Vistopia
Cover of Classic European and American Novels of the Twentieth Century
Classic European and American Novels of the Twentieth Century
A journey toward understanding human existence
Completed · 104 episodes
Buy for ¥198.00
Audio in Chinese
Liang Wendao: The Pleasure of Close Reading Xu Zhiqiang: Enter the Classics of Twentieth-Century Europe and America and Rethink Human Existence 1. In a Fluid Age, Leave or Stay? | Dubliners 1 2. Why Is Joyce’s Fiction So Difficult? | Dubliners 2 3. Loneliness and Turmoil Beneath the Tide of History | Winesburg, Ohio 1 4. The Grotesque Is Simply an Ordinary Person Like You or Me | Winesburg, Ohio 2 5. Something You Cannot Quite Name | Miguel Street 1 6. Naipaul’s Writing of the Third World | Miguel Street 2 + Unit Conclusion 7. Knut Hamsun: Great Writer or Despicable Villain? | Growth of the Soil 1 8. Temptations and Dangers from the Modern World | Growth of the Soil 2 9. Life as Labor and Steady Attention | Growth of the Soil 3 10. A Legendary Transformation of the American West | O Pioneers! 1 11. The Matriarch: Female Power on the Western Frontier | O Pioneers! 2 12. A Torrent of Magical Realism | One Hundred Years of Solitude 1 13. Repeated Names, Repeated Fates in Macondo | One Hundred Years of Solitude 2 14. How Do Private Family Life and Grand Historical Narrative Merge So Perfectly? | One Hundred Years of Solitude 3 15. In Biblical Time, Historical Suffering Becomes a Game | One Hundred Years of Solitude 4 + Unit Conclusion 16. What If Adolescence Brought an Adventure in a Castle? | Le Grand Meaulnes 1 17. Childhood’s Dream: How Else Can One Write an Innocent Boy? | Le Grand Meaulnes 2 18. The Lost Domain: A Borderland Between Childhood and Adulthood | Le Grand Meaulnes 3 19. Seven Idle Years on a Mountain as “the Essence of European Life” | The Magic Mountain 1 20. Two Figures in Debate and the Shattered Illusion of a Golden Age | The Magic Mountain 2 21. A Necessary Step in Growing Up: Fight with Yourself | The Magic Mountain 3 22. The Dark Allegory That Troubled the West German Government | The Tin Drum 1 23. Can a Baby Born Weary of the World Grow Up Well? | The Tin Drum 2 Live Event | Xu Zhiqiang: Literature Hides Its Secrets Deeply, and I Work as a Detective 24. A Discordant Drumbeat Summons Forgotten Details from the Dog Years | The Tin Drum 3 25. Favored by Spring: How Can We Explain the Birth of a Poet? | Life Is Elsewhere 1 26. Poetry as a Bridge into the Adult World | Life Is Elsewhere 2 27. When “Elsewhere” Becomes “Here,” How Do We Face the Truth of Adulthood? | Life Is Elsewhere 3 + Unit Conclusion 28. Awakening a Long-Dormant Passion for Life: What Is the New Hedonism? | The Fruits of the Earth 29. What Is the Appeal of Stream-of-Consciousness Fiction? | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1 30. A Boy’s “Pantomime”: Stubbornness and Innocent Beauty | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 2 31. “Longing to Adore and Longing to Profane” | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 3 32. “Sunlight Is Free”: Sensing the Details of Beauty with Proust | In Search of Lost Time 1 33. Extending Time Without Limit and Salvaging Experience Through Language | In Search of Lost Time 2 34. Love Is a Fever That Makes Us Ill | In Search of Lost Time 3 35. Proust Resurrected in a Seven-Volume Masterpiece | In Search of Lost Time 4 36. Dreams of Wealth, Success, and Eternal Innocent Love | The Great Gatsby 1 37. A Great Man of the Jazz Age | The Great Gatsby 2 38. Is Hemingway’s “Tough Guy” Merely Wearing Hair on His Chest? | The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1 39. Death and Beauty: What Light Does the Dying Eye See? | The Snows of Kilimanjaro 2 40. New Hedonism Conclusion: “Everything Is Perfect—and Poisonous” | The Picture of Dorian Gray 41. Forbidden Love: The Fall of an Ascetic | Death in Venice 1 42. Why Must a Secret, Illicit Love End in Death? | Death in Venice 2 43. Should Nabokov’s Novel Be Banned? | Lolita 1 44. Forever Pursuing a Thirteen-Year-Old Girl as a Form of Spiritual Necrophilia | Lolita 2 45. “Poets Never Kill” | Lolita 3 46. A Pot of Sticky Porridge: Is This the Human Soul? | Ulysses 1 47. Urban Melancholy: Can Modern Life Still Possess Epic Grandeur? | Ulysses 