WEBVTT 00:00:02.930 --> 00:00:05.417 - Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some of the greatest books of all time. 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:09.057 And I should also give a shout-out to an excellent podcast he did with Sonia 00:00:09.140 --> 00:00:12.997 Walger, who's a friend of yours, but she had a great podcast. 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:16.840 She has guests pick their five favorite, most impactful books and so on. 00:00:16.930 --> 00:00:20.430 You picked five fiction books, one for each decade of your life. 00:00:20.540 --> 00:00:23.957 For the audience, they should go listen to that conversation. 00:00:24.040 --> 00:00:27.707 But you picked Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome. 00:00:27.790 --> 00:00:31.597 Second one was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:35.580 Then Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Thin Red 00:00:35.680 --> 00:00:39.620 Line by James Jones, and Middlemarch by George Eliot. 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:43.860 But just zooming out, reflecting back on that conversation, what do you think, 00:00:44.480 --> 00:00:48.297 if an alien came, what are some candidates for books 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:50.077 that you would recommend to them? 00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:53.060 - Middlemarch. It's the best novel written in English. 00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:57.740 War and Peace is one of the best novels written in Russian, I would argue. 00:00:57.850 --> 00:01:01.677 I think both of those are... 00:01:01.760 --> 00:01:06.117 Because if you've only got one book, you want a long book. 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:10.377 - Yeah, true. - And then they're both books that kind of... 00:01:10.460 --> 00:01:13.777 It's something I was always trying to put into games, and you know, that feeling 00:01:13.860 --> 00:01:19.980 of all of life is here. You know, you've got love, death, violence, romance, 00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:24.237 the whole human experience in different ways. So I think there's something amazing 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:27.557 about, you know, Vanity Fair, I used to love the novel, not the magazine. 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:31.857 Because same thing, all of life is here. 00:01:31.940 --> 00:01:35.817 - You also spoke highly of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway. 00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:38.180 - I was obsessed by them in my 20s. 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:39.537 - Yeah. - Completely obsessed. 00:01:39.620 --> 00:01:41.627 - As one must be. - Yeah. - Absolutely. 00:01:41.710 --> 00:01:45.360 - At that age, and I think them as a double act is so amazing. 00:01:45.460 --> 00:01:52.460 You know, one helped discover the other and then died first, and then suddenly 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:57.137 died in obscurity and then was rediscovered as a genius 00:01:57.220 --> 00:02:00.317 while the other one was still alive and falling into decline, 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.557 I think their relationship is itself very novelistic. 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:08.500 - That, by the way, is a phenomenon of writing maybe no 00:02:08.620 --> 00:02:13.767 longer, maybe still, you know, people like Franz Kafka who died in obscurity. 00:02:13.850 --> 00:02:17.637 All these writers who die in obscurity. Nobody knows them and they 00:02:17.720 --> 00:02:22.317 become famous later. That is just so interesting. That's such an interesting... 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:26.017 You know, Franz Kafka. 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:30.200 Kafka in particular is fascinating because he wanted all of his work to be burned, 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:34.877 like destroyed. So that, speaking of the critical 00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:38.357 voice, and I think he's one of the, 00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:42.137 one of the best writers of the 20th century. Of course, the 00:02:42.220 --> 00:02:47.417 dystopian novels are really interesting: 1984, Brave New World. 00:02:47.500 --> 00:02:51.397 - Love 1984. Had never listened to it or read it, and then I 00:02:51.480 --> 00:02:54.957 think I did it on Talking Book, or I maybe read it, I can't remember, during COVID. 00:02:55.040 --> 00:02:58.880 I think I did both, became obsessed by it. And it's got the elements of that 00:02:59.060 --> 00:03:01.737 creeping into A Bed of Paradise. But it's so good. 00:03:01.820 --> 00:03:04.137 I hadn't realized how good it was. 00:03:04.220 --> 00:03:06.517 - Yes. - And it's so of the moment. 