Episodes
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Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird - Episode 2 - Innocence, Motifs And The Power Of Language! Hi, Iām Christy Shriver, and weāre here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.
Iām Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is our second episode over that great American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. Last week, we introduced our author and both of her published books. We compared them briefly, looked at the titles of each, and then focused more specifically on the origins and inspirations of Mockingbird. We looked at Leeās historical moment and argued that Leeās novel, although set in the 1930s was far more interested in the world of the 1950s than the 1930s- a world struggling with civil rights. We will develop the theme of racial injustice in the second part of the book, of course, but today as we lay the ground work for that part, we will continue our focus on part 1. Last episode we ended our discussion talking about Maycomb, the tired old town where Lee set her story, a town which could be seen more like a character than an actual place. Maycomb is a broken place and this brokenness is on display in several ways. Part one only hints at the racial division that is the focus of the second section but that doesnāt mean it isnāt setting us up for it. Lee carefully introduces several major themes and motifs then she proceeds to developed throughout and beyond the trial. These themes should be considered as we read the section part of the book, for one reason because they provide a framework from which we should understand the insanity of the trial and its aftermath. If you canāt understand Maycomb, you would not believe such a facade of a trial could even be possible. So, Christy, can we say the primary role of section one is foreshadowing, then?
No. I would absolutely say not the primary role. There is forshadowing, for sure, and it surfaces in many different ways, but itās the the primary role. Harper Lee is laying the framework for a larger discussion than race. Race is the context, but she is framing the racial discussion that will come. Maycomb is the microcosm of society at large- any society, not just the segregated South of her days. The disease of racism, and she does call it a disease, has several causes, and itās the cause of this disease that sheās exploring. The first half is charming and disarming. Itās less intense and emotionally jarring than the second. The language gets more offensive the closer we get to part two, but sheās setting us up for how she wants us to understand the racism we will soon be exposed to, and what she thinks we can and should do to address it. Her argument is nuanced and much of it is delivered through the words of Atticus and Calpurnia, although Uncle Jack and Miss Maudie weigh in as well. Itās illustrated through the actions of the children as they interact with the different groups in their community: the Cunninghams, the Radleys, The Ewellās and Mrs. Dubose. Lee explicitly discusses manās relationship with power, its use and abuse of it, She blatantly spells out for us what a mockingbird symbolically represents and the principle protecting the innocent. Atticus not only tells his children to learn to understanding the lived experience of those around them, but forces this lesson upon them in what comes across as a very cruel way to learn a life lesson. The setting of part 1 is the playful existence of childhood innocence, but as we walk with Scout, we are to learn these same life-lessons before she forces us to apply them in this adult world of experience which is cruel and ruthless in many ways.
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Hi, Iām Christy Shriver and weāre here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.
And Iām Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. Today we begin our discussion on a deeply beloved book by many but at the same time one of the most censored books ever written on the American continent. When it was published in 1960 it was an immediate hit with the public. Critics called it melodramatic and over-simplistic but that hasnāt stopped people from reading it and loving it. Harper Collins boasts almost 50 million copies sold, by latest count, in over 40 languages. It won the coveted Pulitzer Prize. In 1962, it was adapted by Horton Foote into an Academy Award-winning film, admittedly diminishing the role of Scout and the story of the children but drawing considerable attention and acclaim for many reasons, one being the memorable and Oscar-winning performance of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. The focus of the movie is, of course, the trial of a wrongly convicted and clearly innocent African-American gentleman by the name of Tom Robinson. The film is considered one of the greatest American films of all time and even Harper Lee liked it. After viewing she had this to say, ā"I can only say that I am a happy author. They have made my story into a beautiful and moving motion picture.ā
Of course, itās the racial element of the book that has always kept this book at the center of controversy- from both sides of the political aisle. It has been held in contempt for its language which is extremely raw, and obviously, and for that reason alone, itās been censored in many circles. But thatās not the only problematic issue. Many have drawn attention to the idealized characterization of Atticus Finch as a paragon of respectability and champion of for the oppressed. Toni Morrison labeled him a āwhite saviorā. More recently, social advocates have challenged Leeās characterization of the Ewells as feral animals depicting them basically as sub-human. There is no doubt the setting is the segregated South of the 1930s; there is no doubt; Maycomb is a broken town; there is no doubt that the child Scout looks at her father in that way we hope all 9 year old daughters are afforded the opportunity to look at their fathers. So, is this a dated sociological study or timeless classic? Leeās ability to stir so many emotions and raise so many questions is freakishly genius. Through the eyes of a child, she questions our ability as humans to even understand of the role of time in our world, the place of human judgement, our ability to give and receive social acceptance, the causes of human cruelty and human kindness. She goes a lot of directins- but what do all these things mean when presented as a whole? How do they connect us to each other? What did these things mean to the most provincial of people possible in 1935, what did they mean to a cosmopolitan American in 1960 and what do they mean to a world-wide interconnected globe today?
