Book Chat: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - a podcast by Jai//Em

Quick Notes and Links:

Janet is joined by Paul from the That Aged Well Podcast to discuss the book, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Everyone should read this book. It is a story about Mexican-Americans, but that should not stop everyone from checking it out. It’s a story about men and masculinity, intimacy and trust, but that should not stop women from checking it out. It’s a book for teens, but it is absolutely also a book for adults. And if you have already read it, I highly suggest that you allow Lin-Manuel Miranda to read it to you via Audible.

> Amazon Book Link for Aristotle and Dante...
> Amazon Book/Spanish for Aristotle and Dante...
> Audible Book Link for Aristotle and Dante...
> Pura Belpré and the Pura Belpré Award
> Everything Begins and Ends at The Kentucky Club also by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
> A sad scene from Steel Magnolias
> A sad scene from Grey’s Anatomy

Follow Paul and Erika on Twitter, Instagram or the web at That Aged Well.
Email Createive4ever at hello@creative4evr.com. Find C4 on Instagram or Twitter.

Don’t forget to be Creative this week. Even if you just think about it. Later!

Full Show Notes:

Hey, hi and hello! Welcome to Creative4evr. The podcast dedicated to keeping you forever inspired, forever motivated, forever creative, and forever YOU.  I am your host, Janet, a.k.a. Jai//Em, a.k.a. the voice inside your head, a.k.a. your biggest fan, and together we’re going to get some creative shit done.

We are doing our first book chat on the podcast. I’m so excited! This is going to be great fun, I hope this is something we can do often. Yeah, I’m super excited! So this means the episode is going to be a little longer than usual and we’re going to jump right in so that, you know, we can get it going. A quick note about how Creative4evr will do these book chats. 1) I’ll talk about the writer, give a little background. 2) Get into the themes in the book. 3) Then discuss how the book makes me feel, discuss the emotion of the book, the impact that it left, things like that.

We will not do spoilers or go into detail about major plot points without letting you know first, and usually that will be at the very, very end of the podcast. The idea is to get you excited about the book so that you read it you have not, or we make you want to go back to the book with fresh eyes if you have. Or maybe check out the Audible version and listen to it instead. Mainly we’re just trying to get you excited about some books that you may not know about or you read a long time ago, and our first book is Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Check the show notes for links to the book on Amazon and Audible and I hope you enjoy.

Jai//Em: My guest today is the one and only Paul Caiola!

Paul: Hello!

Jai//Em: Paul is a writer, podcaster, blogger, actor and all-around creative person. He is a wonderful guy! Not only a good friend and my best man, but also my main writing partner. And when I say that I mean we work together, we read each others stuff, we give notes, feedback and support— we generally keep each other motivated and sane. Is that pretty much how we work together, Paul?

Paul: Absolutely. You’re my writing coach. You’re the one to tell me, just write something we’ll fix it later.

Jai//Em: Yes! I am the person that always says that. But you’re not only my writing coach, you are my pure inspiration because you turn out the work. I am in awe of it!

Paul: I’m flattered. I think I just sent you a quote, I don’t remember what author it was, and it something like… Make good friends with the most motivated writer you know. You know, make friends with someone that will make you write all the time. And that was you for me.

Jai//Em: That it absolutely you for me. I love it, I love it! So, I invited Paul to come to the show today to talk about this book that I love (and I think he loves it too). Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Paul, are you ready to jump into this book?

Paul: I am ready! I love this book so much that...We live in New York City we don’t really have a lot of space—so almost all my books are e-books, simply because I can’t fit the number books I have. But this is one that I bought the e-book of, and then bought the hard copy afterwards. I was like, No I want the hard copy of this book, I wanna be able to feel the pages of this book between my fingers.

Jai//Em: Yes! I own this book as well and the last time, well, I read it again for the podcast, but I also listened to the Audible book which is narrated by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It’s so good. At first I was a little skeptical. I was like, I don’t need Hamilton to half-rap a book to me.

Paul: That’s fair. Lin-Manuel has a very specific energy.

