Link to Ekphrastic Writing essay Shari wrote and mentioned in the episode:

Here is the link to Rhea’s reading guide to Lila:

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Lila by Marilynne Robinson

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15 days ago · 5 likes · Rhea Forney

If you liked this podcast episode, please restack it so others can experience Lila!

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Other Lila posts you might find interesting:

I don’t remember which book on the arts or class on writing where I was first introduced to this idea that one of art’s primary functions is to make strange the every day. I’m sure it was presented more wonderfully than I’ve stated it here. I think the actual quote might have been more of a mandate:

Make is strange.

Sure. Okay…?

(“Making it strange” originated with the Russian Formalist, Viktor Shlovsky, who introduced the idea of art as a way of defamiliarization. You can read more about it in the outline for Lila | Part 2, or listen to Rhea and I discuss it in this week’s podcast episode.)

If I didn’t quite understand what that looked like years ago when I first read it, I now have an excellent case study for it in Lila. Truly, I think this is one of the primary things that compels me so deeply about this story’s narrative. Robinson’s way of “making it strange.”

But then, Lila is a strange story, is it not? I mean, it’s not every day a wandering, homeless woman (who isn’t young, but isn’t old either) comes to town and within weeks of being there is married to the town’s beloved, elderly pastor. And then pregnant with his child! So then, if the story is already a strange one, what is the “every day” that Robinson is making strange?

Maybe this is one of the many powers of Robinson’s storytelling: the way each of us reading it would answer that question differently.

For me, as a life-long Christian, who, from the youngest age has been steeped in the stories of the Bible and the sacraments of the Church, Lila makes strange these realities that easily become stale if not shaken from their familiarity. Lila, in her questioning, contemplating, and wrestling with the Word and Sacrament, miracles my seeing. And in the miracle I find myself falling in love all over again with the mysteries of my faith.

But there is also a way in which Lila draws near what is already strange. I mean, let’s be honest, Ezekiel is a weird book! There are things written in Ezekiel impossible to understand and doubly hard to reckon with. Like John Ames, who shifts uncomfortably every time Lila brings up Ezekiel, I too, would rather she take up Matthew and wonder over the Beatitudes.

But it’s such a gift to John—and to me!—that she doesn’t. In Lila’s honest and open-hearted inquiry, she brings near what I might otherwise gloss over with the excuse that it’s old, ancient writing not so applicable to today. But isn’t this a cop out? The Bible is full of the beautiful and the weird; the clear and the incredibly mysterious. One is not more important than the other. On the contrary, the fullness of meaning in one is dependent on the other, and vice versa.

Of all the Bible’s books I love that Robinson chose Ezekiel for Lila to be fascinated by. It makes me wonder what treasures in Ezekiel Robinson has found herself and holds dear. It makes me want to re-read Ezekiel (it’s been quite a few years) with Lila’s eyes alongside my own. There are ways Lila finds her own story—her own self—in Ezekiel’s words. I wonder where I might find my story—my own self—in Ezekiel’s words as well?

But, as I said near the top, what is so marvelous about Robinson’s way of “making it strange” is how each one of us could answer that question differently.

So, I’m so curious: What does Lila “make strange” for you? Or, what strange thing about life does Lila draw near?

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As mentioend above, you can hear Rhea and I talk more about Lila and “making it strange” on this week’s podcast episode:

For our paying subscribers, Below you will find the outline for Lila | Part 2. As I did at the beginning of this week’s podcast, I apologize upfront for Lila’s freakishly long outlines. Rhea’s notes are so great; she is asking dozens of wonderful questions and contemplating so much richness in each section, I feel it’s sinful to keep it from you. :) I tried a couple new tactics (changing colors and grouping the discussion questions) that I hope will help you navigate the outline more easily. I think we just have to confess and lean into the truth: Lila is so full of wonders and riches to consider. Every week is a feast. :)

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Be sure to look through Rhea’s reading guide for Lila here:

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Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Join us for Lila by Marilynne Robinson…

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9 days ago · 4 likes · Rhea Forney

If you missed last week’s episode, you can listen to it here:

If you are a paid subscriber, you can find the outline for Lila | Part 1 below. Even if you aren’t a paying subscriber, you can read my thoughts on Lila | Part 1:

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I will go to my grave saying I don’t do favorites.

