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Solomon & Smith

Solomon & Smith

Solomon & Smith discuss literature, philosophy, history, film, and the meaning of the universe.

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  • 20 episodes
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  • Avg 1 hr 38 min
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  • Friday · 1 hr 17 min

    The Christians Who Thought God Was Evil | Taylor Caron on the Gnostic Gospels

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith Solomon & Smith on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/solomon-smith/id6808681930 On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DkVPzTS5lHkynSlHMyOL2?si=FsVpIakbR861Vg9jM3WZvQ&utm_source=copy-link On Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7ca1e4c1-2e5a-4691-9c32-35c05fc01f05 On iHeart: https://iheart.com/podcast/343165456 In this episode of Solomon and Smith, Jack and Milo speak with Taylor Caron about the Gnostics: those strange, alluring, heretical early Christians who believed that the physical world was corrupt, that its creator was not the highest God, and that salvation came through secret knowledge of the divine world beyond this one. This is the first part of a two-part conversation. In this episode, we begin with the original Gnostics: the lost gospels, the Nag Hammadi texts, the Gospel of Thomas, the Secret Book of John, the Gospel of Judas, Valentinus, the Gospel of Truth, Thunder, Perfect Mind, the Epistle to Flora, the Gospel of Philip, and the Second Treatise of the Great Seth. In the next part, we turn to American Gnosticism and the strange afterlife of these ideas in modern literature. What is Gnosticism? Is the material world evil? Was Yahweh the demiurge? Who or what is Barbello? Why does Jesus keep appearing as a child, an old woman, a voice, a double, a robe, a cosmic emissary, or a being laughing from outside the crucifixion? And how did a collection of bizarre early Christian texts found in Egypt in 1945 come to haunt modern religion, literature, conspiracy, pop culture, Harold Bloom, The Da Vinci Code, and the idea of hidden knowledge itself? Chapters: 00:00 Was Valentinus better than the Bible? 01:10 Introduction 05:47 Taylor enters 07:50 What is Gnosticism? 09:30 Nag Hammadi and the lost texts 11:01 The basic Gnostic worldview 15:18 I. The Gospel of Thomas 20:30 II. The Secret Book of John 23:18 Barbello, Sophia and the demiurge 29:42 III. The Hymn of the Pearl 34:15 IV. The Gospel of Judas 38:38 Crucifixion, flesh and anti-natalism 40:09 V. Valentinus' Fragments 45:24 VI. The Gospel of Truth 52:16 VII. Thunder Perfect Mind 56:20 VIII. The Epistle to Flora 1:01:18 Jesus and the Hebrew Bible 1:05:27 IX. The Gospel of Philip 1:10:46 X. The Second Treatise of the Great Seth 1:15:48 Orthodoxy, heresy and the stakes of the crucifixion

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  • September 8 · 45 min

    Youtube Just Made Views Worthless | Hyper Viewflation

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith What is a view? What is attention? Does a number become more real if it is larger? Are advertisers being ushered into a hall of mirrors? And if every video, every creator, every athlete, every billionaire, and every man on earth can be given a bigger number, have we made the world better — or simply made value meaningless? We discuss YouTube views, attention inflation, dead internet paradise, advertisers, Zimbabwean trillionaires, egalitarianism, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, cinema box office inflation, World of Warcraft stat squish, the psychological horror of decline, the impossibility of measuring attention, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, angelic value, Christianity, equality, and whether every mote of dust has infinite worth. Chapters: 00:00 The number goes up 00:51 Introduction 04:45 YouTube changes the view count 08:02 Advertisers and the fantasy economy 12:40 Do labels change reality? 14:47 Egalitarianism, power and resentment 19:03 Do big numbers hide inequality? 22:35 Cinema, inflation and fake success 24:22 Stat squish and the horror of smaller numbers 27:14 What can value actually measure? 31:07 Can attention ever be quantified? 36:01 The workers in the vineyard 38:01 Earthly numbers and angelic value 42:36 YouTube views in heaven 43:38 Christianity, equality and infinite worth

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  • September 4 · 1 hr 17 min

    Why We May Never Understand Consciousness | Colin McGinn on Mind and Language

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith Thinkers mentioned: Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, Charles Darwin, Paul Grice, Fred Dretske, Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Saul Kripke, Richard Montague, Iain McGilchrist, Alfred Tarski 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:49 Knife Throwing, Other Athletic Activities 00:11:57 Poetic Epigraph 00:13:05 How to integrate Philosophy, Linguistics, and Biology? Should philosophers read Dawkins? Should biologists read Tarski? 00:20:15 Origins of language. Are any aspects of language as old as consciousness? 00:27:39 Can we only discuss language in language? 00:29:06 Are all philosophical problems linguistic? Analytic philosophy 00:32:45 Fodor and the Language of thought. Language without communication 00:34:50 Consciousness and the limits of knowing 00:39:38 Can something exist without you knowing it? 00:42:40 Can we understand/build a mind? 00:43:49 Links between Mysterianism and Apathatic theology? 00:48:13 Does McGinn's Mysterianism conflict with his Naturalism? 00:50:10 Why do we have introspection? 00:55:28 Do our brains see the world dualistically to support the existence of language? 01:01:35 Wittgenstein's Investigations. Split brains. McGilchrist. 01:03:43 The brain has over-invested in spatial reasoning. 01:06:16 Communication without symbols, without linguistic utterance. 01:11:38 Philosophers don't pay enough attention to animals. Darwin, etc. 01:14:35 Philosophers read too much psychology, and don't understand it.