2 48. Is Marriage an Accumulation of Unsightly Details? | Ulysses 3 49. Don’t Call Lawrence a World-Affirming Nihilist | Lady Chatterley’s Lover 1 50. Body and Soul: Can a Sexless Marriage Last? | Lady Chatterley’s Lover 2 51. Sexual Rebirth: “Descending to the Very Center of Woman” | Lady Chatterley’s Lover 3 52. The Bohemian Artist: Poverty as Liberation and Freedom | Tropic of Cancer 1 53. A Madman’s Babble, a Masochist’s Vision, and a Prophet’s Prediction | Tropic of Cancer 2 54. Beginning with a Shattered Face | The Lover 1 55. History Pays No Attention to Our Inner Fate | The Lover 2 56. “Deepening One’s Knowledge of God” | The Lover 3 + Unit Conclusion 57. Youth’s Vitality Above a Gravestone | The Confusions of Young Törless 1 58. A Trial in a Locked Room: A Theft Settled in Private | The Confusions of Young Törless 2 Related Recommendation | Blindness Audiobook: Everyone Becomes That Insect—What Then? 59. Board This Ship and See Something More Terrible Than Dante’s Hell | Heart of Darkness 1 60. The Drifter’s Attitude: Face Society, Then Turn Your Back | Heart of Darkness 2 61. Is Savagery Human Nature? When Children Fall into Paradise | Lord of the Flies 1 62. Is the Drive to Survive an Original Sin That Cannot Be Erased? | Lord of the Flies 2 63. McCarthy, Heir to Faulkner and Hemingway | The Road 1 64. “I’m Sorry, but the Sea Isn’t Blue” | The Road 2 + Unit Conclusion 65. War Needs No Exaggeration; the Facts Are Frightening Enough | All Quiet on the Western Front 1 66. The Debate: A War Novel or a Coming-of-Age Novel? | All Quiet on the Western Front 2 67. Sketches of the Polish–Soviet War: Gossip, Anecdote, Dreams, and Fantasy | Red Cavalry 1 68. Intellectuals and Violent Revolution: Leaving Plato’s Cave to Face Reality | Red Cavalry 2 69. What Is a Real Soldier Like? | Catch-22 1 70. Wherever There Is a Catch-22, There Is Black Humor | Catch-22 2 71. A Novel Banned Eighteen Times: Fact and Fiction in the Bombing of Dresden | Slaughterhouse-Five 1 72. War and Science Fiction: Death Is Violet and Birth Is Red | Slaughterhouse-Five 2 73. I Was Auschwitz Prisoner No. 174517 | If This Is a Man 1 74. An Anthropological Inquiry: Are All Jewish Refugees Victims? | If This Is a Man 2 + Unit Conclusion 75. Waiting for Kafka in the Labyrinth | The Trial 1 76. What Is a Novel Without Character, Plot, or Setting? | The Trial 2 77. If It Were Not for…Then This Story Would Be Just as You Expected | The Trial 3 78. What Is Fiction, and Why Disenchantment? Modern Literature Reexamines the Novel | The Trial 4 79. Why Is Sartre an Existentialist but Proust Is Not? | Nausea 1 80. Sartre: “I Vaguely Dreamed of Getting Rid of Myself” | Nausea 2 81. Four Brief Knocks on the Door of Misfortune | The Stranger 1 82. I Rebel, Therefore I Am: A Metaphysical Shooting | The Stranger 2 83. Look How Enchanting London Is in Summer | Mrs Dalloway 1 84. Refuse the Perfect Housewife; Win Back the Soul | Mrs Dalloway 2 85. Life Is Not Truth; It Is More Like an Irony About Truth | Mrs Dalloway 3 86. The “Son Novel”: Decline of an Old Southern Family | The Sound and the Fury 1 87. How Much Better Can Reality Be Than Death? | The Sound and the Fury 2 88. Beckett’s Characters Always Have Bladder Trouble | Malone Dies 1 89. A Beautifully Enigmatic Novel Needs No Answer | Malone Dies 2 + Unit Conclusion 90. Period, Ideas, and Gender Are All Misplaced—Is This Still a Chinese Story? | Oriental Tales 1 91. How Can Art Commit the Crime of “Deceiving the Emperor”? | Oriental Tales 2 92. Imagining the East Means Imagining Utopia | Invisible Cities 1 93. A Final Love Poem to the City | Invisible Cities 2 94. Why Did Borges Write a Nihilistic Chinese Man? | The Garden of Forking Paths 1 95. Labyrinthine Time: Living in Every Possibility | The Garden of Forking Paths 2 96. Bolaño, the Latin American Writer Who Abandoned Magical Realism | The Savage Detectives 1 97. When the Army Stormed the University, I Was Reading Poetry on the Toilet | The Savage Detectives 2 + Unit Conclusion 98. A Philosophical Horror Comedy: Who Is Actually Mad? | The Master and Margarita 1 99. Another Ending for God | The Master and Margarita 2 100. In League with the Devil: The Best Clown the World Has Ever Seen | The Master and Margarita 3 + Thanks