Person
Every book Paul A.O. Scott recommended on podcasts
Paul A.O. Scott appears on literary podcasts as a thoughtful scholar and critic specializing in working-class literature, historical suppression of creativity, and the oeuvres of marginalized writers. During his discussion on The Book Review, Scott provided a deep examination of author Tillie Olsen, analyzing her celebrated short story collection Tell Me a Riddle, her depression-era novel Yonnondio: From the Thirties, and her vital essay collection Silences. Scott situated Olsen's exploration of creative barriers in direct dialogue with Virginia Woolf's revolutionary essay A Room of One's Own. Expanding the conversation on working-class narratives, Scott referenced James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy as a powerful historical account of working-class life. Furthermore, he discussed nineteenth-century factory life through Rebecca Harding Davis's novella Life in the Iron Mills, noting how Olsen herself had rediscovered Davis's work. Through these literary references, Scott demonstrates a rigorous engagement with the social conditions of writing and the recovery of working-class voices throughout American literary history.
Books recommended by Paul A.O. Scott
-
A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf is an extended essay that explores women's intellectual freedom, financial independence, and place in literary history.
Discussed“and the essay I mean silence is in a way is in dialogue with with A Room of One's Own which is Wolf's very important you know almost you'd say revolutionary essay”
Where to get it
-
Life in the Iron Mills
Discussed“and there was also a writer in the 19th century who Olsen herself sort of rediscovered Rebecca Harding Davis who wrote a book called life in the iron Mills in the early 1860s about Factory life”
Where to get it
-
Silences
Discussed“there's a very important essay she wrote which I talk about in the piece called silences which is the what she did when she was at the Radcliffe Institute”
Where to get it
-
Studs Lonigan
Discussed“I mean I think about writers in in the 30s like James frell in the lonigan trilogy I don't know if it's as read as it used to be but it's a powerful account of a workingclass life”
Where to get it
-
Tell Me a Riddle
Discussed“Tilly olssen is a uh a writer who's best known for a collection of short stories called tell me a riddle which was published in the early 1960s”
Where to get it
-
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
The Big Rock Candy Mountain is a sprawling, semi-autobiographical novel by Wallace Stegner that chronicles an itinerant American family's struggles and wanderings across the West through decades of marriage and changing economic times.
Discussed“and that story reminds me a lot of the first writer that I that that I wrote about in this in this series Wallace stegner and his great novel Big Rock Candy Mountain which is about an itinerant Western childhood”
Where to get it
-
Yonnondio: from the thirties
Discussed“she also wrote a novel or a novel was published that she had written earlier in the 1930s called yon Ando which is often taught in University classes now like in in literature of the depression”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tillie Olsen and the Barriers to Creativity | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 10 |