Transcript
Speaker: A Description of the World, entry for the seventh day of the fifth month in the year the Albatross came to the southwestern halls. I am determined to explore as much of the world as I can in my lifetime.
Speaker: To this end, I have traveled as far as the 960th Hall to west, the 890th Hall to the north, the south.
Speaker: I have climbed up to the upper halls where clouds move in slow procession and statues appear suddenly out of the mists. I have explored the drowned halls where the dark waters are carpeted with white water lilies.
Speaker: I have seen the derelict halls of the east where ceilings, floors, sometimes even walls have collapsed. and the dimness is split by shafts of gray light.
Speaker: In all these places I have stood in doorways and looked ahead. I have never seen any indication that the world was coming to an end, but only the regular progression of halls and passageways into the far distance.
Speaker: No hall, no vestibule, no staircase, no passage is without its statues. In most halls they cover all the available space. Though here and there you will find an empty plinth, niche, or apse, or even a blank space on a wall otherwise encrusted with statues.
Speaker: These absences are as mysterious in their way as the statues themselves.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Raise a Glass, the podcast where we discuss the stories and storytellers that shape us. I am Hunter Danson.
Speaker: And I am Eric Lintola. And we are going to be talking mostly about Piranesi by Susanna Clark,
Speaker: um which Eric has brought to us and I've read and But before we get there, Eric, what's in your glass?
Speaker: Hunter, we are recording this podcast on St. Patrick's Day, so there's no more appropriate approach than a pint of Guinness. Very good. Sláinte.
Speaker: Hunter, what is in your glass tonight? ah Well, I have not a Guinness, but I have a zero gravity cone head India pale ale.
Speaker: one of those classic IPAs that tastes like a tree, as it should.
Speaker: You say that like that's a good thing. Yes. that In my mind, an IPA does not taste like juice. Okay. It tastes like a tree. And that's good. Trees are good to eat. Yes. I like trees.
Speaker: okay See, I like the sap of trees, but, you know. Yeah.
Speaker: So what are you raising and and pouring your Guinness for this week? Well, Hunter, they're going to be connected for me this week. um I have,
Speaker: as you may know, my background is in economics and religious studies, right? That intersection of faith and the world. which as I've grown, as I've gotten older, experienced more things, I'm realizing necessitates a conversation around justice and the church um and the things that the church in particular has to bring to the conversations, whether it be around justice or reconciliation, truth, hope, development.
Speaker: And I think that's for a long time led me to Martin Luther King Jr., and
Speaker: other truly you know great writers and orators and communicators and and led me to want to be with and follow and learn from individuals that I see putting their orthodoxy into orthopraxy, their their faith into action.
Speaker: um And I recently, very late to the game, um have come across or been finally had it recommended to me for a large enough time the last to check out the works of of John Perkins.
Speaker: He was a civil rights leader in the 60s.
Speaker: Pastor. um Helped launch Christian Community Development Association, the CCDA, which is just an incredible organization. And a leader in conversations on race reconciliation, justice, forgiveness, and love.
Speaker: And um a just the first the first work of his that I'm i'm walking into, and i I'm fairly certain that a future episode will involve a larger conversation around Dr. John Perkins, um but I've i've recently been been working through on Libby, and i'm I'm almost done.
Speaker: his book Dream With Me, which is the last um book that he wrote. And so I am am raising your glass to John Perkins.
Speaker: um And pouring one out because he passed away. it was either today or yesterday. um he's he's a he's He's been on the doorstep of heaven for for a couple weeks now.
Speaker: um and And we will get to celebrate with him um when it's our turn as well. um But I am sad that it's taken me this long to to directly be impacted by by By John Perkins. Indirectly, I've been impacted by John Perkins since the first time I heard anybody talking about helping without hurting and talking about Christian community development, which is just years and years in my life.
Speaker: And so that's my my raise and my poor, or the sadness of him leaving and the celebration of his life and what God has done and will continue to do in and through him.
Speaker: um and you know his witness how about you hunter well um i am raising a glass to Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales.
Speaker: I don't know if you've heard of these. It's a series of graphic graphic novels that we've been getting from the library um where there's a sort of... The concept is that Nathan Hale is is a spy who's going to be hanged, and in order to...
Speaker: Prevent his hanging, he tells stories to the hangman and the British official who are hanging him in there about U.S. history. um And they're really well-researched, really entertaining like graphic novels about famous people in history.
Speaker: And the one I'm raising a glass to this week is the one... that he did on Harriet Tubman. Okay. um She is so badass. Like, it is incredible when you actually read her story. And like, i know who Harriet Tubman is what she did, but just to be able to experience it and really imagine...
Speaker: you know, what her life was like and just, just how much danger she took on going back, going back and back and back and back. And they called, she was an abductor, which means, in the underground railroad, an abductor was somebody who went basically beyond where the Underground Railroad was and kind of spread the message and made first contact with enslaved peoples who were trying to get free.
Speaker: um So it was like the most dangerous job. Yeah. And she had an narcolepsy too, which was crazy. So she would just like fall asleep. and like have visions and talk to God and then come back and she, she never lost anyone.
Speaker: It's, it's, and she never got caught. It's, it's amazing. Um, so raising glass to those, I highly recommend checking out the Nathan Hale's hazardous tales. They have great bibliographies in the back, all illustrated and it's great. Um, and yeah,
Speaker: I, you know, this doesn't happen often that I can't... I have things I could pour one out for, but I'm in a space right now where don't want to indulge my bitterness.
Speaker: i get that. So, uh, I am also going to raise a glass to, Jamie Dupuis, who is a Canadian musician. Okay. Has a YouTube channel that I first discovered.
Speaker: where he does harp guitar songs. Harp Some of the most famous, yes, harp guitar. It is, if you haven't seen it, like, please just look it up. It is the coolest thing.
Speaker: It's a guitar, normal guitar, but then it has this whole other part where there's these huge, like, bass strings it. Oh, cool looking. Like a lute, kind of. What?
Speaker: And he does these, um... He does original music and he also does these covers of famous songs where he does the harp guitar so he can like hit the bass notes on the harp part and have it ring out. Oh my goodness. Sometimes there's like a low bass harp and then there's a higher harp part and it's um the arrangements are amazing.
Speaker: um So yeah, I'd highly recommend those. They're very lovely to listen to. um But I also purchased his Creative Finger Style guitar course.
Speaker: Okay. And um it was... It's been filling in so many gaps in my guitar knowledge because I'm a self taught guitarist. So no one ever told me like, these are the scales you should know. These are the chords you should know. These are the chord shapes. And it's like, I had some music theory from band.
Speaker: in high school playing clarinet, but didn't really transfer that well. And I wasn't too disciplined about it, but of course I've been going through the course and I've just been like, Oh, Oh, Oh, like making all these connections. I'm like, why didn't I learn this six years ago? i don't know.
Speaker: But, um, yeah. So Jamie Dupuy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Definitely worth looking up the guitar harp. I just looked it up. Very cool. Okay, Hunter, let's get into this conversation. um So, just like this guitar course is helping me navigate the labyrinth of the fretboard.
Speaker: Yes. We are going to be talking about a labyrinth in a book.
Speaker: A labyrinth. Three labyrinths, actually. labyrin Maybe four. It's probably going to be one of our... No, I won't say that because then people won't listen.
Speaker: was going to say it's probably going to be one of our harder to understand and follow. Creating inside jokes just by reading more of the same things. Do you want me to start?
Speaker: Or... Yes, and I think, at you know, Piranesi by Susanna Clark. yes Tell us about it.
Speaker: Let me start by giving us a a brief overview of the story of Piranesi from Piranesi's own words. i started We started the episode with a description of the world as read by him.
Speaker: This is what Piernese has to say. The beauty of the house is immeasurable. Its kindness infinite. Outside the house, there are only the celestial objects.
Speaker: sun, moon, and stars. The house has three levels. The lower halls are the domain of the tides. Their windows, when seen from across the courtyard, are gray-green with the restless waters and white with the spatter of foam.
Speaker: The lower halls provide no nourishment in the form of fish, crustaceans, and sea vegetation. The upper halls are, as I have said, the domain of the clouds.
Speaker: Their windows are gray-white and misty. Sometimes you will see a whole line of windows suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning. The upper halls give fresh water, which is shed in the vestibules in the form of rain and flows in streams down the walls and staircases.
Speaker: Between these two, largely uninhabitable, levels are the middle halls. which are the de domains of birds and of men. The beautiful orderliness of the house is what gives us life.
Speaker: Piranesi is an individual who lives in the house
Speaker: and is a self-described, what is he? He's a scientist and an explorer. And it's this is his story written as journal entries um reminiscent to me of the style of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, um Dr. Frankenstein,
Speaker: you know And many many of the, I think the books of what the 19th and 18th centuries, 18th 19th centuries, um not every book by any means, but and it it reminds me of that type of of style of of literature. And it's he is writing in a world, um it's a a fantasy story, where there are 15 people um he that he knows of.
Speaker: He is one of only two living. There is him and the other. And he is writing this story as a series of journal entries to the mythical 16th person.
