Grant on how books change as you get older. In the solo episode I start from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, where every moment exists at once, and a passage on memory from Recursion.
Where it comes up 12
Within this theme 68
Ideas 12
- Pinball as a metaphor for life
From Murakami's Pinball, 1973: every game ends in a loss and the machine just says replay; the point is not the score but self-transformation through the wins and losses, so build your own…
- Dying Complete
A frame Ian teaches. Don't ask whether you'll die complete in 60 years. Ask what you'd need to do today to die complete if tonight were your last night. It shrinks what matters down to a…
- Samsara
The cycle of rebirth and worldly existence in Hindu thought.
- The Right Book at the Right Time
Some books must come into your life at the right moment because you can outgrow them, and others only open up years later. The book hasn't changed; you have.
- Nonlinear Time
Following Vonnegut, Tamir argues time is multi-dimensional and all moments are equally real. What matters is less whether we live in the past or the future than how we interpret those…
- Perception as Delayed Reconstruction
From the Recursion passage: sensory signals reach the brain at different speeds, so the brain waits for the slowest, reorders them, and presents a 'simultaneous' experience about half a…
- Presence
Living in the present moment. Sheela opens by saying time becomes nectar only in the present, and that people always choose the past or the future 'never where they should be looking'…
- Existential Angst
The self-centered 'I hate the world' brooding Grant associates with young readers and with No Longer Human and The Catcher in the Rye.
- Visualization
Picturing a desired future, used in manifesting and by athletes before they compete. Tamir describes it as a healthy kind of living in the future, illustrated by his own image of a house by…
- WWII trauma in Murakami
Salih argues that unexplained events like the children collapsing in Kafka on the Shore, Lieutenant Mamiya's war, and figures like Colonel Sanders are Murakami processing Japan's war trauma…
- False Memory Syndrome
In Recursion, a mysterious affliction where people suddenly 'remember' lives they never lived, which turn out to come from other timelines.
- Time dilation in sleep
Tamir observes that naps break our temporal sense: a three-hour nap can feel like three months, a 30-minute nap like three days, and anesthesia makes hours of surgery feel like a minute. He…
Books 16
- Recursion
Blake Crouch's sci-fi thriller about memory and time, in which a chair that records memories is used to create new timelines. Tamir takes from it that life can't be engineered to avoid pain.
- Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war novel, whose protagonist lives through the firebombing of Dresden.
- Pinball, 1973
Murakami's second novella, the follow-up to Hear the Wind Sing, and the source of the title of the first episode with Ian Coll.
- Divine Comedy
Dante's epic poem, whose Inferno and Paradiso Tamir draws on in three episodes.
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Murakami novel expanding a 1980s story, his first in six years and a kind of sequel to Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Its English edition was due out on November 19, 2024.
- On the Road
Kerouac's novel of 1950s American hitchhiking. At 19 it filled Grant with a wild spirit; 30 years later it had lost its resonance. His example of a book that must come at the right time.
- Abandoning a Cat
Murakami's autobiographical essay about his father, published in The New Yorker. Salih recounts the story of the family abandoning a cat at the beach only to find it home before them, and…
- The Sun Also Rises
Hemingway's first novel. Grant once disliked the slow trout-fishing interlude in the Spanish mountains between Paris and Pamplona; now it is his favorite part.
- Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
A nearly forgotten novel about a recently widowed woman living in a London hotel for the elderly. Grant calls it heartbreaking and gets emotional thinking about it; he believes it was…
- The Power of Now
Tolle's book on presence. Tamir mentions it to show how much of our lives we actually spend living in the past through rumination and memory, which is why Tolle wrote a whole book about…
- Anna Karenina
Tolstoy's novel. Grant was on the edge of his seat during the officers' horse race, proof that a 150-year-old classic with 'the aura of boredom' can still thrill.
- First Person Singular
Short story collection that both name as their least favorite Murakami book, though Tamir counts its opening story 'Cream' among his favorites.
- Tokyo Ueno Station
Novel narrated by the ghost of a homeless man in Tokyo whose family has died, struggling to reconcile the point of his existence. Tamir reads a passage asking whether death is where time…
- Dead Babies
Amis novel Grant loved in his twenties for prose that grabbed you by the throat.
- London Fields
Example of the heavy, stylized 1980s prose Grant loved in his twenties and now can't stand.
- The Catcher in the Rye
Grant suspects that on rereading it would feel too self-indulgent, like other books of youthful angst.
People 10
- Kurt Vonnegut
American novelist (1922-2007), author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Galápagos. Tamir calls him the embodiment of authenticity.
- Ernest Hemingway
Novelist, author of The Sun Also Rises. He comes up for his spare style and for the hard experience behind his work.
- Martin Amis
British novelist (London Fields, Dead Babies) whose loud, stylized 1980s prose Grant loved in his twenties and now can't stand.
- Blake Crouch
Novelist, author of the science-fiction thriller Recursion, which anchors two episodes in early 2026.
- Jack Kerouac
Beat Generation author of On the Road, a book that changed Grant's world at 19 but no longer resonates with him.
- Al Pacino
Tamir recalls Pacino's speech in Any Given Sunday about how, as you get older, things get taken from you, as a parallel to Murakami's pinball metaphor of loss.