Jai//Em: Yeah! Cadence. Exactly. But I am so glad that he did read it to me because it sort of changed my perspective on the book a little bit.

Paul: Oh cool.

Jai//Em: So we can talk about that later. But yes, I also own the physical book, and need it in my life, and find myself thumbing through it occasionally. Especially when I need a little bit of inspiration because I love Mr. Sáenz’s writing.

Paul: Yes, I completely agree with that. I find his writing to be incredibly lyrical. Which is something I struggle with my own writing, you know. I very rarely write a sentence and think, Oh that’s beautiful. I think, Oh that’s workman like. That gets the job done. But he writes in this [lyrical] way and it really transports you somewhere.

Jai//Em: I couldn’t agree more. He’s a poet. So it really shows in his work. Alright, a little bit about Benjamin Alire Sáenz. He is a novelist and a poet, born in 1954. A lot of the storytelling is immersed in Chicano culture, being himself a Mexican American. He was born and raised in New Mexico and lived much of his life in El Paso, Texas, although he has lived and taught all over the world. Mr. Sáenz has won numerous awards for his poetry. He was a Poet Fellow at Stanford, he has also won numerous book awards. This book has more than 3 awards, but we’re only going to mention three. The Stonewall Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Pura Belpré Award which is an award for exceptional Latinx writers and illustrators who celebrate their culture. Pura Belpré is a writer and educator, and she was the first Puerto Rican librarian at the New York Public Library in 1921. So yeah isn’t that cool?

Paul: Names you should know!

Jai//Em: Yeah, names you should know! People you should know about. So it’s a very prestigious award to have won, and this guy… He’s writing poems, he’s writing books, he is a professor, he’s prolific as well, so many books. He has a Masters in creative writing, I believe he has a Ph.D. in American literature. What I read said he was 3 or 4 years into it, so I don’t know if is finishing, has finished, didn’t finish, but half of Ph.D. is more than I have, so that’s awesome.

Paul: Way more than I have.

Jai//Em: Right? And then he just started a podcast which is quite interesting. I listened to the first one, and I love that this guy is in his 60s and doing his thing— writing books, earning awards, poetry and now he’s podcasting, it’s fantastic.

Paul: Yeah, he’s living his best life! I also found, because I was doing research for this, that he didn’t come out as gay until he was 54. And he said one of the struggles he had with writing this book is he felt like he was outing himself.

Jai//Em: Yeah. It reads so young, and just to know that a man that came out so late in his life wrote it is amazing to me. I love it.

Paul: And wrote it so late in his life. That he could still remember that teenage-ness, which I guess, if you think about it, a lot of gay people say they have their adolescents later, they have that their adolescents when they come out. And I wonder if maybe his own personal journey with that, was able to lend him this truth, right? That he was really able to conjure those feelings that are more distant to those of us who have lived out of the closet for a longer period time. 

Jai//Em: Yes, he must have been transported back to that time and it didn’t matter that he was 50 years old, he was 16 again.

The book takes place in El Paso, Texas and the year is 1987. The back of the book reads as such: 

Dante can swim. Ari can’t. Dante is articulate and self-assured. Ari has a hard time with words and suffers from self-doubt. Dante gets lost in poetry and art. Ari gets lost in thoughts of his older brother who is in prison. Dante is fair skinned. Ari’s features are much darker. It seems that a boy like Dante, with his open and unique perspective on life, would be the last person to break down the walls that Ari has built around himself.

But against all odds, when Ari and Dante meet, they develop a special bond that will teach them the most important truths of their lives, and help define the people they want to be. But there are big hurdles in their way, and only by believing in each other―and the power of their friendship―can Ari and Dante emerge stronger on the other side.

Beautiful. Beautiful! I’m already like, I need to read this book again!

Paul: I love that it also tells you that it’s not going to be a tragedy. There are some very unhappy things in this book, but you’re not going read this and think, Oh well, I just need to crawl under the covers and contemplate the trash-fire of the world.

