The NewlyReads

Dan makes Kylie read Nabokov's fictional scholarly edition of a poem by a fictional poet--it's fiction on fiction on fiction! They discuss the thin line between scholarship and conspiracy theories on Pale Fire, speculate on why Nabokov is rarely taught in English classes, and share anecdotes on why close reading is a helluva drug.

In this special episode, Dan and Kylie wade into murky philosophical waters to investigate why we're able to laugh, cry, and rage over the fates of fictional characters.
If you want to know what's in Dan's copious notes referenced on this episode, here's some of the reading we did to prep for this recording:
--Bernard Paris, Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature, NYU Press (1997)
--Amie L. Thomasson, Fiction and Metaphysics, Cambridge UP (1999)
--Baruch Hochman, Character in Literature , Cornell University Press (1985)
--Howard Sklar, "Believable Fictions: On the Nature of Emotional Responses to Fictional Characters," Helsinki English Studies, Vol 5 (2009)
--Paisley Livingstone, Andrea Sauchelli, and Paisley Livingston, "Philosophical Perspectives on --Fictional Characters," New Literary History, Vol. 42.2 (2011)
--Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's "Fictional Entities" (2018)

The NewlyReads do poetry! This episode we discuss why feminism is rockstar-level awesome, the caves under New York City (populated by monsters? I don't know, but probably), the newest biography of Adrienne Rich, and why poetry can make us sweat.
A note about the end of the episode: We had a problem at the very end of the recording, so we learned that our announcement of the next episode was cut off! Tragedy. It's The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James, though!

Dan makes Kylie read another doorstop novel, Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 (2017). They discuss the history of climate fiction, the challenges of crafting multiple protagonists, and Robinson's play with traditional literary genres. Also, Dan confesses that he never read a book that Kylie loaned to him years ago...
Follow our Instagram @thenewlyreads or email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!

In the bonus episode on Nabokov's Pale Fire, Kylie and Dan discuss what characterizes Nabokov's sentence-level style. Then, they debut The NewlyReads game, a passage identification quiz designed to test the knowledge of the host who chose the novel under discussion. Can Dan identify which one of three passages comes from Pale Fire, and earn bonus points for ID-ing the authors of the other two passages? Can you, dear listener?
Check out our Instagram page @thenewlyreads to see the quiz passages. Drop us a line at [email protected] to tell us how you did!
We'll be back in two weeks, after a short spring break, to discuss D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love.