Having said that… Lila is one of my favorites.

Like Hannah Coulter, when I read Lila I am filled with this overwhelm of beauty that is all at once a splendor and a sadness. A sharp ache and holy knowing. A now-but-not-yet that still promises:

All shall be well. All shall well. And all manner of things shall be well.

How does Lila achieve this “bright sadness” that is so filled with eternity and hope? What is it about our main character’s voice and perspective that makes me want to weep and laugh and plead with the Lord above, all at the same time?

Like Hannah, Lila’s voice has this quiet and mysterious force to it. Despite her uncertainty, shame, and powerlessness, Lila narrates with a voice clear and unashamed (which is part of the mystery, is it not?? To be a character struggling with shame, and yet be able to convey this in a voice that is unashamed?). Lila’s voice is true. Not because what she thinks is always true; it’s often unreliable, especially when it comes to John Ames and the community of Gilead. It’s trueness comes from its honesty. An honesty that is unvarnished and undecorated—it’s plain. It’s this plainness—at least in part—that gives the narrative great veracity.

Thinking about Lila’s narrative voice (Hannah Coulter’s, too) makes me think of the power of voice in general; the way a strong, narrative voice seeps past our conscious selves and into our souls. Maybe it’s only by increments and degrees, but like any worthwhile encounter, a powerful narrative voice re-members us, even as we are following along in the re-membering of the characters about which we’re reading.

In the writing world, much is made of “voice”. It’s like Captain Nemo: this undefinable, ungraspable, enigmatic aspect of the writing craft that is pretty much at the core of all excellent literature. By “excellent literature” I mean language+story that lasts inside you long after you read it—your entire life, even. Maybe you didn’t even “like” the story in the end (I’m looking at you, Twenty Thousand Leagues), but it haunts you continually none the less.

I’ve read Lila multiple times. Without a doubt, its voice has shaped me. It’s shaped my understanding of grace; of mystery; and of acknowledging my own blind spots, but without allowing that knowledge to shrink me into a void of uncertainty, or position of non-commitment. Lila’s voice resonates with quiet generosity and openness. It holds the language of invitation mysteriously within its words; a gentle hospitality that naturally implies security and certainty, a place of blessed non-judgement as my soul is formed into something new…

… something new, specifically, as a woman.

This is (at least some of) the difference in stories like Lila and Hannah Coulter. When I read these novels their voices fill me with a kind of feminine beauty that has been largely been forgotten—or discarded—in our late-modern culture (wild, considering Hannah Coulter is written by a man!). It’s a kind of beauty that can hold great sorrow and still fight with mysterious tenacity toward joy. Or carry deep shame and yet choose every day to turn in faith toward the vulnerability of belonging. These are voices who know who they are and what they are about, even as their characters wrestle mightily to lay hold of these exact same things.

Lila’s is the voice of becoming that visions forth a kind of “becoming” that is not of Lila’s making. Nor it is her responsibility to make. It is a gift for Lila to accept as her own and live into: like baptism, like communion. Like the gift of grace itself.

Below is the outline for our first discussion of Lila. Good luck with it! I say this somewhat in jest, but somewhat not. Rhea and I both had so much we were wondering over that it poured over into pages and pages of questions and discussion points, with some fantastic rabbit trailing, too.

My suggestion would be to go through the outline with a highlighter, highlighting those questions you find especially compelling, those you can see coming back to as the story progresses, or you’d like to contemplate further either on your own or with others. There are some excellent questions for journaling on. Certainly, there are lots to choose from! :)

Also, if you haven’t seen Rhea’s reading guide for Lila yet, you can find that here:

Rhea’s Substack

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Join us for Lila by Marilynne Robinson…

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9 days ago · 4 likes · Rhea Forney

Thanks for reading along with us, everyone! If you’re not a paying subscriber to The Reader & the Writer, and you’d like to access to our outlines, click here:

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And if you liked this post on narrative voice, please restack it so others can like it, too.

