Episode 229: “Best of” Series, “Araby” by James Joyce, Ep. 11
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2024
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on The Literary Life we return to the podcast vault for a re-airing of Episode 11, in which Cindy Rollins and Angelina Stanford enjoy a discussion of the short story “Araby” by James Joyce.
Delving into “Araby,” Angelina talks about the history and development of the short story form. Cindy gives a little of her own background with reading James Joyce and why she loves his short stories. Angelina and Cindy also discuss the essential “Irishness” of this story and all the tales in The Dubliners. Angelina walks us through the story, highlighting the kinds of questions and things we should look for when reading closely. Themes discussed in this story include: blindness and sight, light and darkness, romanticism, religious devotion, the search for truth, money, courtly love, and the knight’s quest.
If you want to find replays of the 2019 Back to School online conference referenced in this episode, you can purchase them in Cindy’s shop at MorningTimeforMoms.com.
Check out the schedule for the podcast’s summer episodes on our Upcoming Events page.
Commonplace Quotes:
Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet.
St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia
A ritual for letting a son or daughter go free, handing them over under the protection of God, is not something that we naturally include as part of growing up today in the West. Yet we are here reminded of one of the most important steps of all of the transitions in life, moving from the confines of the family into freedom and maturity.
Esther de Waal
Huxley Hall
by John Betjemen
In the Garden City Cafe‚ with its murals on the wall
Before a talk on “Sex and Civics” I meditated on the Fall.
Deep depression settled on me under that electric glare
While outside the lightsome poplars flanked the rose-beds in the square.
While outside the carefree children sported in the summer haze
And released their inhibitions in a hundred different ways.
She who eats her greasy crumpets snugly in the inglenook
Of some birch-enshrouded homestead, dropping butter on her book
Can she know the deep depression of this bright, hygienic hell?
And her husband, stout free-thinker, can he share in it as well?
Not the folk-museum’s charting of man’s Progress out of slime
Can release me from the painful seeming accident of Time.
Barry smashes Shirley’s dolly, Shirley’s eyes are crossed with hate,
Comrades plot a Comrade’s downfall “in the interests of the State”.
Not my vegetarian dinner, not my lime-juice minus gin,
Quite can drown a faint conviction that we may be born in Sin.
Book List:
To Pause on the Threshold by Esther de Waal
The Dubliners by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Abbot by Sir Walter Scott
The Memoirs of Vidocq by Eugene Françios Vidocq
Support The Literary Life:
Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support!
Connect with Us:
You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also!
Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | We've grown quite significantly since our debut in 2019, |
| 0:07.0 | and we've had many requests to highlight older episodes that new listeners may have missed, |
| 0:12.0 | as well as revisit listener favorites. |
| 0:15.3 | To honor that request, I present to you this episode of the Best of the Literary Life |
| 0:20.3 | podcast. This is not just another book chat podcast. |
| 0:26.0 | Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks |
| 0:31.0 | for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well. |
| 0:37.0 | Explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the |
| 0:46.6 | sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue a story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, |
| 0:56.1 | and your commute. |
| 0:57.1 | The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper |
| 1:05.3 | insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how |
| 1:11.0 | stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Hello and |
| 1:35.0 | the literary life podcast with Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins. |
| 1:39.0 | We are so glad that you're joining us to launch off our short story essay series for the summer. |
| 1:46.0 | We're both really pomed about these short stories and especially about this first one that we're going to be doing. |
| 1:51.8 | But before we get to that, |
| 1:53.0 | Cindy, hi, welcome, how's the summer going? |
| 1:56.0 | Oh, it's going great. I'm going to the pool every once in a while |
| 2:00.0 | and just sitting on the float and just soaking up the relaxation and that's that's a happy fun place for me so I I'm enjoying that very much. What about you? Are you guys doing anything fun? |
| 2:18.3 | Yeah, well, I mean we're still not fully moved into our new place because you know we |
... |
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