Here's Some Stuff We Don't Like

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: “Here's Some Stuff We Don't Like”
Date: August 21, 2025
Main Theme:
The Commentary panelists confess to literary and cultural touchstones that widely command admiration but, for various reasons, leave them cold or unimpressed. Each host picks a revered book, author, or work of art that eludes their affections, leading to a lively, contrarian, but thoughtful roundtable on taste, reputation, and literary fashion.

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Episode Structure & Panel

• Host: John Podhoretz
• Participants: Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Christine Rosen, Matthew Continetti

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Spirit of Contrarianism (03:25)

• Premise: Each panelist names a “great” or “beloved” work they just cannot like—works others defend passionately, but which simply don’t connect, or even repel.
• Goal: Honest, not snarky; some works are simply not to one’s taste, even if their “greatness” is not denied.

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2. Confessions of Distaste & Inaccessibility

Matthew Continetti: Charles Dickens (03:25)

• "I am allergic to one of the great novelists of the English language." —Matt (03:46)
• Admits never finishing a Dickens novel, not even A Christmas Carol. Enjoys passages, but can’t get through more than a page or two before losing interest.
• John Podhoretz observes that Norman Podhoretz, legendary critic, felt similarly: admired Dickens, but couldn’t read him (05:03).
• John makes a case for Dickens' structural influence on the novel and memorable openings—acknowledging Dickens' notoriety for verbosity: “His works are dense and overlong, often because he was paid by the word.” (07:00)

Christine Rosen: Moby Dick by Herman Melville (08:00)

• Despite multiple attempts and respect for Melville’s short stories, “I cannot stomach Moby Dick. And I have tried, and I have tried.” (08:10)
• Recounts reading a comparative biography to prepare for another attempt—still couldn't get past 50 pages.
• Seth and John agree; John notes the book “was a huge flop on its original release, and it caused Melville to undergo a 30 year writer's block.” (11:19)
• They reflect on the famous “Cetology” (whale science) chapter’s impenetrability—a hurdle that “anybody who actually manages to get through...I have deep respect for.” (12:36)

Abe Greenwald: Hamilton (the musical) (15:56)

• “I don’t hate it, but I think it’s wildly overrated...My problem is, I don’t care about the music really, almost at all.” (15:56)
• Appreciates its inclusive approach to American history, but finds that “the music leaves me a little cold” and doesn’t revisit it after one listen.
• John counters: “There are 36 songs in Hamilton. There's not a bad song... ten of them will live as long as this is.” (17:58)

Seth Mandel: The Lord of the Rings (books and films) (24:05)

• “I have never been able to connect with it...I’m not a big fantasy reader in general, but I have nothing, I have no grudge against the genre.” (24:05)
• Tried reading after the film’s release; couldn’t engage with either. Christine notes connecting only by reading them aloud to her kids.
• Several on the panel agree. Matt: “Tom Bombadil starts singing, and I throw it across the room.” (25:21)
• Podhoretz lampoons Tolkien’s method: “They get up and then they walk and then they stop and have lunch, and then they walk some more... For a three-volume novel of...the fight between good and evil...there's a lot of walking and not a lot of action.” (27:33)
• Panel jokes about anticipated listener backlash: “Which is to say we are going to get so much mail about this.” —Abe (28:45)
• Contrast with C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books: more accessible, adventure-focused, and suited to children.

John Podhoretz: Stendhal (esp. The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma) and T.S. Eliot (34:34, 36:30)

• Finds Stendhal’s “narrative sarcasm or a kind of archness...kept at a remove from the characters.”
• Tried twice to read his masterpieces, can’t see what the fuss is about, despite acknowledgment by respected critics. (36:35)
• Brief tangent on T.S. Eliot: loves “Prufrock,” but dismisses most of the rest as “deliberately obscurantist… working to evade your ability to understand.” (38:30)
• Christine gently disagrees, noting “Ash Wednesday” and other poems do hold up, as does Matt on the “Four Quartets.”

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3. Wider Reflections

The Evolution and Politics of Literary Reputation (41:00–43:00)

• John examines the “journeys of reputations.” Trollope was dismissed for his commercialism, but is now celebrated. Conversely, the status of Ulysses and James Joyce, icons of modernist difficulty, seems in decline. “I really wonder whether anybody really holds that view anymore.” (39:56)
• Panel laughs at how works are rebranded by current events or politics: e.g., Stendhal’s Charterhouse as a guide for the 'resistance' (42:38).
• John criticizes heavy-handed, agenda-driven literary criticism (citing a New York Times essay on Mansfield Park and slavery). (43:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Matthew Continetti on Dickens:
  "Ask me to get through more than one page, and I am like someone slogging through a vast desert, looking for water." (03:46)

• Christine Rosen on Moby Dick:
  "I cannot stomach Moby Dick. And I have tried and I have tried." (08:08)
  “I got about 50 pages, and I’m like, I can’t. I can’t do it. And I put it aside.” (09:14)

