:27
SPEAKER_02: going to have to stay there.
41:29
But then as we follow the characters,
41:30
we can kind of see their divergent paths.
41:33
in different ways as one of them starts to kind of break free
41:36
of the neighborhood
41:37
the other one kind of ends up being entrenched more back into
41:39
the neighborhood and
41:40
there's kind of this push and pull back and forth of of naples
41:45
as a whole but also
41:45
the neighborhood itself um and yeah it's just one of the
41:50
strongest examples i can
41:51
think of of what i was talking about where the city plays an
41:53
active role as a
41:54
SPEAKER_02: character um
41:56
SPEAKER_02: It's not just these two women,
41:58
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
41:58
SPEAKER_02: we're following different characters from the neighborhood,
42:02
SPEAKER_02: both men and women.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: Some of them,
42:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
42:06
the women that are a little bit older are kind of already
42:08
entrenched in these kind
42:09
SPEAKER_02: of sexism tropes,
42:13
SPEAKER_02: I guess you'd say,
42:14
SPEAKER_02: and the men.
42:16
SPEAKER_02: kind of dominate in certain areas,
42:17
SPEAKER_02: but then you'll get other women who,
42:19
SPEAKER_02: in their own ways,
42:20
SPEAKER_02: find ways to shape the neighborhood,
42:22
SPEAKER_02: maybe a little bit behind the scenes and let them in,
42:24
SPEAKER_02: think that they're in control,
42:25
SPEAKER_02: but there's actually more going on.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: So there's just layers and layers, and I really found it so fascinating.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: There's a couple of quotes that I thought I would read.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: At one point,
42:36
SPEAKER_02: Elena is talking about the city,
42:38
SPEAKER_02: and this is later in the trilogy,
42:39
SPEAKER_02: so she's kind of looking back on her life a little bit,
42:42
SPEAKER_02: but she says,
42:42
SPEAKER_02: life can have an ironic geometry.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: Starting from the age of 13 or 14,
42:46
SPEAKER_02: I had aspired to a bourgeois decorum,
42:49
SPEAKER_02: proper Italian,
42:50
SPEAKER_02: a good life,
42:51
SPEAKER_02: cultured and reflective.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: Naples had seemed a wave that would drown me.
42:56
I didn't think the city could contain life forms different from
42:59
those I had known
42:59
SPEAKER_02: as a child,
43:00
SPEAKER_02: violent or sensually lazy,
43:02
tinged with sentimental vulgarity or obtusely fortified in
43:06
defense of their own
43:07
SPEAKER_02: wretched degradation.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: And,
43:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:10
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to give away too much,
43:12
SPEAKER_02: but obviously to some degree,
43:13
SPEAKER_02: she is the one that manages to break away.
43:15
But it's this idea that she's looking back and remembering how
43:19
hard that was and
43:20
SPEAKER_02: also kind of reflecting on the fact that even though she's gone,
43:22
SPEAKER_02: her family still lives there.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: A lot of her friends still live there.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: And then as she gets older and has a family of her own,
43:29
SPEAKER_02: there's just these different poles back as well.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: So there's all that going on,
43:33
but I thought there's this one scene and they actually did it
43:35
really well in the
43:36
SPEAKER_02: HBO miniseries too,
43:38
SPEAKER_02: where it's this night of celebration,
43:40
SPEAKER_02: but it ends up having some tension to it.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: And it kind of,
43:43
SPEAKER_02: what this book does is captures a lot of like,
43:45
SPEAKER_02: just under the surface,
43:46
SPEAKER_02: there's this violence.
43:48
SPEAKER_02: And so there's always this tension in the air that's really well done.
43:50
SPEAKER_02: And so I'll just read this part real quick.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: It says,
43:54
The last night of the year was a night of battle in the
43:57
neighborhood and throughout Naples.
43:59
Dazzling lights,
44:00
explosions,
44:01
the dense smoke from the gunpowder made everything hazy.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: It entered the houses, burned your eyes, made you cough.
44:07
But the pop of the poppers,
44:08
the hiss of the rockets,
44:10
the cannonades of the missiles had a cost.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: And as usual, those who set off the most were those with the most money.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: We Grecos had no money.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: At my house, the contribution to the end of the year fireworks was small.
44:21
my father bought a box of sparklers one of wheels and one of
44:24
slender rockets at
44:26
midnight he put in my hand since i was the oldest the stem of a
44:29
sparkler or of a
44:30
catherine wheel and lighted it and i stood motionless excited
44:33
and terrified staring
44:35
at the whirling sparks the brief swirls of fire a short
44:38
distance from my fingers
44:40
He then stuck the shafts of the rockets in glass bottles on the
44:42
marble windowsill,
44:44
SPEAKER_02: burned the fuses with the tip of his cigarette,
44:45
SPEAKER_02: and excitedly launched the luminous whistles into the sky.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Then he threw the bottles, too, into the street.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: And I just thought,
44:53
SPEAKER_02: you know,
44:53
SPEAKER_02: that's not explicitly about the city,
44:55
SPEAKER_02: but even in there you can pick up the social undertones of,
44:58
SPEAKER_02: like,
44:59
the people with the most money are setting off these big
45:01
elaborate displays of fireworks.
45:03
SPEAKER_02: Those with less money are doing their best to kind of fit in.
