Episode Details

Liza Libes is a writer and literary critic at Pens and Poison. Her parents escaped the Soviet Union. She went to Columbia. She found that Columbia's English Department had replaced literature with Marxist theory, postcolonial studies, and critical theory. She's been pushing back ever since.

We talked about: the teachers who made us both writers; reading Wallace Stevens's The Snowman — out loud, in full — and the seventh grade class that made Liza stand in the snow for an hour to understand it; Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and the fascism problem; what happened to Columbia's English Department and why it matters for publishing; why Marxism is fundamentally an ideology of resentment (Bertrand Russell said it 100 years ago); the novel Yesteryear and what it reveals about contemporary literary self-righteousness; why writing characters who disagree with you is the whole point; the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey and what "a complicated man" does to Odysseus's character; and Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film — specifically the Cyclops scene he cut, why it was the scene that defined Odysseus, and why its absence drains the heroism from the entire story.

Follow Liza at Pens and Poison on Instagram → @pensandpoison

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — Intro — who is Liza Libes and what is Pens and Poison?

1:20 — Looking back on your 18-year-old writer self

2:51 — The teachers who made us writers — Brother Patterson and Poetry Friday

5:34 — Standing in the snow to understand Wallace Stevens — The Snowman read aloud

10:31 — The Lost Generation: Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot — and the fascism problem

13:03 — Shakespeare and Co., Paris, and missing Notre Dame before the fire

14:57 — Columbia's English Department: literary theory replaced literature

16:58 — Marxist literary theory, critical theory, and postcolonial studies explained

18:28 — Her parents escaped the Soviet Union — why she takes Marxism personally

19:28 — What literature used to be — humanistic inquiry vs. class consciousness

21:41 — Academia made literature esoteric — and publishing followed

23:01 — The DSA voter: overeducated, underpaid, and resentful

24:44 — Yesteryear — the trad wife novel, Anne Hathaway, and literary self-righteousness

26:03 — When the author's voice drowns out the character's voice

27:14 — Dostoevsky, Lionel Shriver, and characters the author disagrees with

30:23 — Writing outside your experience — her trans character, Lou's gay character

33:22 — Lou's story published alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Junot Diaz

35:20 — Her new novel — exploring faith and Jewish theology

37:32 — Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Waiting for Godot

39:03 — The Emily Wilson Odyssey translation — "a complicated man" vs. "cunning"

41:10 — What makes Odysseus great — the Cyclops, the cunning, the hubris

43:25 — Nolan's film: the Cyclops scene is gone — and why that ruins everything

45:42 — Greek hubris — Icarus, Arachne, and why pride destroys heroes

47:24 — The sirens scene: what it should have felt like vs. what Nolan did

48:30 — The overall verdict on Nolan's Odyssey — heroism is missing

49:46 — Outro — find Liza at Pens and Poison

Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ

Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081

Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU

 Co-host of Happy Hour Econ →