Speaker: And this is a story primarily about Piranesi discovering more about himself and the other and the world that he is in.
Speaker: And to give more, I feel like would be improper at this particular moment. Yes. And the reason I think... i think we should give a pretty huge spoiler warning because this is one of those books that's kind of like The Sixth Sense where if you have it spoiled, I mean, i think it would still be a fun read, but not nearly as fun as, you know, if you didn't know.
Speaker: So... So this is, I have, I would agree. i would actually highly recommend to check out Piranesi. You can read it in just a few hours. It's, I want to hear hear your thoughts on this, Hunter, but I think it's a type of book that once you get into it, it's hard to put down and it's not a dense book.
Speaker: um It reads pretty pretty quickly. Yeah. And I've now read through this book three times and ah in the last five years, four years, twice in the last three months, um last two months.
Speaker: um
Speaker: and And so it does have, I think it has great rereadability, but the strength of it is in its first read. So if you need to, this is your moment to pause.
Speaker: Pause us. Go read it. go listen to on Libby or on Audible. Turn on the radio in your car. um That's how I listened to the first few times. I actually did an audio version of it. um And then ah join us back.
Speaker: but do Okay, we're back. Thanks to those of you for whom this has been a multi-day journey with us already. um For the much larger percentage of you who...
Speaker: Weren't going to read it no matter what we said.
Speaker: Hope you are are still with us and enjoying the conversation. um Hunter, i I very purposely told you the order that that you needed to read this book before you read it the other also...
Speaker: i also um I'm hoping, and I know that you read this recently enough, that you can give me your initial thoughts. I really, really want to know, before we get into any more of this discussion, before I share why this book has stuck to me and how it impacted me on a first read, what was your experience? how what tell me Tell me your thoughts on this. um i I enjoyed it. I was having fun. i was...
Speaker: it It felt to me almost like a mystery novel. Okay. um I've read a couple Agatha Christie novels. And it was set same sort of like... You're trying to put the clues together. Figure out what's going on.
Speaker: um But they never give you enough to actually connect all the dots. Yeah. Until they want you to. so... and so So yeah, i I had a good time. i i My favorite part was probably the house itself. Yes, we have to talk about the house.
Speaker: Of the house with all the different statues and the atmosphere of the waves and the salty air and the silence. and um That to me, I think the house itself is the strongest character in the book.
Speaker: them it It is a character. In what I will remember about it. i had some... I'm not sure how these reactions will be, but i It's just maybe just because I'm aware of it.
Speaker: I kept thinking about paganism and how I feel like paganism is having as weird cultural moment yeahp where people are like, yeah, let's be pagan.
Speaker: And it's like,
Speaker: and, and I have, I have, you know, like, cause there's some quotes. I'm not sure if this is something that you wanted us to get into later, but, um,
Speaker: this idea of the way that you enter the house is you have to enter this like pre-rational state of mind, according to the guy who discovered the house. Basically, it's a multiverse, the thing. So you, you step into it through some multiversal portal and Matthew Rose, no where, where is spoilers? So,
Speaker: um I don't want to say too much if you had plans, but like... Yeah. the So are you talking about the ritual the or this pre... Yeah. So the guy basically kidnaps...
Speaker: Okay, yes. So this is what I want to know. This is what do I want to know, Hunter. What was your experience? What did you think when you realized what was actually happening in this story? That's what that's what I want to get at at this particular moment. um there is There is a moment where it becomes very clear, and I'd i'd be interested to know what ah what that moment may be was for you, but like what was your response?
Speaker: To be honest... I was a little bit disappointed because I wanted, like, I really liked the idea of the house. I liked the mystery.
Speaker: I wanted this to be like a myth, like so a totally different place. Okay. And then in um in an instant, she connects it to our world. Okay.
Speaker: And it became less exciting to me. Interesting. Okay. be And partly because I did not like the character of Lawrence Arndt Sales at all. He's terrible. He's an awful person.
Speaker: And i I just don't really enjoy the sort of like charismatic um yeah sort of like faux academic whatever he is. i don't enjoy that trope. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker: Were you, like, disgusted? or like So there's there's a point. We realize that that yeah a lot of people, when reading this book, um like, this comes up, they're like, what happened? And, like, it changes their view of the book as a completely. And what seemed really cool all of a sudden becomes, like, ugh.
Speaker: And, like, are they're just so offended. Yeah. I don't know. i guess I never really trusted the other that much, i think, leading up to it.
Speaker: I kind of felt like... there's something weird with this guy. He was talking about the shining device and I was like, Oh, that's a smartphone. Um, and I caught that pretty early and maybe, maybe i was like too prepared.
Speaker: I mean, I didn't, I didn't look anything about the book up, but I knew for the way that you, you recommended it to me. And like, I've had, I think I had another person recommended to me a couple years ago.
Speaker: Um, I knew there was some kind of big twist and I was trying to figure it out. Um,
Speaker: So, and yeah, I mean, what he did to fairness, he's pretty despicable, you know, um
Speaker: kidnapping someone and erasing their memory. See, the the thing is, i was started wondering about the plot because I was like, well... if he could have it It seemed like how you got back is by walking through a door in the first vestibule.
Speaker: so I was like, why didn't he walk through the door when he was first kidnapped? like How did his memory go so quickly? you know But I realized you know that's a conceit of the book. Otherwise, it it wouldn't work.
Speaker: Well, he couldn't because he hadn't... You can only enter this world if you enter this pre-rational thought, in which point multiple doors open up to you. And it's only at that point, and then you know which door to go through, that you can then find the way into and out of the house.
Speaker: okay Okay. So that is built into it. So he he could smell it and hear it at different points, but he couldn't have just walked through and been back. Right. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: Okay. So that's, that's, I just, I wanted to get your, some of your initial thoughts on that and we'll, we'll talk more and we can hit more about the pre-rational thought along this. um So
Speaker: the one of the main reasons I brought this book to us in this conversation, Hunter, is I read this book for the first time, and don't know, about four years ago. um So like a year or so after it came out and ah and actually a book club i was in with that previous guest on the show, our friend Jordan, um shout out to Jordan.
Speaker: And ah to my memory, most of the individuals, everybody else was like, oh my goodness, this like became really ugh. Different varies. of like very yeah Some people were super surprised. Some people were not as surprised. like there's you there's clearly It's very clear early on, like in the first 10 pages, that something's up.
Speaker: But you don't know what it is. and it's yeah and like It forces you. right It is kind of that mystery. Yeah. I read this book and I found it cathartic and just a wonderful journey. And like, not to say that there's not terrible things that happen. There is, there are.
Speaker: Um, but I, I, I had you read these stories, um, in the opposite direction of what, the way I read them. Um, so I read Piranesi after I'd read, um, Borges and after that hideous strength. Um, um,
Speaker: And so when I was reading this, like for for whatever reason, I am not the type person that picks up on things in books or movies or TV shows. We've talked about that before on this podcast, right? I like to experience it and not think ahead.
Speaker: Like everything in this was like, yeah, this this makes sense. This is what's happening. like it it It didn't necessarily surprise me. none none of None of these moments surprised me, but they
Speaker: they felt comforting to me. Which is a weird thing. I've been told um that that would be my space. um Now, what we'll get into a little bit later. I think that Piranesi's experience and ah with the house towards the end of the story um kind of backs up my reading of it.
Speaker: um But it's ah it's a story that has just stuck with me for four years. Wow. and And because I see it just it brings together, at least in my reading, some of my favorite pieces are like, you know, we've talked about the the the library of Babel before.
Speaker: Mm It's one of my favorite short stories ever. um we've We've started, we've done Out of the Silent Planet, which is the first of the space trilogy. We hopefully are going to Perilander at some point, or maybe we'll just do the entire space trilogy at once.
Speaker: um So that hideous strength. um you know it's And the Magician's Nephew is quoted at the very beginning of this story. um And so where where this could be, and for probably most people is is like a a book that's wonderful and then terrible. And then you don't really know how you feel.
Speaker: um
Speaker: I think the magic in this world world is fantastic. And it's a story that is complete and is just given me comfort from the first time reading it. none Is it the house itself that gives you comfort or also the plot? Because I can understand enjoying the house and enjoying the world and,
Speaker: You know, it's a place that you can go to in your mind. But then there's also the plot of a person, I guess, I don't know a more delicate way to put this, but a a person being mind.
Speaker: Nope. Yes. Mind. o
Speaker: Yeah, no. the Sorry. Yeah. And then, yeah, and he never he never recovers himself. No, he does not. Who he was before, ah which is is interesting.
Speaker: He becomes a third person by the end of the story. There's a person, Matthew Rowe Sorensen, who he was before he enters the house. There's Piranesi, who he is mockingly called by the other, Ketterly.
Speaker: And then afterwards, he... is ah combination, he's not even just a combination of Piranesi and Matthew Rose Sorensen. um He becomes a third person.
Speaker: um
Speaker: Which, maybe to explicitly answer your question, the house itself, I think, is the the biggest comfort for me. the The idea of this world. I love fantasy worlds. I love exploring. if When I play a a video game,
Speaker: I don't care what the plot is.
