Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick is joined by Dr. Joseph Boyne to discuss Flannery O'Connor's "Enduring Chill" as part of Short Story September.

Visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for our reading schedule, articles, and a whole host of written guides.

Asbury Fox, the failed New York writer who returns home to his mother’s dairy farm convinced he is dying a tragic, Kafka-esque death, meets a rural doctor, two farmhands who refuse to share his resentment, and a deaf, one-eyed priest from Purrgatory who simply walks him through the Baltimore Catechism. What begins as another Southern Gothic confrontation with pride becomes something rarer in O’Connor: a dark comedy in which the protagonist desires of a romantic death are met with an enduring chill.

Dr. Boyne and Dcn. Garlick draw out the story’s autobiographical shadows, its critique of performative liberalism and abstract love of humanity, and the way O’Connor uses both the Jesuit in New York and the homely Father Finn to insist that meaning—and grace—cannot be manufactured from the self. The conversation lingers on the water-stain dove that descends as ice rather than fire, the question of whether the tale is comic or merely purgatorial, and what it means for those of us who prize the Great Books that education, by itself, is never enough.

Listeners who have been scarred by “The Lame Shall Enter First” will find this one far easier to finish—and far more unsettling in its quiet demand that we keep living.

Chapters

00:05 — Podcast intro and the reading plan for Short Story September

01:01 — Introducing Enduring Chill and Dr. Joseph Boyne

03:21 — Why Dr. Boyne picked the story

05:00 — Flannery O’Connor and the Southern Gothic tradition

12:55 — The grotesque, violence, and grace in O’Connor

20:32 — Asbury returns home and the education theme

30:30 — Asbury’s desire for a meaningful death and the Jesuit in New York

41:42 — Dr. Block and Asbury’s confrontation with illness

50:00 — The dairy farm, the black workers, and failed communion

57:13 — Asking for a priest and the dream sequence

70:29 — Father Finn arrives and subverts Asbury’s expectations

80:31 — Randall and Morgan return

85:34 — Dr. Block diagnoses the illness correctly

87:40 — Final scene: the Holy Ghost in ice and the enduring chill

96:23 — Closing reflections on O’Connor and the story’s meaning

Keywords

Flannery O’Connor The Enduring Chill short story analysis, Ascend the Great Books Podcast Short Story September episode with Deacon Harrison Garlick and Dr. Joseph Boyne of Tulsa Community College, Southern Gothic literature, Catholic short stories, Christ-haunted South, Asbury Fox character study, Jesuit priest Ignatius Vogle, Father Finn from Purgatory, Baltimore Catechism, Holy Spirit as ice instead of fire, undulant fever raw milk irony, performative liberalism and racial condescension, education versus practical wisdom, grotesque as medium of grace, O’Connor comedy versus tragedy, Good Country People comparison, lupus and autobiographical elements, Great Books education critique, upcoming Plato Republic series, Robert E. Howard Red Shadows Solomon Kane, Neil Gaiman Chivalry with Archduke Eduard Habsburg, Herman Melville Bartleby the Scrivener.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick hosts a full house to discuss the short, strange, forgotten dialogue of Plato's Ion, subtitled "On the Iliad."

10 Question Written Guide on Plato's Ion

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Plato’s Ion opens with a victorious rhapsode who claims to speak more beautifully about Homer than any other human being. Socrates grants the premise that a true rhapsode must not merely recite but interpret the poet’s thought to his hearers—and then tests whether that excellence is a techne, a teachable art that should apply across all poets who treat the same subjects.

Ion fails the test. He is “asleep” except when Homer is mentioned. Socrates therefore offers another account: poets and rhapsodes work not by craft but by divine mania. The Muse is a lodestone, and poet, reciter, and audience form a chain of possession. Ion recognizes himself at once. On stage he is outside himself, and he can move twenty thousand hearers to tears and terror (with a subtle nod in the dialogue about the desire to make money...).

The dialogue then presses the distinction between speaking beautifully and speaking correctly. On charioteering, medicine, and the other arts present in Homer, the expert—not the rhapsode—speaks rightly. Unwilling to admit he has no art at all, Ion seizes the last remaining claim and declares himself the best general. The identification is absurd, and the conversation nearly collapses. Socrates leaves him a choice: to be called unjust, or divine. Ion takes the latter. Skill and inspiration remain unreconciled. What the short work has done is place poetry, possession, and the education of the city on the table—and prepare the larger judgment of the poets that the Republic will make.

Chapters

00:00 - Welcome to Ascend and overview of the episode's purpose

01:05 - Introducing Ion and the returning and first-time guests

02:29 - Erik Rostad explains Book of Titans and his lifelong reading project

06:28 - First reactions to Ion and its perplexing character

07:11 - Preliminary framing: subtitle, translation, and why the dialogue matters

10:10 - Ion's claim to be the finest speaker on Homer

11:44 - What techne means in this dialogue

20:00 - Does Ion really claim knowledge, or only beautiful performance?