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Connect with us on Substack, to read and listen to more good stuff from R&W: thereaderandthewriter.substack.com

As mentioned at the top of the episode:

Send us a message on Substack, or email us at: readerandwriterpodcast@gmail.com to let us know what books you’d love to read with R&W in 2027!

In case you missed it, here is the reading schedule for Lila:

• October 20: pages 3-68

• October 27: pages 68-132

• November 3: pages 132-198

• November 10: 199-261

If you liked this post, please restack it; share it to Notes! It sure helps The Reader & the Writer find more amazing readers like you. :)

Phew!! We made it to the end of our Twenty Thousand Leagues journey.

But, what do we make of its ending?

If you’ve listened to this week’s podcast episode, you know Rhea and I were… well… let’s say bewildered. At least I was. Rhea was downright annoyed.

The ending begs for deep pondering: What does Aronnax mean by his final reflections? What exactly is he suggesting in quoting Ecclesiastes and then giving an answer to a question the author was never really asking? How are we to think of Nemo’s last words, compared to Aronnax’s? Was Nemo the only enigma of the story?

We focused much of our episode discussion considering the difference between a character’s vision versus the story’s vision. In my opinion, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea offers us an excellent expression of how these two things can oppose one another. It’s in the difference where we find the author with his sleeves rolled up, deep at work on the project of the story he is telling.

I won’t say much more about it here. I don’t want to spoil the ending if you’ve not yet read it, or the podcast episode if you’ve not yet listened.

But if you have read and/or listened, I would love to know what you thought of the Twenty Thousand Leagues ending:

• Did you find Aronnax’s sentiments problematic?

• Or do you think he meant something different than Rhea and I took them?

• Now that it’s over, can you see all that scientific language working on multiple levels to create the story Verne was trying to tell?

• What is the story Verne was trying to tell??

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this notion of “story vision” and how every story has one, whether or not it is conscious of its own conveying. Twenty Thousand Leagues is no exception. If anything, I think it’s a classic example of showing just how complex a story’s vision can be. And whether or not I adored the story itself, I absolutely loved how hard I had to work in order to “think like the writer,” Verne, so I could—as Virginia Woolf suggests—get “hold of the right end of the string.”

For our paying subscribers, I hope you truly enjoy this final outline for Twenty Thousand Leagues. I worked hard to give solid evidence for my notion that Verne was deliberate in creating friction between character vision and story vision. Beyond the usual quotes and reference material, This week’s outline questions are especially helpful for facilitating your own deep thinking and discussing the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Enjoy!

(If you liked this post, please restack it! Doing so helps The Reader & the Writer grow.)

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If you’ve been reading Twenty Thousand Leagues along with us, HIGH FIVE!! You did it! Well done, good and faithful reader. ;-) We are so thankful you stuck it out with us these thousands of leagues under the sea.

If you are a paying subscriber, look for this week’s show outline to post later this week. This one is full of really great information; to include all of Ecclesiastes 7, and a detailed summary of Aeneas’s wanderings.

Our next deep read is Lila, by Marilynne Robinson. We will be reading it over the next four weeks. Here is the breakdown (Note: there are no chapters, thus the page breakdown):

• Episode 1 | October 20th: pp. 3-68

• Episode 2 | October 27th: pp. 68-132

• Episode 3 | November 3rd: pp. 132-198 (end of page)

• Episode 4 | November 10th: pp. 199-261

As always, thanks so much for reading and contemplating with us. We love to hear from you, so send us a message or offer a comment below. Let us know what you thought of the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues! And, if you liked this episode, please consider re-stacking it so others can enjoy it, too!

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We’re sooo close to the end of our 20,000 leagues undersea adventure. I don’t know about you, but the only question plaguing my mind right now is: Who is Captain Nemo?

If I close this book at the end and still don’t know, I’ll never read another Jules Verne novel again. I’m sure, from his grave, he gives a rip. (yep, that was corny, and intentional).

