BONUS | The Novels Every Stoic Should Read

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0:57Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

1:12Ryan Holiday: So we were talking other Stoic-themed novels, and you only knew about Man and Fall. Yes. There are many more. Okay. One of which I told Oprah about because she loves your book. So obviously one of the most famous probably stoic novel is Tom Wolfe's A Man in Paul, which is very Epictetus-themed. Yeah. But have you read Walker Percy's The Movie Goer? Oh, wait, no, but I've been meaning to, and I had no idea that it had a stoic theme. No, so his character, Aunt Emily, is very stoic - Stoic-themed. Let me find it. If I can find this. this he has this amazing passage that's like everybody's favorite book and i haven't read it yet um yeah no no it's incredible so his uncle introduces him to stoic philosophy his parents both commit suicide or die in accidents and he's adopted by his his uncle three boys and he's this sort of poet in in mississippi and he and he introduces him to to stoicism and there's this one she sends him this note I wish I could find it okay but anyway she's very stoked so that's one okay this is the other famous one you haven't read memoirs of Hadrian this is a beautiful novel this is the one I told Oprah about oh Shirley hazard that's Adora hazard I I used the last name from Shirley hazard but okay this is okay this is it's fictional but it feels real like it's one of those things where you always wish the quote to it.

2:41Ryan Holiday: Oh, see, that's why I think I haven't read it, because it's like a docudrama. But it's better. It's Hadrian as if he's writing down his memoirs for the benefit of Marcus Aurelius. Okay, that's amazing. It's so good. I don't know this book. You'll love it. Okay, great. Amazing. Okay, so we could do... Have you ever read Ambrose Bierce? He has, like, the greatest short story of all time, an occurrence at Owl Creek. Oh, right. I know that one. I know that one. So this is the Ambrose Bierce thing. Ambrose Bierce's father is named Lucius Verus Bierce. Okay. and his uncle is named Marcus Aurelius Pierce.

3:11Ryan Holiday: Whoa, they were committed. Yeah. And so he's very stoic themed. There's this great story in here. It's one of my favorites. It's called Parker Adderson Philosopher. Okay. And it's this guy who's about... you can take this one. Okay, is this mine? Okay. I'm gonna start. So he's about to be executed and he's sort of being very stoic. Which one? A philosopher? Parker Adderson Philosopher. Okay. So, you know, you're going to be, you know, you're captured, you're going to be put to death. And he's being very stoic about it. He's telling him death doesn't matter. He's not afraid. He's willing to die for his country, blah, blah, blah.

3:49Ryan Holiday: And then sort of towards the end, he goes, and of course, we'll be hanging you as a spy. And he freaks out. And he's like, and it turns out it's all, it's the message of the story is that it's all, it's very easy to pose as the philosopher until it gets real. And then it gets real until you're poking fun at it. But it's a great story. It's like you become a Christian in the trenches. Yes, exactly. John Williams, who wrote Stoner. This is about Augustus. I own this, but I love Stoner. It's not extremely stoic, but he does talk about Athenodorus, who was a stoic teacher who's his advisor. So there's a little smidgen of stoicism.

4:23Ryan Holiday: Let's see if we have Julius Caesar, just as I mentioned it. The play? The play. I read the play recently, and I don't remember that. So Portia Cato and Cato are the two stoic themes in that one. You know, Julius Caesar, I always thought was like the beginner's play. It's so good, though. It's incredible. I just, I read it maybe two years ago after reading it in high school and thinking it was just like a Romeo. I mean, Romeo and Juliet is great also, but they're all great. But I, it was, I just rediscovered it. But you kind of skip over like, oh wait, there's a female stoic character in Portia Cato.

4:55Ryan Holiday: Like she, like, cause Brutus gets all the attention because he does the deed, but it's like Brutus is actually wavering and it's in real life. It's Portia who's like, no, no, no, you got to do that. So there's this kind of, and she's Cato, the Stoic philosopher's daughter. Do you ever listen to Philosophize This? Stephen West. Oh my God. It's like, he's my philosopher king. He's so good. He's a philosopher. What you do to Stoicism, he kind of brings. Philosophy generally? Yeah. And brings it into modern day situations. But now he's going through Shakespeare's works. And he did Julius Caesar through the lens of philosophy at the time.

5:32and how Shakespeare really knew his philosophy deeply. And it's just about how it really is a kind of an allegory for the battling different philosophical systems is what the play of Julius Caesar is.

5:45Ryan Holiday: Well, and he's taking it from Plutarch. Shakespeare's taking it from Plutarch, which he's read. And Plutarch writes a bunch about, it's sort of critical of Stosis, but it's like Shakespeare was so good at mining source material and getting the essence of it and then fictionalizing it. Speaking of which, Thornton Wilder also wrote a novel about Julius Caesar called The Ides of March. Oh, okay, okay, that's good. Okay, amazing. I don't know if we have it. Oh, please, no, there's an abundance of riches.

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