• John Podhoretz on The Lord of the Rings:
  "They get up and then they walk and then they stop and have lunch, and then they walk some more... For a three-volume novel...there's a lot of walking and not a lot of action." (27:33)

• Abe Greenwald on Hamilton:
  "My problem is I don’t care about the music really, almost at all...The music leaves me a little cold. Not my thing." (16:09)

• Seth Mandel on Tolkien:
  "I can’t find any way...I can’t even sort of get on the track, really, with the book." (25:39)

• Christine Rosen (joking about Tolkien fans):
  "They're like Beyoncé's fan base. We're going to get a lot of..." (28:49)

• Matthew Continetti’s summary of contrarian spirit:
  "I think in general, we can disrecommend the New York Times." (45:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:25 – Matt's Dickens aversion and the Dickens mini-symposium
• 08:00 – Christine’s battle with Moby Dick
• 11:00 – The “Cetology” chapter & Melville’s post-Moby Dick writer’s block
• 12:54 – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan connects Dickens and Melville
• 15:56 – Abe’s critique of Hamilton
• 17:58 – John defends Hamilton’s score
• 18:52 – The "second act problem" of Broadway musicals
• 24:05 – Seth’s indifference to The Lord of the Rings
• 27:33 – Podhoretz’s lampooning of Tolkien’s narrative style
• 34:34 – John’s struggle with Stendhal
• 36:30 – T.S. Eliot: Great poet or a barrier to enjoyment?
• 39:56 – The shifting status of Joyce and Ulysses
• 42:38 – Literary fashion & topical rebranding of classics
• 43:34 – Modern ideological overreadings of the canon
• 45:01 – Panel’s joking “disrecommendation” of the New York Times

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, witty, and unabashedly opinionated
• Respectful disagreement, self-effacing confession
• Frequent asides, literary history, and meta-commentary about the canon and fame
• Playful jabs at one another’s picks—contrarian but never snobbish

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Summary List: What the Panel "Doesn’t Like" (44:00)

• Matthew Continetti: All of Dickens
• Christine Rosen: Moby Dick
• Abe Greenwald: Hamilton
• Seth Mandel: The Lord of the Rings
• John Podhoretz: Stendhal’s novels (Red and the Black, Charterhouse of Parma); most T.S. Eliot
• Plus: A strong group "disrecommend" for modern New York Times trend pieces

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

This episode is an enjoyable, candid exploration of how personal taste can run up against cultural consensus. The panelists puncture the aura of “unimpeachable” literary and artistic fame—confessing their own failed attempts, sharing their bemusement at the canon, and reinforcing the idea that disliking a revered work does not necessarily amount to a failure of intellect or moral character. Their playful and thoughtful approach ensures listeners will come away with a sense of the enduring—and shifting—nature of reputation, and the essential subjectivity at the heart of every reader’s journey.

Transcript

[Christine Rosen]

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[Seth Mandel]

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[John Vaughn Hortz]

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[Christine Rosen]

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[Matthew Continetti]

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[John Vaughn Hortz]

See Mintmo. Hope for the best. Some preacher pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's.

[Seth Mandel]

Going Hope for the best expect the worst.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. This is one of our summer podcasts in which we are doing non newsy, ruminative material for you, for your listening pleasure, also for your pleasure. The commentary roast on October 19, here in New York City, our annual fundraiser. Expensive, but worth it. We are roasting the hedge fund titan and economic big brain, Clifford Asness. We have a fantastic evening planned for people who love Cliff, who don't like Cliff, who've never heard of Cliff, or who need to learn more about Cliff. Fun hijinks, comedians, singers, circus performers. Not really circus performers, but it is the event of the year. Go to commentary.org roast to find out how to get tickets or to buy tables and you will really be helping us out. This is our most important event of the year. Commentary.org yes, commentary.org roast and at that event will be present my fellow panelists for Today executive editor, Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Panetti. Hi, Matt.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

So we thought today we would go negative. And by negative I mean, you know, there, there's a hot thing now where people go play. They say, you know what I hate? I hate this thing that everybody loves. It's sort of like, I hated Titanic. Everyone loves Titanic, but I hated Titanic. Or everybody used to love Forrest Gump, but I hate Forrest Gump. Or something like that. It's. And then everybody writes about it. Then people go, how dare you. And other people go, thank God someone's saying it. I thought we would take a moment here for each of us to talk about a great, universally deemed great work or notable high end piece of writing of some sort that in fact we do not like, and perhaps that we do not Disapprove of and perhaps that we think is morally and spiritually bad. I don't know where this is all going to come down. Because we haven't discussed what our choices are. But that is what we've decided to do today. And, Matthew Continetti, as you said you were in no doubt as to what your choice is. I think you should go first.

[Matthew Continetti]

Okay, I will. I have a confession to make. I'm in middle age. 44 years old.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

That's not middle age.