This section of the story was rattling, was it not? Two major events in which death seemed eminent. And why? How did our voyagers get into each mess? What was behind each of these trials?

From my point of view, these two near-calamities are quintessential expressions of the argument Verne is having (with himself? with us? with society of his time… or all times?) through Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Or, you could say it’s a question he’s wrestling with, and forcing us to wrestle with, too.

It is the question (or argument) of holding up knowledge (maybe as specific as scientific knowledge) as the highest good. Even treating it like land to be conquered and claimed.

As an argument it goes something like: Knowledge is something one can never have enough of; it is the highest of all the Forms (thinking here of Plato’s “forms”: Goodness, Truth, Beauty, Love, Justice, etc.); one ought to go forth as an explorer or even conqueror in conquest of it.

As a question it’s more subtle; more approachable in a way: Is there such a thing as too much love of knowledge? When does one’s love of knowledge become more of a harm to self and others, than a good?

Beneath all this is the deeper, more singular question in which every work of fiction is engaged with; that is:

What is the good life? What constitutes a worthy pursuit of happiness?

These are moral questions.

Which means fiction is—at some level—moral.

Does this make you squirm? Do you balk at the idea of finding the “moral” of every story? You should. I do. Especially, if by “moral” you think of it in this narrow, Aesop’s Fable sort of way.

But, I honestly cannot think of a novel I’ve read, ever, that isn’t wrestling with the questions I presented above. And the best novels I’ve read have authors behind them who are conscious of this, and earnest in their wrestling. How well they “live” into this wrestling—make it real and palpable—are ultimately matters of craft. At least this is how I see it as a writer.

At any rate, Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is most definitely presenting us a moral tale; more, rather than less, consciously so. And right now, so much of this moral meaning—for me, at least—is bound up in Captain Nemo, and understanding fully this enigmatic man’s identity.

I’d love to hear what you think on the moral element of story-telling. Do you think about this layer at all when you read? What about Twenty Thousand Leagues? What questions about “the good life” do you think Verne is asking us to consider?

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For our paying subscribers, below you will find this week’s outline. Some highlights include:

• Rhea’s rabbit hole on Proteus, the Greek god known as “the old man of the sea”

• Some great questions surrounding those two terrible events I wrote of earlier

• A good pondering on textual landscapes (from an essay I wrote last week on the subject.

Thanks so much for being on this literary adventure with The Reader & the Writer!

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For our paying subscribers, the outline for Episode 6 will come out later this week.

As we continue our close reading of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, I’ve been picking my way through a book Rhea discovered on one of her bookstore adventures by Timothy Unwin (a professor in Bristol): Jules Verne: Journeys in Writing. I haven’t read far into it. But one essay already has me thinking about the text of any literary work in a new way.

In his essay, “Textual Environments,” Unwin examines Verne’s literary approach of making abundant use of scientific language, and its effect on the ultimate meaning of the story Verne is trying to tell. He connects Verne’s prolific use of scientific language to the instinctive human quest for discovery and conquest, which he then connects back to Verne’s narrative style which seems to continually teeter between wholeness and diminishment or “fragmentation” as Unwin calls it.

Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? I am barely grasping Unwin’s meaning even as I type it. And yet, there is something to what Unwin is saying I recognize in my own experience of reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

What is that “feeling”?

As I read, I sense myself being pulled between opposing polls of meaning: completeness and splintering; wholeness and destruction. Where does this story’s “moral” vision lie? What do these characters ultimately value? Is what they value strong enough to hold together into something greater in the end? Or does it all fall apart? What meaning will be ultimately laid out for me? Is Verne’s language—at least, in part—to blame? Is this intentional on his part? Or an unintended consequence… or benefit? Is his overabundance of scientific jargon undermining the ability of the story to delight us as readers in the poetic-side of science which seems so dear to Verne’s aim?

There is an old adage: the best way to understand something is to try and explain it to someone else. Thus, the reason for this essay. Lucky you. :)

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Unwin’s focus is on the power of Verne’s text to express a larger theme of man’s conquest of nature, colonization, and the idea of progress itself. By making excessive use of scientific language, Verne—whether consciously or not—is suggesting several different ideas about language and the ways it mimics nature and man’s relationship to it:

• language has a tremendous ability to be precise.

