FBoL

One of our favorite guests, Danielle Ryan (@danirat), returns to discuss madness, white feminism, and racism with Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic short story THE YELLOW WALLPAPER. If you've been feeling the stress of being cooped up and also the suffocating pressure of America's systemic racism, Gilman's high-school-reading-list classic is the choice for you.  Summary of THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (from wikipedia) The story describes a young woman and her husband, who imposes as a rest cure on her when she suffers "temporary nervous depression" after the birth of their baby. They spend the summer at a colonial mansion, where the narrator is largely confined to an upstairs nursery. The story makes striking use of an unreliable narrator in order to gradually reveal the degree to which her husband has imprisoned her: she describes torn wallpaper, barred windows, metal rings in the walls, a floor "scratched and gouged and splintered," a bed bolted to the floor, and a gate at the top of the stairs, but blames all these on children who must have resided there. The narrator devotes many journal entries to describing the wallpaper in the room – its "sickly" color, its "yellow" smell, its bizarre and disturbing pattern like "an interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions," its missing patches, and the way it leaves yellow smears on the skin and clothing of anyone who touches it. She describes how the longer one stays in the bedroom, the more the wallpaper appears to mutate, especially in the moonlight. With no stimulus other than the wallpaper, the pattern and designs become increasingly intriguing to the narrator. She soon begins to see a figure in the design and eventually comes to believe that a woman is creeping on all fours behind the pattern. Believing she must free the woman in the wallpaper, the woman begins to strip the remaining paper off the wall. When her husband arrives home, the narrator refuses to unlock her door. When he returns with the key, he finds her creeping around the room, rubbing against the wallpaper, and exclaiming "I've got out at last... in spite of you." He faints, but she continues to circle the room, creeping over his inert body each time she passes it, believing herself to have become the woman trapped behind the yellow wallpaper. Read the story here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

The ethical quagmire of the existence of the billionaire gets a bit easier when you're confronted with the reality of Bruce Wayne. Guest Andy Michaels (from our episode on the X-MEN in season one, @StopThatAndy) is here to talk about white, WASPy privilege and, possibly, the need for super-hero therapists.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

A.M. Ridley is back to discuss one of the most disturbing fuckbois of art history: Paul Gauguin. What do you get when you mix horrible sexual predilections with colonialism and color? A fucking Gauguin painting of Tahiti. [CW] Sexual abuse & statutory rape. Gauguin is a monster. Flat out. But context, as always, is what matters.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

What does Hollywood Boulevard have to do with the Atomic Bomb and systemic racism? Well, all three topics of conversation get woven into our discussion with Miles Klee (@MilesKlee) on Kurt Vonnegut's classic sci-fi and sociology novel, CAT'S CRADLE. We wanted to know: does the book still work like it did when we were teens, before we realized it was satire?  Summary of CAT'S CRADLE John, the narrator, is looking to write a book about the history of the Atomic bomb and becomes obsessed with the children of a (fictional) scientist named Felix Hoenekker, who was instrumental in the breakthrough of nuclear weapons. John follows the children– Frank, the eldest son; Nate, the youngest son who is also a little person; and daughter Angela– to the poverty-stricken island nation of San Lorenzo, where John discovers that the most beautiful woman in the world, Mona, is engaged to Frank despite that John has decided he must have her. On San Lorenzo, John is also introduced to the fake religion Bokononism, which has been worshipped and vilified by the government, in order to control the populace. While on San Lorenzo, John discovers that the mythical ice-nine, a chemical that can turn all of the water it touches into solid ice, was indeed invented by Felix Hoenekker, and that each of his children have a grain. Thanks to the nation of San Lorenzo's careless war-games, the grains of ice-nine hit the ocean and cause an cataclysmic event. John and Mona survive, and emerge to the earth's surface to find most of humanity dead.  Buy a copy of the novel and support your local indie bookseller through our Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/lists/fbol-subjects/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

Literature sure as hell isn't the only art form with an endless supply of Fuckbois. A.M. Ridley joins me for a few short episodes on the Fuckbois of Art History, proceeding with the most famous painters of all time. Turns out, it wasn't all chapels n' helicopters. Woohoo! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

