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In this long-form conversation, Milo and Jack speak with translator Simon Pare about the challenge of translating The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann for Oxford World’s Classics.

This discussion explores the language, style, and enormous technical challenges behind bringing one of the greatest novels of the 20th century into English. Simon discusses his new 2026 translation of The Magic Mountain, the legacy of earlier translators, and the strange experience of living inside Mann’s vast novel while translating it.

Topics include:

• Why Thomas Mann is so difficult to translate

• The challenge of translating The Magic Mountain’s long German sentences

• Hans Castorp, time, and the atmosphere of Davos

• Translation choices, compromises, and literary voice

• Settembrini, Naphta, Behrens, and Peeperkorn’s speech styles

• The legacy of H. T. Lowe-Porter and later English translations

• Translation theory and literary translation in practice

• Switzerland, Thomas Mann, and the culture surrounding the novel

• The relationship between language, rhythm, and character

The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) began as a short novella inspired by Thomas Mann’s visit to a Davos sanatorium and grew into a monumental meditation on time, illness, modernity, and European intellectual life before the First World War.

This interview focuses primarily on translation and language. A separate discussion with Richie Robertson on the novel’s themes and content will follow.

If you enjoy long-form literary conversations on literature, philosophy, translation, and European culture, please consider subscribing to Solomon & Smith.

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This long-form conversation explores the New Testament, the four Gospels, and the problem of biblical interpretation with New Testament scholar John Nelson. Together we examine contradiction, canon, authorship, apocalyptic expectation, and the strange literary texture of early Christian scripture.

A recurring theme throughout the discussion is the idea that contradiction may not weaken scripture, but deepen it. Rather than flattening the Gospels into a single harmonized account, we explore the possibility that their tensions, disagreements, and competing emphases are precisely what make them intellectually and spiritually alive. The Gospels become less a single voice than a conversation unfolding across texts, communities, and centuries.

We also explore:

The collapse of biblical literalism and reconstruction of faith

Why the Gospels disagree on the date of Jesus’ death

The “Messianic Secret” and why Jesus hides his identity in Mark

The strange anonymous figures of the Gospels, including the Beloved Disciple

Apocalyptic expectation in Jesus and Paul

How Christianity adapted after the delayed apocalypse

The development of the biblical canon and pseudonymous epistles

John’s Gospel, mysticism, and accusations of Gnosticism

Whether scripture should be read as history, theology, literature, or all three at once

From Mark’s abrupt ending to John’s cosmic theology, this conversation examines the New Testament as a dynamic and evolving body of texts—one shaped as much by interpretation and argument as by doctrine itself.

Whether you are interested in biblical studies, theology, literary interpretation, church history, or the philosophy of religion, this discussion provides a detailed and nuanced exploration of how the Christian scriptures were written, interpreted, and transformed.

00:00:00 Contradictions in scripture

00:00:55 Introduction

00:03:59 John Nelson and losing fundamentalism

00:12:04 Scripture, literalism, and reading historically

00:17:14 Why the Gospels disagree

00:27:32 The date of Jesus’ death

00:29:48 The strange mysteries of the Gospels

00:32:58 The Messianic Secret in Mark

00:41:05 Why Jesus hides his identity

00:47:21 Apocalypse and the end of the world

00:50:22 John’s Gospel and delayed eschatology

00:56:12 Canon, revision, and rewriting scripture

01:00:48 Gnosticism and non-canonical gospels

01:04:20 Can the biblical canon change?

01:10:47 Pseudonymous epistles and authorship

01:18:00 The Beloved Disciple

01:22:57 Closing poem and conclusion

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There is nothing more intimate than reading.

A book is not just paper, ink -- it isn't just an information-convoybelt. Somehow, through a handful of symbols, another consciousness begins speaking inside your mind. Across centuries, across languages, across death — reading allows one soul to inhabit another.

In this conversation, Professor Brian Cummings joins Jack and Milo to explore the strange power of books, writing, and reading.

What was intended as a discussion about the history of the book — from scrolls and manuscripts to Shakespeare’s First Folio — became something much richer and stranger: a philosophical exploration of consciousness, memory, religion, imagination, and why human beings treat books as almost sacred objects.

We discuss:

• Why reading feels like experiencing another soul

• Plato, Aristotle, and the philosophy of writing

• Shakespeare and the invention of literary immortality

• Why religions become “religions of the book”

• The mystery of language and symbols

• Tolkien, Dostoevsky, Milton, Borges, Beckett, and the first books that changed us

• Why owning books matters psychologically

• Whether books are humanity’s greatest technology

• The strange relationship between writers, readers, and consciousness itself

“If the soul is like a book, then reading is another person walking beside you.”

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This long-form conversation explores medieval travel, pilgrimage, and imagination with Professor Anthony Bale (University of Cambridge). We examine how people in the Middle Ages understood a world they knew to be vast, real, and inhabited—yet only partially accessible, navigable, or comprehensible.

A central theme is the tension between knowledge and uncertainty. Medieval travellers were often moving through spaces that were both physically real and imaginatively constructed: Jerusalem as both a city and a spiritual landscape; distant regions like Ethiopia or India as places shaped as much by myth as by experience. Travel writing reflects this duality—combining observation, theology, hearsay, and invention in ways that resist modern distinctions between fact and fiction.

