You Can't Win

The cast of characters continues to expand. Continuing our Magic Mountain read along we go from pages 68 (One Word Too Many) to 108 (Politically Suspect). Next episode will be up to page 132 (Table Talk).

On this ep' Tom and Don chat about p. 36 to p. 68 in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Next episode we'll talk about up to p. 108. We also chat about other stuff like Alphaville towards the end.

The first episode in our read-along of The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. We are using the Vintage edition, translated by John E. Woods. Our first section is up to page 36 and then next episode will be up to page 68. At about 45 minutes we chat about some news to close out the episode. Tom also mentions the new William Vollmann book "A Table for Fortune." The Marx quote Don couldn't remember is from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire: Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.

We catch up after a summer hiatus and talk about plans for another read-along or two, probably The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Some bird noise and light editing on this one because it's still summer.

We wrap up the final sections of Aesthetics of Resistance Volume III by Peter Weiss, from p. 209 to the end. Socialists fight over culture as the basis of a free Germany but no one can agree with what that means as the liberating armies advance.

Art, class and reliability... individual destiny and history... weighty stuff as the notes from the anti-fascist underground during the Second World War come to a climax. This Aesthetics of Resistance Volume 3 by Peter Weiss episode covers part II up to p. 209. Next AOR episode we will finish the book.

We chat about our fairly boring Springs, including Toronto sports, and Tom does an update on his recent reading, including Dostoevsky and Jameson. Mentioned: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky An Essay on Man by Ernst Cassirer The Following Story by Cees Nooteboom Molloy by Samuel Beckett Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett Marxism and Form by Fredric Jameson AOR3 read-along next time is up to p. 209.

Our fourth episode in our read-along for The Aesthetics of Resistance: Volume III, up to page 164 (Part II). Next AOR episode will be up to page 209. The war enters a new phase and there's some cinematic intrigue plus some discussion about art.

We check in about Tom's trip to Mexico, minor life updates and the news. Tom is still a bit sick so we had to cut this one somewhat short but we'll be back soon. Next Aesthetics of Resistance Volume 3 episode should be within the next week or two, up to end of Part I of the book.

We talk about pp 90 to 131 of Aesthetics of Resistance Volume 3 by Peter Weiss. The resistance to German fascism enters a new stage as isolated Communists struggle to find ways to be helpful. The art from AOR is available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_of_art_in_The_Aesthetics_of_Resistance Next time (in a few weeks) we will read up to Section II (p. 164).