The Other Problem that Has No Name - The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana

Getting Lit with Linda - The Canadian Literature Podcast

Perhaps strangely, Linda applies Betty Friedan’s 1963 feminist critique of patriarchal society The Feminine Mystique, and specifically the text “The Problem That Has No Name,” to The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana. An Australian/British author, Khurana wrote this very fine debut novel about the real-life events of two young men from Port Alberni, Northern BC and about their toxic masculinity. This novel thus addresses another problem not yet properly identified, except perhaps in more general ways: disaffected or disconnected young men in Western society, who are situated in that space between adolescence and adulthood, and who are making key decisions about who they will become as they mature.

Linda calls upon Sarah Dowling’s very fine study, Here is a Figure: Grounding Literary Form to examine how that problem has been represented in literature in terms of upright (radicalized white male) figures and prone or supine figures (victims, casualties, gendered subjects). ButThe Passenger Seat suggests a posture that is somewhere in-between. And what is that posture and who is implicated? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out....

Host/Writer: Linda Morra

Associate Producer: Maia Harris

Music: Raphael Krux

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