45:05
And then that scene goes in some interesting directions where
45:08
there's a little bit
45:08
SPEAKER_02: of like more overt class warfare going on.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: So anyway,
45:14
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
45:15
SPEAKER_02: those books just Naples as a whole,
45:18
SPEAKER_02: but their particular neighborhood in particular,
45:21
it's one of the strongest I can think of over the course of
45:23
four books of just a
45:24
SPEAKER_02: neighborhood shaping the characters and playing such an active role
45:28
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, like I said, I just couldn't leave that one off.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: You know,
45:32
SPEAKER_01: I read maybe half of the first one and was enjoying it,
45:36
SPEAKER_01: but also couldn't quite find my footing.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: And I've never gone back.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: However, as we're reading Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante...
45:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
45:47
SPEAKER_01: man,
45:47
SPEAKER_01: this feels very familiar,
45:49
SPEAKER_01: like this very telenovela-ist approach to this kind of stuff.
45:58
But I've been wanting to go back and try to get through the
46:01
Neapolitan Quartet,
46:03
SPEAKER_01: but I haven't done it yet.
46:04
Bringing up the telenovela thing is very interesting because,
46:06
yeah,
46:07
it does.
46:08
If you looked at just the stories and the way it's described in
46:12
an A to Z format,
46:14
SPEAKER_02: it very much could take on some soap opera-esque
46:17
qualities but again the author's writing is hopefully you got a
46:20
glimpse of from
46:21
that little firework session section and some other ones and
46:24
then just the deeper
46:25
things that are going on between the two women but also just
46:27
like i said the
46:29
economic and political and gender politics and all that stuff
46:32
does add all kinds of
46:34
SPEAKER_02: layers to it for sure
46:36
SPEAKER_01: All right.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, the next one that I want to bring up, I think you've read this one.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: We probably all did back in the day.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Again,
46:42
this is one that I remember hearing about from John Self and
46:46
probably talked about
46:47
SPEAKER_01: it on Palimpsest,
46:47
SPEAKER_01: but this is Richard Price's Lush Life.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: It was on my list too, but I didn't end up doing it.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, this takes place in the lower east side of Manhattan.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: And at the time that I read it, my office was down there.
47:03
That's where I worked every day and,
47:06
you know,
47:06
would walk around at times.
47:09
SPEAKER_01: Just in such an interesting, small, but yet massive world.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, small in size, but massive in all that it contains.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: And this is a police procedural with a, you know, murder.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: And it's a murder of a young white man.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it is trying to look at that in this unique city scape,
47:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
47:36
SPEAKER_01: this unique place.
47:37
Um,
47:38
and I guess in a way this can feel a little bit like a,
47:40
uh,
47:42
a neighborhood book too.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the lower East side of Manhattan.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: Um,
47:46
but there's just so many parts of this book that I felt
47:49
explored this mismatch of
47:52
SPEAKER_01: cultures and,
47:54
SPEAKER_01: uh,
47:54
SPEAKER_01: all of the stuff that's going on down there,
47:57
SPEAKER_01: the prejudices,
48:00
SPEAKER_01: the ugly side of all this,
48:01
SPEAKER_01: as well as,
48:02
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:03
SPEAKER_01: the interesting thing.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: There's actually a quote that I thought,
48:05
SPEAKER_01: well,
48:06
SPEAKER_01: this is someone who's looking on this as positive.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: It says, you know why this isn't too bad a place?
48:11
SPEAKER_01: The kids are so close to all walks of life around here, you know?
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Most projects are kind of like...
48:17
SPEAKER_01: That's all they know.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: But you go two blocks in any direction from here,
48:21
SPEAKER_01: you got Wall Street,
48:22
SPEAKER_01: Chinatown,
48:23
SPEAKER_01: the Lower East Side.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: They're like release valves, you know.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: They give you the confidence to mix it up in the world.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: But there's so much that happens here.
48:36
um in this book and uh and again it it it's all within a few
48:41
square miles and maybe
48:43
even not even that much space that this this these whole worlds
48:47
that again don't
48:48
don't you know coexist but don't uh always see each other um
48:54
nevertheless come
48:55
together in this uh interesting and very very compelling to
48:59
read in fact i looked
49:00
SPEAKER_01: it back at my review and
49:02
SPEAKER_01: And I was like,
49:02
I'm glad I'm learning not to sleep at night because I'd just
49:06
read 2666 with my son
49:09
SPEAKER_01: not sleeping.
49:10
And I said,
49:12
I finally feel like I was starting to get into a decent bedtime.
49:16
SPEAKER_01: And then I started Richard Price's Lush Life.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: Very compelling.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: I remember reading it quite fast and late into the night.
49:24
It's a good book for many reasons,
49:26
but definitely a great city book for me.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: He's such a good author.
49:29
SPEAKER_02: And for people who don't know,
49:30
SPEAKER_02: anybody who has seen that HBO series,
49:32
SPEAKER_02: The Wire,
49:33
SPEAKER_02: he was one of the writers on that show.
49:35
SPEAKER_02: And his books have a lot of that same,
49:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
49:39
SPEAKER_02: the dialogue in particular is what stands out to me.
49:41
He is so good at capturing the different types of dialogue that
49:44
take place within a
49:45
SPEAKER_02: city and working it in seamlessly.
