Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films

Wes Alwan and Erin O'Luanaigh
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Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films
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Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.

  1. Anti-Mystery in “Picnic at Hanging Rock”

    5D AGO

    Anti-Mystery in “Picnic at Hanging Rock”

    It’s Valentine’s Day in the state of Victoria, Australia in the year 1900. A group from a local girls’ school goes on an excursion to the foot of an eerie, vast geological formation called Hanging Rock. Three girls and one schoolteacher climb up to explore it. All but one are never seen again. This summary constitutes the essential plot but only the first act of Peter Weir’s 1975 film, based on the novel by Joan Lindsay. The remaining two acts concern the surviving characters’ struggle to make sense of what happened on the rock. Yet, sense is not what the film intends to deliver. Rather, it’s an anti-mystery that dismantles the nature of the mystery story itself—its love of solutions, its neat settling of the uncertainties that crime or menace introduce. What happens, this film asks, when an event resists the imposition of order, stands beyond the reach of logic or even language? Wes & Erin discuss “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”

    46 min
  2. “The Indian to His Love” by William Butler Yeats

    JUN 30

    “The Indian to His Love” by William Butler Yeats

    Wes & Erin discuss "The Indian to His Love."

    38 min
  3. “Leda and the Swan” by William Butler Yeats

    JUN 23

    “Leda and the Swan” by William Butler Yeats

    Wes & Erin discuss "Leda and the Swan."

    54 min
  4. The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” (Part 2)

    JUN 16

    The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” (Part 2)

    Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Yeats’s "Sailing to Byzantium," and whether creativity can help us transcend mortality, and how artists should conceive of their relationships to nature and posterity.

    42 min
  5. The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”

    JUN 9

    The Artifice of Eternity in Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”

    Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium” begins and ends with the concept of reproduction. In the first stanza, this reproduction is natural and sexual, and in the final stanza is entirely a matter of artifice. The living songbird is transformed into both product and producer, with a form of singing that is gilded by a consciousness of its departure from nature. Where natural reproduction replenishes entities that are neverthless always in the process of dying, art—the speaker seems to hope—is potentially eternal. And yet the poem’s final stanza also reminds us that art is ultimately for the living, and only as alive as its audience. Wes & Erin discuss Yeats’s meditation on whether creativity can help us transcend mortality, and how artists should conceive of their relationships to nature and posterity.

    42 min
  6. The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) – Part 2

    MAY 26

    The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) – Part 2

    Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic, and why it is that Satanic evil, when confronted with life’s very frightening realities—including pregnancy itself—turns out to be so banal.

    38 min
  7. The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)

    MAY 18

    The Evil of Banality in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)

    On the surface, “Rosemary’s Baby” is a horror film about a woman who gets taken advantage of by a satanic cult and impregnated by the Devil. In the end, it seems to be a satire on the competing entrapments of domesticity and ambition, and the boring conventionality of people who hope that opposition to convention will allow them to retrieve their lost youth. Wes & Erin discuss Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic, and why it is that Satanic evil, when confronted with life’s very frightening realities—including pregnancy itself—turns out to be so banal.

    42 min
  8. “Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson – Part 4

    APR 28

    “Where the Meanings Are” – Four Poems by Emily Dickinson – Part 4

    Erin & Wes continue their discussion of four of Dickinson’s best-loved poems, whose little rooms contain some of the definitive poetic statements on grief, pain, violence, death, reason, identity, and encounters with the divine.

    35 min
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4.9
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About

Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.

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