• Language has a tremendous ability to be prolific and in continual adaptation to its needs for both precision and variety.

• Verne’s abundant use of scientific language reveals these above powers in language by mimicking by being both incredibly precise, and tremendously prolific.

• It also suggests a kind of desire to “conquer” the language, even as he has characters in his story who are bent on conquering nature in some form or another—often with two characters who have opposing ideas about how this ought to look or be carried out. (For example: Nemo’s taming of the ocean, and Ned Land’s insatiable desire to hunt and appetite for meat; also, both men opposing the other in what is considered credible “hunting” and what is mere “butchery”)

Ironically, as Unwin points out, all this force of language can end up having a diminishing effect to the overall power of the story. This too, he suggests mimics nature and man’s colonizing effect upon it:

Text imposes order and coherence, yet in its energetic diffuseness it simultaneously mimics the abundance of those untamed expanses. On the one hand we find an attempt to cover and appropriate the globe in words, to make the vast unknown, undifferentiated expanses ‘readable’ by processing everything into language. Text, like the colonising civilisation itself, spreads into every unknown corner of the globe, gets everywhere. Yet, on the other hand, in doing this, the text proliferates wildly, and in its huge, encyclopaedic attempt to write the history of the universe itself, it runs amok. (24)1

Yes. That’s it. In Verne’s vast proliferation of text—its “huge, encyclopaedic attempt to write the history of the universe itself”—the story begins to “run amok” on me.

It’s kinda like Solomon—the “Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem”—at the height of his vast wisdom and power and wealth, writing Ecclesiastes and declaring right at the beginning:

² “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

But, maybe this is part of Verne’s objective? Maybe, as Unwin says, Verne wants “the language of nature and the nature of language” to mirror one another.

The quest for total knowledge goes hand in hand with the ever-present sense of potential chaos and destruction. Indeed, coherence and disintegration cohabit both in the subjects of Verne’s novels—where so often a natural disaster puts paid to all the order that the characters have brought to their environment—and in the very conception of the writing which, as an attempt at a total classification and résumé of knowledge, appears to end up as a disordered accumulation. The language of nature and the nature of language mirror one another: articulating the quest for totality, they also express the danger of fragmentation.

What’s so fascinating about this last bit from Unwin is that the “quest for total knowledge” has been a contemplation point Rhea and I have circled back to week after week. What is the point of knowledge for its own sake? When does one become “too smart” for his or her own good?

And what do we make of the lost city of Atlantis showing up in the middle of Twenty Thousand Leagues? This mythic city that, according to the legend, at its height was a flourishing center of all things: wealth, knowledge, learning, prosperity and happiness, until its citizens became arrogant and greedy in their accumulation, prideful and careless in their hubris until eventually the gods had had enough and engulfed it with the sea.

But, it seems that Nemo looks longingly over Atlantis—at least this is how Professor Aronnax perceives it:

Was it here that this enigmatic man returned to reconnect with his knowledge of the past and live for a while the life of this ancient city—for was he not a man who refused to have anything to do with modern living? What would I not have given to know his innermost thoughts, so that I could share them and understand them?

Ah, yes! To be with Verne in his innermost thoughts and understand what he means by this vast landscape of scientific language! Wouldn’t that be something?

Instead I’ll have to content myself to my continued wondering and reading. And try not to skim the next four page description of sea life I see.

But, what do you think? If you’re reading Twenty Thousand Leagues with us, or you’ve read any of Verne’s other “scientific romance” adventures (I can’t get enough of that genre title!), what affect does his use of scientific lingo have on you? Do you love it? Hate it? Find it reads like poetry? (I read a quote from a critic who said this exact thing!) Or, maybe in the beginning you found it interesting, but now have the sense that it’s losing its descriptive power.

