This week on The Literary Life, we bring you another episode in our “Best of” series with a throwback to one of our 2021 Summer of the Short Story shows. In this episode, Angelina, Cindy, and Thomas talk about E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops.” If you are interested in more E. M. Forster chat, you can go listen to our hosts discuss “The Celestial Omnibus” in Episode 17. Angelina points out how this story made her think of Dante. Thomas and Cindy share their personal reactions to reading “The Machine Stops.” They marvel at how prescient Forster was to imagine a world that comes so close to our current reality. They also discuss how to stay human in an increasingly de-humanizing world.
Past events mentioned in this episode replay:
Back to School 2021 Conference: Awakening
Cindy’s new edition of Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love
Cindy’s Charlotte Mason podcast The New Mason Jar
Commonplace Quotes:Imagination, in its earthbound quest,
Seeks in the infinite its finite rest.
Walter de la Mare (from “Books”) from “The Hollow Men”by T. S. Eliot
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
Two Stories and a Memory by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison
1984 by George Orwell
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Episode 175: The “Best of” Series – The Great Divorce, Preface and Ch. 1, Ep. 47
Episode 174: The “Best of” Series – The Importance of Detective Fiction, Ep. 3
Episode 173: The “Best of” Series – Why Pastors Should Read Fiction, Ep. 137
Episode 172: The Literary Life of Kiel Lemon
Episode 171: “Code of the Woosters,” Part 3, Ch. 10-14
Episode 170: “Code of the Woosters”, Part 2, Ch. 5-9
Episode 169: Intro to P. G. Wodehouse, “Code of the Woosters,” Ch. 1-4
Episode 168: The “Best of” Series – Witches, Wizards, and Magic, Oh My!!, Ep. 104
Episode 167: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Timilyn Downey, Ep. 122
Episode 166: Shakespeare’s “Othello,” Acts 4 & 5
Episode 165: Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Act 3
Episode 164: Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Acts 1 & 2
Episode 163: Introduction to Shakespeare’s “Othello”
Episode 162: "Ion" – On Socratic Dialogue and Reading Plato
Episode 161: The Literary Life of Lia Techand
Episode 160: Aristotle’s “Poetics” Part 2
Episode 159: Aristotle's "Poetics", Part 1
Episode 158: Introduction to Aristotle’s “Poetics”
Episode 157: The “Best of” Series – The Literary Life of Thomas Banks, Ep. 78
Episode 156: The “Best of” Series – Why Read Fairy Tales, Ep. 70
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