6.00 Trailer

“The happiness of all depended on this single horror.”

Ah, yes, the old “no joy without sacrifice” line. But why should the sacrifice have to be mine? I mean, if the rule is no good without evil, no comfort without cruelty, let’s have the other guy suffer. Unless, you know, we, um,         challenge the rule. 

THEME

Welcome to Literary Nomads, where we take a few extended journeys around literature, reading the world, raising questions, and challenging the ideas. 

And coming soon, Journey Number 6, where we make our base camp on Ursula K. LeGuin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” 

I’m Steve Chisnell, your guide and provocateur on our travels, and while I can’t guarantee you we’ll spot the mythical beast called Resolution on our explorations, I can tell you that we’ll make stops with writers and creators who ask some surprisingly uncomfortable questions. 

What’s causing that nagging unease about the promise for greatness? For being first? What price those flavorful coffee pods? But more important still, why do we resist wanting to know?

This season, this journey, then, we’re not just reading stories; we’re igniting a conversation. We’re ripping layered bandages from utopian societies and even our own reading choices to confront questions on individual rights, collective happiness, and the insidious nature of our narratives about justice.

Want a preview of the works ahead? 

We’ll meet worlds both fantastic and familiar and find that the two are not altogether different. Le Guin’s chilling “Vaster Than Empires,” Stephen King’s terrifying grip in Storm of the Century, the fierce resilience of a mysterious thief in the manga Dororo, and Ishiguro’s heart-wrenching Never Let Me Go.

“All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.”

That’s right. Start them young. Teach them that the world is all Easter Bunnies, Peter Pans and Pangloss. Ishiguro couldn’t be more ironically direct here if he was carrying a Nerf bat. 

But not just these writers. We’ll look at folks like Akwaeke Emezi, Chimamanda Adichie, and Wole Soyinka from Nigeria, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, Euripides, and how George Crabbe’s old English poem got turned into a banging opera by Benjamin Britten. 

“Teach her to question language. Language is the repository of our prejudices, our beliefs, our assumptions.”

And yet is the only tool we have to raise those questions, escape those same traps.

“Monsters don’t look like anything, doux-doux. That’s the whole point. That’s the whole problem.”

But our journey isn’t just about intellectual exploration. I’ll be challenging us to turn these readings into something vital for each of us.  To recognize, to read our own communities, to seek ways to engage them, to grapple with our accountabilityAccountability is a claim on our actions, but it is external... More to them. 

Yes, Ursula K. Le Guin will get the first word to set us forward, but hardly the last. That will be yours. Will we be the ones to walk away, or as N. K. Jemisin writes, some stay, for “There is no such thing as civilization without dissent.” For me, I take the Marvin Gaye route in “What’s Going On:  Ah-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya. 

All this over the next many weeks with Literary Nomads Journey 6, beginning June 13. From Waywords Studio. Tell a friend. And follow the podcast now at WaywordsStudio on most social media or at WaywordsStudio.com