49:47
SPEAKER_02: But like you said, so compelling and fascinating.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: It's not necessarily typically a genre of book that I am drawn to,
49:55
SPEAKER_02: but any time that I see he has a new one out,
49:58
SPEAKER_02: I immediately pick it up.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: I have three or four of his that I still need to get to,
50:03
SPEAKER_02: but the ones that I've read,
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Clockers and Lush Life,
50:06
SPEAKER_02: are the first two that come to mind.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a couple of other ones I've read.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: He's a great author.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you brought him up.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: So did you get Lazarus, man?
50:14
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get that one yet.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: I got the whites,
50:16
SPEAKER_02: which he wrote under originally a pen name and then ended up kind of,
50:20
SPEAKER_02: everybody knew it was him anyway.
50:21
SPEAKER_02: So I think they just published it.
50:23
Eventually they're like,
50:24
well,
50:24
I don't know why we did that,
50:25
but no,
50:26
I do need to get that one.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: I didn't.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: I haven't read it myself.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: All right.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, what do you got next?
50:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
50:34
Well,
50:34
another one that I have talked about before,
50:36
but again,
50:36
I couldn't leave it off the list.
50:38
SPEAKER_02: Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu,
50:40
SPEAKER_02: translated by Sean Cotter and out from our friends over at Deep Vellum.
50:44
um again just one of those where i was thinking of trying to
50:48
find some other books
50:49
that i hadn't talked about before but this is another one i
50:52
just couldn't in good
50:53
conscience leave off of a book about cities because the city of
50:57
bucharest in this
50:58
SPEAKER_02: book is one of the strongest memories i have from reading it um
51:03
Yeah,
51:04
I read this book,
51:05
I guess it's been probably a little over a year ago.
51:07
SPEAKER_02: And this is just such a fascinating one.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: It's based on the author's own experiences growing up in the city.
51:15
SPEAKER_02: And then he was also a high school teacher there in Bucharest.
51:18
And so a lot of it does kind of follow that,
51:23
the characters doing a lot of those same things.
51:25
And it takes place in Romania in the late 70s and early 80s,
51:29
1980s,
51:29
I should say.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: And for the most part,
51:32
SPEAKER_02: The picture he paints of the city is not at all flattering.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: This is kind of the urban decay lens of looking at a city, I think.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: Like I said,
51:42
SPEAKER_02: the narrator is a teacher,
51:44
and so he touches at various points on kind of the shortcomings
51:46
of the educational
51:47
SPEAKER_02: system there.
51:49
There's some parts about the healthcare system where some
51:52
procedures are being done
51:53
SPEAKER_02: that are just horrific.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: They kind of bring to mind some of the worst of the Eastern Bloc,
51:58
SPEAKER_02: You know,
51:59
SPEAKER_02: maybe stereotypes,
51:59
but obviously there must be some truth to it because there's
52:02
just some horrific
52:04
SPEAKER_02: health care scenes that take place.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: But what stuck with me the most,
52:07
SPEAKER_02: I think,
52:08
was some of the fascinating and haunting descriptions of the
52:11
city itself as the
52:12
SPEAKER_02: narrator kind of makes his way across the cityscape.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: experiences various hallucinations and dreams and some kind of borderline
52:20
SPEAKER_02: supernatural occurrences.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: And so there's a few quotes that I was going to read again,
52:25
SPEAKER_02: because I just,
52:25
SPEAKER_02: again,
52:25
SPEAKER_02: that's one of the best ways I think to capture some of these books.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: And it says,
52:29
SPEAKER_02: Bucharest,
52:30
SPEAKER_02: as I understood it at the age of 19,
52:32
SPEAKER_02: when I'd already read everything,
52:33
SPEAKER_02: was not like other cities that developed over time,
52:36
SPEAKER_02: exchanging its huts and warehouses for condominium towers,
52:39
SPEAKER_02: replacing horse-drawn trams with electric ones.
52:43
SPEAKER_02: it had appeared all at once,
52:45
SPEAKER_02: already ruined,
52:46
SPEAKER_02: shattered,
52:46
SPEAKER_02: with its facades fallen and its gargoyles' noses chipped,
52:50
SPEAKER_02: with electric wires hung over the streets and melancholic fixtures,
52:54
SPEAKER_02: with an imaginatively varied industrial architecture.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: And I love that idea of just the city.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: It didn't evolve over time.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: It was created in a ruined state, just such a haunting image.
53:06
And he goes on to describe so many different things where you
53:09
just get that impression,
53:10
SPEAKER_02: like I said,
53:10
SPEAKER_02: of kind of
53:11
SPEAKER_02: ruin and decay and melancholy.
53:13
SPEAKER_02: So here's another one.
53:15
The sun had just begun to go down,
53:17
a halo of rays settling on the roof of the old building.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: From there,
53:21
it sprayed out sadly and in a way darkly since rather than
53:25
illuminate anything,
53:26
SPEAKER_02: it increased the inhuman loneliness of the place.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: And so many,
53:31
that's kind of the mood that has stuck with me from this book
53:33
is just that
53:35
SPEAKER_02: melancholy kind of sunset in the
53:38
SPEAKER_02: the city where,
53:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
53:39
SPEAKER_02: there's just that feeling of just things are shutting down and,
53:43
SPEAKER_02: you know,
53:43
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
53:44
SPEAKER_02: it's just the silhouettes of the buildings and kind of that somber,
53:47
SPEAKER_02: melancholy feeling.
53:49
SPEAKER_02: If I had to describe a takeaway from reading this book,
53:51
SPEAKER_02: that's kind of one of the things that has stuck with me the most.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: So it goes in a million other directions beyond that.