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  • August 28 · 1 hr 24 min

    Is AI About to Kill Mathematics? | Kirwin Hampshire

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith Kirwin's article on mathematics is available here: https://kirwinhampshire.substack.com/p/the-dark-night-of-mathematics In this episode of Solomon and Smith, Jack and Milo speak with Kirwin Hampshire, mathematics PhD and author of the Substack Ossuray Lost at Sea. Is mathematics discovered or invented? Is it a formal game, a spiritual art form, a machine for generating truth, or the highest expression of human creativity? And what happens when AI begins solving open problems, producing counterexamples, and doing the thing mathematicians thought belonged to the strange, private, intuitive life of the mind? We discuss what a number is, why mathematics feels certain in a way other forms of knowledge often do not, whether infinity and zero expand the limits of thought, and why mathematical discovery can feel closer to art, wizardry, or religious revelation than to ordinary technical work. Then we turn to the nightmare: AI-generated mathematics, the psychology of being scooped by a machine, and the possibility that human mathematicians may be reduced to checking, verifying, and understanding what machines have already produced. Is AI killing maths? Or is it revealing what mathematics really was all along? Topics include: AI and mathematics, mathematical creativity, open problems, counterexamples, proof, intuition, infinity, zero, Gödel, Cantor, mathematical beauty, the philosophy of maths, AI art, chess engines, human purpose, dangerous knowledge, truth versus goodness, and whether machines are about to ruin the most beautiful thing humans ever made. Chapters: 00:00 AI and the human gap 01:15 Introduction 05:58 The challenge 07:37 Kirwin enters 10:00 Poetic epigraph 11:37 What is a number? 17:11 Maths, mind, and reality 20:37 Mathematics as creativity 22:30 Infinity and the machinery of thought 26:45 Falling in love with maths 32:15 Discovery, invention and the unfinished painting 37:14 Has maths become too arcane? 41:35 AI enters mathematics 44:11 AI counterexamples and open problems 49:39 Chess, machines and the loss of spark 52:36 Humans as the AI’s assistant 57:22 Intuition and the human gap 1:02:34 Dangerous truth and the Copernican trauma 1:06:50 The Impossible Luddite 1:13:40 Why does AI hurt? 1:16:12 Is AI just another tool? 1:21:17 Truth, beauty and incompatible desires 1:24:08 Process versus result Performance of the second movement from Bartók's second quartet by the Carmel Quartet, used under the following license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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  • August 25 · 1 hr 22 min

    Classic Literature Is WAY More Fun Than You Think (1710-1840) | Emma Schilders

    *Emma's list is pasted below* Please help us to continue having these conversations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership Emma's channel can be found at: https://youtube.com/@sarcastic_fish?si=J3bGM11vCKSxpt3p 1710s - Robinson Crusoe: Daniel Defoe 1720s - Roxana: Daniel Defoe 1730s - Manon Lescaut: Abbé Prévost 1740s - Pamela: Samuel Richardson 1750s - The Female Quixote: Charlotte Lennox 1760s - Barren Decade - TBR: Castle of Otranto, A Sentimental Journey 1770s - The Sorrows of Young Werther: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1780s - Dangerous Liasons: Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1790s - Justine: Marquis de Sade 1800s - Corinne, or Italy: Madame de Staël 1810s - Frankenstein: Mary Shelley 1820s - Barren Decade - TBR: The Betrothed 1830s - The Charterhouse of Parma: Stendhal 1840s - The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 00:00:00 Intro 00:04:35 What's so interesting about the 1700s? 00:06:53 1710s 00:11:30 1720s 00:14:54 1730s 00:20:19 1740s 00:24:04 1750s 00:29:38 1760s 00:33:00 1770s 00:36:00 1780s 00:43:40 1790s 00:49:26 1800s 00:54:51 1810s 01:05:34 1820s 01:09:03 1830s 01:13:05 1840s

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  • August 21 · 1 hr 37 min

    Why Understanding Reality Isn’t Enough | Igor Kufayev

    Please help us to continue having these conversations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership You can buy Igor's books directly from his publishing house here: https://songpublishing.org/?v=b6bb43df4525 In this wide-ranging conversation, artist and spiritual teacher Igor Kufayev talks with Jack and Milo about consciousness, meditation, Kashmir Shaivism (Trika Shaivism), aesthetics, creativity and the relationship between spiritual experience and everyday perception. He reflects on a profound early meditation experience that transformed his relationship with his body and consciousness, and the moment he put Heidegger aside in favour of seeking direct experience rather than intellectual understanding. The conversation moves from Western philosophy to the Bhagavad Gita, Kashmir Shaivism, Abhinavagupta and the concept of camatkāra—the rapture or astonishment of aesthetic experience. We also explore how ordinary reality became dull, whether consciousness actually creates the world we experience, and why the promise of extraordinary spiritual experiences distracts us from the extraordinary nature of everyday life. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:33 Uzbek Fruits/Raisins - Poetic epigraph 00:09:07 The meaning crisis began with the search for meaning 00:12:19 Bronze Age Greece, The Odyssey, Greek sculpture 00:16:10 Modernity and Meaning - Life Under Socialism 00:23:57 The Anatomy of Experience - Fire and Karl Marx 00:32:10 Loving the West in Central Asia 00:37:37 Disillusionment with Michelangelo, waiting for the Muse 00:41:04 Adi Shankaracharya vs. Abhinavagupta 00:47:52 Existentialism. Kung-fu Art Philosopher Musician Sage, murdered by the Mafia 00:52:05 Tragedy, Faith, Sri Aurobindo 00:56:39 Initiation into Meditation in a Dream 01:01:56 Can you have a moment of absolute transcendence which you don't notice? 01:07:10 Idealism. We animate reality by perceiving it. 01:11:35 Outright rejection of Heidegger and Western Philosophy 01:17:50 Outright love of Western Art 01:19:47 Reading Indian Spiritual Classics 01:23:55 Swami Muktananda and discovering Trika Shaivism 01:26:54 Camatkara, the bridge between art and spirit 01:34:32 Final Question