Speaker: I just want to walk around and explore all the things. I don't look it up, and even though, you know, as as it's more efficient to do that. And hey if you're playing a video game, you know, you know why are you trying to be efficient? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: you know and We've talked about The Wheel of Time. One of the things I love so much about The Wheel of Time is the unnecessary addition of so many side quests. um you know You can get it time to just be in a world.
Speaker: and had of big I loved a lot a lot of Bollywood movies because they take the premise of like a rom-com and they add just another three to five scenes that are unnecessary and wouldn't be in a Hollywood movie, but they turn it from being an hour and a half long movie to a two and a half hour long movie.
Speaker: um just because they've added more of the scenes that were clearly cut out of the Hollywood version of it. um and And this is a world that you can just explore around. And and i also think a part of what I really like is the character interaction.
Speaker: Not because it's necessarily positive. Now, I'll say the the main character, Piranesi, I think he's a very likable character in this story. um i actually, in this read, wrote multiple times, like, like really likable. or like I appreciate He's just so kind. um but the reason I had us read that hideous strength is, is I think even the, the evil characters, the clearly like the, the, like the, the sign, the scientific or pseudoscientific or whatever ah manipulative characters.
Speaker: I think in my brain, those characters need to exist in order to uplift the,
Speaker: the counteractive element. um I think part of what makes this story strong and Piranesi such an interesting character and and the house such a respectable place is the clear addition of the other and I mean that both in terms of the character and in terms of like the grand other um entering into it. Yeah.
Speaker: We've now talked for a lot. i lot know We've now said quite a bit without saying anything to somebody who hasn't read this book. um But if you've made it to this podcast episode, you've you've stuck with us um through thick and thin ah and through through, you know, much time. Yeah.
Speaker: There's so many different ways to do this. Maybe maybe a good way to start. You had an idea? So, Eric, something I've heard you say is that you love being in the world and wandering around. Like, it's a world that you could get lost in the house.
Speaker: Elaborate. um you want to share more about that? Yeah. So, the the premise of the house, or as Pyrrhenesi calls it towards the end of the book, the eternal house, is is a labyrinth, is a space of um rooms connected together by corridors that go on and on into forever.
Speaker: And from a simple, this perspective, as a kid, Who wouldn't want to be in that space where could just run around forever, get lost and discover new things.
Speaker: but There's a there's a childish part of me that's just like this is the coolest space to be in. Is you just you're you're constantly discovering things. And you can say, oh, this is my favorite statue. I need to remember this space. And and then you can go to the next, say oh, this is my newest favorite statue. Now, like as an adult, there's some real terrifying pieces of that, right? Because it' it is a labyrinth, right? I would not want my kids running around this space.
Speaker: And yet, ah in a fantasy world, as we as we think about these things, what is just a... How cool is it that Susanna Clarke took at a very in many ways a simple idea it's like a room with a bunch of statues and turned it into an an infinite world with infinite possibilities
Speaker: In the same way that the library of Babel is a an infinite labyrinth of of, and I put this note years ago, it's an infinite labyrinth of hexagonal like rooms, which I call the infinite Catan board. Yeah.
Speaker: ah yeah it Where you could just continue to discover and you open up a book and it and it's going to... In that library, there's a combination of every single alphanumeric combination of of letters together and blank spaces a possible, which makes it a practically infinite library, an infinite space. In fact, if you threw out 10 million books, you wouldn't lose any knowledge because there's...
Speaker: an additional however many billion versions of those same books with only one letter different or a space different. a And, and, and this is before we even add the, the time element of it.
Speaker: That
Speaker: I just feel a little like childish and giddy of this idea. Is this interesting to you? Would you have fun in this? You know, Eric, you've just done something for me.
Speaker: that i haven't done for myself in a while. I think...
Speaker: I think... You've reminded me of this this sense of wonder and the impulse that drove me to Lord of the Rings and to fantasy and to, you know, video games. Every time I'm, you know, searching for something...
Speaker: um is that is that's what it is and i think so often when i read now i i'm reading as a writer trying to critique and to learn okay and it can be hard for me to like just enjoy it you know um and
Speaker: I think that's a real gift that you have.
Speaker: I really mean that as sincerely as possible. um When I was reading this book, I actually almost wanted it to be a video game because it reminded me of the Outer Wilds.
Speaker: Okay. The game based on exploration and discovery of a mystery. And there are statues in Outer Wilds too.
Speaker: um
Speaker: And... Yeah, so I could definitely see... i just you know I would love to wander around in the house and exploring the infinite possibilities. And I think also...
Speaker: It's so easy because we have so much media and Marvel with the multiverse. We're so familiar with the idea of infinity. Yes. But I don't think many of us would have really been able to come up with the idea of infinity if it hadn't been introduced to us as kids. It's like, if you actually sit around and think about it.
Speaker: Oh, it means nothing. It's... It... um
Speaker: I guess it's it's hard.
Speaker: You've helped me sort of recapture a sense of awe. So
Speaker: but thank you. I'm encouraged by that. Thanks for sharing that. That's
Speaker: such a beautiful part of fantasy. it's It's a reason fantasy exists. It's not that you can't get that in nonfiction in another space. I mean, you go outside and look at a sunset and you're going to feel that, right?
Speaker: Yeah. But there is something about this, this entrance into a world. and And when I enter this particular world, and and we'll look at this in a different way a little bit later, um when I enter into this world, I'm just trying to understand it within the world itself.
Speaker: And
Speaker: and within the writings of the character. And Piranesi sees the house as a sense of awe. a through a sense of of of it's a provider. And we're going to talk about this from a different perspective a little bit later in the episode. yeah But before we get there, I want to, as part of like the world searching as part of of this, I want us to understand a little bit of the way this world works.
Speaker: Because this is something that I find really interesting. And and on a ah on my second and third reads, um three or four years after reading it the first time,
Speaker: I paid special attention to it. and And that's that in this in this world... um
Speaker: There's couple of things.
Speaker: And let me share about that. Yeah. Where did the statues come from? Yes, that's what I was going say. And let me share about that in two parts. The first is is how statues come to be um And there's a great example.
Speaker: and if you look at page 88, if you have the version I have, um if you don't, then it'll be a different page.
Speaker: It's part three, ah the first chapter, The Prophet. um entry for the 20th day of the seventh month in the year the Albatross came to the southwestern halls.
Speaker: And then it's quite a few pages into it. It's a conversation between Arn Sales, the prophet, and Piranesi. Page 89.
Speaker: Arn Sales, the the character who found this world, he says this. This is what I call a distributary world. It was created by ideas flowing out of another world.
Speaker: This world could not have existed unless the other world had existed first. Whether this world is still dependent on the continued existence of the first one, I don't know. It's all in the book I wrote.
Speaker: We skip ahead. We would take take it on the bottom of page 90. It starts with a question from Piernese. Is this why there are statues, I ask? Is what why there are statues, he responded.
Speaker: Pyrenees Degan. Do the statues exist because they embody the ideas and the knowledge that flowed out of the other world into this one? Oh, I never thought of that, he said, pleased.
Speaker: What an intelligent observation. Yes, yes. I think that highly likely. Perhaps in some remote area of the labyrinth, statues of obsolete computers are coming into being as we speak.
Speaker: So the general... philosophy or the idea of how statues come to exist is they're thoughts, they're real things, they're um from the world that you and I live in.
Speaker: um that is drained like energy um through into this just distributary world. Now there's, there's some, actually some questions a little bit later, actually towards the very end of this book that I think called a question, whether that's fully true um because we see some Piranesi or Matthew Rowe Sorensen or the the three, the third um character that he is person. He is, see some people that he's seen in the,
Speaker: in the house as statues, which I think adds some really great, wonderful questions. And I think that's part of fantasy. Part of a good story is unanswered questions. um I don't like it when an author tells me the answer to all the questions.
Speaker: and We've talked about this. Once a book, once a work is created, um I'm interested to hear the author's thoughts. But if it's, if I can root it in the story itself, I think my thoughts
Speaker: are as accurate or likely to be as accurate as somebody else's. um Because the story, the piece, the medium has been commute completed. um Not many people would argue with that. But that's that's how things are created in this world.
Speaker: um And... So that's ah kind of the first piece of that. ah but But then within this world, and this is the the other thing, the the thing that I think is more interesting, or the piece that I think is more interesting, is that outside of humans and a dead monkey, um there are...
Speaker: Water. water There's water life. there's there's there's There's fish and crustaceans and yeahda yada yada. um But then the only other thing is there's birds. We read later that there could be cats that are able to enter this world as well, but we never interact with the cat, which I think is a real loss. I think they named cats as being possible to enter this world.
Speaker: um And it's confusing to me why he doesn't have a pet cat. I think that would have actually been a really... cool addition if he'd had a cat with him um just to give him something that somebody to talk to as well but that's not the point here the point is birds um and i'm looking now on page 40 43 42 and um well looking now page um this is in
Speaker: The chapter, a Conversation, Entry for the Eleventh Day of the Sixth Month in the Year of the Albatross Came to the Southwestern Halls.