53:57
SPEAKER_02: This book,
53:57
I could probably talk about every single episode of this show
53:59
and talk about
54:00
SPEAKER_02: something different.
54:01
But for this particular one,
54:03
the city of Bucharest and Solenoid in general,
54:07
SPEAKER_02: is a great place to go if somebody's looking for a city book.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
54:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: I still haven't read it.
54:13
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: So many times on my Instagram,
54:17
SPEAKER_01: someone is reading it and I think,
54:19
SPEAKER_01: when am I going to sit down and finally do that?
54:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:22
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is your, you're a big book.
54:23
So maybe you just,
54:24
as soon as you finish one of those,
54:26
why do I need to finish one of them?
54:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's true.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: Just add it to the pile.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: All right.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: My next one is just one of my favorite books of all time.
54:36
SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't,
54:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:39
SPEAKER_01: I probably have talked about it a little bit on here,
54:40
SPEAKER_01: but I don't think too much.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: But this is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
54:45
Just a great London novel that is so familiar if you've
54:51
wandered around London and
54:53
SPEAKER_01: A lot of it are characters walking around this city.
54:57
Mrs.
54:57
Dalloway herself,
54:59
there's a part where she says,
55:00
I love walking in London.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: Really, it's better than walking in the country.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: So you get these London streets, you get these places, you get...
55:11
London as a major part of this book that is about life,
55:19
London,
55:20
and this moment of June.
55:22
It's a single day in London,
55:27
Mrs.
55:27
Dalloway,
55:28
and all these kinds of things are happening.
55:30
But it really is about these interactions with these characters
55:33
and how they're
55:33
SPEAKER_01: kind of dealing with life post-World War I in this big city,
55:39
SPEAKER_01: this big,
55:39
SPEAKER_01: bustling,
55:40
SPEAKER_01: noisy city.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: And you get these noises that connect the characters' daily lives.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: You know,
55:45
SPEAKER_01: they don't maybe even know each other very well,
55:47
SPEAKER_01: or if at all,
55:49
SPEAKER_01: but they brush up against each other on the street.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: Or even if they don't,
55:54
SPEAKER_01: they hear the same car backfiring and it means different things to them,
55:58
SPEAKER_01: but it was also brings them together in their consciousness.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: You got this post-war city consciousness that is being explored in here.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, just masterfully.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time since I've read Mrs.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: Dalloway and I've kind of,
56:14
SPEAKER_01: I won't say the word stall,
56:15
SPEAKER_01: but I've taken a,
56:17
SPEAKER_01: a slower pace on my miss,
56:20
SPEAKER_01: on my Virginia Wolf project.
56:21
SPEAKER_03: Um,
56:22
but anytime it comes to mind,
56:24
I think I've got to get back right to that.
56:26
SPEAKER_01: And I can't wait until I get back to Mrs.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: Dalloway,
56:29
SPEAKER_01: which is a few books in the future for me,
56:31
SPEAKER_01: but I'm excited for it.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: I love that book so much.
56:35
I've been thinking a lot about that one and to the lighthouse
56:37
in particular,
56:38
SPEAKER_02: but because I've read them and loved them,
56:40
SPEAKER_02: but I also,
56:41
one of the things about returning to your favorite books all
56:43
the time is like,
56:44
SPEAKER_02: I also need to read more of her other books that I have not yet.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I've thought about her a lot lately.
56:49
SPEAKER_02: I need to kind of
56:51
SPEAKER_02: Maybe do a deep dive into all of her stuff like you've been doing.
56:54
SPEAKER_02: It's a great choice.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, what do you got at the end here?
56:57
SPEAKER_02: All right, my last one.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: I know we've touched on it a few times,
57:00
SPEAKER_02: but I don't think we've talked about it too much in depth.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: But I know you've read it, Trevor.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: It's Ask the Dust by John Fonte.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
57:07
SPEAKER_02: just this again,
57:09
another book that sprung immediately to mind when I was
57:12
thinking about books I've
57:13
SPEAKER_02: read with kind of just the strongest settings period.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: It takes place in L.A.
57:17
SPEAKER_02: during the Great Depression.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: And we're following this starving artist, Arturo Dominic Bandini.
57:24
He's a struggling writer who's living in just this rundown
57:27
ratty hotel in kind of a
57:30
SPEAKER_02: rough section of downtown L.A.,
57:32
SPEAKER_02: just on the very edge of poverty,
57:34
basically living off of oranges as he just struggles to write
57:38
and survive.
57:39
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, just capturing, I was thinking about a lot of city books.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: Not only do they capture the city itself,
57:45
SPEAKER_02: but many of them capture a certain point in time so well,
57:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
57:51
SPEAKER_02: like LA at this time,
57:53
SPEAKER_02: the great depression is what this book does so well.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, at any time,
57:59
that you're talking about LA there's what we've been talking
58:01
about where there's
58:02
SPEAKER_02: different layers of LA,
58:04
SPEAKER_02: I guess you would say like the super rich and on down the line to the,
58:08
SPEAKER_02: the ignored and those that are poverty stricken and,
58:11
SPEAKER_02: There's so many great quotes in this book I could read about it.
58:14
I could just read,
58:14
I have like 10 that I could read,
58:16
but I know we don't wanna do that.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: But I was debating which one to read,
58:19
but I think based on what we were talking about today and that
58:22
idea of class and
58:24
SPEAKER_02: kind of ignoring people,
58:25
SPEAKER_02: I think this one is the best one.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: So it says, these were my countrymen.
