Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

Marlon & Jake are back to discuss the narrators they love but can't trust. From the delusional to the uninformed, the sociopathic to the sympathetic, they explore the characters that charm as much as they trick, begging the question: is there such a thing as a reliable narrator? So tune in to hear if Jake has warmed to Great Expectations (spoiler alert: he hasn’t) and so much more! 

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey 
• The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford 
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe 
• Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern 
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 
• "Charles" by Shirley Jackson (in The Lottery and Other Stories collection)

We didn't ghost you, dear listeners. Marlon had a novel to finish, which Jake had to edit. But the good news is it's officially out in the world, and so before Marlon—the very living author—takes off on his whirlwind book tour, he and Jake are back together for a brief (but delicious) reunion of discussing what they love most: DEAD AUTHORS. We'll be back for season three later this spring, but until then, stayed tuned for an amuse bouche, a canapé, an appetizer—take your pick!—to the glorious meal on the horizon.

Prepare for what might be Marlon & Jake’s most controversial hot takes yet, as they travel back through the last four hundred years to decide which dead authors from each century stand the test of time and which can be left to gather dust on the shelf.  Where do they fall on Paradise Lost?  Who triumphs in the battle of the poets v. novelists of the 18th century? How much has the 1930s Hollywood studio system shaped classic stories?  Which of them stans Huckleberry Finn, and who thinks it might be overrated?  Marlon & Jake answer these questions and more as they discuss the timeless work of the freaky, the rebellious and the groundbreaking. From Mary Shelley to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Paul Laurence Dunbar to Daphne du Maurier—with a healthy dose of Alexander Pope-dissing—tune in to find out where you stand with their picks. 

• The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
• The Adventures of Amir Hamza by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 
• The Provoked Wife by John Vanbrugh
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Mathilda by Mary Shelley
• The Last Man by Mary Shelley
• The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• The Complete Poems of William Blake
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
• Pamela by Samuel Richardson
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Nana by Émile Zola
• Germinal by Émile Zola
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
• A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Forest of A Thousand Daemons by D.O. Fagunwa
• Cane by Jean Toomer
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
• No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
• The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

This week Marlon & Jake discuss the books by dead authors they give as gifts and the very important decision-making that goes into that selection. Whether it’s for a younger, skeptical or pretentious reader, they share the unintentionally comedic and surprisingly engaging books they choose to bestow upon their loved ones. 

• Middlemarch by George Eliot 
• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
• Tai-Pan by James Clavell
• The Godfather by Mario Puzo
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
• The History of Jamaica by Edward Long
• Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
• One Thousand and One Nights 
• The Death of King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory 
• Oreo by Fran Ross
• The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake
• The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
• Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

This week Marlon & Jake discuss memorable characters from books by dead authors—who they love, who they despise and everything in between. What exactly makes a character great?  Who would they invite to their literary dinner party and why?  From Elmore Leonard’s Raylan to Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March, Lady Macbeth to Auntie Mame—tune in to hear which fictional personalities would get a seat at the table, who would be banished forever, and who Marlon and Jake would simply ignore. 

• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
• Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Pronto by Elmore Leonard
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Parker novels by Richard Stark
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) by Dante Alighieri
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
• Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
• The Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Stuart Little by E.B. White

Marlon and Jake take on literary giants in a grudge match for the ages. This time it's Charles Dickens vs. Anthony Trollope and Louisa May Alcott vs. Laura Ingalls Wilder in a no-holds-barred royal rumble. The two of them pull no punches, whether they're talking about racism or Edith Wharton's snobbery, colonialism or Hugh Grant's hair. So get ready to cheer on your favorite dead author and literary warrior as Marlon and Jake go mano a mano in a street fight you've definitely never come across before.

