We kick off our new series Life Under Communism, with a review of The Passport by Nobel prize winner Herta Müller. In a terse prose style, Müller uses surreal imagery to tell the story of ethnic Germans living in 1980s Romania and what they must do to get ahold of the passports necessary to leave the country.  

For this series we will be reviewing and discussing Herta Muller's The Passport Aug 12-26, László Krasznahorkai's Satantango Sept 2-16, and The Garlic Ballads Sept 23 - Oct 7.

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Today we conclude our series Rich Country/Poor Country by taking a second look at all three novels, The Disaster Tourist, The Sympathizer, and Paradise. We'll take a closer look at how forcefully these authors present their political views, the differences between state and corporate power in these novels, and James will get really angry when Viet Thanh Nguyen doubts the value of creative writing workshops.

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise Jul 15-29.

You can join discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

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You can also support us by buying a  book from one of our curated lists:  https://bookshop.org/shop/CanonicalPod. We earn a commission on every purchase and your local indie bookstore gets a cut too!

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We're concluding our discussion of Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise by taking a look at what it has to say about justice and colonialism. We connect this novel to the ethical debate about the origins of justice. Can Eyad successfully make the case that this is a philosophical novel?

For our series Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise Jul 15-29.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

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We're continuing our discussion of Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise, today exploring whether a comparison to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is fair, and what the purpose of the religious subtext might be. Does it hurt the novel to have hidden meaning if cultural touchstones are beyond your understanding? (Spoiler: no.)

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise Jul 15-29.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

Apple | Stitcher | Spotify | Google | Youtube

We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!

We're concluding our series Rich Country, Poor Country with Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise, a quiet but surprising novel that is at turns perhaps a hero's journey, a travel narrative, a historical fiction, a bildungsroman, and a philosophical exploration. Though Gurnah does not have as much presence in the US, this novel is one of his best known and among those that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Tune in to hear what makes all those elements come together.

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise Jul 15-29.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

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We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!

We're wrapping up our look at Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer prize winning novel The Sympathizer with an analysis of the racial and political implications of the novel. Nguyen is pretty outspoken about how race might influence the way a reader reacts to communism, and also how minority and majority writers address an audience. So who is Nguyen trying to speak to? Tune in to find out.

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

Apple | Stitcher | Spotify | Google | Youtube

We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!

Rivka Galchen's Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is a darkly funny historical novel about witchcraft, justice, and stupidity: Through the story of how Katharina Kepler, mother of famous astronomer Johannes Kepler, was accused of witchcraft, Galchen shows us how your community can turn on you, how people are governed by greed, and how flimsy "justice" often is.

Tune into this mini-review to find out how this novel might give you some solace in our troubling times, or at least a few laughs.

You can join our discussion here:https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

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This week, we're continuing our discussion of Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer, this time exploring Nguyen's themes of duality and divided existence between different lives and continents. Listen to hear why this book made us want to reread Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

Apple | Stitcher | Spotify | Google | Youtube

We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!

Our apologies as illness delayed the release of this episode. 

This week we are reviewing a book that was hailed by some as one of the most important books of the decade-- and perhaps the century?  While we agreed The Sympathizer was a good read, opinions differed on whether or not it was great.  We also debated how important a novel voice is to the success of novel.

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise Jul 15-29.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

Apple | Stitcher | Spotify | Google | Youtube

We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!

We conclude our discussion of Yun Ko-Eun's The Disaster Tourist by comparing it to Parasite and Squid Game, two other Korean works that may share a similar message about capitalism. Does an anti-capitalist trend in Korea mean that Korean politics will soon become more like American politics? And, most importantly, how does this all affect Kid Rock's bank account? Tune in to find out.

For our series on Rich Country | Poor Country, we will read and discuss three novels: Yun Ko-eun's The Disaster Tourist Jun 3 - 17, Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer Jun 24 - Jul 8, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise Jul 15-29.

You can join our Reddit discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanonicalPod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.

You can support us by rating/liking/sharing our podcast! Subscribe to us here:

Apple | Stitcher | Spotify | Google | Youtube

We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!