[Matthew Continetti]

I write for a living. Early middle age. I write for a living. Consume with words, read all day. And I'm speaking to you today as someone who has never finished a work of Charles Dickens's. I have been unable to get through a single Charles Dickens novel. I don't believe I've actually ever made it all the way through the Christmas Tale, Christmas Carol. See, I even forget the title. I don't know what it is. Theoretically, I should love Charles Dickens. I recognize his genius. Individual sentences. I enjoy even sometimes a whole paragraph. But ask me to get through more than one page. And I am like someone slogging through a vast desert. Looking for water. And unable to find respite. So that is my. That is my confession. Not saying he's morally bad. Though he did have a very complicated personal life. I will say he did. But I am allergic to one of the great novelists of the English language.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Would you like to know who shares your difficulty? I would. With Charles Dickens? Yes. Norman Pothor.

[Matthew Continetti]

One more way.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

He's a notable literary critic long before he was. And during his tenure. Not only as editor of Commentary. But author. Founder of neoconservatism. Author of some of the most significant political works of our time. Was one of the best literary critics of our time. And a student of great critics like Lionel Trilling and FR Leavis. And he says that Charles Dickens may have been the single greatest writer of English prose who ever lived. And that he cannot get purchase.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, that's exactly what I mean. If you show me, like, an excerpt and say, read this excerpt. And I sit there and I marvel at the technical ability. But then you ask me, read Great Expectations or read Tale of Two Cities. Which is short, you know. And I just can't make it through more than five or five, eight pages.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I had the sad experience of recommending that someone read A Christmas Carol to their kids. And they said their kids couldn't take it. Now, it is written in not archaic language. And it does have, like, a banger of an opening, as we say, right Jacob Marley was dead. Dead as a doornail. I mean, I am besotted with Dickens and he was not only the most popular writer of the 19th century and the author of the single best read novel that has ever written been written from what we can tell, which is A Tale of Two Cities, not one of his greatest works by the way, except for the last third, which is the single greatest piece of writing about revolution that has ever been put to paper in my view. But you know, he created the template for the, for what we consider the readable novel.

[Seth Mandel]

And is there a more famous opening line though in all of literature? Maybe not.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Right. Jacob Marley is dead.

[Seth Mandel]

No, the Tale of Two Cities that.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

You were just saying times. It was the worst of times. Yeah, I mean the thing about him is that he created, as I say, he created the template for the book that throws out five different lines of plot and then works to weave them together over a long period of time. And so every writer that you've ever loved, from Stephen King to anybody like is, you know, wouldn't exist without him. But his works are dense and overlong, often because he was paid by the word. It's the famous paid by the word Victorian novel problem. Christine, where are you on Dickens?

[Christine Rosen]

I'm ambivalent. So I was actually. And my choice. This makes me more confident in the choice I'm about to make about the dis recommend now that Matt has led the way. I like some of, I like some of Dickens, but, but like Matt, I can't slog through all of it. I did like A Tale of Two Cities so my choice is, and I note the irony because it is my white whale. I cannot stomach Moby Dick. And I have tried and I have tried. I like a lot of of Melville short stories. I basically spent a summer once as a Kelly temporary services secretarial girl in high school and I, and I basically am know understanding of, not of saying no to that sort of work, which he captures brilliantly and a lot because he himself was a customs clerk. I find him fascinating as an American literary figure and I have tried several times to get through Moby Dick. I what I ended up doing recently is reading a book, scholarly book by a historian named Aaron Sachs who wrote a joint biography of Melville and Lewis Mumford. I like Lewis Mumford, he was a 20th century critic of technology and of the city. Mumford almost went mad trying to write a biography of Herman Melville. And so what Sachs does in this book, it's called up from the Depths. I do recommend this if you're interested in these two. Two guys. Is he. He sort of does a comparative biography. Melville in the 19th century, mumford in the 20th. They were both fascinating, interesting men in their own way. And I thought if I read this, which had a lot of literary criticism along the way, I want to go back and reread Moby Dick. So I finished that book a few weeks ago, and I crack open Moby Dick and like Matt's experience with Dickens, I got about 50 pages, and I'm like, I just can't. I can't. I can't do it. And I put it aside. So maybe I will try one more time to get that white whale off my back. But I prefer Melville in condensed short story form. I do like his, you know, Billy Bud and Bartleby and all these great little stories, but I cannot read Moby Dick.

[Seth Mandel]

That's funny, because Moby. I love Moby Dick. But several years ago, there was a novel that was written about baseball that was Moby Dick, but baseball. And everyone in the conservative world loved it. But Chad Harbach, was that the art of fielding right? Yeah, Everybody around me loved it, loved this novel, which was essentially Moby Dick, but baseball. And I just assumed there was no way I wouldn't love. And I absolutely hated it because it was. It was like the baseball team was named the Harpooners, and it was like there were no. There were no allusions to Moby Dick. It was like literally just rewriting Moby Dick as baseball. So I like the original, but I find it. It's very hard. Unlike some other great novels, it's. There's no. There's no way to do a takeoff on Moby Dick. I think that's one of the great things about the novel.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I'm in total agreement with you. I studied Moby. I took a course in Moby Dick in college and could not quite believe I took it. We read all of Melville, but we read Moby Dick. And I found myself mystified by its reputation. And indeed, this is one of the great American stories. It did not have a reputation. It was a huge flop on its original release, and it caused Melville to undergo a 30 year writer's block. He did not write until he was way, way, way older. He wrote Billy Budd right at the end of his life because he was so heartbroken by the reception of Moby Dick, which he wrote to be Moby Dick. He wanted it to be the defining.

[Christine Rosen]

American woman, dedicated to his great friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. And the story of their friendship is really fascinating.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

It is. And he. But you know, I think it's one of those books that has. There is a subtext in the book. There is a gay subtext in the book. And Melville was thought to be gay. But, but in other words, like in the Pursuit, the. There is nothing metaphorical about Ahab's obsessional pursuit of the whale that, you know, injured like that is. It's like all there on the surface and Melville hammers home bangs on your head his themes until you can't like get your, get your head on straight. And then of course there is the notorious chapter in the middle of the book called Cetology where he shows that he did all this studying of whales. And it's like 35 pages about the anatomy of a whale. And anybody who actually manages to get through that chapter, it's like the people who go back and reread the history theme chapters of War and Peace is a person that I have deep respect for because those are unreadable.

[Matthew Continetti]

I would just, I would just like to note that the two authors we've mentioned so far, Charles Dickens and Herman Melville, are the two major literary influences on one of the greatest works of pop culture of all time. And that would be Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Khan.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

This is very true.

[Matthew Continetti]

So, and I would. So I appreciate them that level. I recently rewatched this, this masterpiece and so it's top of mind as our former White House press secretary would say. Man, it is striking that even though I also can't get through Moby Dick, the quotations from from that work as well as quotations from Dickens view one of my favorite pieces of popular cinema.

[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Vaughn Hortz]

I mean, it is the greatest science fiction movie ever made, and that's just the fact of it. And if you disagree with me, you're wrong and you should suffer.

[Matthew Continetti]

I don't disagree.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yes. Okay. Science fiction, not space adventure, not space opera, not whatever, not fantasy. Okay, but you're right, and therefore we should welcome, we should thank Herman Melville.

[Matthew Continetti]

For giving Kahn his line at the very end as he's about to activate the Genesis device.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yes. Yes. From hell's heart, I stab at thee. Yes. Okay, Abe Greenwald, what you got?

[Abe Greenwald]

So I have more of a. Mine is a bit more of a popular work, and it's something, John, you and I have disagreed on before. So I fully expect to take the incoming here. I don't hate it, but I think it's wildly overrated. And that's Hamilton. I think it is. It's great at telling the story it tells. It's great at getting you to know and love Hamilton. And I think what it sets out to do generally is the opposite of morally reprehensible. I think it's wonderful that it. That it. That it seeks to tell the American story as this genuinely inclusive tale. And I even appreciate the fact that. I even appreciate Hamilton mania, despite the fact that I don't join in on it. I think it's a healthy thing that Americans love it as much as they do. My problem is I don't care about the music really, almost at all. I care about it a little bit, but I think it's like, you know, kind of charming the music, but I don't think it holds up. I never listened to it. I saw it, you know, and I was never inclined to play those songs again. And for me, I have to say, when it comes to musicals, my way in is. Is. Is the music. If it's. If a show is a collection of good songs, I'll basically like it if whether or not it succeeds in its various other elements and The. The. The music leaves me a little cold. Not my thing.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I mean, you're wrong. So that's, you know, I don't know what else.

[Matthew Continetti]

This is why you. This is why you're a contrarian.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Right. I literally think that there is not a bad. There are 36 songs in Hamilton. There's not a bad song in Hamilton. And there are 10 of them that are like, will, like, live as long as this is.

[Matthew Continetti]

Actually gets back to another mini episode we recorded recently on. On the Broadway musicals we enjoy.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

And we. We mentioned it there, but it's worth bringing up again in this context, which is. What do you think explains the second act problem? Why is it that second acts are always weaker than first acts? This is something I always noticed, and I do think it's true to some extent in Hamilton, even though it's a strong second act. But there is that moment toward the end of Hamilton where things begin to slow down and it's just extremely sad. Yeah.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

No, no, no. I'm just. I want. I would like to ask the expert.

[Matthew Continetti]

I would like to ask the expert. Well, I say this as a parent who has watched Hamilton on Disney dozens of times.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yes.

[Matthew Continetti]

As well as seeing it live. But, John, what do you think explains the second act?