Jai//Em: Right. They emerge stronger. There is a hope. Absolutely. I also like that it sets the mood. I’m mixing metaphors here…no one is really a fish out of water, but it’s really like two fish in the same pond, but they are very different fish, right?

Paul: Two salmon, swimming upstream.

Jai//Em: Yeah, and how will they swim together? It sets it up very well. They’re opposites. Even the fair skin, darker skin, self-doubt, assured and articulate. It really just sets up: We’re going to meet two very different boys and they are gonna help each other grow.

First page of the book. The title says, “The Different Rules of Summer” Then it reads:

The problem with my life was that it was someone else’s idea. One summer night I fell asleep, hoping the world would be different when I woke. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, the world was the same. I threw off the sheets and lay there as the heat poured in through my open window.

 My hand reached for the dial on the radio. “Alone” was playing. Crap, “Alone,” a song by a group called Heart. Not my favorite song. Not my favorite group. Not my favorite topic. “You don’t know how long . . .”
I was fifteen.
I was bored.
I was miserable.
As far as I was concerned, the sun could have melted the blue right off the sky. Then the sky could be as miserable as I was.

I mean, it sets the mood!

Paul: Yeah, you are in a place right there. I would just like to say that the song, “Alone” by Heart is objectively perfect.

Jai//Em: It’s such a good song!

Paul: It’s an amazing song! Do not try it in karaoke. Unless you’re Sutton Foster, you can’t do it.

Jai//Em: I would disagree. I think that if you are in [an emotional] place, please do it. It might not be perfect, but I wanna see someone crying on stage.

Paul: If you’re gonna act it, go for it!

Jai//Em: Okay, so you’ve read this book a couple of times?

Paul: 3 times.

Jai//Em: 3 times. Okay, for you, especially since you read it now with a sort of critical eye. What is this book about?

Paul: What really struck me about it this time was how male the book is. It is a story about boys and their relationship to their parents, but more to their fathers. Their mothers are there, their mothers are important and they definitely have their own characters. I don’t think they are one-dimensional or anything, but I really think it’s about masculinity. And what masculinity does. And how it can be expressed in different ways. I don’t know if when he wrote this in 2012, if the term “toxic masculinity” was as in the cultural lexicon as it is now, but it really feels like a book about what we can do to young boys without totally meaning to. And what the societal pressures and the societal expectations can cause. And how that affects Ari’s father, Ari, Dante, Dante’s father, and how it affects their relationships with each other. And I don’t mean to say, it’s a male book and women can’t get something out of it. It just happens to be a story about men. I think it is a universal story that everyone connected to, but it is story about men and one that I think is important. It’s not a story you’ve seen 8000 times about men.

Jai//Em: For me, it’s also about family and secrets. And it sort of turns it on it’s ear, because the gay themes are not the secret. The family isn’t being torn apart or having conflict because of any of the gay the themes of the book. They’re having conflict because of the different secret. I wonder how many people read the book and think, I am already an advocate for LGBTQ+ people, so I am good to go, there’s nothing here that I’m going to necessarily learn. But then they start reading it it’s like, Oh secrets! Right. Secrets can fuck a family up! Oh! I’m a parent, maybe I should talk to my kids about X, Y and Z because they notice this stuff. I think it’s so great. You come for the LGBTQ+ themes, but you stay for the family secret stuff.

Paul: Yeah those themes are even more universal. It’s important and unique story. And also really deeply Mexican.

Jai//Em: Yes, he makes a point to talk about that in his interviews and and things like that. He is very inspired by, and motivated by his Chicano culture. He’s got another book that I’m currently reading called, Everything Begins and Ends at The Kentucky Club. And the Kentucky Club is a bar, I believe, in El Paso (if not, it’s very close to the border). And the book is a collection of short stories about different people that come in and out of this bar. So, I love how immersed in his culture he is in. And that ends up being inspirational, I think, to Latinx people who read the story.