I know you like to talk about timeless themes and universal truths and so do I, donāt get me wrong, but historically speaking thereās a lot here I think is important to discuss as well. This book is not just regarded as sensitive because of its language and racial issues; itās also considered one of the most revealing portraits of the American South to come out of that generation- and beyond issues of race there is a lot more to see. The book is important historically. Lee was born an insider to a very specific and closed cultural group, but she pulled out of her culture and tried to examine it critically in some ways as an outsider, but an outsider who understood the inside.
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Missing episodes?
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The Easter Story
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To Build A Fire || Jack London || Episode 2 || The Iron Law Of Naturalism
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To Build A Fire - Jack London - Episode 1 - Naturalism Meets The Klondike!
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Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer - Episode 2 - London And Thoreau, The Influencers!
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter From Birmingham Jail - Episode 3 - The Radiant Stars Of Love And Brotherhood
Iām Christy Shriver and weāre here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.
And I am Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is our third episode in this series discussing Dr. Kingās leadership in the Civil Rights Movement most specifically in his iconic and historically important Letter From Birmingham Jail. Next episode, we will extend our discussion of King to the origins of his story. In Dr. Kingās speech to American from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial he said this,
In a sense we have come to our Nationās Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This promissory note was again revisited during the days of Abraham Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation and then the Gettysburg address in 1863. Next week, we will discuss this great address which Dr. King recalls occurred 100 years before his days in that Birmingham jail.
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Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter From Birmingham Jail - Episode 2 - There Are Just And There Are Unjust Laws
Hi, Iām Christy Shriver and weāre here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.
Iām Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is our second week discussing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the letter that some consider today to be one of the most significant political documents to emerge from the American continent in the last 300 years, ranking with the founding documents, the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation. Last week, we spoke a little, although very briefly, about Dr. Kingās growing up years. We focused on his rise to political prominence through his political activism in Montgomery with the MIA and Rosa Parks as they led a community to boycott public bussing system for 381 days protesting the unfair bussing practices in Montgomery. These efforts resulted in legislation that would begin the process of unraveling a 100 years of Jim Crow laws across, not just Birmingham, but the entire South.
We also discussed Project C, C, btw, stands for Confrontation. Project C was the name given to the program that was designed to combine economic pressure with large scale direct action protest in order to undermine the very rigid system of segregation in place in the Southern city of Birmingham, Alabama. The project was multi-faceted and by that I mean, it had various moving parts. It consisted of strategic sit-ins, mass meetings, economic boycotts, and of course āparadingā primarily without a permit because no permits would be given.
Yes, and one significant component of this project was planned for Good Friday, April 12 1963. It would be on this auspicious day that two political and spiritual leaders, Reverend Ralph Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would step out in faith in front of the Sixth Avenue Zion Hill Church to march down those prohibited streets. And, leading by example, proving that they would never ask anyone to do something they would not do themselves, they walked into what they knew would be a guaranteed confrontation with Bull Connorās tightly controlled police force. As they marched, they were met by a police barricade, so they changed directions and marched a different way; however, it wasnāt long until they got to a second barricade. At this one, Commissioner Eugene āBullā Connerās clear orders could be heard and I quote, āStop themā¦Donāt let them go any further!ā They were arrested, and let me add, this was not the first time these two were arrested, nor would it be the last. Dr. King and Ralph Abernathy, according to Abernathyās own words were closer than blood brothers. There was a deep trust between these two men. If you remember, they had been leaning on each other since those early days in Montgomery, Alabama where Abernathy was pastor of Montgomeryās First Baptist Church. This support would continue even after Dr. Kingās assassination where Abernathy would follow through with the support of Memphisā sanitation workers that had brought Dr. King to Memphis on the day he was murdered. Abernathy and King eventually would be jailed together a total of 17 times. Both they and their families would be targets of multiple assassination attempts.