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  • August 18 · 1 hr 49 min

    The 20 Best Books Ever Written | Cecily Carver’s Picks

    *- Cecily's list is pasted below -* Please help us to keep having these conversations by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership Check out Cecily's Substack here: https://cecilycarver.substack.com/ Tremolo expertly demonstrated by Edson Lopes, who can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTBiNRT3GPM 1800s The Earthquake in Chile - Heinrich von Kleist 1810s Persuasion - Jane Austen 1820s The Tale of Kieu - Nguyen Du 1830s The Queen of Spades - Alexander Pushkin 1840s Cousin Bette - Honoré de Balzac 1850s Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 1860s Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 1870s Middlemarch - George Eliot 1880s The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James 1890s The Seagull - Anton Chekhov 1900s The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton 1910s In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust 1920s The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann 1930s Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier 1940s Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain 1950s Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 1960s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark 1970s Fifth Business - Robertson Davies 1980s Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner 1990s A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel 0:00 Introduction 2:42 Cecily arrives 6:47 1800s 11:21 1810s 15:05 1820s 19:02 1830s 22:37 1840s 30:00 1850s 33:52 1860s 37:57 1870s 42:38 1880s 46:42 1890s 50:51 1900s 56:57 1910s 1:04:03 1920s 1:10:12 1930s 1:13:58 1940s 1:19:04 1950s 1:26:01 1960s 1:30:47 1970s 1:34:37 1980s 1:40:00 1990s 1:49:31 Conclusion

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  • August 14 · 1 hr 27 min

    The Trinity is Even WEIRDER Than You Thought | Karen Kilby

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith Karen Kilby is the Bede Professor of Catholic Theology at Durham University, and one of the most interesting contemporary thinkers on the Trinity, apophatic theology, and the limits of theological understanding. In this conversation, Jack and Milo talk to Karen about whether Christians should expect to make sense of their own beliefs. Is theology a noble intellectual discipline, a useful service to the Church, or sometimes just a very elaborate waste of time? Do theologians know more about God than ordinary believers? Or is the attempt to master God intellectually already a mistake? The discussion focuses especially on the Trinity. What does it mean to say that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Is the doctrine clearly present in Scripture, or was it developed by the early Church as Christians tried to make sense of their worship of Christ? Why three persons rather than two, four, or seventeen? What is wrong with Arianism or Unitarianism? And how can a doctrine be defended if part of its meaning is that it cannot be fully understood? Subscribe if you enjoy discussions of theology, philosophy, literature, history, and the mysteries that resist being turned into neat little systems. Topics discussed: Karen Kilby's path from mathematics to theology Faith, questioning, and the life of the mind Apophatic theology and divine mystery What the doctrine of the Trinity says Scripture, Jesus, and the early Church Greek philosophy and theological language Ousia, hypostasis, and homoousios Arianism, Unitarianism, and orthodoxy Why the number three matters — or does not Aquinas and the limits of proof What theologians are actually for The Incarnation and divine solidarity Social trinitarianism Human unknowability and divine unknowability Mysteries, puzzles, science, AI, and dangerous knowledge If you enjoyed the conversation, please like, subscribe, and leave a comment telling us your favourite heresy — or whether you think theology is a waste of time. 0:00 Is Theology a Waste of Time? 1:09 Introduction 8:19 Karen Kilby Arrives 13:28 Faith, Questions, and Theology 17:35 Apophatic Theology and Mystery 20:32 What Is the Trinity? 22:06 Scripture and the Early Church 30:00 Greek Philosophy and New Language 35:02 Why Three? 40:02 Defending an Unprovable Doctrine 48:22 What Are Theologians For? 55:00 Incarnation and Solidarity 59:28 Social Trinitarianism and Unitarianism 1:10:00 Human Mystery and Divine Mystery 1:20:00 Mysteries, Puzzles, and Dangerous Knowledge

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  • August 7 · 2 hr 24 min

    I was a Hard Materialist... Until This INSANE Dream | Jeff Falzone

    Please help us to continue having these conversations on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:34 Jeff arrives 00:11:09 Footballers are the most complete human beings 0013:57 Do Aliens have human aesthetics? Evolution. 00:17:56 Poetic Epigraph - Goethean Darwinism 00:22:04 What is a Mind? 00:27:27 Hypnotism - Milton Erickson 00:33:34 Dreams and Time, Lucid Dreaming 00:44:50 Dreams and Technology 00:49:19 Why suffering will never end, and why that's okay 00:53:00 Stanford Prison Experiment - other experiments 01:00:45 Post Modernism and its Discontents 01:02:15 The Insane Dream that Melted Jeff's Brain 01:10:07 Eugene Gendlin - pausing 01:22:14 Plato's epistemology - inaccessible knowledge - ambiguity 01:27:48 Are eloquent people doomed to insanity? David Foster Wallace - Hamlet 01:37:45 Shakespeare's Sonnets 01:45:45 Shakespeare's Self-Sabotaging Empathy 01:50:55 Gateway Sonnets - Some of our favourites 02:01:43 Sonnet 31 - Wow! 02:04:29 Crazy Numerological Patterns in the Sonnet Sequence 02:14:06 Shakespeare is Impulsive 02:20:33 Final Sonnet - Crazy final gambit