23:50 - Ion's claim that no one else speaks more finely on Homer

28:37 - The question of poetry as a better educator than philosophy

31:03 - Ion admits he dozes off when other poets are discussed

38:45 - The magnet metaphor and the chain of divine influence

44:32 - Is divine inspiration irrational, or can it be a real source of truth?

55:31 - A third sense of possession: skill, demonization, and being subsumed into beauty

60:15 - Ion says he watches the crowd and adjusts for money and effect

62:49 - Does Ion have a real art, or is he just managing audience response?

70:29 - The charioteer, the physician, and whether Socrates is being fair

72:26 - Does philosophy itself become a narrow specialty in the same way?

76:03 - Why actors may be excellent performers but poor explainers of their craft

78:10 - Socrates as a guide toward self-recognition of Ion's actual techne

87:25 - Plato as storyteller and the philosopher's need for a better story

90:20 - Storytelling, parables, and the pedagogical power of narrative

92:37 - Plato's self-reflection on his own art and craft

94:36 - The unresolved tension between inspiration and skill

99:44 - Closing thanks

Keywords

Plato’s Ion, On the Iliad, Ion of Ephesus, rhapsode, Homer, Iliad, Odyssey, technē, techne, divine inspiration, mania, theia moira, magnet metaphor, lodestone, Muse, speaking beautifully, speaking correctly, kalos, orthos, Socratic dialogue, forgotten Platonic dialogues, aporetic dialogue, poetry versus philosophy, education of the city, Republic Book 10, poets as imitators, Allan Bloom, Thomas Pangle, Roots of Political Philosophy, Debra Nails, Dr. Frank Grabowski, Thomas Lackey, Jack Drury, Erik Rostad, Book of Titans, Ascend the Great Books Podcast, rhapsodic contest, Asclepieia, Epidaurus, generalship, polymathy, Plato as dramatist.

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Larson, Dr. Grabowski, and Mr. Thomas Lackey discuss the short, strange, and forgotten dialogue of HIppias Minor or "On the Lie."

8 Questions on Hippias Minor Study Guide

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Plato’s Hippias Minor is a short, strange dialogue with a traditional subtitle that cuts straight to the point: “On the Lie.” After the boastful sophist Hippias finishes a public speech ranking Achilles the best and Odysseus the most polytropos—the man of twists and turns—Socrates is drawn into a conversation that begins with Homer and ends in one of the deepest aporias of the early dialogues.

What starts as a dispute over who is the better man, the straightforward Achilles or the wily Odysseus, quickly becomes a rigorous examination of voluntary versus involuntary wrongdoing, the nature of knowledge and power, and the unsettling claim that the man who does injustice on purpose is better than the one who does it by accident.

Deacon and the guests work through the dialogue’s sharp arguments and its surprising relevance. The conversation exposes the limits of treating virtue as mere knowledge plus power, raises the question of whether a just person might ever speak falsely for a good end, and serves as a genuine appetizer for the noble lie in the Republic.

Come listen—and discover why even Socrates, at the end, cannot agree with himself.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Hippias Minor and its Context

04:55 Setting the Scene: Hippias' Speech and Socrates' Role

09:22 Hippias' Boasts and Socrates' Irony

17:55 The Homeric Heroes: Achilles and Odysseus

25:04 Knowledge, Power, and the Art of Lying

36:15 The Distinction Between Capacity and Action

44:53 The Nature of Truth and Falsehood in Socratic Dialogue

46:43 Conclusion: What Socrates Reveals About Knowledge and Lies

02:39 Socrates' questioning of Hippias and the nature of virtue

04:55 The analogy of athletic competitions and the concept of justice

07:57 Socrates' discussion on voluntary and involuntary actions

12:05 The role of knowledge and capacity in moral actions

15:34 Hippias' understanding of justice and its relation to power

19:50 The concept of noble lies and pedagogical deception

25:04 The absence of forms and gods in the dialogue

30:14 The deeper meaning of Socratic ignorance and self-awareness

34:54 The significance of the question: Is justice knowledge or power?

39:51 Conclusion: What we learn about virtue, knowledge, and truth

Keywords

Plato’s Hippias Minor, Lesser Hippias, On the Lie, Hippias of Elis, Achilles and Odysseus, polytropos, voluntary and involuntary wrongdoing, voluntary liar, Socratic dialogue, aporetic dialogue, forgotten Platonic dialogues, noble lie, Republic, virtue is knowledge, knowledge and power, sophist, polymath, Eudicus, Embassy scene Iliad, teleology, Forms, Socratic irony, beneficial falsehood, Dr. Frank Grabowski, Dr. Brett Larson, Thomas Lackey, Ascend the Great Books Podcast, political philosophy, Allan Bloom, Roots of Political Philosophy.

Next week we discuss Plato's Ion!