Speaker: with ample for While ample for a brief neighboring exchange, such remarks, he's talking about birds at this point, do not suggest a broad or deep intelligence. Yet it has occurred to me that there may be more wisdom in birds than appears at first sight.
Speaker: A wisdom that reveals itself only obliquely and intermittently. That page 39. We're going to skip ahead now to page 41. He
Speaker: he shares a story where he saw birds alighting on specific statues, and he decides because of that to... um They keep extra food.
Speaker: And he sees that as a warning. He said, for the next two days there were no fish at all and if i had not attended to the bird's warning i would have hardly i would have had i would have had hardly anything to eat this experience led me to form a hypothesis perhaps the wisdom of birds resides not in the individual but in the flock the congregation However, it is with this and hypothesis in mind that I record something that happened, something which happened this morning.
Speaker: This is truly ridiculous, right? If we're reading reading a a nonfiction book, this person is straight crazy. um And one could argue that maybe he is anyways. But um page 42, he walk walks into a space. There's a bunch of birds very top it. He says, I'm paying attention, I call to them.
Speaker: What is it that you wish to say? ah Birds move. They they ally they they alight on an angel a statue of an angel blowing a trumpet, and then a statue of a ship that travels on little waves, and then a statue of a man reading from a large book, and then to a statue of a woman displaying a large dish or or shield, and then a statue of a little child bowing its head to gaze at a flower with it which it holds in its hand, and then a statue of a sack of grain being devoured by a horde of mice, and then they they fly off.
Speaker: He says, thank you. I called to them. Thank you. Supposing my hypothesis to be correct, this is certainly the most elaborate communication that the birds have offered me. What is the meaning?
Speaker: And then we go top of page 43.
Speaker: Third paragraph from the start of the next chapter, says this. so far as So this, as far as I can tell, is what the birds told me. A message from afar.
Speaker: Obscure writing. Innocence eroded. Interesting. and we light I will allow some time to elapse, say a few months, and then i will examine this communication again and see if the intervening events can shed any light upon it and vice versa.
Speaker: Scientific paganism.
Speaker: Because he's doing an experiment. He's doing an experiment. Yeah. But... So, like I said, we're going to talk about this from a different perspective a little bit later. Yeah. My perspective at it as as a reader of this book, without trying to think deeply about this, um and we'll bring in that hideous strength later, which I think will prompt the conversation to be different and and take out different species, is...
Speaker: How interesting. What an interesting thing. I wonder if this is true within this world, within this particular character. And if you look at this message that they told him, a message from afar, obscure writing, innocence eroded.
Speaker: This is the story of the rest of the book. Mm hmm.
Speaker: So what what happens a little bit later is he receives a written message from Raphael, who is a police officer trying to find him to help him escape.
Speaker: um He has no memory that he's Matthew Rose Sorensen. He's been abducted and been in this labyrinth, this house, for nearly six years. um The other, Ketterly, is the one that had abducted him and brought him to this space.
Speaker: um But the other keeps telling, tells Piranesi that... 16, which is the name that Piranesi has made for Raphael because he doesn't know anything about Raphael as a character.
Speaker: He just knows that there there could be a mythical 16th person. um The other is told Piranesi that 16 hates reason and is there um to to kill them or to attack.
Speaker: to Not to kill, but to... um
Speaker: The other ultimately shares with Piranesi that if 16 talks to Piranesi or communicates in any way, that Piranesi will end up hating the other and that the other will be forced to kill him.
Speaker: The other is truly a despicable character in the story. um It's very fun to read how dislikable this person is, especially on a second and third read, because you can catch a lot of things that seem innocuous that are just...
Speaker: Utterly despicable um from like the third page on. um But the first time that Piranesi sees Raphael is who you find out, this this police officer, what her name is.
Speaker: First time he sees her writing, he tries to block it. He tries to erase it. And so you end up with this piece. It's on page 141 and 142 of writing. of
Speaker: of writing That, and I'll show you, Hunter. You can see this here. it's The words are all partially erased. And so you're seeing obscure writing or obscured writing.
Speaker: And then ah eventually at one point, because she realizes he's erasing everything, he put she puts his she writes a question in um stones And the question is, are you Matthew Rose Sorensen?
Speaker: And that simple question um prompts him to think through, like to realize, prompts a memory of how he got to this place and ends up eroding all of his trust in the other and and prompting the movement of the story towards its climax.
Speaker: What a cool idea that birds alighting on statues could be communication. since Yeah.
Speaker: It's cool. It's very nicely
Speaker: um Another piece about the world creation before we we jump into our our next kind of bigger approach. This story starts with a quote. It says, I am the great scholar, the magician, the adept who is doing the experiment.
Speaker: Of course I need subjects to do it on. It's from The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. um And that's ultimately what happens to the other. kettle the Sorry, the other is making Pyrenees see his experiment is doing things on.
Speaker: um
Speaker: This story, ah have looked this up later, um and the world creation here is in many ways driven from not just the Library of Babel, but from the Garden of Forking Paths, ah written by Borges.
Speaker: borges And of... and this the the idea of the garden of forking paths is a labyrinth that encapsulates the past and the future
Speaker: um through through a written form. um
Speaker: And like an invisible... so go I think the idea of a labyrinth has been...
Speaker: You could find it in many different cultures and histories and myths. And ah I was thinking explicitly of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, the labyrinth,
Speaker: which is built by Daedalus, the father of Icarus. Yeah. And so a lot of... I guess I was waiting for a minotaur to appear.
Speaker: Yeah. thought 16 might be a minotaur or something. And there are statues of minotaurs in there. So I felt that that was an overt reference. um And also the cover of it...
Speaker: um It's Mr. Tumnus. Looks pretty Greek to me It's Mr. Tumnus. Okay, yes, but Mr. Tumnus is a satyr, which is Greek.
Speaker: Yeah. So, yeah. um ah Question for you. Is the other the Minotaur?
Speaker: I mean, i guess technically he's the closest to a minotaur that you could find in this story. I kept waiting for the labyrinth to have some kind of dark secret or something.
Speaker: Um, but it turns out that the labyrinth in the house is like the good, the good guy, you know? Um, uh, um,
Speaker: And so I guess you could say the other is is like the Minotaur. The Minotaur is not really, what I remember, doesn't really have a mind or an objective other than to eat people.
Speaker: So, you know, it's it's kind of mindless. um The original story of the Theseus and the Minotaur... The people of Athens were compelled by King Minos of Crete to send 14 young noble citizens, seven men and seven women, but sometimes kids, to the labyrinth in Crete to be slaughtered um by the Minotaur in the labyrinth.
Speaker: They were offered as sacrilegial victims. Mm-hmm. in retribution for the death of Minos' son. Androgeos. I believe there's like a war involved or something like that.
Speaker: um And so, you know, we got from that we have Hunger Games and ah you know lots of other things. and And Labyrinth. I don't know. There's something... That's what myths are like. They get stuck in your head and reinterpreted re-interpreted and retold. And... readtoold him
Speaker: In this particular incarnation, the labyrinth is
Speaker: almost a good place. It's like a place you want to be. that But it is a place that causes you to lose your memory. That's true. It's a place that has... The hidden secret of it is that the more time you spend here, the less you the more you lose yourself.
Speaker: um and And I want that to come up in our conversation um as we talk about um
Speaker: connection between humans and nature um versus humans and science and and progress. um Because as Piranesi loses his connection to the human world,
Speaker: his connection to nature increases. um And I think there's something there. um it We've talked about this, about good books, right? Good books or great books. i don't know. Great literature, good, good stories. Maybe we we're story. We're based on story. So I think good stories prompt many conversations and,
Speaker: And greater depth. And I really feel like this is one of those types of stories. Because i think I think you can teach a class on this book. Because you would bring in, you know not only the stories we're talking about here, but you'd bring in you know what you just named.
Speaker: You could bring in Pan's Labyrinth. ah You could bring in so many other... thinking like ways to approach this and to talk about this story. um I'm realizing that I missed one of the major pieces when you asked me about the creation of the world.
Speaker: I missed the actual way that this world was created. And then we'll move on to the next part of our conversation. um As you can tell, I'm a little giddy over here just because it's so good. so So this is the idea of how the world is created according to...
Speaker: um the profit I just keep calling him Arn Sales because that's his last name. um And I can't remember. bruce Lawrence Arn Sales. I'm
Speaker: going to start on page 151.
Speaker: This was the beginning of his most famous idea, the theory of other worlds. Simply put, it said that when knowledge or power went out of this world, it did two things. First, it created another place.
Speaker: And second, it left a hole, a door, between this world where it had once existed and the new place it had made. Picture this, said Arncells. Like rainwater lying on a field, the next day the field is dry.
Speaker: Where has the rainwater gone? Some has evaporated into the air, some has been drunk by plants and animals, but some has seeped down into the earth. This happens over and over again.
Speaker: For decades, centuries, millennia, the water seeping down makes a crack in the rock under the earth. Then it wears the crack into a hole, then it wears the hole into a cave entrance, a kind of door in fact.
Speaker: Beyond the door the water keeps flowing and it hollows out caverns and carves out pillars. Somewhere, said Arn Sells, there must be a passage, a door between us and wherever the magic had gone.