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  • August 4 · 1 hr 33 min

    The Greatest Books You’ve Never Read (1800-2000) | Adam Walter’s Picks

    *- Adam's list is pasted below -* Please help us to keep having these conversations by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership In this video Adam discusses his favourite works of fiction decade by decade, starting in 1800 and going 200 years, decade by decade, until they reach the borders of our present century. If you would like to be interviewed by us about your favourite books, please send an email. 1800s Elective Affinities - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1810s The Golden Pot - E.T.A. Hoffmann 1820s Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Maturin 1830s The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendhal 1840s Lost Illusions - Honoré de Balzac 1850s Sylvie - Gérard de Nerval 1860s Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens 1870s Demons - Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880s The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas - Machado de Assis 1890s The Christ and Antichrist Trilogy - Dmitry Merezhkovsky 1900s Hadji Murat - Leo Tolstoy 1910s In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust 1920s Rakes of the Old Court - Mateiu Caragiale 1930s A Glastonbury Romance - John Cowper Powys 1940s The Death of Virgil - Hermann Broch 1950s Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar 1960s Riders in the Chariot - Patrick White 1970s The Obscene Bird of Night - José Donoso 1980s Repetition - Peter Handke 1990s The Rehearsals - Vladimir Sharov 0:00 Introduction 2:23 Adam arrives 7:27 1800s 10:22 1810s 14:28 1820s 18:40 1830s 21:55 1840s 27:42 1850s 30:30 1860s 36:04 1870s 42:30 1880s 44:18 1890s 48:32 1900s 51:12 1910s 59:40 1920s 1:03:19 1930s 1:06:46 1940s 1:10:46 1950s 1:12:55 1960s 1:15:41 1970s 1:21:58 1980s 1:23:35 1990s 1:28:45 Conclusion

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  • July 31 · 1 hr 45 min

    The Greatest Playwright of the 17th Century (after Shakespeare) | Elaine Hobby

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith Elaine Hobby is one of the foremost experts in the work of Aphra Behn: the greatest playwright of the Restoration, and one of the greatest woman writers of all. In this conversation, Jack and Milo talk to Elaine specifically about Aphra Behn's theatre: how did it differ from her contemporaries; what made it so great; how did a woman who began her career as a spy in the employ of Charles II find her way to the stage; and what was the secret to her enduring popular success? The discussion also covers the history of the Restoration stage, returning as it did from the ban under Cromwell's Commonwealth. How did women end up acting, a profession once restricted to men? How did Charles II's personal tastes influence the theatre? We also analyse the types and plots used by Behn in her plays, and the way she bends traditional structure to her art. Was her theatre entirely comic? Or does it contain a pathos, or even a subversive character? Subscribe if you enjoy discussions of literature, philosophy, history, and the greatest plays ever written. Topics discussed: Elaine Hobby's fascination with Aphra Behn and her period Women on the stage The backstory of Aphra Behn Her travels and her espionage The nature of the Restoration Stage Behn's early hits The Lucky Chance The Feigned Courtesans The Rover, her biggest and most enduring hit The Emperor of the Moon Rakes, racounteurs, and clever women Aphra Behn's ideas on marriage and friendship If you enjoyed the conversation, please like, subscribe, and leave a comment telling us your favourite Behn play - or if you're planning on reading her after watching! 0:00 Introduction 7:09 Elaine Hobby Arrives 15:21 Feminism and the Rediscovery of Women Writers 22:40 Charles II, the Restoration, and Women on Stage 33:04 The Mysterious Early Life of Aphra Behn 38:02 Espionage, Antwerp and the Surinam Question 48:05 What Made Behn’s Plays Different? 55:05 The Rover: Sex, Money, Women 1:10:53 Behn and the Marriage Comedy 1:17:30 Reading and Performing Restoration Drama Today 1:24:00 The Emperor of the Moon and Theatrical Spectacle 1:42:59 Why Behn Still Matters The music used is Fanny Hensel's Piano Trio, performed by the Claremont Trio under the following license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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  • July 28 · 2 hr 52 min

    The Greatest Films of Every 5 Years (part two - 1970-2024) | Jack and Milo’s Picks