[John Vaughn Hortz]

So musicals are comedies. Even if they're not. Even if they're Sweeney Todd, they're comedies. Comedies always have this problem, which is that you have to you, the setup is how everything is constructed to go a certain way. And then it has to be broken down to be rebuilt at the end. Right. You have to introduce a note of conflict or a note of sad, whatever. You know, there's a. Somebody has to admit that they lied or whatever it is. And it's not fun to see the fun go out of something. And there's no way to tell these stories. Or very few people have figured out how to tell these stories without that effect, which is like, okay, funds over. They hate each other now. Or this bad thing happened that somebody has to spend 20 minutes apologizing for, and it's a bummer. Which is why sometimes a really great show. Why if you can pull off. It's very hard to pull off a farce. Farces don't have this problem because they're all about. All crazy. Everything is crazy. All crazy. Right. And. And, and I mean, on another episode we did where Seth chose the Music Man, I pointed out that, you know, one of the weird things about the Music man is. And is that it ends with him almost being lynched like that. That's how extreme these things can start. Start getting. And Hamilton obviously had to follow the fact that he's shot and killed. You know, things go in a way in which a. His son is shot and killed and then he's shot and killed. And not easy to keep up the buoyant high spirit.

[Matthew Continetti]

And also he makes a series of very bad choices. Right. Not only getting into the affair, but then kind of in a preview of Jeff Bezos writing his way out. Yeah. Broadcasting the fact of his affair to the world and alienating himself from everyone. Also explaining why he never became president. So by the end, by the time the duel happens, you're kind of like, yeah, he's not.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

He's not the greatest guy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, that's why. That's why you have that kind of. There's this hilarious bit in. In. In the produ. In the Producers, the musical version of the Producers, which is a farce and which doesn't actually have a low moment in the course of it where when the world's worst director is engaged to direct this show, he's like, you know, they lose the war. That's too depressing. So my. Here's what we. We're. I'll do it. But they have to win. The. Have to win the war. Like that is the solution. Exactly. That is the solution to the second act. The second act problem. But contrarianism is always good. I'll give you an example, by the way. I have the same feeling that you do, Abe, about certain shows. I don't have it about Hamilton, but I am mystified. And it probably doesn't have the reputation it had when it came out, but because the score is second rate. About A Chorus Line, which is, you know, which was the show that saved Broadway in 1975. Broadway was like on its way out. Chorus Line jolted it back to life, literally. It's given credit for sort of saving what might have been an art form that was going to sort of die out and simply become like an opera house thing. And the bizarrery of A Chorus Line is that it was brilliantly staged, but that the songs are lousy. I mean, there's one sort of one famous song, which is the song one. But for. But for this landmark musical that changed everything. To have a score as mediocre as. As a course line is very odd. And, and. And it does not stand the test of time if you go see revivals of it. It just doesn't. Also, it's very, you know, like, it's big emotional moment is somebody accepting his gay. Is a son telling the story about how his father decided to accept that he was gay, which is very, very seven. You know, like people were crying in the theater because it was so moving. And now, you know, seems pretty anodyne, to put it mildly. But that is a, that, that is a. That is a weirdness. I'm not gonna choose A Chorus Line as the thing that I, That I dislike, that everybody likes. But anyway, so Hamilton is Abe's choice. Matt says it has longers in the second act. Brief, brief, longer.

[Matthew Continetti]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Abe Greenwald]

The cracks are showing.

[Seth Mandel]

So my, My childhood and youth included the reading of everything that everybody else's mainstream education does, except somehow the Lord of the Rings. And then it became these big movies. And I have never been able to connect with it. And I don't know if it's because you have to first connect with it when you're young in some way. I'm not a big fantasy reader in general, but I have nothing, I have no grudge against the genre. But.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, just to clarify, is it the books or the movies?

[John Vaughn Hortz]

So the.

[Seth Mandel]

I've tried to get. I tried to read the books, yes. Because of the way that everyone around me was enlivened by the movies just being made. Why? It felt like a, a, A universal moment of nostalgia. And I was like, the only one.

[Matthew Continetti]

Have you seen the movies?

[Seth Mandel]

Seen the movies? Yes.

[Matthew Continetti]

Did you enjoy movies?

[Seth Mandel]

They're fine. I mean, they're like. They're fine. But I don't consider them memorable because.

[Matthew Continetti]

I'm a huge fan of the movies. But like you, I have never been able to read those books. Tom Bombadil starts singing and I like, throw it across the room. I cannot, I cannot take it anymore. And I want to enjoy them because I'm. I love those movies, but, yeah, I'm with you.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah, I just, I like the, you know, I just. I can't find any way. I can't even sort of get on the track really, with the book.

[Christine Rosen]

So you. So, I mean, I loved the Hobbit as a kid, but I didn't read the Lord of the Rings stuff until I had young boys in the house. And I read it to them. Some of it. Not the whole thing. That was the only way in for me because I wouldn't have, you know, all my adolescent male friends loved it. You know, it was, it was great. But I. Reading it to my sons, one really liked it. The other was like, eh, take it or leave it. You know, kind of like Abe with Hamilton. But it was. The experience of reading it to them is probably the only way I would have consumed the book otherwise. Because it didn't compared to the Hobbit. I just, I just didn't like it.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

We have a, we have like a, we have a, you know, a total, you know, strike here. Because I hate them. I affirmatively hate that I didn't like them as a kid. I loved. So it was sort of like C.S. lewis vs. Gerard Tolkien as the British academics wins that battle hands down. No, but who wrote, you know, sort of allegorical fantasy novels on a wider scope? And I mean, it's funny you mentioned the Tom Bombadil song.