58:29
These were the new Californians with their bright polo shirts
58:32
and sunglasses.
58:33
SPEAKER_02: They were in paradise.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: They belonged.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: But down on Main Street,
58:37
SPEAKER_02: down on town in San Pedro,
58:39
and for a mile on Lower Fifth Street were the tens of thousands
58:42
of others.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: They couldn't afford sunglasses or a four-bit polo shirt,
58:46
SPEAKER_02: and they hid in the alleys by day and slunk off to flophouses by night.
58:50
A cop won't pick you up for vagrancy in LA if you wear a fancy
58:53
polo shirt and a
58:54
SPEAKER_02: pair of sunglasses.
58:55
SPEAKER_02: But if there's dust on your shoes,
58:57
and that sweater you wear is thick like the sweaters they wear
59:00
in the snow countries,
59:00
SPEAKER_02: he'll grab you.
59:02
So get yourselves a polo shirt,
59:03
boys,
59:03
and a pair of sunglasses and white shoes if you can.
59:06
SPEAKER_02: Be collegiate.
59:07
SPEAKER_02: It'll get you anyway.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: After a while,
59:10
SPEAKER_02: after big doses of The Times and The Examiner,
59:12
SPEAKER_02: you too will whoop it up for the sunny south.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: You'll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty,
59:17
SPEAKER_02: vermin-infested apartments and hotels,
59:19
SPEAKER_02: but every morning you'll see the mighty sun,
59:22
SPEAKER_02: the eternal blue of the sky,
59:23
SPEAKER_02: and the streets will be full of sleek women you will never possess,
59:26
SPEAKER_02: and the hot,
59:27
SPEAKER_02: semi-tropical nights will reek of romance you'll never have,
59:30
SPEAKER_02: but you'll still be in Paradise Boys in the land of sunshine.
59:35
As for the folks back home,
59:36
you can lie to them because they hate the truth anyway.
59:39
They won't have it because sooner or later they'll want to come
59:42
out to paradise too.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: And I just think it captures his,
59:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a huge fan of the beats as a genre,
59:50
SPEAKER_02: but he was kind of a little bit pre-beats,
59:52
SPEAKER_02: I think.
59:52
And,
59:53
you know,
59:53
he definitely does have those rhythms and things that they're
59:55
so well known for.
59:57
SPEAKER_02: But this book is just so good about,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: like the starving artist thing and being inside of his head,
1:00:03
but also him looking at all these people around him who are
1:00:06
doing so well.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: And he's kind of forgotten,
1:00:08
but he's not willing to give up paradise in his dreams to kind
1:00:10
of chase the more,
1:00:12
SPEAKER_02: um,
1:00:13
SPEAKER_02: culturally normal way of life.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, just so good.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_02: I, I keep meaning I need to read the rest of the bandini quartet.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: cause I,
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: I love this first one so much,
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: but yeah,
1:00:25
SPEAKER_02: LA depression is just an amazingly powerful setting.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_01: Have you read Wait Until Spring Bandini?
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: No, I haven't.
1:00:33
That one's the only other one that I have read in it and really
1:00:38
like it as well.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it comes before... I think you've read book three.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, was it three?
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_01: He's got The Road to Los Angeles,
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: Wait Until Spring Bandini,
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: Ask the Dust,
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: and then Dreams from Bunker Hill.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: I always thought it was the first, but that makes sense, actually.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:57
Yeah,
1:00:57
I don't think,
1:00:58
I mean,
1:00:59
again,
1:00:59
I've read what book two and four or two and three.
1:01:02
So I've never heard anyone say you got to read them in a
1:01:05
particular way or anything like that.
1:01:07
I know there is like an omnibus edition that's called the
1:01:10
Bandini Quartet that I've
1:01:11
been meaning to pick up for years and I needed to finally pull
1:01:13
the trigger and do it.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_02: I would love to have all of them.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: Nope, that sounds good.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: All right, Paul.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: My last one that I'll bring up until we bring up a bunch,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: is 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time again since I read this one,
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: but it just sticks in my mind this fictional city,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: Macondo.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't exist.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: And again,
1:01:47
SPEAKER_01: it's probably been 20,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: 25 years since I read this book,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: but it still feels like a real place and a real place I've been.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: And with its real history,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: with its real,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_01: all of this,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_01: all of these aspects to it,
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: because it's such a great character in 100 Years of Solitude.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: It is a reason that these characters that we read about come together.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: The book goes over the founding of Macondo,
1:02:15
SPEAKER_01: kind of with the idea of making it almost a utopian place,
1:02:18
SPEAKER_01: a little bit isolated from the rest of the world,
1:02:22
SPEAKER_01: and making sure that it doesn't get tainted,
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: but it doesn't necessarily help all the people within its borders.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: And it also goes through the downfall of Makondo.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_01: And so we get almost the city as a living,
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: breathing organism that itself is birthed and grows and matures and...
1:02:51
slower than the people within it,
1:02:53
you know,
1:02:53
who come and go,
1:02:55
but also it has its own lifespan.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: And I just,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_01: I love the idea of that for places that you've got developments,
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: you've got things that boom,
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: pop up,
1:03:05
SPEAKER_01: grow.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: they're filled with life and then they,
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: they die,
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: we've got so many places like that around us that we could,
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: we could go and see.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_01: And,
1:03:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:15
SPEAKER_01: these old cities with their,
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:03:19
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:03:19
SPEAKER_01: the vestiges of hopes and dreams of the people who lived there,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: families who were forgotten,
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: that,
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: that don't,
1:03:27
SPEAKER_01: no one would know.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_01: No one even knows who really lived there anymore.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: You've got the,
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: the old gas station,
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: the,
1:03:33
SPEAKER_01: the rundown houses that should be torn down,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:38
certainly will be at some time because the city turned out not
1:03:43
to be able to
1:03:43
SPEAKER_01: survive its,
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: its method of growth.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: It,
1:03:46
SPEAKER_01: it didn't,
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: it didn't have enough life giving force or,
1:03:50
SPEAKER_01: or just parts of it,
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: grow old and,
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: And the younger generations don't live in that part of town.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_01: So it, you know, slowly...
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: gets older and more run down until it dies.
1:04:06
And Macondo kind of,
1:04:07
you know,
1:04:08
there's so much else going on in this book.
1:04:10
I mean,
1:04:10
that's almost reductive to put it as a city book in a way,
1:04:13
but it is.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_01: And explores these themes in such an interesting way.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_01: I really do need to go back and reread 100 Years of Solitude.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_02: I do too.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: No, that's a great choice.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_02: And I had forgotten, like you said, that's such a big book.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of times as the years move on and after you've read a book,
1:04:33
there's only certain fleeting images or characters or different
1:04:37
things that stick
1:04:37
SPEAKER_02: with you.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_02: And I'd forgotten about that,
1:04:39
SPEAKER_02: but as you were talking about it,
1:04:40
SPEAKER_02: it was bringing to mind for me exactly what you described.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I loved that book.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_02: And what you were saying about cities over time changing,
1:04:49
SPEAKER_02: an obvious example here in the US is Detroit,
1:04:52
where there's these huge areas around the auto factories that
1:04:55
used to be these
1:04:56
SPEAKER_02: thriving metropolises.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: And now
1:04:57
In many cases,
1:04:58
they're abandoned from miles,
1:05:00
literal miles of houses or fields.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_02: And it's such a haunting thing because like you said,
1:05:04
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:05:04
there was a vibrancy and children were raised there and people
1:05:08
died there and they
1:05:09
SPEAKER_02: spent their Friday nights going to movies there and all these things.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_02: And now it's almost like a ghost town.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: There's a book that came out back around,
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: I think it was,
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: I guess it was the Bicentennial of Colorado.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_02: And it takes pictures from like,
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: I think it's 100 years ago or maybe it's 200 years ago.
1:05:29
But anyways,
1:05:30
it has exact same picture of two different places spread apart
1:05:34
by a century or two.
1:05:36
And when you were talking about that idea that sometimes these
1:05:39
thriving areas end
1:05:40
SPEAKER_02: up growing and becoming even bigger.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_02: But then there's also cases where some of those photos,
1:05:44
SPEAKER_02: they would take a picture of,
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: for example,
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: like a mining town that was just bustling.
1:05:49
And then they would take a picture of it now and it would just
1:05:51
be a field or a
1:05:53
SPEAKER_02: pasture or a prairie.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_02: And it's just interesting the way that cities can kind of,
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: like you said,
1:05:58
SPEAKER_02: surge and die and some areas take off.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: And now they're skyscrapers.
1:06:02
And some areas that used to look like they might have gone that
1:06:05
direction instead,
1:06:06
SPEAKER_02: they're just in a deserted field.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: It's really fascinating.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: I love going to some of the communities in Southern Utah,
1:06:14
SPEAKER_01: where it really is just maybe a foundation of some houses in a row.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_01: And yet the name is something lofty.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:25
I don't know,
1:06:25
uh,
1:06:26
hope or it's like,
1:06:28
Oh,
1:06:28
I don't think you guys lived here too long.
1:06:31
And yeah,
1:06:31
it's,
1:06:32
it's,
1:06:32
it's pretty fascinating to me to think about it that way.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: And those are very different from,
1:06:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:06:35
SPEAKER_01: urban cities that I think have been maybe,
1:06:38
SPEAKER_01: maybe some of the main things we've talked about today.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:06:41
Um,
1:06:41
but I mean,
1:06:43
we could return and talk more about rural stuff,
1:06:45
ghost town,
1:06:46
things,
1:06:46
ghost town.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: So, man, lots of fun topics coming to me.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_01: Um,
1:06:53
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:06:53
As I said,
1:06:54
I do have some that I'll just bring up really quickly as a list.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_01: Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, translated by Damien Searles.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: Man,
1:07:06
I would go on Google Maps and follow Gazina Crespal around
1:07:10
places and see how
1:07:11
things look because he does such a good job of describing her
1:07:14
day-to-day life in 67,
1:07:15
SPEAKER_01: 68 years.
1:07:18
and talking about her approach on the bus to certain places,
1:07:22
and I could just follow her along.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_01: He would talk about the light at certain parts of the day.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_01: It's such a great book for many reasons,
1:07:31
SPEAKER_01: but again,
1:07:32
SPEAKER_01: bringing to life New York at that time for me.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_01: Cannery Row, John Steinbeck, the city of Monterey.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_01: That one was on my list for quite a while until I thought...
1:07:43
SPEAKER_01: To me,
1:07:44
SPEAKER_01: that was a big part of the setting,
1:07:47
SPEAKER_01: but I don't know if I thought too much about...
1:07:51
SPEAKER_01: what it means to be a city or anything like that just felt like a really
1:07:54
SPEAKER_01: interesting and powerful place for me.
1:08:00
You know,
1:08:01
we probably didn't bring it up because it's so obvious,
1:08:05
but Ulysses.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
1:08:06
SPEAKER_02: I was going to mention that one for sure,
1:08:08
SPEAKER_02: but it is so obvious,
1:08:09
SPEAKER_02: but it is one of the ultimate city books really.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_01: Yep, exactly.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_01: The New York Trilogy.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_01: Blinking on his name right now.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_01: Paul Oster.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_01: Paul Oster.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know why I was blinking on his name.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Paul Oster's The New York Trilogy.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_01: Been too long since I read that.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_01: I've not read that one.
1:08:27
Didn't think I could say too much about it,
1:08:29
but I remember it and enjoying it.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: How about Derry, Maine?
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_01: By Stephen King.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_01: Piranesi.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: Is that a city?
1:08:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, good question.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_01: Is it a house?
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: Is it a city?
1:08:45
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
1:08:47
SPEAKER_01: And then The Virgin Suicides is another one.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_01: Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_01: Or some other ones that were all kind of in mind with its depiction of,
1:08:57
SPEAKER_01: as you mentioned,
1:08:58
SPEAKER_01: Detroit.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_01: It does a good job of showing Detroit.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_01: I think it would definitely fit with a lot of what we've talked about.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those are great ones.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I had a few too that I'll mention.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Open City by Teju Cole.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_02: I've talked about it before,
1:09:10
but that's one of the ultimate city walking books exploring the
1:09:14
neighborhoods of
1:09:14
SPEAKER_02: New York.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_02: Like you said, Ulysses, of course.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_02: Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
1:09:19
Just any of his books to some degree,
1:09:21
or most of his books take a fascinating look at London.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_01: I did think you might bring up A Tale of Two Cities.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: I thought about it.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's in the title, but... I know, it's true.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_02: There's two on the nose.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_02: How about this one for one that's in the title then?
1:09:33
SPEAKER_02: The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson.
1:09:35
That is one of the most fascinating books I think I've ever
1:09:39
read about Chicago and
1:09:41
the World's Fair that was taking place in 1893 with a serial
1:09:44
killer on the loose.
1:09:45
But it jumps back and forth between some of the seediness of
1:09:49
that angle of the
1:09:50
story with the great white city that was the World's Fair and
1:09:54
just right on the
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: edge of all these discoveries and inventions.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: That book is so fascinating.
1:10:00
And then another one that I think about a lot and I need to
1:10:03
reread because it's
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: been so long is My Dak Alley by Nagib Mahfouz.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_01: I'd seen that one come up on some lists.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_01: I've never read it.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_02: I remember it's one of the strongest books,
1:10:14
strongest memories I have from my college days is I can't even
1:10:17
remember what class
1:10:18
SPEAKER_02: it was that we read that one.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's amazing.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_02: And that actually,
1:10:22
SPEAKER_02: oh,
1:10:22
one more I was going to bring up is The Amazing Adventures of
1:10:25
Cavalier and Clay.
1:10:27
I think that one is another one that does a great job of,
1:10:29
um,
1:10:30
it's again,
1:10:30
a New York book,
1:10:31
but.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, New York.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_01: I know I've never read it.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_01: I just know that he's got other books that are like Pittsburgh and such.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh wait.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_02: I should probably make sure.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_02: It's been a long, long time since I've read that one.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_02: Don't quote me on the New York thing.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty sure it is though.
1:10:47
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:10:48
yeah probably right yeah i'll have to look it up and make sure
1:10:50
but um but anyway
1:10:51
okay that brings up something else though just real quickly i
1:10:53
know we've already
1:10:54
mentioned a lot of books but are there any books city books
1:10:57
that as you were doing
1:10:58
this or just in general that you would like to get to like on
1:11:02
your next to read
1:11:03
list because i had a couple i'll just talk about real real
1:11:06
briefly so one that i've
1:11:07
been wanting to read for a long time is berlin alexander platz
1:11:10
by alfred doblin um
1:11:13
SPEAKER_02: Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_02: That's one that I've wanted to get to forever and have not had a chance.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_02: One that reminds me a little bit of China Mieville,
1:11:23
SPEAKER_02: and I could be wrong,
1:11:24
SPEAKER_02: but City of Saints and Mad Men by Jeff Vandermeer.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_02: That one is my wife read it years ago.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_02: And as you were describing the works of China Mieville,
1:11:33
SPEAKER_02: and from what I know,
1:11:34
I think there might be some commonalities there with just a
1:11:37
weird city with some
1:11:38
SPEAKER_02: kind of layering or different things going on.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_02: And then I mentioned Nagi Mafu's,
1:11:43
SPEAKER_02: um,
1:11:44
SPEAKER_02: his Cairo trilogy is another one that I have owned for a long time.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_02: And I keep,
1:11:49
SPEAKER_02: it keeps calling to me from the shelf,
1:11:51
SPEAKER_02: but I just have not gotten to it for,
1:11:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
1:11:54
SPEAKER_02: no excuses.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_02: I just need to, but I really want to read that one too.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_02: Cause like I said, I loved my deck alley.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:12:00
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, those are a few that came to mind.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_02: Did you have any off the top of your head?