I’d love to hear from you. :)

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If you are a paying subscriber, you will find both Rhea’s excellent chapter by chapter notes, and the show outline (broken down by the four medieval ways into meaning, with definitions, references, quotes, and links) underneath “Additional Resources” on R&W’s Harry Potter page. We have kept them as two separate documents. We hope you find them both helpful as you dive deep into Harry Potter by yourself or in conversation others.

Time to start reading Book Two: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets! Expect the next Harry Potter episode to air November 6th.

So far, every week we’ve read and discussed Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Rhea and I circle back to the same running question: Who is Captain Nemo?

This week was no different.

Except, we are learning things, are we not?

For example: The portraits Arronax sees on Nemo’s wall—all liberators of some kind, freeing oppressed peoples from unjust rule to outright bondage. Or, his increasing head-butting with Ned Land over what is considered just hunting v. outright butchery. There is also the curious way he chooses to show up when he does (twice now, in the seconds before the three men were attempting an escape!), control what he lets them see, when he lets them see it, and even who he allows to engage in the seeing.

In this last example, I’m thinking of Nemo inviting Arronax alone on an excursion to visit the lost underwater city of Atlantis. This choice seems especially important, if for no other reason than it allows us readers to ponder alongside Arronax who this “enigmatic man” truly is, and what he might be after:

While I was musing along these lines and forcing myself to fix in my memory every detail of thie grandiose seascape, Captain Nemo, leaning on his elbows on a mossy stele, remained perfectly still, as if petrified, lost in silent wonder. Was he thinking about those vanished generations? Was he asking them if they knew the secret of human destiny? Was it here that this enigmatic man returned to reconnect with his knowledge of the past and live for a while the life of this ancient city—for was he not a man who refused to have anything to do with modern living? (p. 330-1)1

With this reference to the mythic Greek city and the continual reference to Nemo as that “enigmatic man,” I can’t help but think of Homer’s hero, Odysseus. Here is another famous ancient Greek figure (a man, not a city) called among many things, a “complicated man” (I recognize that I am riffing on Emily Wilson’s translation, and there are those who take issue with her translation. Whether or not “complicated” is an accurate word translation, the story itself reveals a man and story that is. Complicated, that is.).

Is Nemo a kind of Odysseus, if somewhat inverted? Odysseus was running toward his home and civilization, and Nemo, it would seem, is running away. Yet both are sea bound—though Nemo seems to have conquered his sea, while Odysseus is continually struggling against its obstacles). Both have a quest of liberation to achieve. Nemo’s, so far, is unknown to us but clearly known by him. Odysseus’s, on the other hand, is known to us from the beginning, but a mystery to him for much the story, until he sets foot on his home shores if Ithaca.

Or what about Robin Hood? You could easily make the case that Nemo is a type of Robin Hood: “stealing” from the rich (by not returning the gold and treasure he finds at the bottom of the sea—who would??), and instead sending it off to some mysterious cause, we assume (again, back to the portraits on his wall) is of the liberating kind, helping in the salvation of the “least of these.”

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We have two episodes left in Twenty Thousand Leagues. I can hardly wait to find out what kind of “hero” Nemo turns out to be!

To our paid subscribers, enjoy this week’s outline!

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For our paid subscribers: the outline for Episode 5 will drop later this week.

For all our readers, let us know what you think about Nemo! Is he a great liberator? Or great hypocrite??

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We are over half-way through Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. As Rhea and I both agreed on this week’s podcast, we are finally beginning to see a bubbling of conflict beyond our own frustration of Captain Nemo’s continued mysteriousness.

Ned is pushing for escape no matter their captor’s continued hospitality. Aronnax is reluctant but admits that what’s holding him back is his own selfish desire for knowledge and discovery. Conseil continues to have no will except for serving Aronnax. Nemo acts in contradictory ways (Does he hate humanity or not? Has he cut all ties or hasn’t he?)