[Matthew Continetti]

Oh my God.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

That is where, okay, so that's about 100 pages into the first book where you're ending up in the forest and Tom Bombadil starts singing the song. And I think that's where three times with three different children I tried to read the Lord of the Rings having. And had exactly it. Which is like there must. I just must have been allergic to it for some reason. And then each time we get there and then the kids are like, I don't want to, I don't want to read this anymore.

[Matthew Continetti]

And you know, Peter Jackson very smartly.

[Seth Mandel]

Cut all that out.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yeah, right.

[Matthew Continetti]

And the real Tolkienists got mad at him.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

But he was so, so right.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yeah. It kills the story. But my experience of reading Lord of the Rings is that it's. They get up and then they walk and then they stop and they have lunch and then they walk some more and then they stop and it's night and they look at the stars and then they go to sleep and the, and they get up and then they walk some more. And then 500 pages in, there's a demon with a giant eyeball and then they walk some more and then they meet a couple of other people and then they walk some more. I mean it is for a three volume novel of, you know, about the end of the world and the fight between good and evil and all of that. There's a lot of walking is what I'm saying, and not a lot of action. Yeah. And, and it is, it is the most popular. We've been. We talked about the Tale of Two Cities being the most successful. Now it is, I think number two or number three, if you put the books together on these lists of best selling novels of all time and obviously Dickens had like almost 100 years on Tolkien so you could say the Tolkien was more popular.

[Abe Greenwald]

Which is to say we are going to get so much Mail about this.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, but they're like Beyonce's fan base. We're going to get a lot of.

[Seth Mandel]

Well, that's what troubles me about the Tolkien stuff is because I don't want. I'm not. I'm not at all trying to be, you know, Slate. Slate pitch, as we used to say about this at all. I. I felt left out. I felt left. Like I watched everybody's eyes widen.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I think it's beautiful.

[Seth Mandel]

But I felt like missed something.

[Matthew Continetti]

I think the movies are genuinely great. Yeah, I love those movies. But the books I have never been able to penetrate. And maybe it is kind of relates to what Christine was saying about encountering the Hobbit when you're a kid and then if you go from one to the other one.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I didn't like the Hobbit either. Yeah, I never got into the Hobbit.

[Matthew Continetti]

Either as a kid. So it's just a person. There's also, of course, the. I mean, we're comparing it to Lewis, where the Christian allegory is, if anything, even more pronounced. Yet I gobbled up those books and I, in fact, read them to my kids because.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

And what are those books about, though? That's why you could gobble them up like they're about.

[Christine Rosen]

It's adventure.

[Seth Mandel]

Three little kids.

[Matthew Continetti]

Exactly.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

They're about three. I mean, at least the first one.

[Matthew Continetti]

And there's lots of incidents. There's incidents and. Yeah, character.

[Christine Rosen]

They're told through the worldview and understanding of children, which is why children connect to them, but with an adult theme and with the allegory that makes it, you know, understandable to adults.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I mean, it's. Yeah, yeah, great. But there. There is a whole branch of literature that Tolkien created, you know, which we can call the world building. The world of world building. And we, like many, many people, like many of the books that are. Are sort of like derived from it, as we could say, since we wouldn't have Star Trek to Game, Game of Thrones, which, you know, Game of Thrones.

[Matthew Continetti]

I forced you to read all five of those books.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

And, and, and, and I mean, I have problems with those after the first three. I mean, I think he read. First three are great. Three is probably a pretty good number for books in a series because I don't know what happens after that. Neither did George R.R. martin. But. No, but I mean, there is. It's the world of world building where you say, okay, how am I going to take the world that we live in and twist it in a certain way and then turn it into something entirely Fresh and new and make it so that you feel like you're in another place at another time, in another era. And all of that. And a lot of that leaves me cold, frankly, because I'm interested in the world we live in. One of the reasons I like Game of Thrones as opposed to the Lord of the Rings is that Game of Thrones is about politics and it's about politics and power. And so is Dune, by the way. And so those books are accessible because they deal with conventional themes and Lord.

[Seth Mandel]

Of the Rings and sorry, the, but the, the, the original, they were. They're also about a specific point, an actual specific point in history.

[Christine Rosen]

Right?

[Seth Mandel]

They're the, they're the war, the wars of the Roses.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Well, in theory, right? That's what we, we. It's not said it. It's like the wars of Roses, if there were dragons, is basically, is basically the Game of Thrones. Whereas the Lord of the Rings is about what if, you know, a small British village were, you know, this epicenter of the fight between good and evil, you know, in the universe or something like that. And I don't live in a small English village in a little, cute little house, you know, and stuff like that. Like, it's not. So maybe if I did or I had some. But I don't know, it's just a strange thing because these are the incredibly popular books and I generally tweak to those or I can understand what it is and I just. The allergy is real and we all seem to have it. So. Abe, do you have it or did you not even bother?

