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Know Nothing Literature

Know Nothing Literature

By: E. S. Dallaire
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 This world is wondrous and vast, but it's through books best discovered. Sounds nice, but is it true? I wonder. If one were to claim no knowledge but for books, would that knowledge amount to much? Consider how Einstein put it: 'As far as literature refers to reality, it is not certain; and as far as it is certain, it does not refer to reality.’ Or something like that. The point is, Nikole and I, we don't know, but we do know books.2024 Art Literary History & Criticism Philosophy Social Sciences
Episodes
  • 2. Disappointment and Hypocrisy in Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot'

    2. Disappointment and Hypocrisy in Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot'
    Mar 30 2025

    Nikole and I try to get to the bottom of why she was disappointed after reading Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot'. We wonder whether Prince Myshkin was good, bad, pathetic, cowardly, and then ask why he was the way he was, and why Dostoevsky (who rumor has it was portraying himself), made him this way, as a counterpoint to Russian society of the time, which was embracing industrialization, capitalism, and the so-called modern progress of the West. What is a person to do or say, who knows the way of the modern world isn't right, but who maybe realizes too that they are nonetheless powerless to stop it.
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    38 mins
  • 1. Saul Bellow's 'Mr. Sammler's Planet'

    1. Saul Bellow's 'Mr. Sammler's Planet'
    Mar 26 2025

    Inaugural episode! Hello and welcome! We start with a preface for the series, then begin our journey to discover the wisdom of the past, as found in books, books, books, with a reading of an excerpt from 'Mr Sammler's Planet', by Saul Bellow, written in 1970.
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    28 mins

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