Episode 99: "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2021
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on The Literary Life, we bring you another episode in our 2021 Summer Short Story series. This week Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about E. M. Forster's short story "The Machine Stops." If you are interested in more E. M. Forster chat, you can go listen to our hosts discuss "The Celestial Omnibus" in Episode 17. Angelina points out how this story made her think of Dante. Thomas and Cindy share their personal reactions to reading "The Machine Stops." They marvel at how prescient Forster was to imagine a world that comes so close to our current reality. They also discuss how to stay human in an increasingly de-humanizing world.
On July 15, 2021, we will be celebrating our 100th episode hosting a LIVE Q&A episode in our Patreon group, and you can ask questions in our Facebook group with hashtag #litlife100. The recording will air on July 20th.
We are excited to announce our third annual Literary Life Back to School Online Conference! This year's theme is Awakening: The Pursuit of True Education, and our featured guest speaker is James Daniels. The conference will take place on August 4-7, 2021, and you can learn more and register at morningtimeformoms.com.
Cindy also has some exciting announcements, including the debut of the new expanded edition of her book Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love, is now available! AND she is starting a new Charlotte Mason podcast called The New Mason Jar, set to begin airing on August 5, 2021!
Listen to The Literary Life:
Commonplace Quotes:
Imagination, in its earthbound quest,
Seeks in the infinite its finite rest.
Walter de la Mare (from "Books")
from "The Hollow Men"
by T. S. Eliot
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
Book List:
Two Stories and a Memory by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison
1984 by George Orwell
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 https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. 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 | You're going to go. Welcome to the literary life podcast where your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins, explore a life shaped by books, |
| 0:26.4 | stories, and poetry. Each week we will rescue story from the Ivory Tower and bring it to your |
| 0:32.2 | couch, your kitchen, and your commute. |
| 0:35.0 | The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, |
| 0:39.0 | to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. |
| 0:44.0 | Hello and welcome back to the literary life podcast. |
| 0:50.0 | I am Angelina Stanford and today I am here with my usual suspects to discuss |
| 0:55.9 | Ian Forrester's story. Shall we call it a chilling and chilling story? That's a good |
| 1:02.0 | adjective for it. Chilling with glimps's a good adjective for it |
| 1:03.0 | Chilling with glimpses of hope few and far between his prophetic story |
| 1:08.0 | the machine stops I'm here with Mr Banks and Cindy the Farah Fawcett of Charlotte Mason education |
| 1:15.8 | Rollins. Oh my goodness yes okay. |
| 1:21.8 | Mr Banks is not the Farah Fawcett. Okay. the 70s I bet you completely I did miss that book yeah yeah that's a big problem there |
| 1:35.5 | you see you we've embraced in the 90s when the 90s were cycling through its 70s |
| 1:40.4 | and the 70s are kind of back in style now. So anyway, that's neither here nor there. So I am so |
| 1:46.8 | excited guys to talk about this story. This is the first time I read it after |
| 1:50.1 | people telling me for a long time. You haven't read this, you have to read this. |
| 1:53.5 | And I was just like, I'm just, wow, just mouth open a gate |
| 1:58.4 | thinking, how, how was this written in 1999? |
| 2:02.5 | Yeah, that's the thing that, I mean, |
| 2:04.6 | it would be just a regular normal, like, |
| 2:06.9 | oh yeah, the story, but it was written 100 years ago. |
... |
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