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith - Our full lists are pasted below - 1970-1974 Jack's Pick: Amarcord, dir. Federico Fellini Milo's Pick: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, dir. Werner Herzog 1975-1979 Jack's Pick: Monty Python's Life of Brian, dir. Terry Jones Milo's Pick: All That Jazz, dir. Bob Fosse 1980-1984 Jack's Pick: Koyaanisqatsi, dir. Godfrey Reggio Milo's Pick: The Draughtsman's Contract, dir. Peter Greenaway 1985-1989 Jack's Pick: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, dir. Pedro Almodóvar Milo's Pick: Ran, dir. Akira Kurosawa 1990-1994 Jack's Pick: 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, dir. François Girard Milo's Pick: The Long Day Closes, dir. Terence Davies 1995-1999 Jack's Pick: Eyes Wide Shut, dir. Stanley Kubrick Milo's Pick: The Thin Red Line, dir. Terrence Malick 2000-2004 Jack's Pick: Mulholland Drive, dir. David Lynch Milo's Pick: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, dir. Peter Jackson 2005-2009 Jack's Pick: King Kong, dir. Peter Jackson Milo's Pick: My Winnipeg, dir. Guy Maddin 2010-2014 Jack's Pick: The Master, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson Milo's Pick: The Master, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson 2015-2019 Jack's Pick: The Love Witch, dir. Anna Biller Milo's Pick: A Hidden Life, dir. Terrence Malick 2020-2024 Jack's Pick: Killers of the Flower Moon, dir. Martin Scorsese Milo's Pick: ??? 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:42 1970-1974 00:14:47 1975-1979 00:27:26 1980-1984 00:42:45 1985-1989 00:58:39 1990-1994 01:16:57 1995-1999 01:42:26 2000-2004 02:02:27 2005-2009 02:16:29 2010-2014 02:22:48 2015-2019 02:34:34 2020-2024 02:42:07 The Final Film

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  • July 24 · 1 hr 50 min

    You’ve Never Heard of Russia’s Strangest Literary Genius | Oliver Ready on Dostoevsky and Sharov

    Oliver Ready is one of the world's greatest translators of Russian literature, most famous for his translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In this conversation with Jack and Milo, he speaks about what makes Dostoevsky's prose so distinctive, direct, and contemporary, and why Vladimir Sharov may be the greatest Russian novelist you've never read. The discussion covers Dostoevsky's literary reputation, Nabokov's famous criticism of his work, the art of literary translation, Russian history, and, in the latter part, Sharov's astonishing novels, which blend theology, politics, history, and surreal imagination into something unlike anything else in modern literature. Subscribe if you enjoy discussions of literature, philosophy, history, and the greatest novels ever written. Topics discussed: Oliver Ready's translation of Crime and Punishment What makes Dostoevsky's writing unique Nabokov vs. Dostoevsky Vladimir Sharov's extraordinary novels Before and During The Rehearsals Russian literature and literary translation Soviet history, theology, and magical realism How translators recreate style across languages Books Mentioned Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoevsky Notes from Underground — Fyodor Dostoevsky The Double — Fyodor Dostoevsky Before and During — Vladimir Sharov The Rehearsals — Vladimir Sharov Be as Children — Vladimir Sharov The Master and Margarita — Mikhail Bulgakov If you enjoyed the conversation, please like, subscribe, and leave a comment telling us your favourite Russian novel—or whether you're planning to read Vladimir Sharov after watching. 00:00:00 General Introduction 00:04:00 Vladimir Sharov Synopsis and Discussion 00:13:10 Oliver Ready Arrives, Discussion of Insomnia 00:17:44 Poetic Epigraph 00:20:14 Dostoevsky's Reputation, Nabokov's Slander 00:24:40 Translating Crime and Punishment, prose style etc. 00:39:05 Do certain authors suit English better than others? 00:42:37 Translating Sharov vs. Dostoevsky 00:45:55 Post Soviet Literary Culture, Sharov's place in it 00:50:12 Sharov's uncompromising style and voice 00:54:20 Does Sharov make sense to a non-Russian? 01:00:43 Before and During, and the Religiosity of Communism 01:06:00 Innocence, Experience, and the Gulags 01:10:47 Master and Margarita, Russian History as Commentary to the Bible 01:18:38 Sharov, Magic Realism, and originality 01:24:20 What was Sharov like? 01:31:44 The Russian Tradition of the Fantastical 01:36:38 Sharov's fairytales, Sharov's crowds, Sharov's walks 01:41:28 Ready's first exposure to Sharov 01:45:00 White Moss, Reductive 'Problematic' criticism of other cultures 01:48:25 Sharov 'Not Obvious Enough'

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  • July 21 · 2 hr 19 min

    The Greatest Films of Every 5 Years (part one - 1915-1969) | Jack and Milo’s Picks

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith - Our full lists are pasted below - 1915-1919 Jack's Pick: Intolerance, dir. D.W. Griffith Milo's Pick: Terje Vigen, dir. Victor Sjörström 1920-1924 Jack's Pick: Häxan, dir. Benjamin Christensen Milo's Pick: Die Niebelungen, dir. Fritz Lang 1925-1929 Jack's Pick: Sunrise, dir. F.W. Murnau Milo's Pick: Napoleon, dir. Abel Gance 1930-1934 Jack's Pick: M, dir. Fritz Lang Milo's Pick: Twentieth Century, dir. Howard Hawks 1935-1939 Jack's Pick: The Adventures of Robin Hood, dir. Michael Curtiz Milo's Pick: Olympia Part 1 (prelude), dir. Leni Riefenstahl 1940-1944 Jack's Pick: Fantasia, dir. Various Milo's Pick: Ivan the Terrible Part 1, dir. Sergei Eisenstein 1945-1949 Jack's Pick: It's a Wonderful Life, dir. Frank Capra Milo's Pick: The Third Man, dir. Carol Reed 1950-1954 Jack's Pick: Singin' in the Rain, dir. Stanley Donen Milo's Pick: Early Summer, dir. Yasujiro Ozu 1955-1959 Jack's Pick: Madhumati, dir. Bimal Roy Milo's Pick: The Cranes are Flying, dir. Mikhail Kalatozov 1960-1964 Jack's Pick: Lawrence of Arabia, dir. David Lean Milo's Pick: Dr Strangelove, dir. Stanley Kubrick 1965-1969 Jack's Pick: Andrei Rublev, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky Milo's Pick: Playtime, dir. Jacques Tati 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:24 1915-1919 00:11:57 1920-1924 00:21:20 1925-1929 00:29:20 1930-1934 00:38:53 1935-1939 00:50:44 1940-1944 01:02:53 1945-1949 01:18:03 1950-1954 (Milo late 50s) 01:32:27 1955-1959 (Milo early 50s) 01:47:56 1960-1964 02:05:23 1965-1969

