Episode 192: Postmodern Wet Dreams (Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote")

David and Tamler dive into “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a very funny Borges story that also raises deep questions about authorship, reading, and interpretation. What would it mean for the same text to be written by two different authors more than three hundred years apart? Is this story the post-modernist manifesto that literary critics like Roland Barthes believed it to be? Or is the narrator in the story just a delusional sycophant, a victim of Menard’s practical joke – and the story by extension, a practical joke by Borges on the post-modernist movement to come? Plus, My Little Pony fans finally confront their Nazi problem.  Sponsored By: BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting Betterhelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards Links: 'My Little Pony' Fans Confront Their Nazi Problem - The Atlantic Very Bad Wizards has a new shirt! [CottonBureau.com] Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote - Wikipedia The Brothers Karmazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) — This is the edition we will be reading from in our upcoming miniseries.