University High School 5

The podcast discusses Benjamin Alire Sainz's book "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe." Sainz, who is of Latino descent, used writing as a way to overcome his fears and express his experiences as a person of color. The book explores themes of belonging, as the main characters struggle to find their place within their families and society. They also grapple with their own stigmas, including stereotypes and repression. The boys' relationships with their parents evolve throughout the story, with Ari becoming more open while Dante becomes more distant. Dante's journey includes discovering his sexuality, which complicates his relationship with his parents. Ari, on the other hand, feels disconnected from other boys his age, possibly due to his struggles with his own sexuality. Welcome to our podcast Untitled. I'm Georgia, and I'm Diego, and for the past several weeks we have been reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, a coming-of-age book by Benjamin Alire Sainz. Sainz was raised near Las Cruces, New Mexico. He's of Latino descent. He was married to a woman for 15 years before coming out as gay, and he struggled with his identity for a long time and saw writing as a means of overcoming his fears. And he's always seen writing as a form of expression, like he grew up in the 60s and 70s as a person of color, and it inspired him to write about Latino experiences, sexual identity, and racial and ethnic identities, and they're very prominent themes in this book. And I think that a lot of the themes in the book and what Benjamin Alire Sainz goes through is really reflective of what the characters go through, and they all struggle with their own individual stigmas, like belonging and stereotypes and repression. A theme I believe is ever-present throughout the book to its end is belonging, because from beginning to end the boys struggle to belong in different ways, like they don't feel really like they belong in their own homes or in their own family dynamic. Yeah, and especially in that they struggle with their families in different ways. They're almost parallels, like Ari's family is closed off, very distant, they deal with their own problems by themselves, and opposite, Dante's family is a little too involved, and he just feels like he just needs some space. Yeah, and I think that throughout the book we actually see that kind of relationship with the boys and their parents kind of flip for the both of them. Ari does become more open with his family, and Dante seems to kind of become more distant after moving to Chicago, starting to rebel, and I think that's when he is trying to discover where he belongs, and he's also discovering his sexuality, which is something that throws a wrench into what he perceives is his healthy relationship with his parents. Yeah, I also like to say that at the beginning of the book, Ari says a lot, like reinforces that he doesn't understand other boys, and the lifeguard at the pools would talk about girls or boys shooting birds out of the sky and stuff, and he just doesn't react similarly. He doesn't understand. I don't think he's on the same wavelength as other boys his age, and that could very well stem from his struggles with his sexuality, I think. But, yeah.