Left On Read: Waiting for the Barbarians
For this month's first Left on Read, Riley and Alice discuss the 1980 J.M. Coetzee novel "Waiting for the Barbarians," which may or may not be relevant to a) the free one this week and b) our current, uh, situation.
Comments (9)
Audible has this on sale right now for 9.95 USD.
This was a great episode. I cannot wait for A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. I’ve never been excited for a podcast episode before.
All the talk about empire and collapse and even some alternate model (“sustainability”) makes me think about the line about San Diego and weather from WTYP - Empires don’t collapse until they very suddenly do.
There's a theory of empires that they fall and then enter a period of decline (instead of falling after a period of decline).
I wasn’t aware there was a film version of this. The Philip Glass opera is worth a look too, it’s weird to hear passages from the libretto read flat by Alice.
Read this in undergrad during a security studies course, great book.
I doubt it's expressly political enough but I'd like to hear your take on Blood Meridian.
With Alice's knowledge of militaria, and Riley's being Canadian, a Left On Read on Shake Hands With The Devil would slap. It's the official book of Canadian uncles, and no politics section of any used book store is complete without several dusty copies.
it would be much higher on the list if it was a poli sci paper named "Adrift Down the Styx: Racial Tensions in Rwanda 1989-1993"