Jai//Em: Who do you think, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, had in mind for his audience when writing this? I ask because this show is about being Creative4evr, and there are things that we can do to make sure that happens in our creative lives. And I think one of them is reading things, but also thinking about the writer, when we’re reading. So, he’s sitting down, he’s writing this book, he’s trying to come out as he’s writing this book. Who do you think his audience is as he writes it?

Paul: To a certain extent, I think I have an annoying answer to this question. I think as a writer, your audience is always yourself. And I think that really comes through in the themes of coming out and what we now know he was going through while writing this. But I also think his dedication, which is: "To all the boys who had to learn to play by different rules." And again, he says "boys," he doesn’t say people. It’s to young Mexican men. I think that’s what he’s thinking of, and not necessarily gay young Mexican man. How about you?

Jai//Em: I think he absolutely was writing it for himself. Before I read any interviews, before I knew how old he was, or when he came out. I was like, he’s writing this book for himself. And it was so clear to me that he was Ari. And that just really made me fall in love with the book. I love first-person storytelling. I love storytelling through letters and journals and things like that. It’s my favorite thing in the world, so it felt so clear to me that he was Ari, and that he was writing this for himself. But then as I read it, I was thinking, he wrote this book for him, but really I think this book might be for parents. It’s just so interesting to read it as an adult. When I read it before I think I still felt like a 20-year-old whatever. As an adult-adult, it’s so much information about how much kids and teens internalize their feelings. And I think we forget that when we’re teens and kids. We have so much shame and weirdness about her own insecurities. And we grow up thinking, Oh, I was only kid that thought this, that and the other, and kids these days are so confident and so direct and they must actually be that way…

But this reminded me that kids internalize, kids are dealing with shit that they will not talk about. They will lie to your face and say they’re fine, when they are not. And I’m not even a parent, but I think that’s important to know and remember, so that’s what struck me in the last reading. And I think listening to it on Audible made me feel like I was listening to a kid, which sort of amped up the level of worry I had for this person. I was like, This is a child going through all of this and he can’t find help. He’s struggling to find help. And his family is there for him, but he’s still struggling to get help. So, I feel he you wrote it for himself but it really is for parents too. I definitely agree with you that it’s for men. It’s such a good reminder of what looking for love from a father or father figure is like. I think women and daughters is a thing everyone seems to understand of when it comes to their relationship. I think everybody gets that daughters go through a phase, and then the women in their lives have trouble relating to them, that there can be struggle between daughters and the women around them. But the same is true for dudes. There are phases of their life where they struggle with each other— father to son, cousin to cousin, friend to friend— and we just don’t really talk about that. We just think the dudes are fine. But that’s not the case and this book reminds us that’s not the case.

Jai//Em: So we’ve gotten through the themes for the book. We have not told you anything about plot points or specific things like that because we want you to read the book. But now you have an idea of themes, what you might think about while you’re reading, etc.

So Paul, I ask you this. After reading the last page and the last word, what were your immediate thoughts or feelings about what you just experienced?

Paul: The last image of this book is just like a firework. You can take a deep breath… because the book really teeters on the knife-edge a couple times, like-- Is this going to fall over into something really awful, or are we going to figure this out, is everyone going to be more or less okay? The other thing I think about is— when I first read this book, I was recommending it to everyone I knew. My mother read it, my sister read it, and my sister called me and said,” I love this book and I hate the last line.”

Jai//Em: Really? Wait, why?

Paul: She felt the last line was unnecessary. She thought it was gilding the lily. Now that is the perspective of a straight person. Which is interesting because the last line of the book deals with gay themes. So this time reading it, I thought the last line resonated both better and worse for me. I understood why she didn’t like it, but I also understand why it’s there.

Jai//Em: Yeah. I would absolutely agree with you. You know, I love want to do anything with you because I just walk away feeling like, Paul and I understand each other. The world is okay, I’m not crazy. I love it when you and I are on the same page! Yes, the last line, I think is…how do I wanna say?… It’s necessary, but it’s necessary for a reason bigger than the book. And I think that being able to have Ari say that last line is why it needs to be there. Ari has to be able to put that into words. And I think that that’s why it’s important. But I do get why your sister wouldn’t understand that as a straight woman, where you and I are both queer, and there is something there for us, that is not there for your sister.