00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:09.040 - It's almost like because of its fame, and... 00:03:09.260 --> 00:03:12.167 it's almost like cliché, and you take away the character- 00:03:12.250 --> 00:03:14.247 - Yeah, if it were English... And I remember the year 1984- 00:03:14.330 --> 00:03:17.317 and you're like, "This is..." I remember the song. You know? It's just too much. 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:17.557 - Yeah. Too much. 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:20.925 - It can't be that good. And then it was that. I came to it completely cold, 00:03:21.008 --> 00:03:21.477 just, "Oh, I 00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:24.951 should work my way through this 'cause it's another classic I haven't read." 00:03:25.034 --> 00:03:26.300 And then it's incredible. 00:03:26.660 --> 00:03:29.555 - And the book I've read more than any other book is Animal Farm by George 00:03:29.638 --> 00:03:36.137 Orwell. I don't know why exactly, but the childlike fairy tale-telling 00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:39.527 of totalitarianism. - Well, you grew up in a communist country. 00:03:39.610 --> 00:03:41.397 - Yeah. Maybe that's it. The roots of it. 00:03:41.480 --> 00:03:44.927 - You know, I remember, I was a kid in the Cold War in 00:03:45.010 --> 00:03:47.615 London. And we were always terrified of Eastern Europeans, 00:03:47.698 --> 00:03:48.887 "You're gonna come and kill 00:03:48.970 --> 00:03:55.970 us all." And then I ended up marrying a Pole. And I was... We were... And we had 00:03:56.710 --> 00:04:00.267 Ukrainians, you know, who worked for us and worked with 00:04:00.350 --> 00:04:03.867 us. And I was... We were sitting, a few years ago, sitting around a 00:04:03.950 --> 00:04:07.827 campfire in Upstate New York, with the campfire built by 00:04:07.910 --> 00:04:11.147 our old nanny's husband, who's Ukrainian, and he'd been in the Red 00:04:11.230 --> 00:04:13.541 Army. I was like, history is so strange that you end up... 00:04:13.624 --> 00:04:15.087 The Red Army used to be the ultimate 00:04:15.170 --> 00:04:18.707 enemy. And like, we're now just hanging out with... It's like, everything changes. 00:04:18.790 --> 00:04:22.127 You think these things are permanent, and they're really not. 00:04:22.210 --> 00:04:25.151 You know, and we face some of that now, where you think these structures are 00:04:25.234 --> 00:04:27.047 permanent, and they're gonna change. 00:04:27.130 --> 00:04:31.107 - And you also mentioned that the three great World War II books are The Thin Red 00:04:31.190 --> 00:04:34.137 Line, Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. 00:04:34.220 --> 00:04:41.220 And The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. What makes for a great war book? 00:04:41.790 --> 00:04:43.010 - I think World War II 00:04:45.430 --> 00:04:47.610 is interesting because it affects everywhere, obviously. 00:04:47.694 --> 00:04:49.167 And so you can get all these different 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:51.082 kinds of stories. And there's so many good... 00:04:51.165 --> 00:04:56.747 I was just trying to come up with a range of one American, one British, one 00:04:56.830 --> 00:05:00.560 Eastern European just to get different perspectives. But there's so 00:05:00.710 --> 00:05:04.260 many amazing World War II books around all kinds of stories. I think 00:05:05.230 --> 00:05:09.127 the most complete one, because it is this all of life being there, 00:05:09.210 --> 00:05:11.560 probably is Life and Fate, which is amazing. 00:05:11.850 --> 00:05:15.507 - It was written by Vasily Grossman. He experienced Stalingrad firsthand. 00:05:15.590 --> 00:05:18.240 And there's also just a deep philosophical component. 00:05:18.810 --> 00:05:22.527 - And the bit in Treblinka is one of the most harrowing sections of any book I ever 00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:29.070 read. And it really, almost more than any other piece of art around the Holocaust, 00:05:29.870 --> 00:05:30.703 made me feel 00:05:31.550 --> 00:05:33.585 what you would feel like at that moment. I mean, 00:05:33.669 --> 00:05:35.327 it's just incredible piece of humanism. 00:05:35.410 --> 00:05:38.720 - And also, I mean, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. 00:05:38.850 --> 00:05:43.247 - Yeah. Oh, yeah. - It seems like that context reveals, in the most 00:05:43.330 --> 00:05:47.247 pure way, human nature and like what kind of... You know, in Man's Search for 00:05:47.330 --> 00:05:52.040 Meaning is when everything is taken from you, you know, the little 00:05:53.110 --> 00:05:57.340 remains of love for, in this case, his wife... 00:05:57.690 --> 00:06:00.027 is the thing that is a little flame that burns. 00:06:00.110 --> 00:06:05.607 And let's say your Grossman is small acts of kindness, 00:06:05.690 --> 00:06:10.147 is the thing that allows the human spirit to persist. 