In Defense of Gratuitous Violence

Marlon and Jake take on violence in fiction: what makes it effective, what makes it gratuitous, and whether “gratuitous violence” is even a useful distinction. Tune in as they discuss the difference between violence on the page and on screen and why extended cruelty can be harder to stomach than violence itself.

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• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
• Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs
• Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
• The Godfather by Mario Puzo
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley