Marlon and Jake Read Dead People

Marlon & Jake weigh in on the age-old “artist versus art” debate, as they examine good books by problematic dead authors, as well as the bad and sometimes problematic books by great dead authors.  From Flannery O’Conner to Roald Dahl,  Vladimir Nabokov to the surprisingly challenging Charles Dickens, Marlon & Jake explore the thorny questions surrounding the books worth fighting for and the ones worth fighting over. How exactly do we define terrible books?  Is there a statute of limitations on being offensive? Can we enjoy a book at the same time that we recognize its failures?  Do people and ideas ever evolve beyond books?  And what does it mean to have the freedom to choose what to read? Tune in for a provocative, nuanced conversation that might just make you rethink, revisit, or totally let go when it comes to your own reading of dead authors.

Selected works discussed

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Bear and His Daughter by Robert Stone
• The Breast by Philip Roth
• I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
• Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
• The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce
• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

And the writing of:

• Charles Dickens
• Knut Hamsun
• Jack London
• HP Lovecraft
• William S. Burroughs
• Norman Mailer
• Enid Blyton

Marlon and Jake talk short books they love, syllabus staples to skip (Hemingway die-hards, consider yourselves warned), and their first-ever real-time joint read, Blood on the Forge by William Attaway.  What does Marlon consider the closest thing to a perfect novel?  Tune in to find out!

• Sula by Toni Morrison
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
• Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Aspern Papers by Henry James
• The Ambassadors by Henry James
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
• If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Quiet American by Graham Greene
• The Lover by Marguerite Duras
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway

Marlon and Jake reunite to discuss the books that got them through the pandemic, classics they wish they had written, and whether Lord of the Flies needs a sequel. 

Select titles mentioned in this episode:

• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
• Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
• A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
• Maurice by E.M. Forster
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
• Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Blood on the Forge by William Attaway

As Marlon and Jake wrap up Season 1 of Reading Dead People, they take a moment to reflect on what they've learned and what dead books and authors they want to discuss when they return for season two. So Marlon and Jake will be on a hiatus--they have some reading to do!--but fear not, they will be back soon to discuss the good, the bad and the everything in between. Until then, go read some dead people!!

This week Marlon and Jake answer some of the questions that listeners have asked. What dead author or book did they initially hate but have come around to love? What is the best book by the worst dead author? And who is the most annoying character by a dead author? (Spoiler alert: Heathcliff. Obviously.) Along the way Jake confesses a lack of enthusiasm for William Faulkner and, yes, Virginia Woolf, while Marlon bemoans the insufferably boring Thomas Hardy and makes a plug for the poetic darkness of Shakespeare’s Richard III.  Their shared hatred of A Tale of Two Cities is back and stronger than ever. Will Jake re-read Absalom, Absalom!? Will Marlon let go of his Edith Wharton grudge? Should we take relationship advice from Jane Austen? Was D.H. Lawrence the 20th Century’s bridesmaid but never its bride?  Has the “Great Pirate Novel” been written? Tune in to learn the answers to these essential questions and so much more!

Select titles discussed in this episode:

• Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
• Harvey by Mary Chase
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• QB VII by Leon Uris
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• The White Witch of Rosehall by Herbert G. de Lisser
• The Black Sun by Lance Horner
• Richard III by William Shakespeare
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Pericles by William Shakespeare
• The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
• Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
• Stoner by John Williams
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• The Ambassadors by Henry James
• Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

This week Marlon and Jake dive into one of life’s great guilty pleasures: the trashy novel. Do such books provide intellectual stimulation or lessons on morality? Of course not. Nevertheless, Marlon and Jake extol the virtues of these irresistibly low-brow novels that they can’t get enough of, in the process asking: What makes a novel trashy and what makes it literary? If a book holds up a mirror to society, can it qualify as trash? What are the differences between trashy novels for women and trashy novels for men? From Peyton Place to Valley of the Dolls to the Falconhurst novels, Marlon and Jake get real about the wonderfully salacious plots, the ridiculously named characters, the gay subtexts, the surprising pathos, and all the sex. SO. MUCH. SEX. So literary snobs, be warned. For the rest of us, tune in to celebrate dead authors who have given us the gift of a shamelessly good read.

Select titles discussed in this episode: