Balckwell's Books

This month, we are covering Herman Hesse’s novel, Demian, about a young man named Emil Sinclair who yearns to truly live, free from the shackles of his Christian bourgeois upbringing. Helping him along the way is a mysterious older student named Max Demian, and a hearty helping of Nietzschean philosophy.

In this first episode, I introduce the Overman, and discuss themes from the novel’s first three chapters, including the division of reality into Two Worlds, a few heretical interpretations of Bible stories, and what it means to try to become yourself.

Next month, we will be continuing with Demian, as we explore the book’s second half and hopefully come to some sort of understanding of its enigmatic conclusion.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

Balckwell’s Books takes on Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in an attempt to offer a new spin on a much-discussed novel. Instead of delving into the specific make-up of the World State presented in the novel, I instead take a broader look at the way the book critiques Utopian thinking in general by coming to terms with the unlikable dissenters of Bernard Marx and John Savage, and understanding the satirical mode in which Huxley is writing. While Brave New World often feels that is has been done to death, I feel that there is always something new to be found when approaching a novel from a slightly different perspective.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

Balckwell’s Books is back after a brief delay to bring you Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I attempt to turn back time and reckon with the book without taking into account the centuries of adaptations and modifications, which ends up being quite easy since I haven’t seen any of them, save half of Kenneth Branagh’s strange film.

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus is a chaotic novel, featuring characters that wear their emotions on their sleeves, full of the sort of impassioned anguish and torment that you just don’t find outside of the Gothic tradition. I try to understand these characters, and offer some insight into what their problems really are, as well as how they reflect Shelley’s experiences in life. I also take a look at how the book portrays the relationship between modern and pre-modern science, and its unique take on the Prometheus myth.

Next month’s book will be Demian by Herman Hesse, a classic German novel about a young man trying to forge a meaningful life in the ever-changing modern world. Look forward to it!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

In which I discuss the classic Russian novel, Fathers & Sons by Ivan Turgenev. The book is focused on paternal relationships and the ways in which they are affected by rapidly evolving social conditions such as those experienced by the 19th c. Russian youth. I also get into nihilism: its causes and its characteristics, and the way in which the book portrays Bazarov, who exists on the cutting edge of modernity.

Apologies for the long delays between episodes this month. I’ve just had some stuff going on. This month’s full episode on Frankenstein will possibly be delayed for a few days, or even up to a week due to some complications, and also due to the upcoming release of my own novel, Only in Dreams, which is taking up a good deal of my energy at the moment.

Hope you enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

The third and final part of my series on Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, if that is even his real name. I briefly cover the authorship question surrounding this work, and then move on to explore the philosophical foundation behind the conclusion to Baoyu’s story.

It is hard to say goodbye to this series, as I have spent a good four months or so preparing all these episodes, but I think this is a fitting send-off. Around three hours, as it turns out, is just enough time to say about 75% of what I would like to say about this book, the other 25% being perhaps impossible to put into words. I hope that this series inspires people to take a look at the book themselves, or think about the work more deeply if they have read it in the past.

Thanks for listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

In this episode, I discuss Steinbeck’s final completed novel, The Winter of Our Discontent. This books deals with a changing America, and the ever-present tension between morality and success. Ethan Hawley is caught right in the middle, seeking to restore his family’s reputation along with his own, but realizing that the only way to do so is to temporarily abandon his moral principles, not knowing if he will ever be able to get them back.

Like all of Steinbeck’s work, we are presented with a variety of sympathetic and realistic characters, inhabiting a world we understand and confronting situations we may recognize. Their struggles become our own, and their weaknesses reflect our own. It is hard to find a word to describe his style aside from “elegant,” as he achieves so much so simply, with an apparent effortlessness that speaks to his skill and compassion.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

I originally sat at the computer planning to speak about some other novels, but as I set the microphone before my face, I realized that all I really wanted to talk about was The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

This book, about the tribulations of a young man from Nantucket who, like Robinson Crusoe before him, suffers great misfortune every time he steps on a boat, is one of those bizarre and inconsistent novels that reveal a man writing in great distress, struggling to keep the novel afloat as it sails from scene to scene. Containing gripping moments of anguish and terror, imaginative supernatural phenomena, as well as descriptions of the nesting habits of penguins cribbed straight from the nearest encyclopedia, this is a book you won’t soon forget.

I try to grapple with how this book came to be the way it is, and what exactly it is that it came to be. I discuss the narrative itself, the appeal it held to Jules Verne of all people, and what it can tell us about Poe and his life.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

Part two of my three-part series about Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin. This is one of my favourite books, and one I think many more people in the West should know about and appreciate. It’s a beautiful and deep story, focusing on a small world but still encompassing so much of human life. If you have any interest in Chinese culture, it is a must-read, and if you don’t, reading this book will likely develop within you an interest you didn’t know you had.

In this episode, we discuss some of the minor characters in the novel, as we explore the wider world in which the Jia mansion is situated, and the material conditions that make the story possible. From the country bumpkin Granny Liu to the heroic maid Yuanyang, these characters provide us with key information for understanding the ideas Xueqin means to communicate with the novel.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

In this episode, I discuss Mardi by Herman Melville: the circumstances that brought it about and the strangeness of the novel itself. Melville is a personal favourite and a hero of mine; I feel I could talk to death about every one of his novels that I've read, but Mardi is a particularly intriguing work both for its inherent qualities and for where it fits into his career as a whole. While not well received at the time of publication, like all of Melville's works it was the subject of renewed attention in the 20th century, and I think can be well appreciated by the readers of today.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com

Part one of my three-part series about Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin. This is one of my favourite books, and one I think many more people in the West should know about and appreciate. It’s a beautiful and deep story, focusing on a small world but still encompassing so much of human life. If you have any interest in Chinese culture, it is a must-read, and if you don’t, reading this book will likely develop within you an interest you didn’t know you had.

I chose to divide the episode into three full-length parts, since it is such a large book and there is much to discuss. In this episode, I provide an introduction to the novel: its setting, themes, and major characters. In particular, I focus on the initial frame story, and what it means for our further understanding of the novel, and then go on to discuss Jia Baoyu, the novel’s principal character, as well as Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai, who form with him a sort of love triangle. This episode is a great place to start if you have no experience with the novel, as I only focus on events in the first volume.

You can find the show on podcast apps such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and etc.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balckwell.substack.com