We are almost one year old! Our first episode, on Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, launched almost exactly a year ago, and we are so excited to be heading into Season Two of Upper Middle Brow. This season we’re kicking things off a little differently, with a tour of “Foodie Films,” beginning with Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast, followed shortly thereafter by Peter Greenaway’s harrowing The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. We’ll talk to Monica Eng of the Chewing podcast and listen to some classic audio podcasts. We’ll keep it literary and connect with some old classics (Dickens, Austen, and Flaubert), and finally look at ways that authors examine (critically) their own cultures.
Author: Chris B.
Episode 35: “DON’T Save the Cat!” or Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, Part II
The UMBs have ANOTHER thorough conversation about the novel’s sexual politics, and Mandella’s low key homophobia, asking whether the protagonist’s biases serve some narrative purposes, or simply reveal the author’s own biases. We marvel at the sparse internality, and Haldeman’s ability to poetically reveal just enough about Mandella’s emotional state. And, we decide that Larry Niven is good.
Episode 34: “Einstein, Hemingway, and Vietnam,” or Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, Part I
The Forever War is widely regarded as an analogy for America’s involvement in Vietnam, and an anti-war novel, but we’re not so sure it’s firmly anti-war. Perhaps more anti-military. But that said, Haldeman’s protagonist doesn’t consider the apparently antagonistic aliens, the Taurans, to be the real Enemy. The UMBs are blown away by the ideation and certain moments of prose, but raise doubts about the one-way nature of the structure
Episode 33: “Real Sheep Don’t Buy Themselves,” or Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Part II
Rick Deckard spends much of the second half pondering Rachael Rosen’s girlish legs, and his growing feelings of empathy to the Androids, before deciding to go after the remaining three. Does his empathy make it harder for him to do his appointed grisly task? Maybe? Both UMBs wonder if Dick’s ideas were too big for the scope of this book, even though it has its virtues.
Episode 32: “Keeping up with the Jetsons,” or Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Part I
Fill out our LISTENER SURVEY!! Dick’s famous novel begins… weird. And the weirdness continues. Dick orients his readers to a world in which fallout is everywhere, most animals have died, many humans have left Earth for colony planets, and androids (or andys) do much of the manual labor. The UMBs are both blown away by… Continue reading Episode 32: “Keeping up with the Jetsons,” or Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Part I
Episode 31: “Frogmarched to the Head,” or William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Part II
Chris and Jesse are in the same meatspace in Maine, but still talking about cyberspace in…space. As the two microphone jockeys wrap up William Gibson’s Neuromancer, we do TWO close readings (one for and one against Gibson’s chops), talk about how this book created something completely new, and discuss if that fact is why Neuromancer had shown longevity and resilience, despite some issues of craft.
DIGRESSION I: Pas de Joie de Neuromancer
Our friend Lindsay Lajoie saw that we were considering William Gibson’s Neuromancer on the podcast, and admitted on her Instagram that it’s one of the very few books she attempted and could get through. Lindsay joins us for a mini-sode, and we pick apart her reaction, and try to convince her it’s worth another go.
Episode 29: “Blind Animal Panic,” or William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Part I
Dukes and Bagg return to William Gibson’s groundbreaking 1984 novel, that popularized the cyberpunk genre. The reviews are mixed. There are moments of brilliance, but does the young Gibson’s drive to “put a hook on every page” lead to more confusion than clarity?
Episode 28: “Tales of Teachers,” with Educator Justin Reich
As students, parents, and teachers happily (or wrenchingly) return to school, we invite our resident education specialist, Justin Reich, to talk about stories with teachers. We identify many examples of bad teachers and bad teaching in fiction, and while film and TV often present sympathetic teacher protagonists, we wonder if the Great American Teacher novel is yet to be written.
Episode 27: “Don’t Believe your Eyes,” or Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Part II
Whitehead’s neo-noir crashes to a climax, but does it stick the landing? In the end, the Dukes and Bagg wonder if the weight of the the author’s allegory overloads the elevator car laden with plot and character. The lads continue to marvel at Whitehead’s sentences, and sheer originality and ambition of this remarkable novel.
Episode 26: “Uplift!” or Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist
The lads are quite impressed with Colson Whitehead’s debut novel, which packs an allegory about race, class, and futurism into a unique take on hard-boiled noir. Bagg challenges Dukes to unpack exactly how the tone of irony is detected in the novel, and they both marvel over Whitehead’s delicious sentences. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”… Continue reading Episode 26: “Uplift!” or Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist
Episode 25: “Deus Ex Rockina,” or N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, Part II
Jemisin weaves three major threads into one in the second half of The Fifth Season, but the lads take issue with some of the convenient plot wrapping. Dukes + Bagg remained blown away by the power of imagination on display, but Dukes raises the question of whether the book deals honestly with the moral dilemma at its heart.
Episode 24: “How to Make a Pangea Omelette,” or N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season
The Fifth Season is… a lot. Fantasy? Sure. Sci-fi? Maybe. Allegory? Definitely. The first half introduces us to three apparently different protagonists, with action in an uncertain number of timelines, and the sense that this particular world is about the be transformed. But why? And how?
Episode 23: “In Search of the Perfect Read, Part III,” or “Baseball, Massholes, and Interspecies Dorking”
We hear from you! We share listener summer read recommendations in the form of voicemails and texts. Dukes + Bagg each share a summer reading recommendation, and somehow, the conversations keeps getting dragged back to baseball.
Episode 21: “In Search of the Perfect Read, Part I” or “Summer Reading for Teens”.
We’re joined by two veteran high school English teachers, each with a summer reading recommendation for a teenager. We talk about about how speculative fiction (including sci-fi, fantasy, horror, alt. history) engages teenagers in different ways, and why magic gets a bad rap among “literary” readers.