On Sunday the 15th, the finale of the first season of HBO’s dramatic comedy, The White Lotus, aired. The six-episode series, directed by showrunner Mike White (Illuminated), chronicles a week in the life of a group of guests and staff at a tropical resort in Hawaii. The series has received considerable critical acclaim, and the second season has been greenlit, which will follow a new cast of characters at yet another white lotus resort. according to variety, the series debut has already been watched by more than seven million viewers.
One of the things the show gets right is its critique of clueless, privileged white people, which in turn also brings to the fore the legacy of colonialism and the exploitative evils of the tourism industry. As with HBO’s other string of recent hits, viewers can’t seem to get enough of rich white people feeling miserable and behaving badly. In a review for the New Yorker, Naomi Fry hails the show as “one of the best of the year,” calling it “an examination of what happens when the veneer of conventional sociability dissolves and power struggles fueled by race, class, and gender spring from beneath the surface of everyday life.”
You are reading: The books of the white lotus
In fact, the white lotus may feel sympathy for some of its characters, but that does not mean that it excuses their faults. And while a show’s wardrobe can provide significant insight into a character’s personality and inner psyche, so can the reading choices. the books seen reading the characters act as an extension of their characters, speaking to the dynamics of relationships. An obvious example is college friends Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and Paula (Brittany O’Grady), who wear books like badges of honor and have a habit of reading Camille Paglia and Frantz Fanon poolside. In the third episode, Shane (Jake Lacy) tries to flirt with Olivia and Paula by joking about the books they are reading. Olivia ironically replies, “no, they’re just props.”
mike white told the wall street journal that book choices spoke to “something about who they are, or how they want to be seen.” Regarding olivia and paula specifically, white said, “they’re the kind of young women i’ve met who have a command of all the latest slang and is able to reduce everything to a cultural stereotype in a funny and cutting way—and then you add an intellectual approach as well.”
Below are the titles that appear in the white lotus. I can’t really say that these are all your standard beach reads, but because the outside world causes me enough stress and pain, I tend to pick beach reads that offer solid escapism. Regardless of your reading leanings, these books are sure to inspire contemplation and/or lively discussion. Or, at the very least, they’ll totally add to your dark academia aesthetic, if you’re after that kind of vibe.
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See Also: Chris Knopf – Book Series In Order
friedrich nietzsche, the laptop nietzsche and sigmund freud, the interpretation of dreams
when we first see olivia and paula, they are reading nietzsche and freud by the pool. Translated by one of the world’s leading authorities on Nietzsche, this volume presents the complete, unabridged texts of Nietzsche’s four major works: Twilight of the Idols, Antichrist, Nietzsche vs. Wagner, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Freud’s Dream Interpretation examines the meaning of dreams, why we dream, and more. Nietzsche seems to be the darling of college students who want to be taken seriously, at least in the world of film. (Prime example: Josh (Paul Rudd) in Clueless reads Nietzsche by the pool, complete with sunglasses and an all-black ensemble.)
elena ferrante, my brilliant friend
Rachel (Alexandra Daddario) is a working-class newlywed who isn’t sure she made the right decision in marrying Shane (Jake Lacy). Shane comes from a wealthy family that favors traditional gender roles. When Rachel tells her mother-in-law (Molly Shannon) Kitty that she wants a fulfilling career, Kitty dismisses her wishes and advocates a “career” as a trophy wife. White told the Wall Street Journal: “I love Elena Ferrante’s books, but they’re a bit trendy. Rachel is not one to read an obscure book. she made me feel like she’s a smart reader, but she’s also trendy, and maybe a bit behind the trend.”
camille paglia, sexual personae and frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth
olivia and paula choose these books for another poolside outing. in sexual personae, paglia examines the connections between art and pagan ritual. Fanon’s The Wretched of the Land (originally published as les damnés de la terre in 1961), is a groundbreaking study of race, colonialism, and psychological trauma.
See Also: How to Loan Kindle eBooks to Your Friends and Family? – Hooked To Books
malcolm gladwell, blinking
unlike olivia and paula, shane is limited to one book for the entire trip. Gladwell’s bestseller seems like a safe choice for a man who has the emotional depth of a teaspoon. White told the Wall Street Journal, “It seems to be piquing his curiosity, but he hasn’t gone very deep. [gladwell] is the kind of writer who makes you feel smart as you read it, whether you are or not.” Though seemingly approachable, Gladwell has come under fire in recent years.
judith butler, gender issues
Seen in a brief flash, Paula pulls Butler’s gender issue out of her bag. This scholarly work, published when Butler was 33, argues that the genre is a form of improvised performance. In a 2016 interview with The Cut, Butler reflected on the book’s legacy: “In many ways, it’s a very old-fashioned book. . . and it is one that was not able to benefit from the extraordinary scholarship that happened in that area [trans identities] in the intervening years.” Still, without gender issues, we wouldn’t have the “gender queerness that we have now,” she told the court, Jack Halberstam, a professor of gender studies at Columbia.
aimé césaire, discourse on colonialism and jacques lacan, Écrits
at the end of their journey, the two young women are seen reading césaire and lacan at the airport. the discourse on colonialism examines the impact of colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized. Lacan’s work unravels otherness, subjectivity, sexual difference, drives, law and jouissance. At this point in the series, the cracks in Olivia and Paula’s friendship have opened like a weak dam. the choice of books could be read as an extension of this tense relationship. Paula, a woman of color, has had a sneaking suspicion that Olivia, despite her protests to the contrary, is just like her parents: privileged whites content to live in their own gilt cage, taking from others. they consider inferior. Olivia, who desperately wants to be seen as a “good white person” and not her parents, has deliberately chosen a book to support this self-created image. However, as Amanda Whiting puts it in her recap of the final episode’s Vulture, “Paula’s right that Olivia isn’t that different from her parents, but Paula isn’t that different, either.” Indeed, as Olivia and Paula’s characterization captures, we go through life struggling with two conflicting ideas: the person we think we are, and the person we present or “perform” to the world.
See Also: The value of owning more books than you can read – Big Think