We also explore:

* The difference between migration and “travel” as a chosen, meaningful journey

* Pilgrimage as both spiritual discipline and early form of tourism

* The role of Venice, the Franciscans, and the Mamluks in structuring routes to the Holy Land

* The economics of travel: currencies, credit, and material goods

* Language barriers, miscommunication, and strategies for getting by

* Figures such as Margery Kempe and the limits of medieval curiosity

* The persistence of myths like Prester John and their explanatory function

Throughout, the discussion returns to a broader question: how do people make sense of a world that exceeds their knowledge? Medieval travel offers one answer—not through systematic understanding, but through narrative, belief, and selective attention.

Whether you are interested in medieval history, literature, religion, or the philosophy of travel, this conversation provides a detailed and nuanced introduction to how movement shaped the medieval imagination.

00:00:00 Medieval world, mystery, and Prester John

00:01:01 Introduction

00:06:26 Anthony Bale

00:08:40 Becoming a medievalist

00:14:08 Medieval travel and modern tourism

00:23:09 Margery Kempe and pilgrimage inwardness

00:28:57 Jerusalem routes, Mamluks, and pilgrimage structure

00:38:14 Venice, money, and travel logistics

00:46:57 Language, misunderstanding, and communication

00:57:26 Beyond Europe: India, Ethiopia, China

01:00:50 Prester John and the unknown world

01:02:08 Conclusion

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This long-form interview explores the nature of devotional poetry in the 17th century, focusing on major figures such as John Donne, George Herbert, and their contemporaries. Together with Professor Helen Wilcox (Bangor University), we examine how early modern poets grappled with one of the central paradoxes of religious writing: the sense that language is both essential and ultimately insufficient to express God.

A recurring theme in this discussion is the idea that God exceeds language. Even the most inventive and intellectually rigorous poets—Donne with his metaphysical conceits, Herbert with his formal precision—acknowledge a limit to expression. Poetry becomes an act of striving: an attempt to articulate the divine while recognizing that it can never be fully contained in words.

We also explore:

The relationship between devotional poetry and prayer

The overlap between love poetry and religious expression

The influence of the Psalms and biblical translation

The role of music, liturgy, and communal worship

The tension between private faith and public poetry

The cultural and historical context of post-Reformation England

From the metaphysical intensity of Donne to Herbert’s quieter devotional struggles, this conversation offers an in-depth look at how poets used language to approach what lies beyond it—and why they so often felt they failed.

Whether you're interested in literature, theology, philosophy, or early modern history, this discussion provides a rich introduction to one of the most intellectually and spiritually complex traditions in English poetry.

00:00:00 Introduction

00:14:15 Is devotional poetry a form of prayer?

00:30:50 Should we only write to improve people's lives?

00:41:30 You can only remake a religion in a group - not alone

00:47:00 What we most relish in Donne

00:53:15 Can we find poets in their poems?

01:00:40 Devotion in the modern world

01:14:40 Devotional poetry and music

01:26:49 A blind man describing the abyss

01:38:14 The 18th century is a desert

01:46:00 Magnolia trees in full bloom

00:00:00 Introduction

00:06:00 Becky arrives - Cambridge slander

00:11:25 London slander

00:15:45 The Middle Ages

00:19:05 Actual beginning of interview

00:29:05 The intellect, the imagination

00:40:27 Teaching the Cloud

00:53:16 Words for God - Om - Words for Flowers

01:06:00 Many religions stuffed in one big bag

01:20:30 To love language, love the world, yet go beyond it

01:35:00 Meditation as preparation for death

01:43:29 The Cloud as a practice

01:53:30 Bible study as an intense book-club

02:00:10 Give yourself to the void

02:08:30 A single moment of reality is worth eternity

02:11:47 A composition based on Cloud

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How much do movies (especially schlocky movies) really shape what we believe?

In this episode of Solomon & Smith, we sit down with religious studies professor Dr. Joe Lacock to talk about how horror films like The Exorcist didn’t just reflect culture—they changed it.

We speak about the rise of modern exorcisms, figures like the Bradys (infleunce for the Conjuring franchise) the spread of the satanic panic, and other conspiracy theories, such as the Lizard people. We break down the surprising feedback loop between pop culture and real-world belief systems.

How does entertainment quietly influence how millions of people see reality itself?

What We Cover:

How The Exorcist influenced real exorcism practices

Why satanic panic took off in America

The link between horror films and religious belief

How media shapes fear, faith, and conspiracy thinking

Why educated people aren’t immune to these effects

Please help up to keep these conversations going, and join our reading community, by supporting us over on Patreon

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In this episode we talk to Professor Sue Niebrzydowski (Bangor) about Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe—two women who claimed to experience intense visions of the divine, but whose lives could not have been more different. Julian's visions drove her into intense isolation as an anchorite—and Margery Kempe's threw her out into the world, to travel, preached, and openly shar her experiences.

The hidden world of anchorites and medieval solitude

Public vs private expressions of faith

Mysticism, madness, and medieval psychology

How society judged female visionaries

The origins of some of the earliest writing by women in English

How people distinguished God visions from Devil visions from mental illness