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  • July 17 · 1 hr 39 min

    Was Paradise Already Lost? | Achsah Guibbory on Milton’s Theology of Desire

    Please help us to keep having these conversations by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership In this conversation, Achsah Guibbory joins Jack and Milo to discuss John Donne, John Milton, love, sex, sin, marriage, desire, Paradise Lost, and the problem of whether erotic love can ever be holy. Donne and Milton are two of the great Johns of seventeenth-century English poetry, claimed by some to be entirely different men. Donne is witty, erotic, devotional, cynical, sacred, obscene, metaphysical, and impossible to pin down. Milton is austere, sublime, political, theological, revolutionary, authoritarian, and not much fun at a party. Yet both poets return, in radically different ways, to the same infinity: love. The discussion begins with the word itself. What did “love” mean in the seventeenth century, before Darwin, before Freud, and before modern romantic individualism? How did English poetry inherit older distinctions between erotic love, spiritual love, charity, friendship, desire, marriage, and the love of God? And why does one little English monosyllable have to carry so much metaphysical weight? Guibbory places Donne and Milton against the long Christian tradition that associated sex with sin, chastity with holiness, and desire with the Fall. Augustine looms large: original sin, shame, bodily rebellion, and the problem of sexual desire after Eden. But Donne, in poems such as *The Good-Morrow*, *The Ecstasy*, *The Canonization*, *The Sun Rising*, and *A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning*, offers something stranger and more daring: the possibility that bodily love might itself become spiritual. The conversation then turns to Milton’s *Paradise Lost*. What is sex like before the Fall? Do Adam and Eve desire one another in Eden, or is their prelapsarian love something more equal, mutual, peaceful, and almost desireless? What changes after the fruit is eaten? Why does Milton describe postlapsarian sex as the “seal of guilt”? And why does Adam fall so quickly once Eve has fallen? Along the way we discuss Milton’s bower scene, Eve’s reflection in the lake, Adam’s loneliness, Satan’s resentment, hierarchy, equality, the strange ending of *Paradise Regained*, and whether Milton gives Satan some of his own political instincts. We also talk about Donne’s contradictions, Milton’s unresolved tensions, Thomas Browne, Kafka's weird humour, and why great writers are often most alive when they have not fully solved themselves. Expect reflections on: John Donne and John Milton as rival poets of love Achsah Guibbory on Donne, Milton, sex, and theology Augustine, original sin, chastity, and sexual shame Erotic love, spiritual love, charity, and marriage Donne’s love poetry and the holiness of consummated desire Milton’s *Paradise Lost* and sex before the Fall Adam, Eve, equality, hierarchy, and the bower scene Desire as lack, danger, or spiritual possibility Satan, resentment, monarchy, and Milton’s politics The difference between Donne’s lyric contradictions and Milton’s epic resolutions The “seal of guilt” and sex after the Fall Milton’s divorce tracts and the nightmare of “household captivity” Paradise, the New Jerusalem, and whether we really want a world without desire If you enjoy long-form conversations on poetry, literature, theology, philosophy, seventeenth-century writing, erotic love, sin, Milton, Donne, and the strange borderlands between body and soul, subscribe to the channel and leave a comment below. Who writes love better: John Donne or John Milton? And can erotic love ever be holy? Chapters: 00:00:00 Sex, sin, and Donne’s dangerous poetry 00:01:16 Introduction 00:06:32 Achsah Guibbory appears 00:11:06 Milton’s youthful love poem 00:16:02 Donne versus Milton 00:20:23 What does “love” mean? 00:27:03 Augustine’s sexual legacy 00:29:02 Donne’s sacred eroticism 00:31:17 Plato, Genesis, and desire 00:35:14 Sex before the Fall 00:44:33 Desire, lack, and Satan 00:49:41 Milton’s unresolved epic 00:52:41 Donne’s contradictions 00:56:30 Paradise Regained and grace 01:01:16 Adam’s desire 01:12:20 Eve and Adam fall 01:14:16 Sex after the Fall 01:22:52 The Messiah's Daughter 01:33:23 Marriage, divorce, and captivity Correction: 2:00 It is, in fact, Barnard.