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Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter From Birmingham Jail - Episode 1 - Dr. King Reaches Out Of His Jail Cell To Touch The Heart Of A Nation!
Iām Christy Shriver and weāre here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.
Iām Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. Today we are going to start a three part series on a man who changed the landscape of political protesting- demonstrating that positive change can occur without massive loss of life. He won the Nobel Peace Prize when he was 35 years old, at the time he was the youngest to ever receive the award. His life became synonymous with civil disobedience- taking it farther than Thoreau ever dreamed possible. He radically and controversially claimed the role of a Christian political resister was not only the role to resist injustice. This was not enough, to be successful one must accompany resistance with love- loving the persecutor- a claim that would be put to the test over and over and for which he would be martyred. On Jan 20, 1986, the US Federal Government proclaimed a national holiday commemorating his life and message. Today over 955 (that number is likely small), but there are at least 955 major street, boulevards and thoroughfares that carry his name not only across the United States but across the world. If you havenāt figured it out yet, we are talking about the life, literature and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Specifically, the iconic letter that moved a nation from apathy to change, the āLetter from Birmingham Jail.ā It was written on April 16, 1963 and famously addressed to āMy Dear Fellow Clergyman.ā
Indeed, and yet, so many students or really people, who hear that name know so little about the movement itself. Growing up first in our nationās capital, Washington DC and then Brazil, Iād heard of Dr. King. I knew he stood for non-violence, but I ignorantly thought he literally just walked around preaching and protesting, carrying signs, singing and marching. I had NO idea how calculated the entire Civil Rights moment was. I had no idea the amount of strategy and genius that went into the planning and execution of one of the most effective non-violent movements in the world- or even how many years it was in the making. I just thought, Dr. King got up one day and just started protesting.
Well, I think most people donāt, even people of good faith who try to mimic some of his basic strategies. Itās really difficult to wrap our minds around the complexity involved, not to mention the sheer power of Kingās personal rhetorical charisma that carried the movement from a few thousand African-American Christian protesters in Montgomery, Alabama to 250,000 people of all ethnicities and faith and the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The changes in legislation and the implementation of laws that had been allowed to be ignored for a century were a direct result of this movement we are discussing over the next few episodes.
So, letās get started beginning with some terminology that we hear when it comes to Civil Rights, words that many of us who arenāt originally from the South may not be familiar with- for example what are Jim Crow laws. Who was Jim Crow and what are his laws?
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Queen Elizabeth I - Speech To The Troops At Tilbury
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Hi, Iām Christy Shriver and weāre here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.
And Iām Garry Shriver. This is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is the second episode of our two-part series on Qoheleth, otherwise known as Ecclesiastes, a Sacred Text from both the Christian and Jewish traditions. Last week we explored the challenges of reading a text so old, the challenges of understanding a translated text from any language language as well as the rhetorical situation of this particular book. We situated the book by claiming it was either written by King Solomon of the Old Testament or at least in the tradition of King Solomon- a man who is revered as a prophet-king in the traditions of all three monotheistic traditions. We also claimed that it is a book of philosophy. It is not historical book or a narrative like many other books in the Old Testament nor is it primarily a book of poetry, although we will read a poem from it today. It discusses difficult things- contradictions innate in the human experience, dualities. These dualities as they read in the text make the work appear as if it contradicts itself, and in some sense it does. But, that is the paradoxical wisdom of it, humanity is the contradiction. One example of this is when Qoheleth claims All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not satisfied, but then in another chapter claims there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own work. These two passages on the surface do contradict each other, and yet, this seeming contradiction makes sense as we follow Qohelethās full line of reasoning through the text. Today,we are going to try to find at least one big common theme that brings this and other dualities into a manageable focus.