Speaker: It might be very small. It might not be entirely stable. Like the entrance to an underground cave, it might be in danger of collapse. But it would be there, and if it was there, it was possible to find.
Speaker: Now going to page 90. because he's in pursuit of the great and secret knowledge, which is what the other is also looking for.
Speaker: Before I had seen this world, I thought that the knowledge that created it would somehow still be here, lying about, ready to be picked up and claimed. Of course, as soon as I got here, I realized how ridiculous that was.
Speaker: Imagine water flowing underground. It flows through some... It flows through the same cracks year after year and it wears away at the stone. Millennia later, you have a cave system. But what you don't have is the water that originally created it.
Speaker: That's long gone. Seeped away into the earth. Same thing here.
Speaker: that There's a lot of work in the... I tried to do a lot of the work, and this is why I took a third, like two readings in pretty quick succession, to connect parts of this book together.
Speaker: Because you're given knowledge up front that is really important later, and information later that's really important up front. It like purpose purposely obfuscates you just like you named it as a mystery hunter. And that's what this book does. And I, there's a part of me that really wants to take it all and, and rework it it into a, uh, an orderly account. account Um, the, the, it even quotes at one point. Um, uh, and I think this is another thing I like about it.
Speaker: Um, various, ah Matthew Sorensen's, Matthew Rowe Sorensen's journal has lots of different entries. And one of the entries um just talks about, has a list of different types of thinking or types of stories that are Lambert and Thine.
Speaker: And
Speaker: The first on the list is on page 164. Timey-Wimey, Stephen Moffat, Blink, and J.W. Dunn's Theories of Time.
Speaker: Doctor Who.
Speaker: Stephen Moffat was the director or the writer for Doctor Who. um Oh, okay. And so that that statement, Timey-Wimey, Stephen Moffat, Blink,
Speaker: Blink is one of the best episodes of Doctor Who. um It's about statues that are trying to kill you. And if you blink, um they can move incredibly fast.
Speaker: um And then Timey Wimey, Spacey Wasey Timey Wimey, Timey Wimey Spacey Wasey is how... the 12th Doctor? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: was it twelfth doctor yeah um defines ah the TARDIS and the movement through through space that the TARDIS does, which is the the flying blue um telephone booth that works as Doctor Who's ah space-time transporter. And so I always love when things that I love connect with other things that I love. And so that was just a little fun little...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Andre, I'm having so much fun right now. Yeah. So one of the things that I was thinking about as I was reading this book is how writing itself is a technology and, um,
Speaker: I think this is one of the most important ideas that I took from Technopoly by Neil Postman, which we'll probably do a podcast on eventually. But just the idea that writing itself is a technology.
Speaker: And I found this in Piranesi, um just in the system of his journals. like He keeps an index of his journals, um which the critical part of me was like,
Speaker: I mean, that's crazy who keeps an index of the journals, but also there are some crazy journalists out there. So it's not like journalists in both sense of the word, um you know, who would keep an index of their journals. So, you know, that's fine.
Speaker: um But there's a quote where and in my copies of page 161, where he's talking about 16 and whether 16 would like, would hate writing.
Speaker: Um, because he says, Oh, 16 hates reason. Then maybe she hates writing. um and he says, writing a medium by which reason can pass from one person to another.
Speaker: Um, and if you think about it, writing is what enables Piernessy to uncover the truth, uh, who he is and about what happened to Matthew Rose Sorenson.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, and and I think that this can connect us to the library of Babel in the Garden of Forking Paths, because the Garden of Forking Paths is...
Speaker: I love Borges. I love that he gets so... It's almost like he's so lost in the story that he doesn't care whether you understand it or not. it's it's and And that's how I like my fiction.
Speaker: I just like... that That's the thing. Going from Piranesi to Borges, you know as much as I enjoyed Piranesi, it was definitely meant to be read. was...
Speaker: you know it was
Speaker: ah it was It was an easy read. Not necessarily that easy, but like... It read quick. it was It wasn't, you know, it was written with the reader in mind or at least. Yeah. The typical reader is going to be is going to read it once, never feel the need to go back to it again. They're going have read it as a mystery that kind of has a big shock and awe piece that makes them feel ill about it. Which I want to be clear is not a bad thing. Yes. Important when you're writing to have the reader in mind.
Speaker: and And hopefully I've already communicated that it does much more than that as well. Right. Right. Yeah. But let's go to Borges. Borges is is ah yeah is is a lot harder.
Speaker: I'm glad that we will read we read short stories of Borges. I'm not sure I could handle long form fiction. You know, I don't think he could either. I honestly don't think that he wrote like any long form novels. He was just, his mind was just so dense. He just, you know...
Speaker: I love him.
Speaker: So... The Garden of Forking Paths is like this little story told by a Nazi spy, i think.
Speaker: Yep, I'll be right
Speaker: back. So it's not ah he's not a Nazi spy. It's it's in World War I. So he's a German spy. And I guess it doesn't, that it part doesn't matter.
Speaker: But basically there's a Chinese man and he encounters this English man who has uncovered su the great-grandson. Yeah. So it's his great-grandfather's, page 22. I'm not sure if we have the same copy of Labyrinths, but, um, yeah.
Speaker: and I have some understanding of labyrinths. Not for nothing am I the great-grandson of Jinping, who was governor of Yunnan, and who renounced worldly power in order to write a novel that might be even more populous populac than the Qinglumong, and to construct a labyrinth in which all men would become lost.
Speaker: Thirteen years he dedicated to these heterogeneous tasks, but the hand of a stranger murdered him, and his novel was incoherent no one found a labyrinth.
Speaker: beneath english trees i meditated on that lost maze i imagined it involunt and perfect at the secret crest of a mountain i imagined it erased by rice-fields or beneath the water i imagined it infinite no longer composed of octagonal kiosks which I believe is a reference to Library of Babel, and returning paths, but of rivers and provinces and kingdoms.
Speaker: I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.
Speaker: And it turns out he meets this English guy... who has solved the riddle of the labyrinth, that the novel that his grandfather was ner were working on um is, in fact, the labyrinth.
Speaker: On page 25, he says, the English guy, whose name is Albert, says, To no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing.
Speaker: And this, to me, we're talking about writing as a technology, Having written a couple books, I related very hard to writing being like a labyrinth.
Speaker: In fact, I have this unfinished nonfiction piece where I literally call writing a maze and like a labyrinth because when you're writing a fiction, as Happens-Ede talks about in the Garden of Working Paths, is that
Speaker: in In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others. who So, you know, you go through a plot and this was what I struggled with in writing and doing plots is I would plot something out.
Speaker: in bullet points. And then I would be writing the scene and I'd be like, well, actually that character wouldn't say that or do that. And therefore my planned plot doesn't work. I have to, i have to choose another path. So for me, you know, and some people are plotters and some people are gardeners.
Speaker: Um, and, and for me, it felt very much like navigating a maze where you come to a fork or, or three, three crossroads, and you choose one.
Speaker: And then you find out it's a dead end, and it's not somewhere you want to go, so then you go back, and then you try another one. and And you know, it's good writing and writing. And this whole idea is that in the Garden of Forking Paths, in the fiction of Chopin, he chooses simultaneously all of the paths.
Speaker: So the reason they thought the novel was a failure is because it would like contradict himself it's itself. like Some guy would be dead in one chapter and then later on that guy would be alive in a different chapter.
Speaker: um
Speaker: and It's just a really really intricate and lovely work of fiction that gets into this idea of writing itself being a labyrinth, and time.
Speaker: He talks about time, too. yeah Yeah. The garden of forking paths is an enormous riddle or parable whose theme is time.
Speaker: This recondite cause prohibits its mention. To omit a word always, to resort to inept metaphors and obvious paraphrases is perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it.
Speaker: Have you ever done that? Have you ever written something purposely trying to leave out a word? Or I remember i had a teacher once who get let us all read a paragraph and asked, like, what's the thing that's missing here?
Speaker: And it was a paragraph written without the letter Yeah.
Speaker: And it's very hard to write a paragraph without the letter E. Oh, yeah. You take out the letter E and the letter A and a lot of English falls apart.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: One of the... so So writing is a technology. i really i really like that.
Speaker: And as especially as a person who prefers to write my notes handwritten, i have i have long aspired to have a separate notebook that holds the the key, the index to my...
Speaker: other notebooks. Yeah. And I think that's actually one of the strengths of one of the biggest strengths of written of type of, of the computer is it can automatically do that for you.
Speaker: Like the search, the control F function is one of, if I could control F my own writings, like in physical paper, like that would,
Speaker: It would be incredible. Yeah. But the thing is, so the thing is like about writing is in Technopoly, uh, you know, Postman starts out with the the judgment of Helmus, I believe, uh, where he talks about writing as a technology and he says, this is not a good thing because you will have people,
Speaker: who instead of relying on their own resources, will demonstrate the conceit of knowledge. The conceit of knowledge? The conceit of knowledge. And what he means by that, I think, is like the appearance of knowledge. So like, because we can write things down, we don't have to remember as much.
