Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
At the heart of human existence is a tragic ambiguity: the fact that we experience ourselves both as subject and object, internal and external, at the same time, and can never fully inhabit either state. In her 1947 book, Simone de Beauvoir addresses the ethical implications of this uncertainty and the ‘agonising evidence of freedom’ it presents, along with the opportunity it creates for continual self-definition. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss these arguments and Beauvoir’s warnings against trying to evade the responsibilities imposed upon us by this ambiguity. They also look at the ways in which Beauvoir developed these ideas in The Second Sex and her novels, and her remarkable readings of George Eliot, Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: lrb.me/applecryt
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self.
Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
#philosophy #literature
ABOUT CLOSE READINGS
Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books which looks at different periods and themes in literature through selections of key texts, covering poetry, fiction, history and philosophy from Ancient Greece to the present day.
Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0K
Subscribe: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
lrb.me/audiobookscip
At the heart of human existence is a tragic ambiguity: the fact that we experience ourselves both as subject and object, internal and external, at the same time, and can never fully inhabit either state. In her 1947 book, Simone de Beauvoir addresses the ethical implications of this uncertainty and the ‘agonising evidence of freedom’ it presents, along with the opportunity it creates for continual self-definition. In this episode Jonathan and James discuss these arguments and Beauvoir’s warnings against trying to evade the responsibilities imposed upon us by this ambiguity. They also look at the ways in which Beauvoir developed these ideas in The Second Sex and her novels, and her remarkable readings of George Eliot, Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster.
This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: lrb.me/applecryt
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
James Wood teaches literature at Harvard University and is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a contributor to the London Review of Books. His books include How Fiction Works, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self.
Jonathan Rée is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and a freelance writer and philosopher. His most recent book on philosophy is Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
#philosophy #literature
ABOUT CLOSE READINGS
Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books which looks at different periods and themes in literature through selections of key texts, covering poetry, fiction, history and philosophy from Ancient Greece to the present day.
Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0K
Subscribe: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
lrb.me/audiobookscip