As this story continues to unfold, I’m beginning to notice a curious effect Verne’s language is having on my reading experience—to include how I am making meaning (consciously, and subconsciously) of this story as we go. I’m working on a more in-depth essay exploring Verne’s literary approach and his abundant (excessive?) use of scientific text in his storytelling. Of course, there can be no full understanding of the story or its possible meaning(s) until I’ve read through to “The End.” But I think it’s worth considering as we go: What is the effect of the text on our engagement with the story? What is the the distance it keeps us at as we read? how “secure” or “insecure” do we feel in our narrator’s—and our author’s—hands?

For now I’d be curious to know how you’re experiencing Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? What effect does all the scientific language have on your enjoyment of the story? Do you love it? Does it distance you from the story and its characters? Do you think that it’s aiding in what the story is “saying” to you overall? Or detracting from it?

So much to consider! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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For our paying subscribers, enjoy this week’s outline! It was a fun one to write and wonder our way through on the podcast. For as quick as I’m able to get through section of reading, I’m always amazed at how much Rhea and I find to discuss each week on the podcast. This week’s episode was no exception. I’m especially intrigued by the big questions we ended up asking toward the end: about freedom, knowledge, and in what we ultimately place our trust.

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For paying members, look for the outline to come out later this week.

(Note: If you’re a paying subscriber and you’re pining away for the outline, simply scroll to the bottom and you’ll find it there.)

My husband asked a question last night about stories. Really, it was more like a question he’d been wondering about on his own, roaming in his mind when his mind is free enough for roaming.

So, when he asked last night, “What are stories for?” he wasn’t really asking me. He was getting reading to tell me what he’s discovered on his own.

“Stories,” he said, “are for showing the essence of a thing.”

I smiled when he said this. I thought it was—still is—is one of the more brilliant things he’s ever decided (except for marrying me, of course.)

I think the reason I love his answer so much, is because it is broad enough to encompass the many layers that motivate the storyteller in telling his or her story, and the reader for reading it. And yet, it speaks to something unique and beautiful about stories: Stories have the power to pierce our hearts and re-member us in ways no didactic learning can ever hope to achieve.

As brilliant as I thought my husband’s answer was, I also know it isn’t new or unique. I could put this question—what are stories for?—into Google or ChatGPT and get dozens of quotes by famous people all saying the same thing he did in different ways. If you’ve spent any amount of time in the literary wing of Substack, you know this. Such quotes circle the proverbial globe in Notes; clicked, liked, and shared 1k, 2k, 3.5k times over.

In fact, as recently as last week, I read something quite similar to my husband’s answer, in Richard Cohen’s book, Making History. Several similar things, actually. In his chapter titled, “Once Upon a Time: Novelists as Past Masters,” Cohen makes the case that novels play a critical role in adding to the study of history. “They fill in the gaps that formal accounts cannot cover, when what historians might call ‘hard evidence’ does not exist.” (p. 256)1

Cohen goes on to quote several authors on the topic, all rhyming with my husband’s sentiment:

“Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing, wrote Joseph Conrad. “But it is also more than that; it stands on firmer ground, being based on the reality of forms and the observation of social phenomena, whereas history is based on documents, and the reading of print and handwriting—on second-hand impressions. Thus fiction is nearer the truth. But let that pass. A historian may be an artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience.” (265)

“Where does one draw the line,” [Islamic historian, Chase] Robinson asks, “between non-fictional historical narrative which relies upon storytelling techniques that are usually associated with imaginative literature, and historical fiction, in which characters and stories are grounded in past events, particularly if the two projects share a common purpose—to edify, entertain or illustrate what their authors hold to be truths?” [Historian, Michael] Howard simply says, “We’re all having our stab at the truth.”

“‘The novel is history,’ contended Henry James, who believed it was the novelist’s sacred office to write as a historian. But ‘Your real job, as a novelist,’ as Hilary Mantel concludes one talk, ‘is not to be an inferior sort of historian, but to recreate the texture of lived experience: to activate the senses, and deepen the reader’s engagement through feeling.’ Thus, ‘if we want to add value—to imagine not just how the past was, but what it felt like, from the inside—we pick up a novel.’” (290-1)

The whole reason I was reading (piece-meal, mind you) Cohen’s Making History was because of the questions that started roaming around my mind while reading and discussing the novel, A History of the Island, by Eugene Vodolazkin. It’s been two books ago, now, that Rhea and I close read A History on the podcast. But those questions haven’t left me:

• Who gets to tell the story? Why is one account more “valued” or “official” than another?