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  • July 14 · 59 min

    Reading is... BAD For You Actually

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith The smartphone has quietly assassinated humanity's greatest invention. In this discussion, we explore the decline of deep reading. An obligatory video for all book-based channels. We look at the atomic annihilation of literacy, attention spans, memory, and critical thinking. A crazy Faustian twist: though we have access to more information than ever before, we are actually losing the ability to read and think. Topics discussed: Why smartphones are changing the way our brains process information The decline of reading for pleasure AI, ChatGPT, and the miserable future of literacy Gen Z, attention spans, and digital culture Books vs. short-form gunk The printing press, literacy, and the miserable future of 'civilisation'

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  • July 10 · 1 hr 8 min

    Who REALLY Wrote the Quran? | Gabriel Said Reynolds

    Please help us continue having these discussions by supporting us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SolomonSmith Who wrote the Quran? Did it flow directly from God? Did Muhammad compose it? Did several authors compose it over several centuries? Does it have the characteristics of a dictated text, or a written text? How simple or complicated is the story of the Quran's origins? In this episode, Jack and Milo are joined by Islamic studies scholar Gabriel Said Reynolds to explore one of the most controversial questions in Islamic Studies. The conversation examines the traditional Islamic account of the Quran alongside modern academic perspectives. Reynolds argues that the evidence may point toward a more complex process of composition than is commonly assumed, challenging the long-standing Western, secular scholarly consensus that Muhammad himself was the sole human author. Topics include: • Who wrote the Quran? • Did Muhammad write the Quran? • The traditional Islamic narrative of revelation • Academic theories of Quranic authorship • How the Quran was compiled and transmitted • Why the Quran is arranged by surah length rather than chronology • The relationship between the Quran, the Torah, and the Gospel • The emergence of Classical Arabic • The literary qualities and inimitability (i'jaz) of the Quran • Early Islamic history • Historical-critical approaches to the Quran • Western scholarship on the origins of Islam If you enjoy long-form conversations on religion, philosophy, history, and literature, consider subscribing for more discussions with scholars.

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  • July 3 · 2 hr 8 min

    This Philosopher Believed in Magic | James D. Reid on Novalis

    Please help us to keep having these conversations by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership In this conversation, James D. Reid joins Jack and Milo to discuss Novalis: poet, philosopher, natural scientist, early German Romantic, and perhaps the greatest pen name in literary history. Novalis — born Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg — died of tuberculosis just before his twenty-ninth birthday, yet left behind one of the strangest and most suggestive bodies of work in European Romanticism. Reid discusses Novalis as a thinker who refuses ordinary divisions between philosophy, poetry, religion, science, nature, and love. Was he a poet doing philosophy, a philosopher writing poetry, or some bizarre contortion of the two: a philosopher for whom poetry was the only possible means of philosophizing. The discussion begins with Novalis’s life and intellectual world: Kant, Fichte, Schlegel, Schleiermacher, Schelling, the Freiberg Mining Academy, early German Romanticism, and the extraordinary range of Novalis’s unfinished projects. Reid explains why Novalis should not be reduced to the familiar image of the death-haunted mystical poet, and why his notebooks, fragments, novels, and poems reveal a more precise and incisive mind. Much of the conversation centres on Kant and the imagination. Reid explains how the German Romantics inherit Kant’s "subjective turn," but extend the imagination far beyond perception and art, into science, morality, politics, religion, and our most basic orientation toward the world. We discuss Fichte, the thing-in-itself, appearances, language, and the Romantic conviction that reality is not simply found, but partly shaped by how human beings attend to it. The second half of the conversation turns to Novalis’s *Hymns to the Night*, the death of Sophie von Kühn, erotic longing, Christianity, mysticism, darkness, mediation, and the possibility that poetry can do philosophical work which ordinary propositional prose cannot. Reid discusses the challenge of translating Novalis, the relation between philosophy and poetry, the *Monologue*, magical idealism, and the idea that words do not merely describe a world, but help give us one. Expect reflections on: Novalis as poet, philosopher, scientist, and early Romantic Kant, Fichte, imagination, and the thing-in-itself The fragment as philosophical and literary form Why Novalis is more than a mystical death-haunted poet The *Hymns to the Night* and the death of Sophie von Kühn Christianity, mediation, religion, and heterodoxy Night, eroticism, death, and mysticism Poetry as philosophy, and philosophy as a literary form The problem of translating beauty and precision Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, Wagner, Wittgenstein, and the sciences Magical idealism and the possibility of poetising the world Mountains, language, ecology, and seeing the world as a “you” If you enjoy long-form conversations on literature, philosophy, German Romanticism, theology, poetry, metaphysics, and the strange borderlands between science and spirit, subscribe to the channel and leave a comment below. Is Novalis the greatest literary pen name? And can poetry think things that philosophy cannot? 00:00:00 Words, world, and magical idealism 00:02:00 Introduction to James D. Reid and Novalis 00:08:17 James arrives 00:15:44 Poetic epigraph 00:18:06 Who was Novalis? 00:21:54 Novalis, fragments, and Romantic “memes” 00:24:16 Kant's imagination 00:35:31 Fichte, subjectivity, and things in themselves 00:40:49 Language and perception 00:43:13 Novalis or Hardenberg? 00:46:21 Friedrich Schlegel and the early Romantic circle 00:47:17 What made Novalis unique? 00:52:07 *Hymns to the Night*: origins and textual history 00:58:24 Was Novalis a Christian? 01:08:02 Erotic night, death, and mysticism 01:18:04 Translating Novalis: poetry as philosophy 01:24:14 Kant and the night 01:30:01 The *Monologue* and language 01:31:44 Plato, Descartes, and philosophy as literature 01:34:14 Wagner, Nietzsche, and Romanticism after Novalis 01:37:00 Why philosophers distrust poetry 01:44:41 What is magical idealism? 01:49:01 The magical power of words 01:54:47 Mountains, ecology, and seeing nature as a “you” 01:58:40 The blue flower, longing, and *Heinrich von Ofterdingen* 02:01:37 How James D. Reid came to Novalis 02:08:10 Conclusion