Exactly-- contradictions and dualities- life doesnāt make logical sense- why not- this is at the heart of understanding Ecclesiastes and the first of these dualities is the problem the writer references 38 times, the problem of hevel. A phrase Qoheleth introduces in verse 2- Hevel havalim, saith Kohelet, hevel havalim- all is hevel. Or as the King James states it, āVanity of Vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. The whole of life is vaporous. It is in a constant state of flux, it dissipates, it is a dynamic unsubstantiality. Everything is unstable; everything is fluctuating- existence itself is incessant changeā¦and yet our heart yearns for the opposite- for the eternal. Qoheleth claims that Eternity is written in our hearts by Godā¦and no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to endā¦and this too is hevel because hevel also means absurd- the logic does not follow cause and effect as we understand it. The ways of God are hevel.
You know, Christy, we stated last week, that unlike other Sacred Texts, according to Jewish tradition, Qohelethās audience was not solely a Jewish one- that Qoheleth was a speaker to an assembly- a message about life under the sun for all peoples. And as such, he confines his wisdom to earthly wisdom, wisdom to be applied to life on earth. This is not a book that looks to the afterlife. Tradition suggests this advice is for a broad audience, many of whom likely were not monotheistic. Perhaps even atheistic.
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Hi, Iām Christy Shriver. Weāre here to discuss works that have changed the world and have changed us.
And Iām Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. Today we are going to start our two part series on a Jewish Sacred Text known to those in the Christian tradition as the Book of Ecclesiastes and for those of the Jewish tradition as Qoheleth. The traditional scholarship, both Christian and Jewish, of the book suggests that it was written by Solomon, the son of David whose reign was from 970 to 931 BCE- give or take a few years. But, as we must assume with any piece of text this old, there is no consensus as to the dating of the book, if King Solomon wrote it, or even IF he even lived.
True, but even if you could find agreement on those points- which is no small thing actually an impossibility- but even if you could- it is still one of the most problematic books in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Qoheleth, as the writer identifies himself in the book, says things that seem to contradict traditional religious beliefs and even appear self-contradictory within the book itself. Actually, the book is FULL of apparent contradictions, certainly complicated tensions. In many ways, Qoheleth sounds very much like Albert Camus and parts of it have been compared to Camusā Myth of Sisyphus. Absurdism, as Camus expresses it in his writings and as we talked about when we discussed The Stranger, can be seen as even dialoguing with the writer of Ecclesiastes, even agreeing when talking about the contradictions inherent in being human. But, even if we got past all of that, if we accept that King Solomon lived as Scripture says he does, and we can trace a line of reasoning in this complicated book (which I do and claim right now that we can) we also must wrestle with the idea King Solomon, as a person, is one of the more problematic heroes to populate the pages of the Christian and/or Jewish Canon. He was a great political leader and prophet during his lifetime. Men came by the thousands to listen to his wisdom, and he built a great empire. Problematically, though, it didnāt last past his lifetime as a direct consequence of the choices he made in his personal life, not his professional one. His legacy was a kingdom that disintegrated immediately after his death. The Bible says his heart was not loyal to the Lord, that he did evil in the sight of the Lord to the point that God ripped, and I quote the Bible here āhis vast kingdom from him and give it to his servantā. So, there you go, as a hero, King Solomon gets mixed reviews- heās a contradiction.
And yet, his books on wisdom stand on their own merit and have for over 3000 years- there is the one he wrote on romance, Song of Solomon, another on practical life called Proverbs and this third one that weāre discussing, Ecclesiastes which is a work of deep philosophy. Just like, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes is full of maxims or quotable lines that you could put on t-shirts and sell, and we probably should, Iām pretty sure the copyright restrictions have expired. His statements of truth resonate, as you would expect with Christians, Jews, and Muslims, because heās an acknowledged prophet in those traditions, but remarkably his ideas also resonate with Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, and others from a variety of worldviews. So, this episode and next, we will jump into Jewish wisdom literature and find the common ground made famous by Qohelethā¦as the writer of Ecclesiastes identifies himself in the text. Christy, Who is Qoheleth?
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