Episodes
All episodes of Do You Even Lit.
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6. Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, part 1: Skill issue
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.
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5. Borges' Garden of Forking Paths: a ramble through the multiverse
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 did Borges sit at the cutting edge of philosophy and physics without doing the info-dump spergy thing? We read one of our favourite stories in search of Clues.
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4. John Williams' sleeper hit Stoner: Finding perfection in mediocrity
What does it mean to live well when you don't make your mark, don't save your daughter, don't get the girl, and spend most of your waking hours reading? The boys are forced to confront why they identify so hard with a man who accepts mediocrity as the modal outcome. Uh oh.
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3. Michel Houellebecq's Map and the Territory, part 3: The world is weary of me and I am weary of it
Closing out our discussion of the novel's grim third act: a meditation on entropy, resignation, and thwarted ambitions. Is Jed the one character who escapes the book's pattern of failed lives? On the tension between being open to criticism and imposing a singular artistic vision upon the world.
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2. Michel Houellebecq's Map and the Territory, part 2: Post-industrial society and its discontents
Unpacking Houellebecq's critique of post-industrial capitalism and the perverse incentives that corrupt genuine creativity. Can Jed's artistic integrity survive the profit motive? The boys also attempt—repeatedly and unsuccessfully—to discuss death.
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1. Michel Houellebecq's Map and the Territory, part 1: Memeing big fat juicy asses into reality
The boys dig into the opening section of Houellebecq's The Map and the Territory, tracing its central map/territory distinction from Plato's cave through Schopenhauer, and out into questions of contemporary art, tourist experience, and whether our mental models can reshape physical reality.
