This week's discussion is loosely based around the story Octet, but really we just drill down on what David Foster Wallace is trying to achieve in this collection.

How much metafiction is too much metafiction, does DFW stray into self-indulgence, the leap of faith he asks from his readers, is it possible to tactically and deliberately try to be sincere (or is this another double bind), and whether Brief Interviews is really about toxic masculinity.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) The paradox of trying to come across as sincere

Wallace's 1999 collection of short stories takes us to some uncomfortable places (and as always, is eerily prescient).

In this week's discussion we talk about his 'juvenilia' coming-of-age story Forever Overhead, his famous piece The Depressed Person, and a smattering of the titular brief interviews.

We kinda fucked up the format on this by trying to talk about everything. But salvaged some bits about nostalgia, the blurred lines between narcissism and depression, therapy culture, and why metafiction is played out.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) quick blather and disclaimer

An anticlimactic final discussion to an anticlimactic book. We are confused and afraid. Cam is on the brink of quitting reading altogether.

This discussion covers Parts 2 and 3 of To The Lighthouse. Actual book-related content starts at 11 minutes.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) Normative ethics and incest cold open

Rich waxes lyrical about the dinner party scene. Do men have impaired theory of mind, or are they just assholes? On the invisible mastery of social reality, and capturing subjective experience in literature. It goes well enough that the boys decide to actually read the rest of the book.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) pre-roll jibber jabber

A fragmented jumble of multiple shifting perspectives, punctuated by abrupt jumps between topics and timelines, infused with the frustration of trying to express intensely-felt experiences within the bounds of mere words.

(oh and we also talked about a Virginia Woolf book)

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) - we are NOT going to the lighthouse

These days the 'multiverse' idea is standard marvel slop. But if we read this story in 1941 it would have blown our tiny little minds.

how tf did Borges sit at the cutting edge of philosophy and physics without doing the classic info-dump spergy thing?

We read one of our favourite stories in search of Clues

(actual plot-related analysis starts around the 1 hour mark)

CHAPTERS

(00:00:00) synopsis and throat clearing

(00:06:43) Borges the troll (death of the author redux)

(00:16:23) How this mf had so many original ideas

(00:22:12) Cho Chang discourse

(00:30:30) Conceptual analysis of being cool

(00:42:20) History of the multiverse

(00:52:23) ambiguity of the Liddell Hart intro

(01:01:22) Fatalism and free will

(01:18:53) What motivates Yu Tsun?

(01:25:05) maze strategy chat

(01:31:20) When we first encountered the multiverse

(01:34:00) Does multiverse imply all possible things happen?

(01:49:25) Real hypertext has never been tried

Our critical consensus on John William's sleeper bestseller Stoner:

• There is almost no plot

could it be...a perfect novel?

we try figure out why we relate so hard to Mr William Stoner, the great shining exemplar of principled mediocrity.

CHAPTERS

• 00:00:00 - the perfect novel

closing out the last section of the book with death, entropy, and thwarted ambitions:

• Why David Deutsch wouldn't approve of Houellebecg

Not sure why the audio cuts off abruptly at the end but it does feel appropriate

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) Third act murder mystery wtf

This section is light on plot but we do get a coherent theme: the perversions that emerge from consumer capitalism's relentless optimisation process.

will our hero Jed maintain his artistic integrity and stop feeding the beast? does Houellebecq think of himself as a kind of ethnographer? Does the g-spot actually exist? etc

benny's audio still sucks. actual book content starts at 00:06:19

CHAPTERS

(00:00:00) what if we kissed under the mistletoe

(00:06:19) is art just expensive furniture

(00:17:48) refining Houllebecq's actual beef with consumer capitalism

(00:21:51) how true creativity can be corrupted by profit motive

(00:27:42) b*stiality bodycount digression

(00:29:53) Houllebecq as neutral ethnographer

(00:36:34) hot people are smarter too. its not fair

(00:42:18) height discourse

(00:48:14) William Morris

(00:52:47) trying and failing to talk about death

(00:55:28) how many holes are down there anyway??

Some good stuff coming up already in part 1 of The Map and The Territory:

• how our models of the world can change underlying physical reality

benny's audio is completely cooked on this. I lost the files so I can't fix it sorry

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) playdough’s cave