1:12:04
SPEAKER_01: So the two you mentioned by Mafu's Cairo trilogy, I've had that too.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't have my dark alley, but it was one I put, cause I did this too.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_01: I put down some of the ones I'm like, Ooh, I'd like to read that.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_01: Lawrence derails, the Alexandria quartet.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_01: I've had that on the list for years and years.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'll like it or not.
1:12:23
SPEAKER_01: There's one reason I haven't picked it up yet.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, I don't know.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_01: And then I ran into someone that I don't know too much about.
1:12:30
You know,
1:12:31
how Michener,
1:12:32
James Michener has all of his books about,
1:12:36
you know,
1:12:37
Hawaii.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_01: Centennial.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_01: This is these big, big books like that.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_01: There's Edward Rutherford and his books that,
1:12:49
SPEAKER_01: again,
1:12:49
SPEAKER_01: I'd never really looked at them,
1:12:51
SPEAKER_01: but there's one called London.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_01: There's one called Dublin.
1:12:53
SPEAKER_01: There's one called Ireland and New York, Paris.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's all these that are actually city names.
1:13:02
I know I said Ireland there,
1:13:03
but,
1:13:04
you know,
1:13:04
we do have London,
1:13:05
Dublin,
1:13:06
New York,
1:13:06
Paris.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_01: And it did come up on a few people's lists of city books.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about them.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_01: I didn't spend the time yet to look at them too closely.
1:13:15
But I think it's one that I'd like to look in a little bit more
1:13:20
and see what's going on.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_01: Are they exploring these cities?
1:13:23
SPEAKER_01: Are they just books that take place in them?
1:13:25
SPEAKER_01: Is it a James Mishner-esque thing about these places' histories?
1:13:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_02: The covers do have some Mishner-esque qualities to them.
1:13:35
SPEAKER_02: Almost...
1:13:36
SPEAKER_02: Looking at it online,
1:13:37
they almost look like they could be those little fat mass
1:13:39
market paperback books,
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: but maybe they're not.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, those, I don't know that name either.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_02: Those do look like they could be worth exploring.
1:13:48
But yeah,
1:13:51
I love to think about cities and landscape and things like that.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_01: Go for walks and then to learn about that.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do too.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned Calvino, some of the magical cities.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_02: I was thinking too, like Borges and Stephen Milhauser also do...
1:14:07
fascinating work with cities as these kind of potentially
1:14:11
magical or shape-shifting
1:14:13
or just you know looking at them through this kind of magical
1:14:17
lens that adds a
1:14:18
whole nother level to them as well so those were just a few
1:14:20
others that like not in
1:14:22
a truly realistic sense most of the time but they do an amazing
1:14:27
job writing about
1:14:27
SPEAKER_02: cities too
1:14:30
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_01: Paul, I think that was a fun discussion.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_01: I do too.
1:14:34
SPEAKER_01: That was a lot of fun.
1:14:35
And it does,
1:14:37
as always,
1:14:38
just makes me excited to go and explore and think about these things.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_01: And I hope that,
1:14:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:14:43
SPEAKER_01: while I hope you have a great time at the hockey game,
1:14:45
I hope you also have some good time to sit down and read over
1:14:48
the weekend.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, a long weekend for me.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_01: Do you have Monday?
1:14:52
SPEAKER_01: I do.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_02: I do.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_01: I never had,
1:14:55
SPEAKER_01: well,
1:14:55
SPEAKER_01: ever since I moved,
1:14:56
SPEAKER_01: um,
1:14:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:14:58
SPEAKER_01: 10,
1:14:59
SPEAKER_01: 12 years ago,
1:14:59
SPEAKER_01: uh,
1:15:00
SPEAKER_01: we have not had this as an official holiday at my office,
1:15:03
SPEAKER_01: but they changed it this year.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_02: It'll be nice.
1:15:08
It's a much needed cause I traveled for work last week and then
1:15:11
we've been busy,
1:15:12
um,
1:15:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's fun, but it's still busy.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_02: So it'll be nice to have a little extra day to get some reading in.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_02: So yeah,
1:15:20
SPEAKER_02: as you said,
1:15:20
I hope anybody out there who was spurred to think about city
1:15:24
books by this conversation,
1:15:25
SPEAKER_02: this is a very rich topic.
1:15:28
SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear your favorite city books.
1:15:30
If there's any that you think we should have mentioned that we
1:15:34
didn't or anything
1:15:35
SPEAKER_02: like that,
1:15:35
SPEAKER_02: it'd be a lot of fun to hear from you.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:15:39
And then we'll be back in a couple of weeks with a special
1:15:42
guest with a really fun topic.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_01: We'll kind of share that as it comes.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, have a good one, Paul.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: Have a good one, listeners.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to you soon.
1:15:49
SPEAKER_01: See you later.
1:15:56
Thank you for listening to this episode of the MOOCs and the
1:15:59
Gripes podcast.
1:16:00
You can follow the MOOCs and the Gripes and get show notes and
1:16:03
book and film
1:16:03
SPEAKER_01: reviews at MOOCsandGripes.com.
1:16:06
SPEAKER_01: On Twitter, you can follow Trevor at MOOCs and Paul at BiblioPaul.
1:16:12
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1:16:16
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1:16:19
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1:16:27
SPEAKER_01: Until next time!