00:06:10.230 --> 00:06:13.910 - I love the bit in Life and Fate when you get... Obviously, it's in this 00:06:14.030 --> 00:06:17.127 Stalinist period, and so they're all 00:06:17.210 --> 00:06:20.887 losing... They all know that what they thought was going to be 00:06:20.970 --> 00:06:24.847 wonderful about the revolution isn't going to happen. So everyone's 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:27.772 scared of being killed by Stalin 'cause it's post the purges. 00:06:27.855 --> 00:06:31.907 But then you get these guys and they're trapped in a building, fighting in 00:06:31.990 --> 00:06:35.367 Stalingrad. And so they know at this moment they're dead 00:06:35.450 --> 00:06:39.287 anyway. And they get to live like pure, perfect 00:06:39.370 --> 00:06:43.187 Marxist communists away from Stalin and all his nonsense. And I thought that 00:06:43.270 --> 00:06:46.207 section's incredible 'cause you realize in some ways, in all of its horrors, 00:06:46.290 --> 00:06:53.161 the most disappointing thing about the 20th century, in some ways, 00:06:53.244 --> 00:06:54.930 was the absolute 00:06:55.030 --> 00:06:58.847 failure of communism. You know? 'Cause it was such a, you know, quote-unquote 00:06:58.930 --> 00:07:02.367 beautiful idea and it just did not work time and time again. 00:07:02.450 --> 00:07:05.847 And these people who fought for it and then saw it not 00:07:05.930 --> 00:07:08.757 working, I think they're sort of fascinating characters. You know, 00:07:08.840 --> 00:07:11.687 all of the revolutionaries from 00:07:11.770 --> 00:07:15.687 1917 that were then killed by Stalin, which was all of them apart from 00:07:15.770 --> 00:07:17.777 him, him and Lenin. 00:07:17.860 --> 00:07:21.707 - And that was, you know, people in modern day politics talk about communism 00:07:21.790 --> 00:07:25.747 like it's trivial, it's trivial that it would lead to atrocities. 00:07:25.830 --> 00:07:31.707 But I don't think it's that trivial. It's this idealism of humans. 00:07:31.790 --> 00:07:35.690 It's like, why, you know, why can't... Basically, why can't we all 00:07:35.790 --> 00:07:38.525 get along? There's a real compassion behind it. There's real love. 00:07:38.608 --> 00:07:39.758 And what you realize is 00:07:40.350 --> 00:07:44.060 there is... It's a real study, the 20th century, of human nature. 00:07:44.150 --> 00:07:50.530 that, unfortunately, at scale, that kind of compassion is abused by 00:07:51.590 --> 00:07:55.387 centralized power. So there's a dictator always, in that context, 00:07:55.470 --> 00:08:02.257 given that set of technologies, a dictator arises and does the opposite 00:08:02.340 --> 00:08:04.987 of what the promise of the ideal is supposed to be. 00:08:05.070 --> 00:08:07.540 - Well, I think I thought a lot about that 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:12.567 then because I was taught by all these disappointed communists, you know? 00:08:12.650 --> 00:08:15.217 After '89, all of these English communists, you know, 00:08:15.300 --> 00:08:16.407 were all like having to 00:08:16.490 --> 00:08:20.247 access, discovering all these atrocities that happened. You know, so it always 00:08:20.330 --> 00:08:27.330 fascinated me. And then you think about complexities or where one's own values are 00:08:28.530 --> 00:08:32.447 in the modern moment. And I say, you know, without from every 00:08:32.530 --> 00:08:36.307 and whether either of them, what we would call left now or call right now, does it 00:08:36.390 --> 00:08:39.091 have any bearing on the sort of communist era of those words? 00:08:39.174 --> 00:08:40.267 And I would say probably 00:08:40.350 --> 00:08:44.260 not. I think things have changed. But fundamentally, the one value that 00:08:44.370 --> 00:08:47.887 I would think is worth fighting for is, whenever 00:08:47.970 --> 00:08:52.727 either side starts to move towards thought control, move away. 00:08:52.810 --> 00:08:56.647 That's never the right outcome. The never right outcome is, "Oh, you've 00:08:56.730 --> 00:09:00.480 said the wrong thing. You should be removed now." That should never ever be 00:09:00.850 --> 00:09:02.587 a thing we should lean towards. 00:09:02.670 --> 00:09:08.070 - Yeah, it does seem like freedom, individual freedom, is a prerequisite for 00:09:08.690 --> 00:09:11.907 - for happiness - for happiness, and the flourishing of a larger society. 00:09:11.990 --> 00:09:15.247 So there's, like you said, 1984 is pretty. I mean, it's a caricature. 00:09:15.330 --> 00:09:16.147 - But it is brilliant. 00:09:16.230 --> 00:09:20.147 - It's quite, it's actually also just a good story. That's my criticism of 00:09:20.230 --> 00:09:23.850 Brave New World, it's just poorly written. But I like 00:09:24.270 --> 00:09:29.737 Brave New World probably applies more to the 21st century than does 1984. So, 00:09:29.820 --> 00:09:35.447 - I don't know. I think 1984, with the fake wars, and the way that it revealed 00:09:35.530 --> 00:09:37.547 everything in it was a setup for him. 00:09:37.630 --> 00:09:40.797 There's something that if he could've seen the Internet. There's something of, 00:09:40.880 --> 00:09:45.370 it's like an analog internet, that world they build around the main character.