[Abe Greenwald]

I didn't even bother because the. On. At face value, the whole world of it never clicked with me. Yeah, I saw the movies and I think I'm like, Seth, I thought they were fine and that was it. So, yeah, I didn't, I didn't bother.

[Matt Ebert]

Hi, everyone, I'm Matt Ebert, CEO and founder of Crash Champions. Welcome to Pod Crash. On Pod Crash, we'll dive deep with industry leaders and game changers because we want to uncover their secrets to success.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Success.

[Matt Ebert]

We're going to explore everything from building trust, building a rock solid team, to champion blue collar work. And we also want to talk about creating explosive growth in your business. You'll hear actionable advice, real leadership and business lessons along with what's worked for these incredible people throughout their career. We're even going to go in depth into what I call a champions mindset. This is the very philosophy that I use to champion people and, and take Crash champions from a single shop to over 650 locations today. And now I want to share that information with you. Watch or listen to pod crash on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Seth Mandel]

I'm Oliver Darcy. And I'm John Passantino. We have spent years covering the inner workings of the news media, tech, politics, Hollywood, and power. Now through our nightly newsletter, Status. And we're bringing that same reporting and sharp analysis to a new podcast, Powerlines. Every Friday, we're breaking down the biggest stories shaping the industry, explaining why they matter, and saying the things most people are thinking but too timid to say out loud. No spin, no fluff, just sharp analysis that isn't afraid to call it like it is.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

We also pull back the curtain via.

[Seth Mandel]

Our exclusive reporting to take you behind the scenes. My understanding, having reported this is that the Pentagon protested to CNN and tried to effectively exile the CNN producer. And when the moment calls for it, we've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Oh, my God. That's Power Lines presented by Status. Follow Power Lines and listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast. Okay, so it now falls to me, and there are so many of these that one could pick, but I'm gonna be, like, extremely pretentious here and say that the great writer whose work I've, I leaves me literally cold. And I actually read both of his great works twice in an effort to try to find out what was going on is Stendhal, author of the Red and the Black and the Charterhouse of Parma. And I, Mary McCarthy, among others, said he was the great writer of the 19th century. And, you know, the characteristic tone of Stendhal is the tone of kind of narrative sarcasm or, Or a kind of archness so that everything is kept at a remove from the characters and what they're going through. And, And I've always. I've, as I say, once in my teens and then Once in my 30s, I did one of those, like, it's my fault. I'm in the wrong, and I should. And I will still acknowledge that a work that's 200 years old that I don't respond to is. Is, you know, who cares that I don't respond to it?

[Matthew Continetti]

Like, probably has some qualities that other.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

People many or, or, you know, there's a reason that it survived and didn't. And. And didn't. Didn't die out as, you know, many things do. There are people who are thought of as great writers. I mean, I would Say, like, Walter Scott was considered the greatest English writer of the 19th century. And I don't think anybody reads Walter Scott now. And I tried. I just. I read Ivanhoe last year, which is a pretty good book, but compared to other novels of the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, it is like reading, you know, Colleen Hoover as opposed to, I don't know, you know, Milan Kundera or something like that. It's not. It's a pot boiler really. And so, but, but he had this huge reputation. He was also the editor of the most important literary magazine of the time, which may have had an effect on his having this great reputation because everybody wanted to praise him so that he might praise them back in the Edinburgh Review. But. So there are these things, but, but, but, but Stendhal is. It was a complete impossibility to me. And I would also mention that having spent a of time, lot, lifetime struggling with T.S. eliot, I now think that T.S. eliot is the fault and not me. I mean, I think that Prufrock Love Song, Jail Through Prufrock, his first great work, is a genuinely great poem in the English canon. And I think that most of the rest of what he produced is deliberately obscurantist, which is the opposite of what poetry actually should be, because it should be a way into depth and it evades your. It works to evade your ability to understand it. That was his project, he said, so he wrote essays about this. It was a kind of turning the act of writing poetry or literature into an elite club that only certain people could join. And Christina's holding up.

[Christine Rosen]

That's the wasteland of the wasteland.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

She's holding up because she has it on her desk.

[Christine Rosen]

It's in my bookcase.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

It's in your bookcase. So you have it because you. You are now going to disagree with me.

[Christine Rosen]

I mean, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's Ash Wednesday. There are other poems of his that I think really do hold up beyond proof.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Right.

[Christine Rosen]

I mean, I'm just looking. I mean, you know, I kind of like a lot of what's in this, this edition of the Wasteland and Other Poems, which is old. It's an old harvest book. It costs a dollar 25 when I. But yeah, this is like from 1962, this edition. He. He does hold up not everything. He's inconsistent. He's not. We talked about Larkin when we were. When we were discussing writers the other day, and he's no Larkin. But. But there's something there, I think, more than just Pru so I would.