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  • June 30 · 1 hr 36 min

    The Greatest Novel of Every Decade (1800–2000) | Andrew Nixon’s Picks

    *- Andrew's list is pasted below -* Please help us to keep having these conversations by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership In this video Andrew discusses his favourite works of fiction decade by decade, starting in 1800 and going 200 years, decade by decade, until they reach the borders of our present century. If you would like to be interviewed by us about your favourite books, please send an email. Two bonus decades are available over on Patreon! 1800s Tales from Shakespeare - Mary & Charles Lamb 1810s Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen 1820s A barren decade. 1830s The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens 1840s Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 1850s Mada-- Bleak House - Charles Dickens 1860s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 1870s Middlemarch - George Eliot 1880s Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson 1890s The Diary of a Nobody - George & Weedon Grossmith 1900s The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 1910s Howard's End - E.M. Forster 1920s A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes 1930s A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh 1940s Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake 1950s The Ginger Man - J.P. Donleavy 1960s The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien 1970s Watership Down - Richard Adams 1980s The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis 1990s Blue at the Mizzen (representing the full 20-book Aubrey-Maturin series) 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:11 1800s 00:08:29 1810s 00:13:56 1820s 00:14:45 1830s 00:19:20 1840s 00:22:40 1850s 00:27:48 1860s 00:32:13 1870s 00:38:06 1880s 00:42:20 1890s 00:45:33 1900s 00:51:46 1910s 00:56:20 1920s 01:01:45 1930s 01:08:16 1940s 01:11:51 1950s 01:16:47 1960s 01:22:48 1970s 01:28:06 1980s 01:31:25 1990s 01:36:07 Conclusion

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  • June 26 · 1 hr 35 min

    Virgil is the Greatest Poet of Antiquity (Not Homer) | Wright & McGill on The Aeneid

    Please help us to keep having these conversations by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/solomonsmith/membership In this conversation, Scott McGill and Susanna Wright join Jack and Milo to discuss their recent translation of Virgil’s *Aeneid*: one of the foundational poems of Roman literature, a work of exile, empire, grief, violence, duty, divine terror, and extraordinary poetic control. The conversation begins with the problem of collaboration: how do two translators produce one poem? McGill and Wright discuss the six-year process of translating the *Aeneid* together, from early divided drafts to an intensely collaborative line-by-line revision, and reflect on what it means to develop a single poetic voice out of two sensibilities. Much of the discussion centres on Virgil’s style: his elevation without bombast, his emotional restraint, his “majesty of sadness,” his difference from Ovid, and the challenge of translating a poem that is at once ancient, literary, musical, political, and deeply humane. We talk about Tennyson, Dryden, Emily Wilson, Homer, Ovid, alliteration, metre, syntax, wordplay, and the question of how far a translator should go in making an ancient poem feel modern. The conversation also explores the *Aeneid*’s relationship to Homer. Is Virgil merely reworking the *Iliad* and the *Odyssey*, or is he creating something radically new out of inherited material? We discuss Roman originality, translation as collaboration with the dead, the poem’s strange “cinematic universe” of myth, and the way Virgil turns Homeric models inside out. In the second half, we turn to the poem’s darkest and most difficult questions: Aeneas and Turnus, the shocking final killing, whether the poem is Augustan propaganda, the human cost of empire, and Virgil’s extraordinary capacity to extend pity even to enemies and monsters. The episode also ranges through Dido, Mezentius, Lausus, the fall of Troy, the shield of Aeneas, the future of Rome, and the burden of history. Expect reflections on: Virgil’s *Aeneid* and why it still matters How two translators collaborate on one poem The difference between Virgil, Homer, and Ovid Emily Wilson, translation, accessibility, and “otherness” The emotional gravity of Virgil’s Latin Dido, Aeneas, Turnus, Mezentius, and Lausus The ending of the *Aeneid* and the killing of Turnus Whether the *Aeneid* is Augustan propaganda Empire, violence, pity, duty, and the costs of history Alliteration, assonance, metre, syntax, and wordplay Roman originality and the creative use of the past The fall of Troy and the terror of the gods If you enjoy long-form conversations on classical literature, translation, poetry, mythology, philosophy, history, and the strange afterlives of ancient texts, subscribe to the channel and leave a comment below. What is your favourite translation of the *Aeneid*? Is Virgil’s ending a failure, a shock, or the whole point of the poem? 00:00:00 The Fall of Troy and the Terror of the Gods 00:01:06 Introduction to Scott McGill, Susanna Wright, and *The Aeneid* 00:08:04 Guests arrive: Rome, Christianity, and imperial continuity 00:11:47 Poetic epigraph 00:13:04 Two translators, one poem 00:18:38 English poetic traditions, Tennyson, and translation taste 00:22:07 The Emily Wilson Revolution 00:27:58 What is Virgil’s Latin like? 00:35:39 Virgil, Homer, and originality from the past 00:45:29 Turnus, Achilles, and the second Trojan War 00:47:53 The shocking ending of *The Aeneid* 00:53:26 Ecumenical pathos: Empathy in Virgil 00:59:35 The *Odyssey* and unending battle 01:06:46 The shadow of heroism 01:10:00 Ancient endings, unfinished poems, and Lucan 01:14:00 Sound, syntax, alliteration, and Virgilian texture 01:23:25 Roman history, prophecy, and the shield of Aeneas 01:29:36 First encounters with *The Aeneid* Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr (BWV 639) performed by Chiara Bertoglio and shortened for the video, under the following license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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