Speaker: Yeah. And if you think about... ancient philosophers who weren't writing, who were orating, you know, they had to remember everything.
Speaker: yeah And you think about the Iliad and the Odyssey, I think the leading majority theory now is that they were passed down as, as oral stories before they were ever written down. And so you have, uh, storytellers who are, who are retelling it, remembering everything.
Speaker: you know, the entirety of these stories. And that's a feat that we would think is impossible, but we think it's impossible because we have writing, because we don't have to practice memory in and logic and and and reason. And and it's very interesting. Once upon a midnight dreary, as I wandered, weak and weary, were many a quaint and query volume of forgotten lore.
Speaker: mean, this is why rhyme schemes exist, partially too. right And I think the Iliad and Odyssey like utilized a a basic rhyme scheme too, didn't didn't many of the versions in terms of memorization?
Speaker: I think they have rhyme schemes. um But it's still thousands of lines. that does not diminish the skill set. But like the then you could say like the poem itself is in its its own form of technology. Yeah.
Speaker: Language. Yeah. and And like a part of technology is also a type of thing that people you use see to weaponize against others. So not only like the conceit of knowledge, but my brain is also like, how do we weaponize that knowledge against others?
Speaker: And like, yeah. And a great example of that in this story is the other weaponizes his knowledge. Right. Of, like, the world and of interactions and, like, memory against Piranesi time and time again. Like, he throws out the word Battersea to see if Piranesi can catch on this.
Speaker: um Which is where Piranesi was abducted. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: How about... How do you see writing as a technology in the library of Babel? and In many ways, in one way, it's incredibly obvious.
Speaker: But I'm wondering if you can, if if you've got additional thoughts on that. I do. I always have additional thoughts. said The Library of Babel is a story about an individual or a a theorized library where people are wandering around.
Speaker: um It's a combination it's is an infinite library with every combination of letters um in every combination of books. that has ever been written or could be written.
Speaker: um Kind of think think to yourself as the an infinite number of monkeys sitting in an infinite number of rooms, writing an infinite number of stories um that all have a finite number of pages.
Speaker: um And then they hit enter at the same time and they all put them on a shelf and walk away. And the craziest thing is is that the library of Babel is actually actually exists online.
Speaker: Yes, fine as it does. You can go the website. actually had it saved on my last laptop. Yeah. Because of my bookmarks. Yeah, because there are a finite number of combinations based on this lettering system.
Speaker: It's a near infinite number. Yeah, near infinite number. But not infinite. And, um
Speaker: what I think about when I think of writing as technology, I think of, you know, because of our history, I think, and our culture and context, we tend to think of writing as the technology of reason and logic and clear thinking.
Speaker: But I think when you take writing and carry it to its extreme, it's really the opposite in a way. Because the Library of Babel, what happens is people realize that every book that could be written has already been written.
Speaker: What that means is there is the true story of your own death somewhere out there. There's something that contains the answer to life and the meaning of everything.
Speaker: Everywhere. Yes. every scientific um Every scientific discovery, philosophical, religious, everything has been written. And this means all we have to do is go and find it.
Speaker: But this also means that for every coherent sentence, there are billions and trillions of incoherent sentences. Yeah. and And this is the problem with writing and with the internet and this virtual world that we're creating for ourselves. Yeah.
Speaker: is he says um page 58, the certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms.
Speaker: And this to me is what Dostoevsky does Notes from Underground, and I think to a certain extent what C.S. Lewis does in That Hideous Strength, is he takes these ideas that people are all excited about and he carries them to the extreme, and he says, no this This is what happens.
Speaker: It turns us into phantoms because instead of relying on our own resources and trying to discover truth, we just scroll through the library of Babel and try to find it randomly. Or we put we put prompts and and ask an AI, which is and a an AI is is just scrolling for you.
Speaker: um
Speaker: and We become phantoms that don't actually think because we're just trying to use our technology to find the answer. It's not that you cannot use writing as a tool, but which, you know like here in SC uses it as a tool.
Speaker: Um, and, but, you know, this is what happens if we carry it to the extreme. Yeah.
Speaker: I love taking ideas to the the extreme because it's, to me, one of maybe the best way to to figure out if they hold any value. Right. like To me, this question of of human morality, like what's the goal of being moral or kind to somebody without a big capital T truth?
Speaker: that you're holding to.
Speaker: But if we, if with without, without that, then why, why should anybody be kind to anybody? and Like, oh, well, it's just a good thing to do. Like, yeah, but why? It's just a random snippet of a thought experiment.
Speaker: Well, that's one of the first questions we learned to ask. Why? right? Yep. So the library of Babel, the garden of forking tap paths and the house are all infinite or near infinite, um, to a human's lifetime and ability to walk.
Speaker: They are all infinite. Um,
Speaker: and that is one real clear connection between all of them. Um, A large idea of Piranesi came from, at least was influenced by, impacted by the writings of Borges.
Speaker: and And now I'm trying to think about how do we... connect this more specifically to that hideous strength. and And I have got thoughts, but you brought up a term earlier um called, and I think this is a term of your own origin. um Yeah. You called it algorithmic paganism.
Speaker: Yeah. and And I think you were looking at some of the similar, maybe the same passages I shared earlier ah in a different light and and saw a connection with that hideous strength. Can you can you get that started?
Speaker: Yeah. So that that hideous strength, um the basic plot is that There is, C.S. Lewis called it like a fairy tale.
Speaker: He didn't even call it science fiction, but. Yes. Very explicitly. that's That's how it starts. Yeah. And basically there's an organization called NICE, N-I-C-E, National Institute for.
Speaker: National Institute of Coordinated Experiments. National Institute of Coordinated Experiments. And their goal... It's funny when the main character sort of gets inundated into this. He's trying to figure out what exactly he's trying to do and he just he just can't. Because nobody knows what they're trying to do. It's infuriating to read. yeah so stressful.
Speaker: It's so funny. But the the basically it's just progress. Scientific progress. They're trying to... you know make life more efficient and less mess easier to live and less less messy. Less human.
Speaker: um Yeah, and and ultimately less human because they're basically trying to commit genocide ah on the whole human race except for like a couple heads in a jar that are going to be heads definitely brains existing in jars. Yeah.
Speaker: is the way I understood it. um and the way that they want to bring this about is they want to find the body of Merlin because they believe that Merlin is still alive and that Merlin will be on their side because Merlin can talk.
Speaker: You know, he he comes from a time where men, a pre-rational state, as basically the exact power that Arne Sayles was talking about, that he theorized would exist.
Speaker: If you're in a pre-rational state, he thought that you could you know actually talk to the animals and make things happen, and and the world would talk back and you'd have these powers.
Speaker: ah You know, Nice thinks that by resurrecting Merlin they can get these powers and then use those powers to carry out their plan. um
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: I guess I'm sort of santonism sensitive to paganism. um
Speaker: I mean, partly because I'm i'm a Christian, but also, you know, I don't... i'm I'm one of those Christians who sort of tightens up when I when i hear other Christians start talking about demons and hell and and that kind of stuff, because I think... I think, like we talked about in our Baldwin episode...
Speaker: I think that real de demonic powers and the real powers of evil, they operate
Speaker: in in ways that don't seem evil. They often do. They often do. um So it's not that I don't think they don't exist, it's that I just think that, you know,
Speaker: this sort of exorcism things that people talk about are kind of a smokescreen for the real evil that goes on. That's happening right now.
Speaker: But I also, I'll date my sensitivity to paganism to when I watched Midsommar, which is a female Not too long ago, but several years ago.
Speaker: um Not a bad movie, but one that I did not... I hated watching. That did things to me that don't like.
Speaker: That is basically people going into a pagan society and...
Speaker: everybody but one person gets sacrificed. go ahead Yeah. So, and I've also noticed, i feel like paganism is like sort of cool. It's like making a comeback somehow in culture. You see people talking about, don't know, pagan rituals and, um you know, it's it's not... Anyway. And so I was noticing it in Piranesi.
Speaker: And this idea, and and what I think it really comes from, is the fact that we live in a super rational society.
Speaker: And that I think because postmodern life has destroyed the foundations of tradition and history that humans have relied on... humans have relied on you know, to give us a sense of purpose and belonging and history roots because all of that has been attacked and and deconstructed.
Speaker: And a lot of that rightfully so, you know, um, but, but we feel like we're missing something, you know? And so I think that's why this return to like pre-rational thought is, is so, is attractive.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: My prediction when I was reading Piranesi, I think I was on page 150 thereabouts. I hadn't reached the big reveal yet.
Speaker: um
Speaker: I made this prediction that like if I was plotting this book, I would be like, okay, Piranesi is going to revert to paganism. And he's going to get the powers that Arn Sales is talking about.
Speaker: And he's going to use those powers to, you know, overthrow Ketterly and Arn Sales and, like, get his freedom. that was That was my idea. Interesting. And...
Speaker: I'm going really roundabout. I'm sorry. um but
Speaker: So that's, we have this one part, that's where the paganism part comes in, obviously. And i got algorithmic from ah quote on page 121 where he's talking about, um he's talking about how the house like plants ideas in his mind.
Speaker: um The way that he can know words that... that don't exist in his world, that don't exist in the house. Words like university and garden.
Speaker: And he's like, for example, I know that a garden is a place where one can refresh oneself with the sight of plants and trees. But a garden is not a thing that exists in the world, nor is there any statue representing that particular idea.
Speaker: Instead, there are statues scattered about in which people are gods, beasts are surrounded by roses, strands of ivy, trees.
Speaker: um know In the ninth vestibule, there's a statue of a gardener digging. And in the 19th Southeastern Hall there's a statue of a different gardener pruning a rosebush.
Speaker: It is from these things that I deduce the idea of a garden. I do not believe that this happens by accident. This is how the house places new ideas, gently and naturally, in the minds of men.
Speaker: This is how the house increases my understanding.
Speaker: And I'm going to read this because I think it's relevant. This realization is very encouraging, and I no longer feel quite so alarmed when a nonsensical word in my journal gives rise to a mental image that I cannot account for.
Speaker: Do not be anxious, I tell myself. It is the house. It is the house enlarging your understanding. And this, to me, was... i said, oh, this is exactly what we do with our phones.
Speaker: And the algorithm. And um I have struggled with watching a lot of YouTube. um And I think a lot of us have struggled with social media. And it's no secret that there are algorithms that are designed to feed you content that...
Speaker: You will watch because the more you watch, the more ads they can show you, the more money they make. They don't have any... The corporation doesn't have any moral reason and it's not, um I don't know, benevolent like the house.
Speaker: um Their only motivation, no matter what they say, the structure of their organization is to make money. That is what drives them. So...
Speaker: you know i was I was thinking about algorithmic paganism and this this idea that like in the house, the house can plant these things in your mind naturally and it's good for you and it can increase your understanding.
Speaker: um And it's hard for me not to see a dark side to that. um And you know I guess if you're extrapolating... have...
Speaker: oh i have I will say i am not a great religious scholar by any means. I have not studied paganism, and I think paganism itself is a huge topic with like unimaginable amounts of histories and traditions that you can go into. But...
Speaker: um you know sticking to this this idea of like looking to nature um for inspiration and ideas and trusting the world.
Speaker: um I think you know in Christian theology, you have a benevolent God and a loving God who makes creation, um that you can you know discover his natural attributes from his creation.
Speaker: But at the same time, if you worship the creation instead of the creator, it's going to lead you down darker paths, and it kind that you're going to be misled.
Speaker: um And certainly, if you worship the images that humans have made, and ah you know if you take what's on your screen as part of nature,
Speaker: that's you know there are so many different motives behind what people put on screens. that it can really lead you you, know, straight. So this is a huge can of worms.
Speaker: I'll pass it to you, Eric.
Speaker: ah love I love that this conversation can go in many different directions. and And I hope...
Speaker: I hope the connection between these two books, That Hideous Strength and Piranesi, doesn't feel forced to. you
Speaker: I think i could respond directly to what's happening within the world, but that's not the point of the conversation you're bringing up. um What I want to add to the discussion...
Speaker: is
Speaker: communicating or the the goals and the the objectives and the outcomes of the various parties of the four parties that are at work between Karen AC and the Hideous Strength and I'm gonna need a little bit of your help Hunter, because you've more recently done the the thorough deep dive of that hit strength that I have.
Speaker: I've gone through it, but I haven't done the deep dive again. um But I'm going to start with Piranesi. This is page 147 in my copy.
Speaker: This is in the section where... um Piranesi's reading through his notes that he wrote as Matthew Sorensen. matthew sorenen
Speaker: he says this lawrence arne sales began with the idea that the ancients had a different way of relating to the world that they experienced it as something that interacted with them when they observed the world the world observed them back if for example they travelled in a boat on a river then the river was in some way aware of carrying them on its back and had in fact agreed to it when they looked up to the stars the constellations were not simply patterns enabling them to organize what they saw They were vehicles of meaning, a never-ending flow of information.
Speaker: The world was constantly speaking to ancient man. All of this was more or less within the bounds of conventional philosophical history. But where Arne Sales diverged from his peers was in his insistence that this dialogue between the ancients and the world was not simply something that happened in their heads.
Speaker: It was something that happened in the actual world. The way the ancients perceived the world was the way the world truly was. This gave them extraordinary influence and power.
Speaker: Reality was not only capable of taking part in a dialogue, intelligible and articulate, it was also persuadable. nature was willing to bend to men's desires to lend them its attributes seas could be parted men could turn into birds and fly away or into foxes and hide in dark woods castles could be made out of clouds eventually the ancients ceased to speak and listen to the world when this happened the world did not simply fall silent it changed
Speaker: Those aspects of the world that had been in constant communication with men, whether you call them energies, powers, spirits, angels, or demons, no longer had a place or reason to stay, and so they departed.
Speaker: There was, in Arn Sal's view, an actual and real disenchantment.
Speaker: And then he says... He had experimented with ritual magic and now thought it might be possible to get some of the powers back, providing you had a physical link with the person who had once possessed them.
Speaker: The best sort of link would be actual remains, the body or part of the body of the person in question. And he ends up finding the head of Adidomeres, who was a magician.
Speaker: And that is what gives him the information through some really creepy ritual to think about this pre this pre-rational thought to then be able to enter into the labyrinth.
Speaker: Hunter. Does this connect with you and that hideous strength? Yes. Yeah. You know, the body of Merlin and i believe the head, the literal head of the sort of society. Yeah. The nice society.
Speaker: They have this head of an old magician. I was trying to find the name. i have it as a,
Speaker: Francois Alcassan. Yes, Alcassan's head. You mean the man who was guillotined? Gasped Mark. Both the heads nodded. Both faces were close to him. In that disastrous light, it looked like masks hanging in the air. It's like a horror novel, this book. I just loved it.
Speaker: um This book doesn't return. they have a literal head that is like, they're keeping alive.
Speaker: They think they're keeping alive with, uh, like tubes and air and saliva, artificial saliva and stuff like that. Um, and Aaron sales gets ahead.
Speaker: Uh, and I believe they, he tries to use the head and they refuse. And a bunch of students demonstrate and they're like, free the head, free the head. They break into the science museum or one of the, one museums. Yeah.
Speaker: It's kind of fascinating that you have this reoccurring in 2020. um
Speaker: And do you know what occurred to me is i was also thinking about Jesus and how Jesus speaks to the waves and quiets the storm when the disciples are and on a boat Jesus sleeping.
Speaker: They wake him up and Jesus jesus tells the waves to stop. And this idea that we've lost some kind of power over nature, um, which is also going all the way back to Adam and the idea that, that we were set up as kind of like rulers of nature.
Speaker: Yeah. And stewards. Yeah. And, and this is, this is one of the things that fascinated me so much about that hideous strength. And it's a reason why we'll probably talk about it in greater detail, at a different point. Um,
Speaker: it It theorizes through a fairy tale a different interaction between humans and nature um that Piranesi then kind of adds to and then thinks about it as this great knowledge.
Speaker: And so you have these two different parties. um One in each book, nice in the one, um in in that hideous strength. And Ketterly and then Arne Sales before him, um or you know the other in the prophet, um pursuing knowledge or pursuing this this ancient connection at the cost of human life um for the self self purpose you know selfish goals, similar but not the same,
Speaker: reasons, neither of which are moralistic, you know, and and both of which have strained from any care of human life.
Speaker: um And then you have ah the you have two other characters. You have Piranesi in Piranesi.
Speaker: Brilliant. and you have, what's the name? would you call? What's the other group called? in that hideous stream with the director, the people at St. Anne's.
Speaker: People at St. Anne's, yeah. Director and Jane and the Denistons and the Dimbo's. And the Bear. And McPhee.
Speaker: Yes, yes. And so Piranesi, in many ways, begins and I would argue, begins the journey towards this ancient mindset.
Speaker: And i put forth my evidence earlier in his connection and interaction with the birds. um
Speaker: with the birds and And the story ends, and this is part of your argument. I don't know if you if you brought it up. i can't remember. But the story ends with Piranesi seeing some yeah interacting with people, and he says this.
Speaker: it's It's one of the last things he shares. When faced with a person or situation I do not understand, my first impulse is still to look for a statue that will enlighten me.
Speaker: And then skipping forward to the last um last couple pages, and it's under, It Began to Snow, entry for 1st of December, 2018. He he says an he passes two people. In the first one, um he pauses before, he so he isn't able to connect with them. But he he wanted to seize hold of him and say to this man, that In another world you are a king, noble and good, I have seen it.
Speaker: I think actually beginning little bit of this journey towards the ancient knowledge. think if he'd stayed in the house... they are depicted in the twenty seventh southern hall a statue of two children laughing one of them holding a flute i think he's actually beginning a little bit of this journey towards the ancient knowledge i actually think if hed stayed in the house long term. I think he might've been able to fly. I think that's a full possibility, um, that the, the story opens as, as not an impossibility.
Speaker: Um, yeah it's, I, I still, I think it's unlikely. Um, but then you have, uh, and and And maybe what makes him different, Piranesi different, is he does not think that the pursuit of the secret knowledge that the other and before him are in sales are are seeking is worth it, is a worthwhile endeavor.