Not to say that your sister shouldn't read the book. I’m glad that she read it and I should’ve started this episode by saying— just because this is a book by a gay author about Mexican-American life does not mean that non-Mexican-Americans and non-queer people shouldn’t read the book. On the contrary, I think it is important for people outside of these communities to read this book.

Paul: Yes! My sister is straight, female and white, and she loved it!

Jai//Em: Yes! Even if they don’t necessarily understand every single moment. That’s what Google is for, or call a friend, you know.

Jai//Em: My thoughts about the last page and the last words were… I guess I was frustrated only because it felt like the beginning. I was like, Where is book 2!? And I think that goes back to the poet thing. This is author is so great at, like you said, the fireworks, the imagery. And there are no fireworks at end of this book, it just feels like there are.

Paul: I want to be wrapped up and cocooned in this guys words.

Jai//Em: Yeah! It’s so vivid that you don't want it to end, but that’s what poetry is. Poetry does not fully explain itself, it creates an image or mood for you as the reader and then lets you do what you want with it, right? And I felt slapped in the face with his poet-ness. I was like, No wait, I need more! But I think that’s exactly what’s necessary for a book like this. It’s so lyrical, it’s so beautiful and it is the perfect ending, although I can see why people would get frustrated.

Jai//Em: Anything specific that you loved? A moment or a mood or anything?

Paul: I have a couple quotes that I would read that don’t spoil anything. I wrote them down in my phone so I could have them with me all the time.

Jai//Em: Oh, I love that!

Paul: Okay, first one: "I named myself Ari. If I switched the letter, my name was air. I thought it might be a great thing to be the air. I could be something or nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me."

Jai//Em: I am glad you brought that one up. It’s beautiful.

Paul: Yeah, it’s the perfect encapsulation of a feeling. Then, the only other one I thought was so important. This is Aristotle about Dante’s father: "He didn’t care if the whole world knew he was kind." I mean that is all about masculinity. That’s all about men being men. And how stupid that whole performance is.

Jai//Em: Not even stupid, just detrimental. It can be so detrimental if you truly believe that men are not allowed to be kind. Or if they are kind, they have to do it in secret. It’s yeah…you picked great lines!

Paul: The other one I had was the one you read from the first page. Which was “As far as I was concerned, the sun could have melted the blue right off the sky. Then the sky could be as miserable as I was.”  You guys, we swear there’s happy things in this book.

Jai//Em: It’s just that it’s the life of a 15, 16-year-old boy. It’s gonna be happy and sad.

Paul: It’s melodrama and tragedy all at the same time, when actually everything is pretty normal.

Jai//Em: There’s also something to teen angst. This is why YA is a thing, this is why YA makes so much money. Deep down we fucking love teen angst, it feels good, no matter how old you are, to be able to step into that terrible place and come out on the other side of it. For me, I read the first page and I’m like, Oh yeah, let’s get sad!

Paul: Yeah, give me a rainy day and a cup of hot cider and I’m gonna be on this couch all day!

Jai//Em: I can’t wait to start crying! This is why people watch Grey’s Anatomy, you know what I mean?

Paul: This is why I’ve seen Steel Magnolias 8000 times.

Jai//Em: At some point on Grey’s Anatomy, you’re like, I don’t care about the heart thing, I just want to cry for no good goddamn reason on a Thursday night!

OKAY! So the things that I love. You’ve covered the quotes so I’m good. I love that so many of the conversations between the boys take place with the parents in the room. One in particular I will not spoil, but I was listening to it and I paused it and got the book. I went back, looking at the words while listening. And I was like, The parents are in the room for this! The parents are in the room for this! These two boys are in their own world and are so innocent and trusting of their parents, that they literally have this conversation, not caring that their parents are standing across the room. And that just makes me so happy. That it’s between boys and this is happening.

And I’m not saying anybody is professing any love. That’s probably what listeners think is happening, that they are professing their love to each other with their parents in the room. It is not even that. It’s just that they are having a conversation, very candidly in front of their parents at 16 years of age. I fucking love it!

I also love how immediately Ari says he likes the sound of Dante’s voice. It’s first thing that he says he likes about Dante when he meets him. I’m a person that loves voices, and I love how people sound when they say certain words like “noodle.”

Paul: Oh really?

Jai//Em: Say, “Noodle.”

Paul: Noodle.

Jai//Em: Say, “I’ll have the Pad Thai with noodles.”

Paul: I’ll have the Pad Thai with noodles.

Jai//Em: Ah! I love it! I don’t know why.

Paul: You know what?

Jai//Em: Hmm?

Paul: You follow your bliss, girl.

Jai//Em: Thank you! Thank you! It’s weird but I love it.

So this last question is tailored specifically to you Paul, because you are a podcaster and you have a show called That Aged Well, and that show is where you and Erika watch pop-culture from 80s and 90s and view it from the lens of today. So, this book was written in 2012 about 1987, and so much as happened in the world since then. Same-sex marriage was passed in 2015. The last presidential election, I mean, Grammys have been won by people. So much has happened since then. Do you think this book ages well or all parts of this book age well?

Paul: I think it does. I think it’s very universal overall. I was the kid in the 80s, so I think it ages  very well in the sense of that universality of everyone’s high school experience kind of being miserable on different levels. There are a couple dings on it. The brother, I think it must be explored more. It's using a minority as a prop. Is that the easiest way to say it?

Jai//Em: Yeah that’s exactly my thing. If you are going to add something like that to the story you have to give it legit space and simply not use it as an oh my god moment. And based on what we find out later, it didn’t have to be that. So if you’re going to pick that, then we need you to do it for a reason.

Paul: Yeah, you picked that for some reason, so you have to back it up and it’s...It’s the oh my god factor. It’s just making it worse. That character that is being used to make it worse is not being granted any agency, any backstory, any real humanity. So that’s not great. I would say, overall it ages well, you can absolutely enjoy it. I think that is the only big ding on it. Obviously it’s about people of color. It’s a very male book, but not in the way of excluding women. It just happens to be what this book is about. I think women can appreciate it, just the same way that men should be able to appreciate a story about women if they are not included in it. I think this one is worth reading even if you are not a man.

Jai//Em: I would agree. I think everyone should read this book. Like you said it is a story about people of color, but that should not stop everyone from checking it out. It’s a story about men and masculinity, intimacy and trust, but that should not stop women from checking it out. It’s a book for teens, but it is absolutely also a book for adults. And if you have read it, I highly suggest you read it again, and I suggest that you allow Lin-Manuel Miranda to read it to you.

Jai//Em: Alright, Paul where can we find you outside of this podcast episode?

Paul: As you mentioned, I have a podcast. So if you want to follow Erika and I on Twitter we are @ThatAgedWellPod. On Instagram we are @ThatAgedWell. Please download and subscribe to That Aged Well on your podcast provider. It’s a lot of fun, we’re pretty comedically-minded on it, so I think we give people some good laughs about these movies that many people love…a lot of which have some very real problems. More problems then this book certainly.

Jai//Em: Paul is not lying. He and Erika have a great show, so check out it. It is a good time. Paul is ever the professional podcaster and I thank you so much for being a part of this show today. For spending some time with me and Aristotle and Dante. Let’s do this again soon?

Paul: Absolutely. I would love to, thank you for having me.
__________________

So that’s the show! I hope you guys enjoyed hanging out with us as we chatted about Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. 

I didn’t do a spoiler section for this book, but I think for future book chats we will do a spoiler section at the end, so the people that have read and want to get into some of the nitty-gritty stuff that happened in the book will have a little something at the very end of the podcast to listen to.

Email Createive4ever at hello@creative4evr.com. Find C4 on Instagram or Twitter.

Don’t forget to be Creative this week. Even if you just think about it. Later.
 

Further episodes of Creative4evr Podcast

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Website of Jai//Em