Jude Ellison Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle), writer and author of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power and Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why joins host Emily Edwards (@MsEmilyEdwards) to discuss the most famous play about a really, really bad spring break: HAMLET.  Summary of HAMLET: Sad boi Hamlet is sad because his father, Hamlet Sr., has died and his mother married Hamlet Sr.'s brother, Claudius. Hamlet conspires with his dad's ghost to murder his uncle.  Pick up Jude Ellison's books now on bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/lists/fbol-guest-books --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

Literature sure as hell isn't the only art form with an endless supply of Fuckbois. A.M. Ridley joins me for a few short episodes on the Fuckbois of Art History, starting with one of the biggest shitheels of all time: Caravaggio. There were... issues.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

Dr. Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) joined host Emily Edwards (@MsEmilyEdwards) for a conversation about– what else?– John Milton's PARADISE LOST. We get into the nitty gritty of what it means to be a lapsed Catholic who connects a bit too much with Satan, the role this poem had on Romantic literature and literature of the post-Victorian age, plus all the ways the Bible interacts with women. It's a must-listen! Summary of PARADISE LOST Lucifer, the sexiest, best Angel, wants to know why God keeps so many secrets. God, pissed, banishes Lucifer from Heaven, creating the Devil and Hell. Lucifer, continuously pissed off, has decided to sabotage God's most coveted creation: Adam and Eve. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

The phenomenal comedian, writer, and podcast host Gaby Dunn (@gabydunn) is here to discuss BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's by Truman Capote. We get into white girl privilege (from which we both benefitted), the early 2000s club scene, and #OwnVoices writing. Keep in contact with Gaby's shows, Just Between Us (https://www.youtube.com/user/justbetweenusshow) and Bad With Money (https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/bad-with-money), too! Summary of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S A nameless narrator moves into a small apartment in New York City, only to become obsessed with his neighbor, a call girl named Holly Golightly. He learns of Holly's various affairs and schemes– being a messenger for a gangster, arranging a marriage with a gay millionaire, and running away with a Brazilian party boy, all in an attempt to hide her whereabouts from the man who forced her into marriage when she was fourteen. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

Philip Ellis (@philip_ellis), the amazing guest from Season 1's show on GONE GIRL is here to discuss Rainbow Rowell's 2015 YA wizard romance, CARRY ON. The first book of the Simon Snow series, CARRY ON begs us to ask: what is the difference between being a fuckboi and being a teenager? Safe for teens, after listening to this episode, you'll want to shove CARRY ON into your tween's grubby mitts.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

We get more into the nitty-gritty grossness of medical procedures in this bonus episode with Bethany Brookshire (@BeeBrookshire)! Content Warning if you get queasy over bodily stuff. But fast forward to the 2nd half to hear us shit-talk Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, as god intended. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

What is probably the most famous book ever written by a woman, FRANKENSTEIN, OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS is the emblematic text of problematic science. What luck we have Science Communications Expert Bethany Brookshire (@BeeBrookshire) here to help explain science ethics, anatomy, and all sorts of fun, icky things to us book nerds.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

After doing an episode on NORTHANGER ABBEY, I was so excited to do an episode on a real-life "sensation novel." LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET is Mary Elizabeth Braddon's main contribution to the Victorian catalogue of books about women behaving badly. Guest Danielle Ryan (@danirat, guest from our episode on INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE) is here to talk about comeuppance, queer-coded characters, and penny dreadfuls. Enjoy!   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

The Literature Lady herself is here to walk us through the Daniel Defoe classic MOLL FLANDERS. Dr. Janet Bartholomew (@Literature_Lady) and host Emily Edwards (@MsEmilyEdwards) apparently, stan an unrepentant thief on this podcast, and ladies who commit crimes because they have to, and because it's just real fun. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message

Danny Bowes (@bybowes) is BACK to talk about Thomas Hardy's JUDE THE OBSCURE. Let's touch upon boobs, the fleeting nature of American identity, and murderous children! Danny was the guest on our amazing Season 1 episode for A SEPARATE PEACE and his usual wit is back to lead on our We Hate Thomas Hardy Party 2020.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fuckboisoflit/message