Speaker: um And so he kind of ends on that process. And way doing that... and by way of doing that kind of receives a certain aspect of it. This is, again, we're we're building, this is a fantasy world, right? This is very purposely a fantasy world.
Speaker: And then you have, um, Ransom, or the director, who is in a completely different space. Um, he has received it
Speaker: through his relationship with God. Um,
Speaker: And there's some incredibly beautiful scenes where you can see the interaction of of nature and humans together. like One of the very first ones, Jane experiences um Ransom's eating bread and drinking wine.
Speaker: We can talk about communion in a future episode. um And he drops three pieces of of bread on the floor, or small pieces, and then blows a whistle, and three mice come to grab them.
Speaker: And then run back. And he says something along the lines of see this beautiful connection. Like I didn't. I didn't need that food. It was going to be a loss and and, yeah know, and a mess. and these these animals.
Speaker: Oh, here he says this. I found it. Page one of twenty seven. There, he said, a very simple adjustment. Humans want crumbs removed. Mice are anxious to remove them. It ought never to have been a cause for a cause of war.
Speaker: And so I think that that hideous strength is presenting this this other way towards that hidden knowledge, which is not a pursuit of the knowledge at all.
Speaker: But it's a pursuit of the one who grants it. like There's this idea that humans can, through progress, um get everything they want and pursue everything, and that progress is only ever good.
Speaker: um and And to a certain degree, nice is about that. Ketterly is not about that. He thinks that there's a point where progress like made a mistake and that there is a point in going back.
Speaker: And yet he's still all about himself and his own pride and and um getting it for his own for his own well-being. And the other takes that, you know, Ketterly really expands that from Arden's sales. and And yet the way it's the way this this secret or hidden and knowledge, the ability to fly, the ability to talk with animals, the ability that as you're doing something, that nature would be responding to you.
Speaker: um
Speaker: That hideous strength puts up as being a gift
Speaker: that comes from God, in or Elendil, I think is the language, that's that Ransom specifically has through the um through the angelic type characters.
Speaker: And Merlin also has similar type of strength. um And i just to I just think that's such a fascinating... i think that's such a cool way of of of bringing these stories together. It's also fully possible that these stories happen in the same universe.
Speaker: And I actually really like fantasy stories... that are driven, you you didn't you you explicitly shared that you didn't like this. I'm on the other side. I really like fantasy stories that are are driven out of a space of reality, of, oh, this could happen.
Speaker: Like, it's connected to the world. This is, I think, one of the reasons why people love Narnia so much, is because, you know, as kids, you're already creating these mythical worlds. Well, what if the one of the worlds that you kind of pretend, like, actually exists?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of literature about that. There's a lot of books. Just like that.
Speaker: There's a whole other conversation we can have. not sure either of us are prepared for it. About, you know, the difference between Eastern and Western thought. Um...
Speaker: I've started to try to read the Tao Te Ching.
Speaker: And, you know, our our world really is dominated by Western thought, traditions of Western thought, reason, logic, the scientific method.
Speaker: um But Eastern thought is really quite different. You know, like the first line of the Tao Te Ching is...
Speaker: Tao Ke Tao, Fei Chang Tao. It's like the Tao, the truth Tao is the Tao that you can define is not the ever-present Tao.
Speaker: It's not the truth. The truth that you can to define and understand is not the true truth. Or you could say, you know, the word. If we're looking at a Christian concept of this is like, yeah,
Speaker: you know, in in the first chapter of John's gospel is the word of God. the The word was, in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God.
Speaker: All things were created through the word, this logos, you know, truth. um These ways of thinking that, you know, I think really try to go beyond language, um,
Speaker: to the actual truth because language is a technology and yeah, it's, uh,
Speaker: truth predated language, but also biblical from a Christian perspective, the word is truth. Yes, but when the word is not actually is not necessarily referring to language. you know like Word is not literally word.
Speaker: our The English translations that we use use the word word, but the Greek word logos means something kind of different.
Speaker: Yeah. you know
Speaker: Hunter, by way of landing this plane, um Let me bring up a part of this story that we didn't touch on at all. And that's what happens post-climax. So there's a climactic moment early in the climax and afterwards.
Speaker: The climactic moment of this story, which is about 250 pages, takes five pages at most to tell. Kattoli is trying to kill, at that moment, both Piranesi and Sixteen, who you find out is Raphael.
Speaker: um He has a gun, um and he ends up drowning. um And I feel like a lot of stories, after the climactic moment, they kind of just fizzle out.
Speaker: It happened, let's end the story. ah That's not what the story does. um In fact, there's you know an additional
Speaker: one-sixth of the book or so is is post post-climactic moment. And it's and it's interactions between um Raphael as she's trying to help um help Piranesi, Matthew Rose Sorensen, try to figure out not only who he is a little bit, but like if he's going to come back to the human world. um
Speaker: and And I thought you would really appreciate this. um Just because I know that
Speaker: you enjoy...
Speaker: when stories give
Speaker: beautiful tidbits of information to better understand a character. um that you're not Not just trying to... Not words for the sake of words. um There's a a moment, it's page 236.
Speaker: um
Speaker: Matthew Rose Sorensen is back and he's being interviewed by another... Police officers try to figure out what happened to to the other, to Ketterly. And he they kind of just talk about Raphael a little bit and how Raphael's...
Speaker: An extraordinary person. She's amazing, isn't she? Of course she can be a little... I mean, she doesn't really... He fishes in the air with his fingers to catch that elusive world. I mean, she's not necessarily the easiest person in the world to work with.
Speaker: And time management? Definitely not a thing. But honestly, we all think the world of her. It is right to think the world of Raphael, I tell him. She is an extraordinary person. Exactly. Did anyone ever tell you about Penny Wheeler?
Speaker: No, I say. Or what is Penny Wheeler? And then this random police officer tells like a page story about Raphael interacting and like taking down you know a person who was just troubled. and It's completely unnecessary.
Speaker: And I think and and many people would think it's a waste of like, why would you even have that piece? I just thought it was what I wrote. I wrote completely unnecessary, wonderful tangent that helps us better understand Raphael.
Speaker: um I just thought it was just a nice little, just beautiful nugget that was kind of thrown there at the end of the story. Did you did you appreciate that or was that kind of frustrating to you? ah I don't know if it was frustrating.
Speaker: i've I thought it was neat in the part about where he says the officer's like, pretty brave, don't you think? And he says, braver than you think. She doesn't like heights.
Speaker: Yeah. um i think it I also think it's interesting that
Speaker: Raphael likes the house. And... And, in fact, Pyrrhenisi is kind of worried about her. He says, you know...
Speaker: He knows that she returns to the labyrinth often. On page 242. Yeah. quiet and the solitude attract her. um She hopes... In them, she hopes to find what she needs.
Speaker: It worries me. Don't disappear, I tell her sternly. Do not disappear. And I think that speaks to what you are talking about, is this longing that we have for another world. um Yeah, we do.
Speaker: And yet, Raphael names it. After she she she talks about the beauty of this world,
Speaker: Raphael asks Piranesi to show him the world, the labyrinth. And he shows her shows her the place, and she talks about how beautiful it is.
Speaker: talking about a a world that we long for.
Speaker: she says it's beautiful. And then she says immediately or shortly afterwards,
Speaker: I know I'm looking at it, but I can't find that... um that Well, I say it's beautiful, but it's not totally fully beautiful.
Speaker: Because death and murder have found their way here.
Speaker: And I think what we ultimately long for is a world without that death.
Speaker: Hunter, thank you for...
Speaker: reading this and the other stories with me. Yeah. Thank you for bringing them. I had a lot of fun, maybe a little too much fun getting lost in the labyrinths.
Speaker: I think it's, you know, think our own, our own minds are labyrinths, you know, that Baldwin's refrain that that Socrates said that The unexamined life is not worth living. it's you know We need to examine ourselves because
Speaker: we are labyrinth unto ourselves.
Speaker: It's always amazing to me. that conversations around books that have, you know, well, they have encouraging points are by no means all, or maybe even mostly encouraging, um you know, in terms of reading abductions and murders and um attempted genocide and destruction of the world and um destruction of knowledge and hatred towards others and murder, you know, yeah,
Speaker: this can can prompt conversations that are
Speaker: while not always uplifting, like filling. And hopefully pointing us towards something even more fulfilling along the way.
Speaker: Entry for 30 November, 2018.
Speaker: In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways.
Speaker: When this world becomes too much for me, when I grew grow tired of the noise and the dirt in the people, I close my eyes and I name a particular vestibule to myself.
Speaker: Then I name a hall. I imagine I am walking the path from the vestibule to the hall. I note with precision the doors I must pass through, the rights and lefts that I must take, the statues and the walls that I must pass.
Speaker: Last night I dreamt that I was standing in the fifth northern hall facing the statue of the gorilla. The gorilla dismounted from his plinth and came towards me with a slow knuckle walk.
Speaker: He was gray-white in the moonlight, and I flung my arms around his massive neck and told him how happy I was to be home. When I awoke, I thought, am not home.
Speaker: am here.