• Is it true that only the victors write the histories, and tell the tales?

• Where is the line between history and fiction?

• Is there really any such thing as an “unbiased” historical account?

• If this is the case, then isn’t there less a determined line between history and fiction after all?

• What is the “truth” that the novel can offer that the historical account will always fail to deliver on?

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” sings the cast at the end of Hamilton.

It’s a fascinating question, isn’t it?

(As a complete aside: If I were a high school or college history teacher I would 100% include A History of the Island as a central part of my curriculum. Yes, central. If you’ve read A History of the Island, what do you think of this idea?)

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Cohen must’ve thought so. He spent 660 pages considering the power of storytellers—both fiction and non-fiction—for shaping the past. In doing so, he questions the authority of the singular, godlike “historical” account as somehow the most authoritative; and instead, offers a panolpy of voices all giving credence to a prismatic approach for understanding any historical time and its people.

I always find it surprising when I hear people I deeply admire as earnest seekers of wisdom and understanding tell me they don’t read fiction. They say it in this strange, emphatic way. Without meaning to, they suggest they find it beneath them to read fiction. After all, fiction is “fake,” which implies it is a waste of valuable time that might otherwise be spent on “real” books that offer a more direct and practical service (knowledge, wisdom, moral clarity, historical account, etc.).

This isn’t to suggest that I’m somehow opposed to non-fiction reading. That would be absurd. I’m always reading something in the non-fiction realm—usually more than one thing at a time.

What I am suggesting is that if you consider yourself as one who seeks out the good and true but in your pursuit you manage to continually avoid what is beautiful (whether on purpose or always by “accident”), you will actually fall short of obtaining the good and the true as well. You will always have a gaping hole in your understanding.

The “essence” of the understanding you’re so earnestly seeking will forever escape you.

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Twenty Thousand League.… A few ramblings + the Outline

Speaking of things that continually escape understanding: Nemo’s continued mysteriousness is about to drive me (and Rhea, who is probably Googling Nemo’s backstory as I type) batty.

Who is this character?? What does he mean?

Yes, I meant to say it just like that. What does Nemo mean??

Nemo is so enigmatic a character it’s impossible to see him as anything other than a sign pointing to something larger. But what?

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For paid subscribers, look for this week’s show outline to come out later this week.

Be sure to look through Rhea’s Reading Guide, especially the interactive map Rhea added that follows the Nautilus’s travels through the Pacific.

Rhea’s Substack

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

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2 months ago · 4 likes · 3 comments · Rhea Forney

If you’d like to join in all the behind-the-scenes Harry Potter reading opportunities, be sure to become a paid subscriber. The cost is $30 or $5 a month. You can read about all our subscriber opportunities in this post.

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And, if you haven’t started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, there’s no time to lose! Our first episode airs the first Friday of October (Oct. 2nd).

Here is the link to R&W’s Harry Potter Slow Read page:

Au contraire. There were. Maybe not as sophisticated and powerful as Verne created in his non-science fiction, science fiction. But that is neither here nor there. My husband wrongly assumes that if I were reading a book of a similar kind today, full of amazing cutting edge scientific technology, it would have my rapt attention. He is wrong.

Fortunately for me, there is plenty of story happening in Twenty Thousand Leagues beyond the mathematics of the Nautilus and classification of mollusks.

And this leads me back to my delight in how much aboutness there is already to discuss in this story. Woven like a golden thread through a great tapestry, is a current of meaning Rhea and I have yet to fully discern but can already see bright flecks of popping up from beneath the surface.

Namely, is the question: Who is this enigmatic Captain Nemo?

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Be sure to check out Rhea’s Reading Guide for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea:

Rhea’s Substack

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

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2 months ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Rhea Forney

If you are a paid subscriber, look for this episode’s outline to come to you via post and email: Wednesday, September 9th. (I am hoping to make our regular posting routine).