- J. D. Salinger
Author of The Catcher in the Rye, which Grant fears would now feel too self-indulgent.
- Jesus
Religious figure at the center of Christianity.
- Søren Kierkegaard
Danish philosopher. Tamir brings up his line that life is understood backwards but lived forwards, which he says Recursion also quotes, to show why we can never know in advance whether we…
- Elizabeth Taylor
English novelist (not the actress) who wrote Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, a nearly forgotten book Grant champions.
Quotes 3
I'm going to tell you two things, boy. Don't ever grow old. And don't wait for anything 'cause it's not coming.
The book hasn't changed, I've changed. It's still a good book, it's just not a good book for me anymore.
For me time becomes nectar only when you are in presence, present moment.
Insights 11
- Fiction can process collective trauma
Murakami's unexplained wartime incidents and Western mascots can be read as a nation processing war trauma through symbols, just as Germany still processes its history.
- A book can be good but not for you now
Judge a book's quality apart from its appeal to you at this moment: the same book can be bad for you today and good in 20 years.
- Authors hide their lives in fiction
Writers say little in interviews but leave their histories in their books: Murakami's cats and Tengo's father likely trace back to his own father.
- Everything you experience is already memory
By the time you know you're experiencing something, the brain has already processed and synchronized it, so all experience is a reconstruction about half a second late, filtered by your own…
- Interpretation matters more than timeframe
Whether we dwell in memories or in visions of the future matters less than how we interpret those memories, visions and feelings.
- Slowness makes excitement exciting
Reflective, slow passages pause the action so the exciting parts feel more exciting, something the young reader who wants speed often misses.
- It's never too late to start writing
Murakami didn't begin until 30; you often don't know what to write until later in life, and some would argue 30 is even early.
- Loss is a story you tell about choices
Tamir notes that choosing one life path cuts off countless others. Sheela answers that life is the choices you make: if university felt like a waste, it was a waste for you. She chose love…
- The perennial is perennial for a reason
Old scripture and classic questions keep being criticized precisely because they are still relevant. What endures does so for a reason and is worth revisiting.
- It's not that you don't have time
Everyone can make five or ten minutes. Jews pray three times a day and Muslims five times while running families. 'Same 24 hours' rhetoric from single 21-year-olds ignores parents of…
- We do live in the past and future
Strictly speaking we're prisoners of the present, but in practice rumination, memory and regret mean we live in the past, and desire and visualization mean we live in the future…
Practices 2
- Revisit the books of your youth
Go back to books you loved or disliked when young, to see how you've changed and catch what you missed.
- Do it yourself to stay independent
At 76, Sheela does everything she can herself, because it keeps her free and stops her from becoming dependent. She also stays within her physical limits so she doesn't get hurt.
Stories 11
- Learning to talk to himself
As he gets older, Colin is admitting things about his character that he always knew but never owned, and he is accepting and even embracing them. He has started talking to himself and…
- On the Road sent him to Toronto
At 19, at university in Ottawa, On the Road filled Grant with such a wild spirit that he jumped on a bus to Toronto to look up an old high-school acquaintance, which he now finds…
- Abandoning the cat at the beach
Salih relates Murakami's memoir of his father: the family left their cat at the beach, drove home, and found the cat already waiting there, inexplicably. Salih takes this as Murakami's real…
- Ferris wheel and pan flute in Greece
Sputnik Sweetheart's images stick with both men. Salih sees Miu whenever he sees a Ferris wheel and recently reread the passage in Greece; Tamir thinks of the novel's mysterious pan flute…
- Six and a half hours under hypnosis
Samantha joined Marilyn's QHHT waiting list in 2020 and saw her in 2021 for a whole-day session. She thought she was under 45 minutes to an hour; the recording shows about five and a half…
- Tamir can't answer 'die complete'
Asked what he'd need to do today to die complete tonight, Tamir says his brain 'produces an error code'. So much of his life is spent on future business goals and visions that today feels…
- The fishing interlude grew on him
When young, Grant was bothered by the slow trout-fishing section between the Paris carousing and the Pamplona bull-running in The Sun Also Rises. Years later it is his favorite part…
- Your father's age in the classroom
Grant feels it's unfair to be at university at his age, reading Dracula and Absalom, Absalom! with 20-year-olds. Teachers like having him there, which makes it worse, so he sits at the back…
- Dreaming of a house by the water
Tamir describes his own picture of the future: a house by the water within walking distance of the beach, opening the curtains each morning to sunlight on his face. He uses it to show that…
- Naps that feel like months
Tamir describes a deep three-hour nap that felt like living three months, Samantha a 30-minute nap that felt like three days, and Tamir notes surgery patients feeling hours pass as a minute…
- The six-foot housefly dream
While washing dishes, Tamir will suddenly recall, with no trigger, a dream from 20+ years ago, such as a childhood dream of a six-foot housefly chasing him around Yaletown. It happens with…
Films, music and art 3
- Interstellar
Christopher Nolan's film, built on time dilation and a father and daughter separated across time.
- Any Given Sunday
Football film whose Al Pacino locker-room speech Tamir recalls: as you get older, things get taken from you, and you only realize it with age.
- Super Mario Bros.
Comes up in the excerpt from Troll Tamir reads: the narrator has watched people glitch through the game in under five minutes and feels nostalgic for childhood memories he never had.