[Matthew Continetti]

I found as I got get older, I return more and more to the Four Quartets.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yes.

[Matthew Continetti]

And less. Less the early Elliott, but more of the Four Quartets, which are obscure, but in a different way than the Wasteland, where, you know, you turn to the footnotes in the Wasteland, and they're even more obscure than the actual phrases that they're referring to. But, yeah, I think Four Quartets are genuinely great.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I mean, it's funny, because then you could also. I mean, it's one of those things where you start it down this, and then it's like, oh, now I'm going to mention another book that everybody loves that I don't like. But I do think, like, when 40 years ago when I was in college or four or five years ago when I was in college, it was still thought that Ulysses was the great novel of the 20th century. And I really wonder whether anybody really holds that view anymore. And it has something to do with the choking, stifling effect of modernism on the cultural conversation of the day, that Ulysses, which is, again, deliberately obscure and is, you know, completely transparent compared to Finnegan's Wake, his last work, James Joyce's last work. But that. But that reading something and going, I don't know what the hell is going on here. I better go back and read and see if I can figure out what. What it is, since Ulysses is the taking of a single day in Dublin and the life of a sort of single person over the course of a single day in Dublin, and then turning it into some version of the Odyssey, which itself is an fascinating project that doesn't entirely make logical or metaphysical or narrative sense whatsoever. But I do think that the journeys of reputations, of books and writers is a very, very interesting thing. Trollope, who was probably my favorite Victorian writer, was in a complete eclipse for many, many, many decades because his autobiography came out and he said, I wrote for money, and here's how much money I made on every book. And any writer who tells you he doesn't write for money is a liar. And it. He was considered vulgar and cheap and low and. And wasn't part of the project of writers being the, you know, unacknowledged legislators of the earth. And then Sometime in the 1950s or 19, people were like, oh, my God, this guy's fantastic. These books are amazing. And so, you know, I think now, if you were going to rank Victorian writers, you would probably have Elliot Dickens, Trollope would be like the three that anybody would mention in a single breath. And I think Joyce has fallen.

[Abe Greenwald]

Although I have to say on Joyce, I really wanted to love Ulysses because I did love Portrait of the Artist as a young man.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

And I sort of assumed and I had sort of gotten to Ulysses in the proper order and I love Doubler Do. And then I had. I had the same experience.

[Seth Mandel]

John. It's funny that you brought up Stendahl, though, also, because the Times just ran actually an essay that would probably make you feel justified, but the Times just ran an essay on how Machiavelli isn't the one to read. The Charterhouse of Parma is the. The one to read about living in a time of, you know, power hungry politicians and whatever it was meant. It's basically essentially being repurposed as a book of the resistance to Trump. It was fairly explicit, too, in the essay. But that's interesting because that was a. That there is a plain attempt in that sense to, you know, to bring him back as a, you know, as a. As a sort of resistance text, which I don't think that you can ever really force on people. But it's.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

I think after I read the New York Times essay on how Mansfield park is a book about slavery, I. My ability to read any further New York Times essays about great works of the past and their relevant relevance to.

[Christine Rosen]

Better leave Middlemarch alone. That's all I'm saying. Do not.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

You don't have to. You don't have to do Middlemarch because it's already. It's a novel that is about somebody who ministers to the poor. So I don't know why that, you know, I don't. You don't have to take Mansfield park and say, no, it's okay to read Mansfield Park. It's really about slavery, which is like, you know, the most preposterous essay in the history of. And I just reread Mansfield park, which is why Mansfield park is about human arrogance and the idea that you can control that the thing to do is to control nature and reform the world around you topographically because your own lives are spinning entirely out of control. And only a person who is completely passive and accepts her fate is a person who is a person of wisdom and integrity. It's not about slavery anyway. So that was a bad essay. We could also, at some point, maybe we'll do our.

[Matthew Continetti]

I think in general, we can disrecommend the New York Times.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

There we go. Strong disrecommend.

[Matthew Continetti]

From me.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

Yes, from the New York Times. And by the way, you know, now that you've done that you'll there'll be an essay about how conservative podcasters and why do they have problems with women. Because every third piece in the New York Times now is men.

[Matthew Continetti]

What's wrong with what is wrong with men?

[John Vaughn Hortz]

What is wrong with men? It's unbelievable.

[Christine Rosen]

I have thoughts that it should be a commentary After Dark episode.

[John Vaughn Hortz]

We'll just table that for now. All right. So the works that we are suggesting that we ourselves cannot access in the greatness that cannot access the greatness that others find in them, I believe so we have, of course, Moby Dick from Christine, we have the Lord of the Rings from Seth, we have the entirety of the oeuvre of Charles Dickens from Matt, we have Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton from Abe, and we have Stun Dolls, Charterhouse of Palmer and the and the and the Red and the Black from me. So there we have it. We've done it. We've disrecommended the New York Times. And we'll be back anon. So for Christine, Seth, Matt and Ava and John Vaughn Hortz, keep the candle.