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

The Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope
The Warden by Anthony Trollope
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Maurice by E. M. Forster
Stuart Little by E.B. White
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Literary speculation abounds as Marlon and Jake reveal which books they wish they had written and which they think would have been better if they’d been written by someone completely different. Listen in as they explore the questions you never knew you needed answers to. Would The Confessions of Nat Turner have been better if Zora Neale Hurston had written it? Who could have written a funnier Ulysses? Were members of the Bloomsbury Group actually total bores? And perhaps most important: Does Marlon’s mom still have his Tom Jones fan-fiction and if so, how much is Jake willing to pay for it? Tune in for all this and more, including a lively discussion about plays that are as enjoyable to read as they are to see on stage. (And spoiler: Jake is not a fan of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

Select title discussed:

• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding 
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• Tai-Pan by James Clavell
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene
• A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
• Airships by Barry Hannah 
• Joseph Andrews by Henry fielding
• Pamela by Samuel Richardson
• The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Shōgun by James Clavell 
• Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso
• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron 
• Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
• Terrorist by John Updike
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 
• Ulysses by James Joyce 
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde 
• The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare 
• The Two Gentleman of Verona by William Shakespeare
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
• As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
• His Girl Friday by Charles Lederer (screenplay), adapted from The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (play)
• Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer 
• Amadeus by Peter Shaffer 
• Endgame by Samuel Beckett

Marlon and Jake share their "gateway" books by dead authors, the first books they read that that turned them on—or off—the rest of an author's work. From John Steinbeck to Dorothy Parker, Umberto Eco to Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand to Carson McCullers, Marlon and Jake don't hold back in discussing the imprints, footprints, and thumbprints these books left on them. They also ponder the long-lasting consequences of the high school lit class, whether a gateway book can be assigned, and the enduring power of dullness in a novel, no matter the century.  Listen for this and more, including what Marlon and Jake think of The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, edited by one Toni Morrison.  

• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
• Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
• The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
• News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
• Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker
• The collected poetry of Dorothy Parker
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
• In the hand of Dante by Nicholas Tosches
• Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer
• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
• Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
• Harlot’s Ghost by Norman Mailer
• An American Dream by Norman Mailer
• Why Are We In Vietnam? by Norman Mailer
• The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
• Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
• Loot by Joe Orton
• What the Butler Saw by joe Orton
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
• "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" by Alan Sillitoe
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas hardy
• The Return of the Native by Thomas hardy
• Already Dead by Denis Johnson
• The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
• The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara
• Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara

In this episode Marlon and Jake ponder the tricky question of the last books by authors who’ve … um … left this mortal coil. Which last books are actually worth reading? (Not many, it turns out.) From Roberto Bolaño to Penelope Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath to Eudora Welty, Marlon and Jake discuss how an author's last book compares to their previous ones, how success and age changed how and what they wrote, and the wistfulness that comes when some last books are actually good and you wonder what the authors might have written next, if, you know, they hadn't died. Tune in for this and more, including Marlon and Jake’s surprising thoughts on James Thurber's humorous memoir, My Life and Hard Times.

Select titles discussed:

• Maurice by E. M. Forster
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
• Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
• A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
• Passage to India by E. M. Forster
• Something Happened by Joseph Heller
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
• One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
• The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty
• The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
• “Where is the Voice Coming From?” by Eudora Welty
• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
• Typee by Herman Melville
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

We've heard them rave about their favorites and rant about their least favorites, but Marlon and Jake reveal in this episode their second favorite books by dead authors: the books they love that are the runners-up to the #1 spots in their hearts. From Amos Tutuola to Gabriel García Márquez to John le Carré and more, Marlon and Jake explore why one's favorite book by an author might not always be their best book, what separates an intellectual vs. an emotional response to a book, and the importance of being a promiscuous reader. (That’s right, promiscuous.) And what is the next book by a dead author Marlon and Jake will be reading together for the first time? Tune in to find out!

Select Titles Discussed:

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
• Darkness Visible by William Golding
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Shardik by Richard Adams
• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
• Shōgun by James Clavell
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey
• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
• The Honorable Schoolboy by John le Carré
• Smiley’s People by John le Carré
• A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway
• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber