—Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing period.—Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his name is, say of it?—Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter’s child. My dearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid. Will any man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother?—The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. L’art d’être grand...—Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added, another image?Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all men.James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is sometimes considered the greatest novel of all time, and sometimes considered an impenetrable brick of a book. In celebration of its centenary and on the anniversary of the day the book is set (Bloomsday!) Chris and Suzanne trace the paths of its characters through the streets of Dublin, revel in its sensuous writing, and consider what approaches to reading the book encourages.SHOW NOTES.James Joyce: Ulysses. [Bookshop. Project Gutenberg.]Also by Joyce: Chamber Music. Dubliners. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Finnegans Wake.We refer to several books we’ve discussed in previous episodes: The Odyssey; Mrs. Dalloway; The Divine Comedy; Middlemarch; A Moveable Feast; W; I Am Woman.Don Gifford: Ulysses Annotated.Harry Blamires: The New Bloomsday Book.Patrick Hastings: Ulyssesguide.com and The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses.The Joyce Project offers a heavily annotated copy of the text.An overview of the censoring of Ulysses in the US.An image of the edition with giant letters.A lecture by Johnna Purchase on graphic design and Ulysses.Écriture feminine.James Heffernen on Woolf’s reading of Joyce. The pharmacy mentioned in Ulysses.Tracing Stephen Dedalus's gay desires.Kate Bush is having a moment right now, so let’s add her adaptation of Molly’s speech, The Sensual World.Next: Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.

—Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing period.—Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his name is, say of it?—Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter’s child. My dearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid. Will any man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother?—The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. L’art d’être grand...—Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added, another image?Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all men.James Joyce’s novel Ulysses is sometimes considered the greatest novel of all time, and sometimes considered an impenetrable brick of a book. In celebration of its centenary and on the anniversary of the day the book is set (Bloomsday!) Chris and Suzanne trace the paths of its characters through the streets of Dublin, revel in its sensuous writing, and consider what approaches to reading the book encourages.SHOW NOTES.James Joyce: <a href="https://amzn.to/3NUO9zT" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulysses</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780679722762" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>.]Also by Joyce: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2817" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chamber Music</a>. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2814" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dubliners</a>. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4217" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</a>. <a href="https://amzn.to/3HuHjPa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Finnegans Wake</a>.We refer to several books we’ve discussed in previous episodes: <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/15" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Odyssey</a>; <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/56" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mrs. Dalloway</a>; <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/tag/Divine+Comedy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Divine Comedy</a>; <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Middlemarch</a>; <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/19" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast</a>; <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/33" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">W</a>; <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/51" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Am Woman</a>.Don Gifford: <a href="https://amzn.to/3xvnyTb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulysses Annotated</a>.Harry Blamires: <a href="https://amzn.to/3aXBDRH" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The New Bloomsday Book</a>.Patrick Hastings: <a href="http://ulyssesguide.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulyssesguide.com</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/3xPOpK3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Guide to James Joyce’s Ulysses</a>.<a href="https://www.joyceproject.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Joyce Project</a> offers a heavily annotated copy of the text.<a href="https://crimereads.com/banned-books-ulysses-joyce-morris-ernst/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An overview of the censoring of Ulysses in the US.</a><a href="https://joelinker.com/2012/06/15/smp-sine-mascula-prole-preparatory-to-bloomsday/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An image of the edition with giant letters.</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1fGkGkbylM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A lecture by Johnna Purchase on graphic design and Ulysses.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89criture_f%C3%A9minine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Écriture feminine.</a><a href="https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/woolfs-reading-of-james-joyces-ulysses-1918-1920/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">James Heffernen on Woolf’s reading of Joyce.</a><a href="https://lithub.com/fighting-to-save-the-real-life-pharmacy-from-james-joyces-ulysses/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The pharmacy mentioned in Ulysses.</a><a href="https://lithub.com/cranlys-arm-on-finding-and-seeking-gay-desire-in-joyce/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tracing Stephen Dedalus's gay desires.</a>Kate Bush is having a moment right now, so let’s add her adaptation of Molly’s speech, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1DDndY0FLI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sensual World</a>.Next: Ralph Ellison: <a href="https://amzn.to/3NWobwd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Invisible Man</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780679732761" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.</a>

57. Ulysses.

Clarissa had a theory in those days—they had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said, sitting on the bus going up Shaftesbury Avenue, she felt herself everywhere; not “here, here, here”; and she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere. She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue. She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that traces the lives of several characters over the course of a single day in June 1923. The novel jumps between characters, tracing their inner monologues and their memories as they go about London, reminisce about their younger days, and worry about where their lives have brought them. Suzanne and Chris explore this web of connections and parallel lives, and dwell on particular moments of intensity: an overheard conversation at a party, an unexpected kiss, or even riding a bus.[Content warning: the novel and the episode contains discussion of mental illness and suicide.]SHOW NOTES.Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway. [Bookshop.]Some annotated editions of Mrs. Dalloway have come out recently.Our episodes on To the Lighthouse and Orlando.The Hogarth Press.We didn’t talk about the effect of the pandemic on the book, but here’s an article about reading Mrs. Dalloway in the shadow of our own pandemic.Ned Blackhawk: Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West.Charles Wilkinson: Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations.Bram Stoker: Dracula.Chris talks about Dracula on another podcast.Dracula Daily.Our episode on John Donne.Next: James Joyce: Ulysses. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon. (Thanks!)

Clarissa had a theory in those days—they had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said, sitting on the bus going up Shaftesbury Avenue, she felt herself everywhere; not “here, here, here”; and she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere. She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue. She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that traces the lives of several characters over the course of a single day in June 1923. The novel jumps between characters, tracing their inner monologues and their memories as they go about London, reminisce about their younger days, and worry about where their lives have brought them. Suzanne and Chris explore this web of connections and parallel lives, and dwell on particular moments of intensity: an overheard conversation at a party, an unexpected kiss, or even riding a bus.[Content warning: the novel and the episode contains discussion of mental illness and suicide.]SHOW NOTES.Virginia Woolf: <a href="https://amzn.to/3MRc9Uo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mrs. Dalloway</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780156628709" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/mrs-dalloway-virginia-woolf-merve-emre-anne-fernald-book-review-emily-kopley/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Some annotated editions of Mrs. Dalloway have come out recently.</a>Our episodes on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/13" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To the Lighthouse</a> and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/48" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Orlando</a>.<a href="https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/the-hogarth-press" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hogarth Press.</a>We didn’t talk about the effect of the pandemic on the book, but <a href="https://lithub.com/the-work-of-living-goes-on-rereading-mrs-dalloway-during-an-endless-pandemic/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here’s an article about reading Mrs. Dalloway in the shadow of our own pandemic</a>.Ned Blackhawk: <a href="https://amzn.to/3yWWb6T" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West</a>.Charles Wilkinson: <a href="https://amzn.to/3LX3NcB" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations</a>.Bram Stoker: <a href="https://amzn.to/3lBoXSK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dracula</a>.<a href="https://www.itsjustashow.com/episode/111" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris talks about Dracula on another podcast.</a><a href="https://draculadaily.substack.com/about" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dracula Daily.</a>Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/39" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">John Donne</a>.Next: James Joyce: <a href="https://amzn.to/3LMRAqy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulysses</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780679722762" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.</a> (Thanks!)

56. Mrs. Dalloway.

Sandow Birk

I’ve always struggled, since I went to art school, with the question of: What is the career of making paintings in the twenty-first century? Of sitting alone in a room and painting in a way people did 500 years ago, in the world of technology and movies and stuff. So I always wanted to make works that are about now, but then show that they’re coming out of the history of art and are tied to art history… And to say, look, see how the history of art keeps moving forward, and it’s still connected… It’s sort of a way to try to prove that painting matters.Sandow Birk is an artist whose works have dealt with contemporary life in its entirety, exploring themes such as inner city violence, graffiti, political issues, travel, war, and prisons, as well as surfing and skateboarding. Some of his work specifically engages with the kinds of “great books” that we explore here at the Spouter-Inn, including an illustrated version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, reworked with Marcus Sanders, from 2005, as well as the American Qur’an, published in 2016.Sandow joins us to discuss these two projects and the impulse of reading a centuries-old text and saying: What if this were here and now? What would that look like?SHOW NOTES.Sandow Birk’s website includes illustrations from the Divine Comedy, the American Qur’an, and other works we discuss.The Divine Comedy. [Bookshop.]American Qur’an. [Bookshop.]A talk Sandow gave about the American Qur’an (introduced by Karla Mallette, who spoke with us about Purgatorio!)Gustave Doré’s illustrations for the Divine Comedy.Matthew Collins, ed.: Reading Dante with Images.Dante’s Inferno, the animated film.Kent Monkman.The Chester Beatty. Arion Press and their editions of  The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde and Moby-Dick.Machado de Assis: The Posthumous Memories of Brás Cubas.Roberto Bolaño: 2666.Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic, on Patreon! Thanks.

I’ve always struggled, since I went to art school, with the question of: What is the career of making paintings in the twenty-first century? Of sitting alone in a room and painting in a way people did 500 years ago, in the world of technology and movies and stuff. So I always wanted to make works that are about now, but then show that they’re coming out of the history of art and are tied to art history… And to say, look, see how the history of art keeps moving forward, and it’s still connected… It’s sort of a way to try to prove that painting matters.Sandow Birk is an artist whose works have dealt with contemporary life in its entirety, exploring themes such as inner city violence, graffiti, political issues, travel, war, and prisons, as well as surfing and skateboarding. Some of his work specifically engages with the kinds of “great books” that we explore here at the Spouter-Inn, including an illustrated version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, reworked with Marcus Sanders, from 2005, as well as the American Qur’an, published in 2016.Sandow joins us to discuss these two projects and the impulse of reading a centuries-old text and saying: What if this were here and now? What would that look like?SHOW NOTES.<a href="https://sandowbirk.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sandow Birk’s website</a> includes illustrations from the <a href="https://sandowbirk.com/divine-comedy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Divine Comedy</a>, the <a href="https://sandowbirk.com/american-quran" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">American Qur’an</a>, and other works we discuss.<a href="https://amzn.to/3wfMEGm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Divine Comedy</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780811856577" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://amzn.to/3wzfFMd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">American Qur’an</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9781631490187" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPbTl1EYFpE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A talk Sandow gave about the American Qur’an</a> (introduced by Karla Mallette, who <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/34b" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">spoke with us about Purgatorio</a>!)<a href="http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_dore.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gustave Doré’s illustrations for the Divine Comedy.</a>Matthew Collins, ed.: <a href="https://amzn.to/3wfPMSC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Reading Dante with Images</a>.<a href="https://www.dantefilm.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dante’s Inferno</a>, the animated film.<a href="https://www.kentmonkman.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kent Monkman.</a>The <a href="http://chesterbeatty.ie/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chester Beatty</a>. <a href="https://www.arionpress.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Arion Press</a> and their editions of <a href="https://www.arionpress.com/store/114-the-fairy-tales-of-oscar-wilde" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520045484/moby-dick-or-the-whale" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Moby-Dick</a>.Machado de Assis: <a href="https://amzn.to/3PoOpZi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Posthumous Memories of Brás Cubas</a>.Roberto Bolaño: <a href="https://amzn.to/3yHwR4G" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2666</a>.<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic, on Patreon!</a> Thanks.

55b. Bonus: Sandow Birk on the Divine Comedy.

At this point I admit my defeat;	no poet, comic or tragic, ever was	more outdone by his theme than I am nowfor, as sunlight does to the weakest eyes,	so did the mere thought of her lovely smile	strike every recognition from my mind.From the first day that I beheld her face	in this life till the vision of her now,	I could trust in my poems to sing her praise,but now I must stop trying to pursue	her beauty in my verse, for I have done	as much as any artist at his best.Dante’s Divine Comedy comes to an end with Paradiso, as Beatrice guides him through the nine spheres of Heaven to his ultimate encounter with God. But how does Dante approach describing a place filled with people who are satisfied basking in God’s indescribable glory? And how does he reconcile his obsession with measuring out time while also trying to contend with timelessness? Suzanne and Chris think through endings and puddings.SHOW NOTES.Dante: Paradiso. [Bookshop.]That’s the Mark Musa translation; see also the Singleton and the Sanders/Birk versions.Our episodes on Inferno and Purgatorio.Also by Dante: De Vulgari Eloquentia; La Vita Nuova; Convivio; De Monarchia.Sandow Birk’s Dante illustrations, including the Rose.Our episodes on Paradise Lost and the Confessions.Rare audio of Erich Auerbach giving a lecture on “The Three Traits of Dante’s Poetry” in March 1948.Robert Heinlein: The Door into Summer.The relevent episode on Chris’s other podcast will be out in a few days.Jorge Luis Borges: Labyrinths.William Shakespeare: The Winter’s Tale.Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife.Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War.The Seven Sleepers.Walter Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz.Next: Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic. Thanks!

At this point I admit my defeat; 	no poet, comic or tragic, ever was 	more outdone by his theme than I am nowfor, as sunlight does to the weakest eyes, 	so did the mere thought of her lovely smile 	strike every recognition from my mind.From the first day that I beheld her face 	in this life till the vision of her now, 	I could trust in my poems to sing her praise,but now I must stop trying to pursue 	her beauty in my verse, for I have done 	as much as any artist at his best.Dante’s Divine Comedy comes to an end with Paradiso, as Beatrice guides him through the nine spheres of Heaven to his ultimate encounter with God. But how does Dante approach describing a place filled with people who are satisfied basking in God’s indescribable glory? And how does he reconcile his obsession with measuring out time while also trying to contend with timelessness? Suzanne and Chris think through endings and puddings. SHOW NOTES.Dante: <a href="https://amzn.to/3s1hbVI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Paradiso</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780140444438" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]That’s the Mark Musa translation; see also the <a href="https://amzn.to/3F3xoPp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Singleton</a> and the <a href="https://amzn.to/3ksmqJT" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sanders/Birk</a> versions.Our episodes on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inferno</a> and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/34" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Purgatorio</a>.Also by Dante: <a href="https://amzn.to/3y4XG2l" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">De Vulgari Eloquentia</a>; <a href="https://amzn.to/3OYIWs2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">La Vita Nuova</a>; <a href="https://amzn.to/3vxBVH2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Convivio</a>; <a href="https://amzn.to/39lU4P7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">De Monarchia</a>.<a href="https://sandowbirk.com/divine-comedy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sandow Birk’s Dante illustrations</a>, including <a href="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e5ad78f5a8e8a4eaba16d34/1590165323598-RU0O104IKC3SUY6UPGY9/Par.Canto31.jpg?format=1500w" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Rose</a>.Our episodes on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a> and the <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/53" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Confessions</a>.Rare audio of Erich Auerbach giving a lecture on “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-149855334/auerbach-on-dante" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Three Traits of Dante’s Poetry</a>” in March 1948.Robert Heinlein: <a href="https://amzn.to/3vRWMUh" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Door into Summer</a>.The relevent episode on <a href="https://itsjustashow.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris’s other podcast</a> will be out in a few days.Jorge Luis Borges: <a href="https://amzn.to/3s4zZn3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Labyrinths</a>.William Shakespeare: <a href="https://amzn.to/3kuIC66" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Winter’s Tale</a>.Audrey Niffenegger: <a href="https://amzn.to/3F6rayj" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Time Traveler’s Wife</a>.Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: <a href="https://amzn.to/3vrM1sO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This Is How You Lose the Time War</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Seven Sleepers.</a>Walter Miller: <a href="https://amzn.to/3MGLby9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Canticle for Leibowitz</a>.Next: Virginia Woolf: <a href="https://amzn.to/39tsn7g" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mrs. Dalloway</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780156628709" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic.</a> Thanks!

55. Paradiso.

Months after this experience, which I still cannot explain, I was on Dunwich Heath once more in a dream, walking the endlessly winding paths again, and again I could not find my way out of the maze which I was convinced had been created solely for me. Dead tired and ready to lie down anywhere, as dusk fell I gained a raised area where a little Chinese pavilion had been built, as in the middle of the yew maze at Somerleyton. And when I looked down from this vantage point I saw the labyrinth, the light sandy ground, the sharply delineated contours of hedge taller than a man and almost pitch-black now – a pattern simple in comparison with the tortuous trail I had behind me, but one which I knew in my dream, with absolute certainty, represented a cross-section of my brain.W.G. Sebald’s book The Rings of Saturn is hard to pin down — is it a memoir? an essay? a novel? a prose poem? Whatever it is, it’s a remarkable reflection of how connected the world is, and how moments and memories and fragments of history and biography can all echo and resound across time. Chris and Suzanne trace out some of these paths of connections that Sebald walks, and think about how the book pulls together story, photography, and time.Show Notes.W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn. [Bookshop.]Also by Sebald: Austerlitz.Daniel Mendelsohn on The Rings of Saturn.Maps of Sebald’s route (in German).A video retracing Sebald’s steps.Our episode on Moby-Dick.Thomas Browne: Religio Medici.Roger Casement.Our episode on Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.Proust: In Search of Lost Time.Octavia Butler: Kindred.Herodotus: Histories.Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project.H.G. Wells: The Time Machine. Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic, on Patreon.

<blockquote>Months after this experience, which I still cannot explain, I was on Dunwich Heath once more in a dream, walking the endlessly winding paths again, and again I could not find my way out of the maze which I was convinced had been created solely for me. Dead tired and ready to lie down anywhere, as dusk fell I gained a raised area where a little Chinese pavilion had been built, as in the middle of the yew maze at Somerleyton. And when I looked down from this vantage point I saw the labyrinth, the light sandy ground, the sharply delineated contours of hedge taller than a man and almost pitch-black now – a pattern simple in comparison with the tortuous trail I had behind me, but one which I knew in my dream, with absolute certainty, represented a cross-section of my brain.</blockquote>W.G. Sebald’s book The Rings of Saturn is hard to pin down — is it a memoir? an essay? a novel? a prose poem? Whatever it is, it’s a remarkable reflection of how connected the world is, and how moments and memories and fragments of history and biography can all echo and resound across time. Chris and Suzanne trace out some of these paths of connections that Sebald walks, and think about how the book pulls together story, photography, and time.<h2>Show Notes.</h2>W.G. Sebald: <a href="https://amzn.to/35PZdxz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Rings of Saturn</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780811226158" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Also by Sebald: <a href="https://amzn.to/37nYdRK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Austerlitz</a>.<a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/10/01/the-rings-of-sebald/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Daniel Mendelsohn on The Rings of Saturn.</a><a href="https://www.wgsebald.de/wege/ringe.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Maps of Sebald’s route (in German).</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLPi8Kd7rAQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A video retracing Sebald’s steps.</a>Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/12" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Moby-Dick</a>.Thomas Browne: <a href="https://amzn.to/3JljKI5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Religio Medici</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Casement" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Roger Casement.</a>Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/37" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Times Square Red, Times Square Blue</a>.Proust: <a href="https://amzn.to/3jg7IVK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In Search of Lost Time</a>.Octavia Butler: <a href="https://amzn.to/3DOciUP" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kindred</a>.Herodotus: <a href="https://amzn.to/3DRWLDa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Histories</a>.Walter Benjamin: <a href="https://amzn.to/3DPif3A" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Arcades Project</a>.H.G. Wells: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Time Machine</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic, on Patreon.</a>

54. The Rings of Saturn.

I confess to you, Lord, that I still do not know what time is. Yet I confess too that I do know that I am saying this in time, that I have been talking about time for a long time, and that this long time would not be a long time if it were not for the fact that time has been passing all the while. How can I know this, when I do not know what time is? Is it that I do know what time is, but do not know how to put what I know into words? I am in a sorry state, for I do not even know what I do not know.Our cluster on Time begins with Augustine’s Confessions, one of the most widely read books of of the most widely read books of late antiquity, written in the last years of the Roman Empire. On the one hand, the book is autobiographical, describing (sometimes in very personal detail) Augustine’s childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, culminating in his conversion and commitment to Christianity in his early thirties. On the other hand, especially in its less often read final chapters, the book is a philosophical and theological exploration of what allows a person to change over time — and, in particular, a meditation on the nature of time itself. Suzanne and Chris explore Augustine’s fraught relationships to his friends and family, and they begin to unpack the ways time structures and informs the book.Show Notes. Augustine: Confessions. [Bookshop.] [We’re using the classic translation by R.S. Pine-Coffin, but many translations are available.]Other books by Augustine: City of God; Literal Commentary on Genesis; De Magistro [The Teacher].Manichaeism.Our episodes on the Inferno and Paradise Lost.Brian Stock: Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation.Catherine Conybeare picks Five Books about Augustine.The Cloisters.Birgit Brander Rasmussen: Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature.Samuel R. Delany: Tales of Nevèrÿon.Ayelet Tsabari, Eufemia Fantetti, and Leonarda Carranza: Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language.Next: W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn. [Bookshop.] Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.

<blockquote>I confess to you, Lord, that I still do not know what time is. Yet I confess too that I do know that I am saying this in time, that I have been talking about time for a long time, and that this long time would not be a long time if it were not for the fact that time has been passing all the while. How can I know this, when I do not know what time is? Is it that I do know what time is, but do not know how to put what I know into words? I am in a sorry state, for I do not even know what I do not know.</blockquote>Our cluster on Time begins with Augustine’s Confessions, one of the most widely read books of of the most widely read books of late antiquity, written in the last years of the Roman Empire. On the one hand, the book is autobiographical, describing (sometimes in very personal detail) Augustine’s childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, culminating in his conversion and commitment to Christianity in his early thirties. On the other hand, especially in its less often read final chapters, the book is a philosophical and theological exploration of what allows a person to change over time — and, in particular, a meditation on the nature of time itself. Suzanne and Chris explore Augustine’s fraught relationships to his friends and family, and they begin to unpack the ways time structures and informs the book.<h2>Show Notes. </h2>Augustine: <a href="https://amzn.to/3vMczpi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Confessions</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780140441147" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.] [We’re using the classic translation by R.S. Pine-Coffin, but many translations are available.]Other books by Augustine: <a href="https://amzn.to/3KpcuMd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">City of God</a>; <a href="https://amzn.to/3hJzGIK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Literal Commentary on Genesis</a>; <a href="https://amzn.to/3pGBk23" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">De Magistro</a> [The Teacher].<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Manichaeism.</a>Our episodes on the <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inferno</a> and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a>.Brian Stock: <a href="https://amzn.to/3tv9RS4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation</a>.Catherine Conybeare picks <a href="https://fivebooks.com/best-books/augustine-catherine-conybeare/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Five Books about Augustine</a>.<a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/visit/plan-your-visit/met-cloisters" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Cloisters.</a>Birgit Brander Rasmussen: <a href="https://amzn.to/3vJG2QH" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature</a>.Samuel R. Delany: <a href="https://amzn.to/3IS6PxW" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tales of Nevèrÿon</a>.Ayelet Tsabari, Eufemia Fantetti, and Leonarda Carranza: <a href="https://amzn.to/3sOI00b" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language</a>.Next: W.G. Sebald: <a href="https://amzn.to/34m9TU3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Rings of Saturn</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780811226158" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.] <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.</a>

53. Confessions.

I came into this world anxious to uncover the meaning of things, my soul desirous to be at the origin of the world, and here I am an object among other objects. Locked in this suffocating reification, I appealed to the Other so that his liberating gaze, gliding over my body suddenly smoothed of rough edges, would give me back the lightness of being I thought I had lost, and taking me out of the world put me back in the world. But just as I get to the other slope I stumble, and the Other fixes me with his gaze, his gestures and attitude, the same way you fix a preparation with a dye. I lose my temper, demand an explanation.... Nothing doing. I explode. Here are the fragments put together by another me.We like to begin each year with a book that will challenge us with some theoretical perspectives and insights, which we can have rattling around our minds as we carry on the year’s reading. This year we are beginning with Frantz Fanon’s 1952 classic Black Skin, White Masks. A collection of essays exploring the construction of the author’s psyche (as a Black man from Martinique), Fanon looks at the personal impacts of colonialism, the ways that psychoanalysis might be adapted to understand the colonized psyche, and what possible futures might lie ahead. Chris and Suzanne explore the book’s argument and its literary qualities, as well as reflecting on how Fanon’s essays continue to resonate today.SHOW NOTES.Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks. [Bookshop.]Also by Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth.An overview of Fanon’s thinking.Stuart Hall: Why Fanon? [requires institutional access, alas]Manichaeism.Interpellation.Aimé Césaire.Léopold Senghor.Glen Sean Coulthard: Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Reconciliation.J. Kēhaulani Kauanui: “A Structure, Not an Event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity.Next: Augustine: Confessions. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic FM, on Patreon.

I came into this world anxious to uncover the meaning of things, my soul desirous to be at the origin of the world, and here I am an object among other objects. Locked in this suffocating reification, I appealed to the Other so that his liberating gaze, gliding over my body suddenly smoothed of rough edges, would give me back the lightness of being I thought I had lost, and taking me out of the world put me back in the world. But just as I get to the other slope I stumble, and the Other fixes me with his gaze, his gestures and attitude, the same way you fix a preparation with a dye. I lose my temper, demand an explanation.... Nothing doing. I explode. Here are the fragments put together by another me.We like to begin each year with a book that will challenge us with some theoretical perspectives and insights, which we can have rattling around our minds as we carry on the year’s reading. This year we are beginning with Frantz Fanon’s 1952 classic Black Skin, White Masks. A collection of essays exploring the construction of the author’s psyche (as a Black man from Martinique), Fanon looks at the personal impacts of colonialism, the ways that psychoanalysis might be adapted to understand the colonized psyche, and what possible futures might lie ahead. Chris and Suzanne explore the book’s argument and its literary qualities, as well as reflecting on how Fanon’s essays continue to resonate today.SHOW NOTES.Frantz Fanon: <a href="https://amzn.to/3s5vB7G" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Black Skin, White Masks</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780802143006" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Also by Fanon: <a href="https://amzn.to/3Iag7oH" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Wretched of the Earth</a>.<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An overview of Fanon’s thinking.</a>Stuart Hall: <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781478021223-021/html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Why Fanon?</a> [requires institutional access, alas]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Manichaeism.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpellation_(philosophy)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Interpellation.</a><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/aimae-fernand-caesaire" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Aimé Césaire.</a><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/leopold-sedar-senghor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Léopold Senghor.</a>Glen Sean Coulthard: <a href="https://amzn.to/3I7cDmU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Reconciliation</a>.J. Kēhaulani Kauanui: <a href="https://csalateral.org/issue/5-1/forum-alt-humanities-settler-colonialism-enduring-indigeneity-kauanui/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“A Structure, Not an Event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity</a>.Next: Augustine: <a href="https://amzn.to/3H7AukQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Confessions</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780140441147" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic FM, on Patreon.</a>

52. Black Skin, White Masks.

Admit this, all of you. I laugh too loud, can’t hold my brownie properly in polite company and am apt to call shit “shit.” I can’t be trusted to be loyal to my class. In fact, the very clever among the elite know that I am opposed to the very existence of an elite among us. For me, the struggle for self- determination will end with the dissolution of this elite and the levelling of the CanAmerican class structure or it will continue—for a thousand years if need be.You have acquired your knowledge, friends, through the spoils of a colonial system which intends to use you to oppress my poor country-cousins. I owe no apology for refusing to go along with that.At the end of each year, we like to read a book by an author who passed that year, and in 2021, we lost someone very close to the show: Lee Maracle, whose book Memory Serves we talked about in a previous episode, and who joined us in a bonus episode about Great Expectations. We chose to read her book I Am Woman, a collection of essays (interwoven with memoir, story, and poetry) subtitled “A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism”. And, in addition to responding to the specific issues that the book brings to the forefront, and appreciating Maracle’s craft in putting these issues on the page, Suzanne and Chris think together about how it feels to read and talk about a text that might not be addressed to you at all.SHOW NOTES.Lee Maracle: I Am Woman. [Bookshop.] [The book went out of print shortly after her passing, but should be back in stock next month.]Also by Lee Maracle: Memory Serves. Celia’s Song. My Conversations with Canadians. Hope Matters [with Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter].Our episode on Memory Serves and our bonus with Lee Maracle on Great Expectations.Our episode on Bear.Lee Maracle delivers the 2020 Margaret Laurence lecture, which addresses many of the questions we had about literature, gender, and the power of story.The New York Times’s (unfortunately headlined) obituary.An overview of Lee Maracle’s life.Gratitude for Lee Maracle from Hiromi Goto, Rita Wong, and Larissa Lai.The Literary Legacy of Lee Maracle with Drew Hayden Taylor, Tanya Talaga, and Waubgeshig Rice.LitHub’s list of notable literary deaths in 2021.bell hooks: Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black.Norton Juster: The Phantom Toolbooth.Beverley Cleary: Dear Mr. Henshaw.Next: Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn and Megaphonic FM on Patreon.

Admit this, all of you. I laugh too loud, can’t hold my brownie properly in polite company and am apt to call shit “shit.” I can’t be trusted to be loyal to my class. In fact, the very clever among the elite know that I am opposed to the very existence of an elite among us. For me, the struggle for self- determination will end with the dissolution of this elite and the levelling of the CanAmerican class structure or it will continue—for a thousand years if need be.You have acquired your knowledge, friends, through the spoils of a colonial system which intends to use you to oppress my poor country-cousins. I owe no apology for refusing to go along with that.At the end of each year, we like to read a book by an author who passed that year, and in 2021, we lost someone very close to the show: Lee Maracle, whose book <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/23" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Memory Serves</a> we talked about in a previous episode, and who joined us in a bonus episode about <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/29b" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Great Expectations</a>. We chose to read her book I Am Woman, a collection of essays (interwoven with memoir, story, and poetry) subtitled “A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism”. And, in addition to responding to the specific issues that the book brings to the forefront, and appreciating Maracle’s craft in putting these issues on the page, Suzanne and Chris think together about how it feels to read and talk about a text that might not be addressed to you at all.SHOW NOTES.Lee Maracle: <a href="https://amzn.to/3A1uTuH" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Am Woman</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780889740594" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.] [The book went out of print shortly after her passing, but should be back in stock next month.]Also by Lee Maracle: <a href="https://newestpress.com/books/memory-serves" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Memory Serves</a>. <a href="https://www.cormorantbooks.com/celias-song" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Celia’s Song</a>. <a href="https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/ebooks/essays-ebooks/conversations-with-canadians-by-lee-maracle/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">My Conversations with Canadians</a>. <a href="https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/lee-maracle/hope-matters-by-lee-maracle-columpa-bobb-and-tania-carter/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hope Matters</a> [with Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter].Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/23" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Memory Serves</a> and our bonus with Lee Maracle on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/29b" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Great Expectations</a>.Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/46" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bear</a>.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfaHb_Fsggo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lee Maracle delivers the 2020 Margaret Laurence lecture</a>, which addresses many of the questions we had about literature, gender, and the power of story.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/books/lee-maracle-dead.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The New York Times’s (unfortunately headlined) obituary.</a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/14/books/lee-maracle-dead.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An overvie</a><a href="https://abcbookworld.com/writer/maracle-lee/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">w of Lee Maracle’s life.</a><a href="https://rabble.ca/indigenous/gratitude-for-lee-maracle/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gratitude for Lee Maracle</a> from Hiromi Goto, Rita Wong, and Larissa Lai.<a href="https://www.tvo.org/video/the-literary-legacy-of-lee-maracle" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Literary Legacy of Lee Maracle</a> with Drew Hayden Taylor, Tanya Talaga, and Waubgeshig Rice.<a href="https://lithub.com/notable-literary-deaths-in-2021/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LitHub’s list of notable literary deaths in 2021.</a>bell hooks: <a href="https://amzn.to/33Bju8E" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black</a>.Norton Juster: <a href="https://amzn.to/33fw3qA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Phantom Toolbooth</a>.Beverley Cleary: <a href="https://amzn.to/33fw3qA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dear Mr. Henshaw</a>.Next: Frantz Fanon: <a href="https://amzn.to/3I5DDmg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Black Skin, White Masks</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780802143006" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and Megaphonic FM on Patreon.</a>

51. I Am Woman.

In this territory are the Dog-headed people.Here live the Griste, an extremely wicked people, for among other vile things they do, they make clothes for themselves and saddles for their horses out of the skins of their enemies.The east-to-west extent of Europe, from the outlet of the Sea of Azov to the Strait of Gibraltar, in a straight line, is 3,427 miles….HungariansSlavs.Ostrich: Head of a goose, body of a crane, feet of a calf. It eats iron.The Hereford Mappa Mundi may or may not be a book. But this medieval map of the world combines geography, theology, zoology, and history into a text that’s fascinating to explore. Suzanne and Chris trace out a few itineraries along the map, pointing out what they find along the way and some of the narratives it traces, and they consider what it means to take this seriously as a text—and a text that might teach us something about how other texts are read. SHOW NOTES.Virtual Mappa includes a detailed, if sadly not annotated version of the map.S.D. Westrem’s The Hereford Map is a transcription and annotation of the map.Hereford Cathedral’s site devoted to the map.Wikipedia has a good overview of the types of medieval maps.A reproduction from the late 19th century which is very clear (but not annotated, and missing some colour information).Orosius: History against the Pagans.Bartholomeus Anglicus: On the Properties of Things.Our episode on The Metamorphoses.Martin Delany: Blake, or The Huts of America.Thomas Pynchon: Mason &amp; Dixon.John Crowley: The Solitudes, first book in the Ægypt series.Robertson Davies: Murther and Walking Spirits.Jordy Rosenberg: Confessions of the Fox (about “Honest Jack” Sheppard)Graham Nelson: Jigsaw.Brian Moriarty: Trinity.Walter M. Miller Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz.Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace.Next episode: Lee Maracle: I Am Woman. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn and Megaphonic on Patreon and help us make another 50 episodes! Thanks.

In this territory are the Dog-headed people.Here live the Griste, an extremely wicked people, for among other vile things they do, they make clothes for themselves and saddles for their horses out of the skins of their enemies.The east-to-west extent of Europe, from the outlet of the Sea of Azov to the Strait of Gibraltar, in a straight line, is 3,427 miles….HungariansSlavs.Ostrich: Head of a goose, body of a crane, feet of a calf. It eats iron.The Hereford Mappa Mundi may or may not be a book. But this medieval map of the world combines geography, theology, zoology, and history into a text that’s fascinating to explore. Suzanne and Chris trace out a few itineraries along the map, pointing out what they find along the way and some of the narratives it traces, and they consider what it means to take this seriously as a text—and a text that might teach us something about how other texts are read. SHOW NOTES.<a href="https://sims2.digitalmappa.org/36" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Virtual Mappa</a> includes a detailed, if sadly not annotated version of the map.S.D. Westrem’s <a href="http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503510569-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hereford Map</a> is a transcription and annotation of the map.<a href="https://www.themappamundi.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hereford Cathedral’s site devoted to the map.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mappa_mundi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wikipedia has a good overview of the types of medieval maps.</a><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1896_facsimile_of_the_Hereford_Mappa_Mundi_by_Konrad_Miller.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A reproduction from the late 19th century</a> which is very clear (but not annotated, and missing some colour information).Orosius: <a href="https://amzn.to/3yVkvnv" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">History against the Pagans</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomeus_Anglicus" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bartholomeus Anglicus</a>: <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780198837626.book.1/actrade-9780198837626-book-1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">On the Properties of Things</a>.Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/3/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Metamorphoses</a>.Martin Delany: <a href="https://amzn.to/3JkaAg3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blake, or The Huts of America</a>.Thomas Pynchon: <a href="https://amzn.to/32x0urx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mason &amp; Dixon</a>.John Crowley: <a href="https://amzn.to/32A1Bqo" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Solitudes</a>, first book in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ægypt" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ægypt</a> series.Robertson Davies: <a href="https://amzn.to/3FuQKwg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Murther and Walking Spirits</a>.Jordy Rosenberg: <a href="https://amzn.to/3epl4wq" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Confessions of the Fox</a> (about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sheppard" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“Honest Jack” Sheppard</a>)Graham Nelson: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(video_game)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jigsaw</a>.Brian Moriarty: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(video_game)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trinity</a>.Walter M. Miller Jr.: <a href="https://amzn.to/3Je7omd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Canticle for Leibowitz</a>.Leo Tolstoy: <a href="https://amzn.to/3H4VdpO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">War and Peace</a>.Next episode: Lee Maracle: <a href="https://amzn.to/3JfqWqk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Am Woman</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780889740594" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and Megaphonic on Patreon and help us make another 50 episodes! Thanks.</a>

50. The Hereford Mappa Mundi.

When news of this being’s phenomenal genesis was first released to the world, a certain phrase was used that has—at varying times—been attributed both to me and to others. On the newsflashes coming over our tvs on that fateful night, one sentence was repeated over and over again: ‘The superman exists and he’s American.’	I never said that. [...] I presume the remark was edited or toned down so as not to offend public sensibilities. [...] What I said was ‘God exists and he’s American.’Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is an superhero comic about time, history, power, and the threat of the Cold War. In other words, it’s very 1980s. Chris and Suzanne reflect on their own experiences of the 1980s, and they become particularly fascinated with Dr. Manhattan—a character who experiences all of time at once, but also moves through time linearly. They also consider the book’s reckoning of an apocalypse, its deeply intricate formal construction, and what it means if these characters are kind of unlikeable.SHOW NOTES.Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: Watchmen. [Bookshop.]In memoriam Lee Maracle.A recent interview with Lee Maracle.Our episode on Memory Serves and our bonus episode talking with Lee Maracle about Great Expectations.Our episodes on Middlemarch and Persepolis.Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) disintegrating.The shadows left by the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.The Doomsday Clock.Our episode on Orlando.An example of the opening pages of Chapter XII (from this interesting page).Chris’s other podcast.Our episodes on Frankenstein and Paradise Lost.Michael Chabon: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.Richard McGuire: Here. [Full book version.]Christine Brooke-Rose: Subscript.Next: The Hereford Mappa Mundi.Support The Spouter-Inn and all of Megaphonic on Patreon.

When news of this being’s phenomenal genesis was first released to the world, a certain phrase was used that has—at varying times—been attributed both to me and to others. On the newsflashes coming over our tvs on that fateful night, one sentence was repeated over and over again: ‘The superman exists and he’s American.’	I never said that. [...] I presume the remark was edited or toned down so as not to offend public sensibilities. [...] What I said was ‘God exists and he’s American.’Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is an superhero comic about time, history, power, and the threat of the Cold War. In other words, it’s very 1980s. Chris and Suzanne reflect on their own experiences of the 1980s, and they become particularly fascinated with Dr. Manhattan—a character who experiences all of time at once, but also moves through time linearly. They also consider the book’s reckoning of an apocalypse, its deeply intricate formal construction, and what it means if these characters are kind of unlikeable.SHOW NOTES.Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: <a href="https://amzn.to/3nlQdX6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Watchmen</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9781779501127" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lee-maracle-death-bc-indigenous-writer-poet-1.6245582" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In memoriam Lee Maracle.</a><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/canada-puts-indigenous-women-last-says-poet-lee-maracle-1.6199439" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A recent interview with Lee Maracle.</a>Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/23" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Memory Serves</a> and our bonus episode talking with <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/29b" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lee Maracle about Great Expectations</a>.Our episodes on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Middlemarch</a> and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/26" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Persepolis</a>.<a href="https://watchmen.fandom.com/wiki/Jon_Osterman/HBO?file=Jon_is_disintegrated.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) disintegrating.</a><a href="https://www.livescience.com/nuclear-bomb-wwii-shadows.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The shadows left by the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Doomsday Clock.</a>Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/48" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Orlando</a>.<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yjgd3NK7kDU/Vc2byoLRA6I/AAAAAAAAGl4/6eCXpf5WWXo/s1600/Watchmen+12+01.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An example of the opening pages of Chapter XII</a> (from <a href="https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-point-is-to-change-the-world-the-last-war-in-albion-book-two-part-5-before-watchmen-minutemen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this interesting page</a>).<a href="https://itsjustashow.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris’s other podcast.</a>Our episodes on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Frankenstein</a> and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a>.Michael Chabon: <a href="https://amzn.to/30uQEps" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Yiddish Policeman’s Union</a>.Richard McGuire: <a href="https://thebeautifulcomics.tumblr.com/post/99631361887/here-1989-by-richard-mcguire-raw-magazine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here</a>. [<a href="https://amzn.to/30v7zaJ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Full book version</a>.]Christine Brooke-Rose: <a href="https://amzn.to/3wOxIh2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Subscript</a>.Next: <a href="https://www.themappamundi.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hereford Mappa Mundi</a>.<a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn and all of Megaphonic on Patreon.</a>

49. Watchmen.

Suzanne and Chris talk about great books—but what does "great" even mean?

This show is insightful and the book choices are so much better than the many Joe Businessman choices we are stuck with in our office book club.  The books discussed here I have actually read or have always wanted to read, and have not much to do with Arts of Wars it whatever sociopath training manuals the corporate types at work pick to self gloss.  Thank you for giving me a sane place to come to for great discussions about really great books.

Soooo much better than my office book club

I&#39;ve listened to episodes 3 and 1 in that order. I absolutely love how they don&#39;t try to cover everything but dive deeply into the parts of the stories that most move them. It&#39;s clear that the hosts really love these books and do a great job in conveying that feeling to the listener.

Love the style of this podcast

The Spouter-Inn; or, A Conversation with Great Books

Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change color every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing gum that never loses its taste, and candy balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely little blue birds’ eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting at the tip of your tongue.Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a classic work of children’s literature by Roald Dahl. It tells the story of Charlie Bucket and his visit to the fantabulous chocolate factory run by the reclusive Willy Wonka. Chris and Suzanne explore how the book distinguishes between hunger and gluttony, how it marks the bodies of children with their sins like some medieval morality tale, and how parts of the story are tied up with colonialist fantasies. All in time for (American) Thanksgiving!Show Notes.Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. [Bookshop.]The Roald Dahl box set that Chris has been gorging on. Includes, in particular, Matilda and Boy.His short story “Royal Jelly” is found in Cruelty (among other collections).Our episodes on Little Women, the Metamorphoses, the Inferno, and How to Cook a Wolf and A Moveable Feast.An interview with Joseph Schindelman, who illustrated the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.Roald Dahl was apparently not a great person.Prudentius: Psychomachia. [More info.]Early (racist) versions of the Oompa-Loompas.Next time: Toni Morrison: Beloved. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon if you can, please. Thanks!

<blockquote>Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change color every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing gum that never loses its taste, and candy balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely little blue birds’ eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting at the tip of your tongue.</blockquote>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a classic work of children’s literature by Roald Dahl. It tells the story of Charlie Bucket and his visit to the fantabulous chocolate factory run by the reclusive Willy Wonka. Chris and Suzanne explore how the book distinguishes between hunger and gluttony, how it marks the bodies of children with their sins like some medieval morality tale, and how parts of the story are tied up with colonialist fantasies. All in time for (American) Thanksgiving!<h2>Show Notes.</h2>Roald Dahl: <a href="https://amzn.to/33qs4l2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780142410318" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]The <a href="https://amzn.to/2QPa3Ko" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Roald Dahl box set</a> that Chris has been gorging on. Includes, in particular, <a href="https://amzn.to/2KVGsLv" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Matilda</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/37B0Xa1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Boy</a>.His short story “Royal Jelly” is found in <a href="https://amzn.to/33vLrsY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cruelty</a> (among other collections).Our episodes on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Little Women</a>, the <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Metamorphoses</a>, the <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inferno</a>, and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Cook a Wolf</a> and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/19" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast</a>.<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/i-still-enjoy-what-a-line-can-do" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An interview with Joseph Schindelman</a>, who illustrated the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.Roald Dahl was apparently <a href="https://lithub.com/when-roald-dahls-editor-decided-he-was-too-much-of-a-prick-to-publish/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">not a great person</a>.Prudentius: <a href="https://amzn.to/2DdmSWW" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Psychomachia</a>. [<a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/prudentiuss-psychomachia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">More info</a>.]<a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/170755" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Early (racist) versions of the Oompa-Loompas.</a>Next time: Toni Morrison: <a href="https://amzn.to/2XIabwu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Beloved</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> if you can, please. Thanks!

21. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Anthony Oliveira

A bonus to our episode on Paradise Lost! We are joined by Anthony Oliveira, a writer, film curator, and cultural critic who received his PhD in English from the University of Toronto. He is also the host of The Devil’s Party, a podcast that has been slowly and lovingly working its way through Paradise Lost, a hundred or so lines each week. Anthony joins us to talk about queer and trans readings of Paradise Lost, the nitty gritty about Milton’s theology, and making Paradise Lost accessible to readers that often have been excluded.Show Notes.Anthony Oliveira on Twitter (a must-follow) and on the web.Anthony has a beautiful new memoir on Hazlitt.A quick primer on monism.William Empson: Milton’s God.C.S. Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet.Isaac Asimov’s Annotated Paradise Lost.John Milton: “Methought I saw my late espoused saint”.Philip Pullman: The Amber Spyglass, etc.(We all make mistakes: “arma” is the first word of Aeneid, not the Iliad.)

A bonus to our episode on <a href="http://megaphonic.fm/spouter/8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a>! We are joined by <a href="http://twitter.com/meakoopa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Anthony Oliveira</a>, a writer, film curator, and cultural critic who received his PhD in English from the University of Toronto. He is also the host of <a href="https://www.patreon.com/meakoopa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Devil’s Party</a>, a podcast that has been slowly and lovingly working its way through Paradise Lost, a hundred or so lines each week. Anthony joins us to talk about queer and trans readings of Paradise Lost, the nitty gritty about Milton’s theology, and making Paradise Lost accessible to readers that often have been excluded.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="http://twitter.com/meakoopa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Anthony Oliveira on Twitter</a> (a must-follow) and <a href="https://anthonyoliveira.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">on the web</a>.Anthony has a beautiful new <a href="https://hazlitt.net/longreads/dayspring?fbclid=IwAR384x19dYWkhJbsrwJcPYfhJG2MXLWpj0voDfFmgQPZ6cY4Y6Qs7hlwKm4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">memoir on Hazlitt</a>.A quick primer on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">monism</a>.William Empson: <a href="https://amzn.to/2GS2ImI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Milton’s God</a>.C.S. Lewis: <a href="https://amzn.to/2DL7nWE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Out of the Silent Planet</a>.Isaac Asimov’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2JkfHR7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Annotated Paradise Lost</a>.John Milton: “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44746/sonnet-23-methought-i-saw-my-late-espoused-saint" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Methought I saw my late espoused saint</a>”.Philip Pullman: <a href="https://amzn.to/2VcpG23" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Amber Spyglass</a>, etc.(We all make mistakes: “arma” is the first word of Aeneid, not the <a href="http://megaphonic.fm/spouter/1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iliad</a>.)

8b. Bonus: Anthony Oliveira on Paradise Lost.

I can forget that what I did changed Baby Suggs’ life. No Clearing, no company. Just laundry and shoes. I can forget it all now because as soon as I got the gravestone in place you made your presence known in the house and worried us all to distraction. I didn’t understand it then. I thought you were mad with me. And now I know that if you was, you ain’t now because you came back here to me and I was right all along: there is no world outside my door. I only need to know one thing. How bad is the scar?As 2019 draws to a close, Chris and Suzanne remember Toni Morrison, who passed away this year, by reading Beloved. It’s a difficult book—and a difficult book to talk about—but also a beautifully and sensuously written book, and entirely worth reading. Your hosts explore what genre(s) the book is, how time gets wobbly, and the unexpected roles of food, as well as closely reading a few typically stunning passages.Content warning: graphic violence, including the murder of a child.Show Notes.Toni Morrison: Beloved. [Bookshop.]An obituary for Toni Morrison.That interview with Toni Morrison.Toni Morrison: The Source of Self-Regard.The essay from that book about Beloved.An interview with Toni Morrison.Next episode: Lee Maracle: Memory Serves. Support The Spouter-Inn via Pateon if you can; it helps a lot. Or tell your friends about the show. Or both! Thanks.

<blockquote>I can forget that what I did changed Baby Suggs’ life. No Clearing, no company. Just laundry and shoes. I can forget it all now because as soon as I got the gravestone in place you made your presence known in the house and worried us all to distraction. I didn’t understand it then. I thought you were mad with me. And now I know that if you was, you ain’t now because you came back here to me and I was right all along: there is no world outside my door. I only need to know one thing. How bad is the scar?</blockquote>As 2019 draws to a close, Chris and Suzanne remember Toni Morrison, who passed away this year, by reading <a href="https://amzn.to/36J5ohK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Beloved</a>. It’s a difficult book—and a difficult book to talk about—but also a beautifully and sensuously written book, and entirely worth reading. Your hosts explore what genre(s) the book is, how time gets wobbly, and the unexpected roles of food, as well as closely reading a few typically stunning passages.Content warning: graphic violence, including the murder of a child.<h2>Show Notes.</h2>Toni Morrison: <a href="https://amzn.to/36J5ohK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Beloved</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9781400033416" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/toni-morrison-obituary" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An obituary</a> for Toni Morrison.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ0mMjII22I" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">That interview</a> with Toni Morrison.Toni Morrison: <a href="https://amzn.to/2PxJici" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Source of Self-Regard</a>.<a href="https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a26255910/toni-morrison-source-of-self-regard-excerpt/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The essay from that book about Beloved.</a><a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/toni-morrison-the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An interview with Toni Morrison.</a>Next episode: Lee Maracle: <a href="https://amzn.to/2S9RXUa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Memory Serves</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn via Pateon</a> if you can; it helps a lot. Or tell your friends about the show. Or both! Thanks.

22. Beloved.

But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! (ch. 32, “Cetology”.)Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a massive book. It’s a story about obsession, an encyclopedia of whale facts, and an unexpected love story. It’s also the source of the name of our podcast! Chris and Suzanne could talk about Herman Melville’s magnum opus for hours (and indeed, those who support the show on Patreon will get to hear some parts of their discussion that didn’t make the final edit). Show Notes.Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. [Gutenberg. Bookshop.] An annotated version.Audiobooks of Moby-Dick: Librivox. The Anthony Heald reading. The, uh, Burt Reynolds version. The audiobook for The Autobiography of Malcolm X.Whale Whale Whale, a Moby-Dick podcast.Moby-Dick Big Read.Moby-Dick marathon reading.Herman Melville Was Also a Failed Poet.Paul Gilroy: Refusing race and salvaging the human.How Toni Morrison Hunts the White Whale.Next time: Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. [Public domain in some countries, where the text and an audiobook are available.] Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and hear bonus bits of this conversation that didn’t quite make the edit but which we think are still neat.

<blockquote>But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! (ch. 32, “Cetology”.)</blockquote><a href="https://amzn.to/2LBiQgn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Moby-Dick; or, The Whale</a> is a massive book. It’s a story about obsession, an encyclopedia of whale facts, and an unexpected love story. It’s also the source of the name of our podcast! Chris and Suzanne could talk about Herman Melville’s magnum opus for hours (and indeed, <a href="http://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">those who support the show on Patreon</a> will get to hear some parts of their discussion that didn’t make the final edit). <h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2LBiQgn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.</a> [<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gutenberg</a>. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780142437247" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.] An <a href="http://www.powermobydick.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">annotated version</a>.Audiobooks of Moby-Dick: <a href="https://librivox.org/moby-dick-by-herman-melville" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Librivox</a>. The <a href="https://amzn.to/2xwICde" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Anthony Heald</a> reading. The, uh, <a href="https://amzn.to/2xvzA0k" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Burt Reynolds</a> version. <a href="https://amzn.to/2LA3etG" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The audiobook for The Autobiography of Malcolm X.</a><a href="http://whalewhalewhale.wales" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Whale Whale Whale</a>, a Moby-Dick podcast.<a href="http://www.mobydickbigread.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Moby-Dick Big Read.</a><a href="https://www.whalingmuseum.org/programs/moby-dick-marathon-2019/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Moby-Dick marathon reading.</a><a href="https://lithub.com/herman-melville-was-also-a-failed-poet/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Herman Melville Was Also a Failed Poet.</a>Paul Gilroy: <a href="https://www.newframe.com/long-read-refusing-race-and-salvaging-the-human/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Refusing race and salvaging the human.</a><a href="https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/the-whiteness-of-the-whale/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How Toni Morrison Hunts the White Whale.</a>Next time: Virginia Woolf’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2xwm1xu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To the Lighthouse</a>. [Public domain in some countries, where <a href="https://legamus.eu/blog/?p=937" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the text and an audiobook</a> are available.] <a href="https://www.patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> and hear bonus bits of this conversation that didn’t quite make the edit but which we think are still neat.

12. Moby-Dick.

‘In spite of the curly crop, I don’t see the ‘son Jo’ whom I left a year ago,’ said Mr. March. ‘I see a young lady who pins her collar straight, laces her boots neatly, and neither talks slang, nor lies on the rug as she used to do. Her face is rather thin and pale just now, with watching and anxiety, but I like to look at it, for it has grown gentler, and her voice is lower; she doesn’t bounce, but moves quietly, and takes care of a certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tender-hearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don’t know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn’t find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars which my good girl sent me.’ (ch. 22)Little Women has Suzanne and Chris tackling new territory: a novel, a children’s book, and something written within the last two hundred years. They discuss this tale of four sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy), the possibilities it offers young women (but eventually takes from them), its complex exploration of gender, and its fascination with death.Show Notes.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. [Project Gutenberg. Bookshop.]Avidly, on the Los Angeles Review of Books, had a great cluster of articles about each of the sisters.“How Little Women Got Big” at the New Yorker, which draws upon a recent book about Little Women, Anne Boyd Rioux’s Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters. Next episode: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.

<blockquote>‘In spite of the curly crop, I don’t see the ‘son Jo’ whom I left a year ago,’ said Mr. March. ‘I see a young lady who pins her collar straight, laces her boots neatly, and neither talks slang, nor lies on the rug as she used to do. Her face is rather thin and pale just now, with watching and anxiety, but I like to look at it, for it has grown gentler, and her voice is lower; she doesn’t bounce, but moves quietly, and takes care of a certain little person in a motherly way which delights me. I rather miss my wild girl, but if I get a strong, helpful, tender-hearted woman in her place, I shall feel quite satisfied. I don’t know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn’t find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars which my good girl sent me.’ (ch. 22)</blockquote><a href="https://amzn.to/2OjECEV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Little Women</a> has Suzanne and Chris tackling new territory: a novel, a children’s book, and something written within the last two hundred years. They discuss this tale of four sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy), the possibilities it offers young women (but eventually takes from them), its complex exploration of gender, and its fascination with death.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2OjECEV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Little Women</a> by Louisa May Alcott. [<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/514" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780147514011" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Avidly, on the Los Angeles Review of Books, had <a href="http://avidly.lareviewofbooks.org/category/littlewomen/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a great cluster of articles</a> about each of the sisters.“<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/27/how-little-women-got-big" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How Little Women Got Big</a>” at the New Yorker, which draws upon a recent book about Little Women, Anne Boyd Rioux’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2ObEqY1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters.</a> Next episode: <a href="https://amzn.to/2OnG1KF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</a> by Gertrude Stein.

5. Little Women.

When the evil Julian heard this voice, he reproached the torturers for not having removed enough of Christine’s tongue, telling them to cut it so close that she would be unable to converse with her lord Jesus. They cut off the whole of her tongue, right down to the root, but she spat out these remains in the tyrant’s face and blinded him in one eye. Speaking just as easily as ever, she exclaimed, ‘Tyrant, what was the point of your removing my tongue so that I couldn’t praise God when my spirit will praise Him for evermore whilst yours is damned for all eternity? It’s only fitting that my tongue should have blinded you, since you didn’t believe my words in the first place.’ (3.10, pp. 222–23)The Book of the City of Ladies begins with its author, Christine de Pizan, working in her study, and suddenly overwhelmed by the misogyny of so many of the great books surrounding her. She is visited by three women—personifications of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice—who instruct her to build a city, and offer her biographies of all the illustrious women who will live in (and therefore be) the city. Suzanne and Chris explore this classic medieval anthology: the ways in which women have made themselves heard; the physical effort of creating both cities and manuscripts; and the echoes Christine’s book has both with other great books and with our own experiences today.Show notes.The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, as translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant. [Bookshop.]More info (and images!) about the manuscript of The Book of the City of Ladies that Christine supervised herself.“In the fifteenth century, men read Christine de Pizan…”A banner, unfurled at Columbia University during a protest in 1989, included Christine as one of seven great female authors that should be part of the canon.Next episode: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

<blockquote>When the evil Julian heard this voice, he reproached the torturers for not having removed enough of Christine’s tongue, telling them to cut it so close that she would be unable to converse with her lord Jesus. They cut off the whole of her tongue, right down to the root, but she spat out these remains in the tyrant’s face and blinded him in one eye. Speaking just as easily as ever, she exclaimed, ‘Tyrant, what was the point of your removing my tongue so that I couldn’t praise God when my spirit will praise Him for evermore whilst yours is damned for all eternity? It’s only fitting that my tongue should have blinded you, since you didn’t believe my words in the first place.’ (3.10, pp. 222–23)</blockquote><a href="https://amzn.to/2GZPfvF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Book of the City of Ladies</a> begins with its author, Christine de Pizan, working in her study, and suddenly overwhelmed by the misogyny of so many of the great books surrounding her. She is visited by three women—personifications of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice—who instruct her to build a city, and offer her biographies of all the illustrious women who will live in (and therefore be) the city. Suzanne and Chris explore this classic medieval anthology: the ways in which women have made themselves heard; the physical effort of creating both cities and manuscripts; and the echoes Christine’s book has both with other great books and with our own experiences today.<h2>Show notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2GZPfvF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Book of the City of Ladies</a> by Christine de Pizan, as translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780140446890" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">More info (and images!) about the manuscript</a> of The Book of the City of Ladies that Christine supervised herself.“In the fifteenth century, <a href="http://bcm.bc.edu/issues/winter_2010/endnotes/an-educated-lady.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">men read Christine de Pizan</a>…”<a href="https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/butler75/item/825" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A banner</a>, unfurled at Columbia University <a href="http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&amp;d=cs19940322-01.2.5&amp;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">during a protest in 1989</a>, included Christine as one of seven great female authors that should be part of the canon.Next episode: <a href="https://amzn.to/2tMaxUQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Little Women</a> by Louisa May Alcott.

4. The Book of the City of Ladies.

Damian Fleming

I have been heard to say that there’s two types of people in the world: People who love Moby-Dick, and people who have never read Moby-Dick. [At] the same time, I never recommend anyone read Moby-Dick directly, because I feel like if you’re not reading it at your own leisure and come to it willingly, it could be really, really annoying. Medievalist and Moby-Dick fan Damian Fleming joins us to keep the conversation going about this great book. We discuss our favourite passages, how Ishmael represents his labours, how we feel about whaling and cetology, how potentially gross strawberries are, and all the humour in the novel and what’s been done with the novel.Show Notes.Damian is a brilliant presence on Twitter.@MobyDickatSea is also brilliant on Twitter.The Moby-Dick Big Read. Damian recommends chapter 3, The Spouter-Inn, read by Nigel Williams.Ron Swanson on Moby-Dick.John Donne: To His Mistress Going to Bed.The Time I Spent on a Commercial Whaling Ship Totally Changed My Perspective of the World.Rockwell Kent’s illustrations for Moby-Dick. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and you can join us on a members-only Slack where we will happily keep chatting with you about Moby-Dick.

<blockquote>I have been heard to say that there’s two types of people in the world: People who love Moby-Dick, and people who have never read Moby-Dick. [At] the same time, I never recommend anyone read Moby-Dick directly, because I feel like if you’re not reading it at your own leisure and come to it willingly, it could be really, really annoying. </blockquote>Medievalist and Moby-Dick fan Damian Fleming joins us to keep the conversation going about this great book. We discuss our favourite passages, how Ishmael represents his labours, how we feel about whaling and cetology, how potentially gross strawberries are, and all the humour in the novel and what’s been done with the novel.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://twitter.com/FW_Medieval" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Damian is a brilliant presence on Twitter.</a><a href="https://twitter.com/MobyDickatSea" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@MobyDickatSea is also brilliant on Twitter.</a><a href="http://www.mobydickbigread.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Moby-Dick Big Read.</a> Damian recommends chapter 3, <a href="http://www.mobydickbigread.com/chapter-3-the-spouter-inn/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Spouter-Inn</a>, read by Nigel Williams.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afWLwPZZv2w" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ron Swanson on Moby-Dick.</a>John Donne: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50340/to-his-mistress-going-to-bed" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To His Mistress Going to Bed</a>.<a href="https://voices.clickhole.com/the-time-i-spent-on-a-commercial-whaling-ship-totally-c-1825124286" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Time I Spent on a Commercial Whaling Ship Totally Changed My Perspective of the World.</a><a href="https://www.falseart.com/rockwell-kents-drawings-for-moby-dick-or-the-whale/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rockwell Kent’s illustrations for Moby-Dick.</a> <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> and you can join us on a members-only Slack where we will happily keep chatting with you about Moby-Dick.

12b. Bonus: Damian Fleming on Moby-Dick.

You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy [...] you could always go into the Luxembourg Museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.A Moveable Feast is Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of being a young and often hungry writer surrounded by the writers, artists, and waiters of 1920s Paris. He reminisces about Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald—but also about a really fine meal of pommes à l’huile and a cold glass of beer. As his first wife (the book begins with them as newlyweds and ends with them on the precipice of divorce), Hadley, observes: “Memory is hunger.”Show Notes.A Moveable Feast. [Out of copyright in some countries, where it’s available on archive.org. Bookshop.]The re-edited 2009 version.The person who reunited Hemingway with his diaries does not like the new version.Our episode on Gertrude Stein’s Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.Shakespeare and Company.Paula McClain: The Paris Wife.Playwright Tom Stoppard’s Reflections on Ernest Hemingway.Our next book is M.F.K. Fisher: How to Cook a Wolf. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and help make this show possible. Thanks!

<blockquote>You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy [...] you could always go into the Luxembourg Museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.</blockquote><a href="https://amzn.to/34eDBEu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast</a> is Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of being a young and often hungry writer surrounded by the writers, artists, and waiters of 1920s Paris. He reminisces about Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald—but also about a really fine meal of pommes à l’huile and a cold glass of beer. As his first wife (the book begins with them as newlyweds and ends with them on the precipice of divorce), Hadley, observes: “Memory is hunger.”<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/34eDBEu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast.</a> [Out of copyright in some countries, where it’s available on <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208021" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">archive.org</a>. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780684824994" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://amzn.to/2Wmhrxq" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The re-edited 2009 version.</a>The person who reunited Hemingway with his diaries <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/opinion/20hotchner.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">does not like the new version</a>.Our episode on Gertrude Stein’s <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</a>.<a href="https://shakespeareandcompany.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shakespeare and Company.</a>Paula McClain: <a href="https://amzn.to/34cAywC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Paris Wife</a>.Playwright Tom Stoppard’s Reflections on <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/ernest-hemingway-reflections-on-ernest-hemingway/629/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ernest Hemingway</a>.Our next book is M.F.K. Fisher: <a href="https://amzn.to/32UWxrK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Cook a Wolf</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> and help make this show possible. Thanks!

19. A Moveable Feast.

It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. (38)Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a story that seems familiar to everyone—even people who haven’t read the novel (or seen any of the movie adaptations). But the novel fleshes out the story that everyone is familiar with (a scientist creates a creature out of dead parts, releasing a force of havoc and destruction upon the world) in a number of intriguing ways. Suzanne and Chris discuss how the novel tackles creation, parenting, corporeality, nature, and death—as well as how thoroughly it is connected to Paradise Lost, and why it has inspired so many adaptations. Show Notes. We read the original 1818 text of Frankenstein. It‘s also available on Project Gutenberg or as a free audiobook on Librivox. [Bookshop.] The New Annotated Frankenstein. Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds. The Strange and Twisted Life of Frankenstein, which includes some information about racialized imaginings of the creature. The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Next time: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. Also on Gutenberg and Librivox. You can support The Spouter-Inn (and the rest of the Megaphonic podcasts) through Patreon. Thanks!

<blockquote>It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. (38)</blockquote>Mary Shelley’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2YGbcES" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Frankenstein</a> is a story that seems familiar to everyone—even people who haven’t read the novel (or seen any of the movie adaptations). But the novel fleshes out the story that everyone is familiar with (a scientist creates a creature out of dead parts, releasing a force of havoc and destruction upon the world) in a number of intriguing ways. Suzanne and Chris discuss how the novel tackles creation, parenting, corporeality, nature, and death—as well as how thoroughly it is connected to <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a>, and why it has inspired so many adaptations. <h2>Show Notes.</h2> We read the original 1818 text of <a href="https://amzn.to/2YGbcES" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Frankenstein</a>. It‘s also available on <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a> or as a free audiobook on <a href="https://librivox.org/frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus-1818-by-mary-wollstonecraft-shelley/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Librivox</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780143131847" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.] <a href="https://amzn.to/2YEyD16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The New Annotated Frankenstein.</a> <a href="https://amzn.to/2VOEjJ3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds.</a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-strange-and-twisted-life-of-frankenstein" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Strange and Twisted Life of Frankenstein,</a> which includes some information about racialized imaginings of the creature. <a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/2015/11/25/the-science-of-life-and-death-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.</a> Next time: Walt Whitman, <a href="https://amzn.to/2MeaVay" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Leaves of Grass</a>. Also on <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gutenberg</a> and <a href="https://librivox.org/leaves-of-grass-by-walt-whitman/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Librivox</a>. You can <a href="http://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">support The Spouter-Inn</a> (and the rest of the Megaphonic podcasts) through <a href="http://patreon.com/megaphonic/" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Patreon</a>. Thanks!

9. Frankenstein.

The Duchess’s Soul [...] left her Ærial Vehicle, and entered into her Lord. The Empress’s Soul perceiving this, did the like: And then the Duke had three Souls in one body; and had there been some such Souls more, the Duke would have been like the Grand-Signior in his Seraglio, only it would have been a Platonick Seraglio. But the Duke’s Soul [...] afforded such delight and pleasure to the Empress’s Soul by his conversation, that these two souls became enamoured of each other; which the Duchess’s soul perceiving, grew jealous at first, but then considering that no Adultery could be committed amongst Platonick Lovers [...] cast forth of her mind that Idea of Jealousie. Then the Conversation of these three souls was so pleasant, that it cannot be expressed.The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, more commonly known as simply The Blazing World, is a philosophical flight of fancy by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. This book was first published in 1666, and is often considered a piece of proto–science-fiction. It tells the story of a woman who is transported to another world, a marvellous world, which she is almost immediately made empress of. Part philosophical treatise, part power fantasy, and part exploration of the joys of “Platonick” love between women, The Blazing World is an encomium to our powers of invention and creation. And it is a very, very, very weird book.Show Notes.The Blazing World. [Project Gutenberg. 1668 edition at Archive.org. Librivox. Bookshop.]Margaret Cavendish: Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. [Or at EEBO.]Our episode on Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies.The Kabbalah.The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.Mary Sue.With “Muñoz” we’re referring to José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia (and the conversations that followed it).Our episode on Plato’s Symposium.Suzanne Conklin Akbari: Seeing Through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory.Virginia Woolf wrote (famously, but uncharitably) about Margaret Cavendish.Our next book: Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon, please, if you can, and help us make the show!

<blockquote>The Duchess’s Soul [...] left her Ærial Vehicle, and entered into her Lord. The Empress’s Soul perceiving this, did the like: And then the Duke had three Souls in one body; and had there been some such Souls more, the Duke would have been like the Grand-Signior in his Seraglio, only it would have been a Platonick Seraglio. But the Duke’s Soul [...] afforded such delight and pleasure to the Empress’s Soul by his conversation, that these two souls became enamoured of each other; which the Duchess’s soul perceiving, grew jealous at first, but then considering that no Adultery could be committed amongst Platonick Lovers [...] cast forth of her mind that Idea of Jealousie. Then the Conversation of these three souls was so pleasant, that it cannot be expressed.</blockquote><a href="https://amzn.to/2IYPiXR" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World</a>, more commonly known as simply The Blazing World, is a philosophical flight of fancy by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. This book was first published in 1666, and is often considered a piece of proto–science-fiction. It tells the story of a woman who is transported to another world, a marvellous world, which she is almost immediately made empress of. Part philosophical treatise, part power fantasy, and part exploration of the joys of “Platonick” love between women, The Blazing World is an encomium to our powers of invention and creation. And it is a very, very, very weird book.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2IYPiXR" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Blazing World</a>. [<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51783" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>. <a href="https://archive.org/details/thedescriptionof51783gut" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">1668 edition at Archive.org</a>. <a href="https://librivox.org/the-blazing-world-by-margaret-cavendish-duchess-of-newcastle/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Librivox</a>. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9781554812424" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Margaret Cavendish: <a href="https://amzn.to/32mXgBT" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Observations upon Experimental Philosophy</a>. [Or at <a href="http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A53049.0001.001" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">EEBO</a>.]Our episode on <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Kabbalah.</a><a href="https://amzn.to/2OVIb6i" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.</a><a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Mary_Sue" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mary Sue</a>.With “Muñoz” we’re referring to José Esteban Muñoz’s <a href="https://amzn.to/32nThFd" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cruising Utopia</a> (and the conversations that followed it).Our episode on <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Plato’s Symposium</a>.Suzanne Conklin Akbari: <a href="https://amzn.to/2VO7KHS" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Seeing Through the Veil: Optical Theory and Medieval Allegory</a>.Virginia Woolf wrote (famously, but uncharitably) <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/chapter7.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">about Margaret Cavendish</a>.Our next book: Ernest Hemingway: <a href="https://amzn.to/2MRVulx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a>, please, if you can, and help us make the show!

18. The Blazing World.

Michael Collins

Middlemarch is not necessarily interested in epistemology, but it absolutely is interested in the difference between objectively knowing a thing to be true and feeling the truth. And for most people the truth does not enter into their being until they have felt it.As a bonus to our episode on Middlemarch, we invited writer, podcaster, and personal trainer Michael Collins to join us to talk about his favourite book. We discuss what keeps drawing him back to the novel—and which parts can be difficult to reread. We also finally get to talk about the opinionated narrator of the novel, as well as the striking life of its author, George Eliot.Show Notes.Michael Collins is on Twitter, and hosts the podcasts This Is Your Mixtape and Dear Reader. Some of his writings can be found on Medium.The episodes of This Is Your Mixtape with Chris and Suzanne.Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love.George Eliot: Silly Novels by Lady Novelists.Virginia Woolf: George Eliot.For more information about the life of George Eliot, read Rebecca Mead’s My Life in Middlemarch, or watch a talk that Mead gave while writing the book. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and help support our show. Thanks!

<blockquote>Middlemarch is not necessarily interested in epistemology, but it absolutely is interested in the difference between objectively knowing a thing to be true and feeling the truth. And for most people the truth does not enter into their being until they have felt it.</blockquote>As a bonus to our episode on <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Middlemarch</a>, we invited writer, podcaster, and personal trainer <a href="https://twitter.com/erlking" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Michael Collins</a> to join us to talk about his favourite book. We discuss what keeps drawing him back to the novel—and which parts can be difficult to reread. We also finally get to talk about the opinionated narrator of the novel, as well as the striking life of its author, George Eliot.<h2>Show Notes.</h2>Michael Collins is on <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/erlking" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and hosts the podcasts <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/mixtape" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This Is Your Mixtape</a> and <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/reader" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dear Reader</a>. Some of his writings can be found on <a href="https://medium.com/@mikeycollins" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Medium</a>.The episodes of This Is Your Mixtape with <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/mixtape/1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chris</a> and <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/mixtape/37" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Suzanne</a>.Julian of Norwich: <a href="https://amzn.to/2NZ9V9A" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Revelations of Divine Love</a>.George Eliot: <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/e/eliot/george/e42e/chapter6.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Silly Novels by Lady Novelists</a>.Virginia Woolf: <a href="https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/woolf/VW-Eliot.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">George Eliot</a>.For more information about the life of George Eliot, read Rebecca Mead’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2O2iY9S" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">My Life in Middlemarch</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS62thsi8UA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">watch a talk</a> that Mead gave while writing the book. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> and help support our show. Thanks!

16b. Bonus: Michael Collins on Middlemarch.

Simone De Rochefort

Ernest Hemingway

For me, in coming to Hemingway in the 2010s as a queer woman, to start reading the work of this man who can be incredibly polarizing and incredibly cruel to women and queer people (although that’s very complicated…)—for me, having the context of who he was and the dramatic backstory behind [The Sun Also Rises] made me able to deal with the ugly parts of it a little more.Simone de Rochefort is a Senior Video Producer at Polygon, where she co-hosts the podcast The Polygon Show. She’s also one of the hosts of the tech podcast Rocket on Relay FM, which recently celebrated its 250th episode. And, luckily for us, she is also a passionate amateur Hemingway enthusiast. We were excited to bring her on the show to talk about how and why she fell in love with Hemingway, how she navigates his more problematic aspects, and how to reclaim Hemingway for women and queers.Show Notes.Simone de Rochefort on Twitter, her podcasts The Polygon Show and Rocket, and her work on Polygon’s YouTube channel.Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast and the re-edited 2009 version.Other Ernest Hemingway novels mentioned: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and The Garden of Eden.A. Scott Berg: Max Perkins: Editor of Genius.Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald Perkins Correspondence.Matthew J. Bruccoli: Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship.Lesley M. M. Blume: Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises.Djuna Barnes: Nightwood.Our episodes on the Iliad and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.Mikaella Clements: The Queerness of Ernest Hemingway.Simone’s quote comes from Adam Gopnik: Hemingway, the Sensualist.Simone discusses her Dream Daddy avatar on The Polygon Show episode 7. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and you’ll get to hear a short bonus bit where Simone offers an unflattering anecdote about Hemingway.

<blockquote>For me, in coming to Hemingway in the 2010s as a queer woman, to start reading the work of this man who can be incredibly polarizing and incredibly cruel to women and queer people (although that’s very complicated…)—for me, having the context of who he was and the dramatic backstory behind [The Sun Also Rises] made me able to deal with the ugly parts of it a little more.</blockquote><a href="https://twitter.com/doomquasar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Simone de Rochefort</a> is a Senior Video Producer at <a href="https://www.polygon.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Polygon</a>, where she co-hosts the podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-polygon-show/id1245385418?mt=2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Polygon Show</a>. She’s also one of the hosts of the tech podcast <a href="https://www.relay.fm/rocket" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rocket</a> on Relay FM, which recently celebrated its 250th episode. And, luckily for us, she is also a passionate amateur Hemingway enthusiast. We were excited to bring her on the show to talk about how and why she fell in love with Hemingway, how she navigates his more problematic aspects, and how to reclaim Hemingway for women and queers.<h2>Show Notes.</h2>Simone de Rochefort on <a href="https://twitter.com/doomquasar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, her podcasts <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-polygon-show/id1245385418?mt=2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Polygon Show</a> and <a href="https://www.relay.fm/rocket" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rocket</a>, and her work on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/polygon" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Polygon’s YouTube channel</a>.Ernest Hemingway: <a href="https://amzn.to/34eDBEu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Moveable Feast</a> and the <a href="https://amzn.to/2Wmhrxq" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">re-edited 2009 version</a>.Other Ernest Hemingway novels mentioned: <a href="https://amzn.to/33mu52t" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sun Also Rises</a>, <a href="https://amzn.to/2qf1eye" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Farewell to Arms</a>, and <a href="https://amzn.to/2oGZYn4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Garden of Eden</a>.A. Scott Berg: <a href="https://amzn.to/2C6G5sL" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Max Perkins: Editor of Genius</a>.<a href="https://amzn.to/2WDMoxy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald Perkins Correspondence.</a>Matthew J. Bruccoli: <a href="https://amzn.to/2pzQE4V" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship.</a>Lesley M. M. Blume: <a href="https://amzn.to/335YWA1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises</a>.Djuna Barnes: <a href="https://amzn.to/2PFMYcz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nightwood</a>.Our episodes on the <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iliad</a> and <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</a>.Mikaella Clements: <a href="https://lithub.com/the-queerness-of-ernest-hemingway/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Queerness of Ernest Hemingway</a>.Simone’s quote comes from Adam Gopnik: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/hemingway-the-sensualist" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hemingway, the Sensualist</a>.Simone discusses her <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/10/16092084/dream-daddy-game-review" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dream Daddy</a> avatar on <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/21/16008890/the-polygon-show-podcast-episode-7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Polygon Show episode 7</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> and you’ll get to hear a short bonus bit where Simone offers an unflattering anecdote about Hemingway.

19b. Bonus: Simone de Rochefort on Ernest Hemingway.

There are times when helpful hints about turning off the gas when not in use are foolish, because the gas has been turned off permanently, or until you can pay the bill. And you don’t care about knowing the trick of keeping bread fresh by putting a cut apple in the box because you don’t have any bread and certainly not an apple, cut or uncut. And there is no point in planning to save the juice from canned vegetables because they, and therefore their juices, do not exist.   In other words, the wolf has one paw wedged firmly into what looks like a widening crack in the door.M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf is a book about food written during World War 2. It’s full of meditations on hunger—the wolf clawing at the door—and recipes for dishes that you might eat to survive if supplies, fuel, and morale are limited. Chris and Suzanne talk about the food she describes (both sumptuous and horrifying), her curious personality, and the insight she provides on war and survival. Show Notes.M.F.K. Fisher: How to Cook a Wolf, also available in the omnibus The Art of Eating. [Bookshop.]Laurie Colwin: Home Cooking.Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: The Physiology of Taste, translated by Fisher.A review of Fisher’s translation from the New York Times.M.F.K. Fisher: A Cordiall Water. Luke Barr: Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste.YouTuber Emmymadeinjapan recreated the preserved eggs.Bill Moyers interviews M.F.K. Fisher.Next book: Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon if you can. Thanks.

<blockquote>There are times when helpful hints about turning off the gas when not in use are foolish, because the gas has been turned off permanently, or until you can pay the bill. And you don’t care about knowing the trick of keeping bread fresh by putting a cut apple in the box because you don’t have any bread and certainly not an apple, cut or uncut. And there is no point in planning to save the juice from canned vegetables because they, and therefore their juices, do not exist.    In other words, the wolf has one paw wedged firmly into what looks like a widening crack in the door.</blockquote>M.F.K. Fisher’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2Qbwnxw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Cook a Wolf</a> is a book about food written during World War 2. It’s full of meditations on hunger—the wolf clawing at the door—and recipes for dishes that you might eat to survive if supplies, fuel, and morale are limited. Chris and Suzanne talk about the food she describes (both sumptuous and horrifying), her curious personality, and the insight she provides on war and survival. <h2>Show Notes.</h2>M.F.K. Fisher: <a href="https://amzn.to/2Qbwnxw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Cook a Wolf</a>, also available in the omnibus <a href="https://amzn.to/34ZNyGA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Art of Eating</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780865473362" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Laurie Colwin: <a href="https://amzn.to/2Kjs5jU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Home Cooking</a>.Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: <a href="https://amzn.to/2KgLjXg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Physiology of Taste</a>, translated by Fisher.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/31/books/summer-reading-loving-brillat-savarin-a-tale-of-a-tasteful-affair.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A review of Fisher’s translation from the New York Times.</a>M.F.K. Fisher: <a href="https://amzn.to/2XllvyN" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Cordiall Water</a>. Luke Barr: <a href="https://amzn.to/2NK9boe" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste</a>.YouTuber Emmymadeinjapan <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&amp;v=5bhc7Qns2CU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recreated the preserved eggs</a>.<a href="https://billmoyers.com/content/m-f-k-fisher/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bill Moyers interviews M.F.K. Fisher.</a>Next book: Roald Dahl: <a href="https://amzn.to/2XgVj8q" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</a>. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> if you can. Thanks.

20. How to Cook a Wolf.

Emily Wilson

This is a text which was composed by people who were alive for other people who were alive, which was alive in the mouths of those who were singing and performing it, and so it needs to feel alive again now for the new performances, the new experiences of it—and then also it has to have a sense of a long history, which is going to be enacted through the tools I have, which is the English language. We are delighted to have Emily Wilson, professor and translator of the Odyssey (and other works), join us at The Spouter-Inn to talk about the task of the translator. When tackling a large work like the Odyssey, where did she begin? What decisions did she make about form, voice, and allusion? And is the finished project a poem by Homer? By Emily Wilson? Or is the situation a bit more complex than that?A passage.αὐτίκ᾽ ἔπειθ᾽ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα,ἀμβρόσια χρύσεια, τά μιν φέρον ἠμὲν ἐφ᾽ ὑγρὴνἠδ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν ἅμα πνοιῇς ἀνέμοιο.εἵλετο δὲ ῥάβδον, τῇ τ᾽ ἀνδρῶν ὄμματα θέλγει,ὧν ἐθέλει, τοὺς δ᾽ αὖτε καὶ ὑπνώοντας ἐγείρει.τὴν μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχων πέτετο κρατὺς ἀργεϊφόντης.Πιερίην δ᾽ ἐπιβὰς ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ:σεύατ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἐπὶ κῦμα λάρῳ ὄρνιθι ἐοικώς,ὅς τε κατὰ δεινοὺς κόλπους ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιοἰχθῦς ἀγρώσσων πυκινὰ πτερὰ δεύεται ἅλμῃ:τῷ ἴκελος πολέεσσιν ὀχήσατο κύμασιν Ἑρμῆς.ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ τὴν νῆσον ἀφίκετο τηλόθ᾽ ἐοῦσαν,ἔνθ᾽ ἐκ πόντου βὰς ἰοειδέος ἤπειρόνδεἤιεν, ὄφρα μέγα σπέος ἵκετο, τῷ ἔνι νύμφηναῖεν ἐυπλόκαμος: τὴν δ᾽ ἔνδοθι τέτμεν ἐοῦσαν.πῦρ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἐσχαρόφιν μέγα καίετο, τηλόσε δ᾽ ὀδμὴκέδρου τ᾽ εὐκεάτοιο θύου τ᾽ ἀνὰ νῆσον ὀδώδειδαιομένων: ἡ δ᾽ ἔνδον ἀοιδιάουσ᾽ ὀπὶ καλῇἱστὸν ἐποιχομένη χρυσείῃ κερκίδ᾽ ὕφαινεν.ὕλη δὲ σπέος ἀμφὶ πεφύκει τηλεθόωσα,κλήθρη τ᾽ αἴγειρός τε καὶ εὐώδης κυπάρισσος.ἔνθα δέ τ᾽ ὄρνιθες τανυσίπτεροι εὐνάζοντο,σκῶπές τ᾽ ἴρηκές τε τανύγλωσσοί τε κορῶναιεἰνάλιαι, τῇσίν τε θαλάσσια ἔργα μέμηλεν.At once he fastened on his feet the sandalsof everlasting gold with which he flieson breath of air across the sea and land;he seized the wand he uses to enchantmen’s eyes to sleep or wake as he desires,and flew. The god flashed bright in all his power.He touched Pieria, then from the skyhe plunged into the sea and swooped betweenthe waves, just like a seagull catching fish,wetting its whirring wings in tireless brine.So Hermes scudded through the surging swell.Then finally, he reached the distant island,stepped from the indigo water to the shore,and reached the cavern where the goddess lived.There sat Calypso with her braided curls.Beside the hearth a mighty fire was burning.The scent of citrus and of brittle pinesuffused the island. Inside, she was singingand weaving with a shuttle made of gold.Her voice was beautiful. Around the cavea luscious forest flourished: alder, poplar,and scented cypress. It was full of wings.Birds nested there but hunted out at sea:the owls, the hawks, the gulls with gaping beaks.(5.44–67)Show Notes.Emily Wilson on Twitter and on the web.In addition to the links we provided with our episode on the Odyssey, you’ll find a list of other interviews on her website. Check them out!We’ll highlight this interview on Women Translating the Classics.A sample tweet about her recent translation of Oedipus Tyrannos (aka Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King).Lydia Davis’s translation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.“Resolution and Independence” by William Wordsworth, about a leech-gatherer. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.

<blockquote>This is a text which was composed by people who were alive for other people who were alive, which was alive in the mouths of those who were singing and performing it, and so it needs to feel alive again now for the new performances, the new experiences of it—and then also it has to have a sense of a long history, which is going to be enacted through the tools I have, which is the English language. </blockquote>We are delighted to have <a href="https://twitter.com/emilyrcwilson/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Emily Wilson</a>, professor and translator of the Odyssey (and other works), join us at The Spouter-Inn to talk about the task of the translator. When tackling a large work like the Odyssey, where did she begin? What decisions did she make about form, voice, and allusion? And is the finished project a poem by Homer? By Emily Wilson? Or is the situation a bit more complex than that?<h2>A passage.</h2>αὐτίκ᾽ ἔπειθ᾽ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα, ἀμβρόσια χρύσεια, τά μιν φέρον ἠμὲν ἐφ᾽ ὑγρὴν ἠδ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν ἅμα πνοιῇς ἀνέμοιο. εἵλετο δὲ ῥάβδον, τῇ τ᾽ ἀνδρῶν ὄμματα θέλγει, ὧν ἐθέλει, τοὺς δ᾽ αὖτε καὶ ὑπνώοντας ἐγείρει. τὴν μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχων πέτετο κρατὺς ἀργεϊφόντης. Πιερίην δ᾽ ἐπιβὰς ἐξ αἰθέρος ἔμπεσε πόντῳ: σεύατ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἐπὶ κῦμα λάρῳ ὄρνιθι ἐοικώς, ὅς τε κατὰ δεινοὺς κόλπους ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιο ἰχθῦς ἀγρώσσων πυκινὰ πτερὰ δεύεται ἅλμῃ: τῷ ἴκελος πολέεσσιν ὀχήσατο κύμασιν Ἑρμῆς. ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ τὴν νῆσον ἀφίκετο τηλόθ᾽ ἐοῦσαν, ἔνθ᾽ ἐκ πόντου βὰς ἰοειδέος ἤπειρόνδε ἤιεν, ὄφρα μέγα σπέος ἵκετο, τῷ ἔνι νύμφη ναῖεν ἐυπλόκαμος: τὴν δ᾽ ἔνδοθι τέτμεν ἐοῦσαν. πῦρ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἐσχαρόφιν μέγα καίετο, τηλόσε δ᾽ ὀδμὴ κέδρου τ᾽ εὐκεάτοιο θύου τ᾽ ἀνὰ νῆσον ὀδώδει δαιομένων: ἡ δ᾽ ἔνδον ἀοιδιάουσ᾽ ὀπὶ καλῇ ἱστὸν ἐποιχομένη χρυσείῃ κερκίδ᾽ ὕφαινεν. ὕλη δὲ σπέος ἀμφὶ πεφύκει τηλεθόωσα, κλήθρη τ᾽ αἴγειρός τε καὶ εὐώδης κυπάρισσος. ἔνθα δέ τ᾽ ὄρνιθες τανυσίπτεροι εὐνάζοντο, σκῶπές τ᾽ ἴρηκές τε τανύγλωσσοί τε κορῶναι εἰνάλιαι, τῇσίν τε θαλάσσια ἔργα μέμηλεν.At once he fastened on his feet the sandals of everlasting gold with which he flies on breath of air across the sea and land; he seized the wand he uses to enchant men’s eyes to sleep or wake as he desires, and flew. The god flashed bright in all his power. He touched Pieria, then from the sky he plunged into the sea and swooped between the waves, just like a seagull catching fish, wetting its whirring wings in tireless brine. So Hermes scudded through the surging swell. Then finally, he reached the distant island, stepped from the indigo water to the shore, and reached the cavern where the goddess lived. There sat Calypso with her braided curls. Beside the hearth a mighty fire was burning. The scent of citrus and of brittle pine suffused the island. Inside, she was singing and weaving with a shuttle made of gold. Her voice was beautiful. Around the cave a luscious forest flourished: alder, poplar, and scented cypress. It was full of wings. Birds nested there but hunted out at sea: the owls, the hawks, the gulls with gaping beaks.(5.44–67)<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://twitter.com/emilyrcwilson/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Emily Wilson on Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.emilyrcwilson.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">on the web</a>.In addition to the links we provided with our episode on the <a href="https://megaphonic.fm/spouter/15" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Odyssey</a>, you’ll find a list of <a href="https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/about-wilson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">other interviews</a> on her website. Check them out!We’ll highlight this interview on <a href="https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/women-translating-the-classics-emily-wilson-sholeh-wolpe-arshia-sattar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Women Translating the Classics</a>.A sample tweet about her <a href="https://twitter.com/emilyrcwilson/status/1021014168592371714" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recent translation of Oedipus Tyrannos</a> (aka Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King).Lydia Davis’s translation of Gustave Flaubert’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2ZliAud" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Madame Bovary</a>.“<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45545/resolution-and-independence" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Resolution and Independence</a>” by William Wordsworth, about a leech-gatherer. <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.</a>

15b. Bonus: Emily Wilson on the Odyssey.

“O gods, if any there be who will listen to my prayer, I do not refuse the dire punishment I have deserved; but lest, surviving, I offend the living, and, dying, I offend the dead, drive me from both realms; change me and refuse me both life and death!” [...] Even as she spoke the earth closed over her legs; roots burst forth from her toes [...] her blood changed to sap, her arms to long branches, her fingers to twigs, her skin to hard bark. And now the growing tree had closely bound her heavy womb, had buried her breast and was just covering her neck; but she could not endure the delay and, meeting the rising wood, she sank down and plunged her face in the bark. (Myrrha, at 10.483-498)Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a long and curious poem, telling stories of people getting transformed into animals, plants, or stones; stones turning into people, and language getting perverted every which way. Suzanne and Chris talk about the issues in translation, the way language can be lost, creation and the natural world, Ovid’s ideas of gender and sexuality, and medieval (and later) interpretations of these stories. They also wrap up this first cluster—on so-called “foundational” texts that turned out to have an unexpected common theme—and announce the next cluster.Show Notes.Ovid’s Metamorphoses in three translations: Frank Justus Miller, Brookes More, and Arthur Golding.The passages we discuss:Narcissus and Echo, 3.339–510Myrrha, 10.298–518Io, 1.567–649Acteon, 3.138–250Philomela, 6.424–674Deucalion and Pyrrha, 1.313–347Niobe, 6.146–312Tiresias, 3.314–336Hermaphroditus, 4.274–388Orpheus, 10.1–105 and 11.1–66Some later works inspired by the Metamorphoses:Bernini, Apollo and DaphneCaravaggio, NarcissusRubens, Deucalion and PyrrhaBenjamin Britten, 6 Metamorphoses for solo oboe after OvidTed Hughes, Tales from OvidThe Ovide moralisé is currently being translated into modern English. Meanwhile here’s a translation into Middle English done by William Caxton.[Correction: Ovid was exiled in modern-day Romania.]The next book we’ll discuss.

<blockquote>“O gods, if any there be who will listen to my prayer, I do not refuse the dire punishment I have deserved; but lest, surviving, I offend the living, and, dying, I offend the dead, drive me from both realms; change me and refuse me both life and death!” [...] Even as she spoke the earth closed over her legs; roots burst forth from her toes [...] her blood changed to sap, her arms to long branches, her fingers to twigs, her skin to hard bark. And now the growing tree had closely bound her heavy womb, had buried her breast and was just covering her neck; but she could not endure the delay and, meeting the rising wood, she sank down and plunged her face in the bark. (Myrrha, at 10.483-498)</blockquote>Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a long and curious poem, telling stories of people getting transformed into animals, plants, or stones; stones turning into people, and language getting perverted every which way. Suzanne and Chris talk about the issues in translation, the way language can be lost, creation and the natural world, Ovid’s ideas of gender and sexuality, and medieval (and later) interpretations of these stories. They also wrap up this first cluster—on so-called “foundational” texts that turned out to have an unexpected common theme—and announce the next cluster.<h2>Show Notes.</h2>Ovid’s Metamorphoses in three translations: <a href="https://amzn.to/2NddVRm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Frank Justus Miller</a>, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Brookes More</a>, and <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0074" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Arthur Golding</a>.The passages we discuss:<ul><li>Narcissus and Echo, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+3.+339&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3.339–510</a></li><li>Myrrha, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D10%3Acard%3D298" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10.298–518</a></li><li>Io, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D567" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">1.567–649</a></li><li>Acteon, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D138" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3.138–250</a></li><li>Philomela, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Ov.+Met.+6.424&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">6.424–674</a></li><li>Deucalion and Pyrrha, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D253" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">1.313–347</a></li><li>Niobe, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D146" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">6.146–312</a></li><li>Tiresias, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D314" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3.314–336</a></li><li>Hermaphroditus, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D271" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">4.274–388</a></li><li>Orpheus, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D10%3Acard%3D1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10.1–105</a> and <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D11%3Acard%3D1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">11.1–66</a></li></ul>Some later works inspired by the Metamorphoses:<ul><li>Bernini, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_and_Daphne_(Bernini)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apollo and Daphne</a></li><li>Caravaggio, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(Caravaggio)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Narcissus</a></li><li>Rubens, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deucalion_and_Pyrrha_(Rubens)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Deucalion and Pyrrha</a></li><li>Benjamin Britten, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLxWE_7XiWk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">6 Metamorphoses for solo oboe after Ovid</a></li><li>Ted Hughes, <a href="https://amzn.to/2Eh03Tx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tales from Ovid</a></li></ul>The Ovide moralisé is currently being translated into modern English. Meanwhile here’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2Eg8vm3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a translation into Middle English done by William Caxton</a>.[Correction: Ovid was exiled in modern-day <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_of_Ovid" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Romania</a>.]<a href="https://amzn.to/2Ehe2sC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The next book we’ll discuss.</a>

3. The Metamorphoses.

“To outwit you in all your tricks, a person or a god would need to be an expert at deceit. You clever rascal! So duplicitous, so talented at lying! You love fiction and tricks so deeply, you refuse to stop even in your own land. Yes, both of us are smart. No man can plan and talk like you, and I am known among the gods for insight and craftiness. You failed to recognize me:             I am Athena, child of Zeus. I always stand near you and take care of you, in all your hardships.”(13.291–303)Homer’s Odyssey tells us of a complicated man, Odysseus, who spent ten years away from his family during the Trojan War (for more details, read The Iliad) and spends another ten years trying to get home to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. But the Gods intervene, and Odysseus and his men get bounced from one marvellous island to another. Meanwhile, a gaggle of suitors are insisting that Odysseus has been gone so long he must be dead, and they’re going to keep bothering Penelope until she picks one of them to marry. When Odysseus finally gets home, he and Telemachus devise a brutal plan to solve the situation.Suzanne and Chris have a conversation about how the poem depicts cleverness, home, manliness, and water—and what about it has inspired so many adaptations.Show Notes.The Odyssey, in a recent translation by Emily Wilson. [Bookshop.]Wilson offers a pronunciation guide to several of the characters on her website.Wilson has been interviewed by the Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Times Magazine about her translation.Suzanne was a guest on This Is Your Mixtape.We made some ridiculous t-shirts based on The Tempest.We talked a little about Tiresias in our episode on The Metamorphoses.James Joyce’s Ulysses.Dear Reader on Madeline Miller’s Circe and Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad.Derek Walcott’s Omeros.Vergil’s Aeneid.Percy Jackson’s The Lightning Thief.Our episode on Dante’s Inferno.Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story.Next episode: Middlemarch by George Eliot. [Free ebook and audiobook.] Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.

<blockquote>“To outwit you  in all your tricks, a person or a god  would need to be an expert at deceit.  You clever rascal! So duplicitous,  so talented at lying! You love fiction  and tricks so deeply, you refuse to stop  even in your own land. Yes, both of us  are smart. No man can plan and talk like you,  and I am known among the gods for insight  and craftiness. You failed to recognize me:              I am Athena, child of Zeus. I always  stand near you and take care of you, in all  your hardships.” (13.291–303)</blockquote>Homer’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2Z8fGb7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Odyssey</a> tells us of a complicated man, Odysseus, who spent ten years away from his family during the Trojan War (for more details, read <a href="http://megaphonic.fm/spouter/1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Iliad</a>) and spends another ten years trying to get home to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. But the Gods intervene, and Odysseus and his men get bounced from one marvellous island to another. Meanwhile, a gaggle of suitors are insisting that Odysseus has been gone so long he must be dead, and they’re going to keep bothering Penelope until she picks one of them to marry. When Odysseus finally gets home, he and Telemachus devise a brutal plan to solve the situation.Suzanne and Chris have a conversation about how the poem depicts cleverness, home, manliness, and <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter?tag=Water/Ocean" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">water</a>—and what about it has inspired so many adaptations.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2Z8fGb7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Odyssey</a>, in a recent translation by Emily Wilson. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780393356250" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Wilson offers a <a href="https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/pronunciation-guide" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pronunciation guide</a> to several of the characters on her website.Wilson has been interviewed by the <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/emily-wilson-on-porous-boundaries-and-the-world-of-homer/#" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Los Angeles Review of Books</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New York Times Magazine</a> about her translation.<a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/mixtape/37" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Suzanne was a guest on This Is Your Mixtape.</a>We made some <a href="https://www.teepublic.com/user/megaphonic/albums/39598-the-spouter-inn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ridiculous t-shirts</a> based on <a href="http://megaphonic.fm/spouter/14" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Tempest</a>.We talked a little about Tiresias in our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Metamorphoses</a>.James Joyce’s <a href="https://amzn.to/33QmABs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ulysses</a>.<a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/reader/2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dear Reader on Madeline Miller’s Circe and Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad.</a>Derek Walcott’s <a href="https://amzn.to/33IEUMw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Omeros</a>.Vergil’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2ZapX6E" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Aeneid</a>.Percy Jackson’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2z6GR7K" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Lightning Thief</a>.Our episode on <a href="https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dante’s Inferno</a>.Lucian of Samosata’s <a href="http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home%3Atexts_and_library%3Aessays%3Athe-true-history" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A True Story</a>.Next episode: <a href="https://amzn.to/2Zrnr8l" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Middlemarch</a> by George Eliot. [Free <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/145" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ebook</a> and <a href="https://librivox.org/middlemarch-version-2-by-george-eliot/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">audiobook</a>.] <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a>.

15. The Odyssey.

“Imagine that Hephaestus came with his tools and stood over them as they were lying together, and asked, ‘What is it you humans want from each other?’ And when they were unable to reply, suppose he asked them instead, ‘Do you want to be so thoroughly together that you’re never at any time apart? If that’s what you want, I’d be glad to weld you together, to fuse you into a single person, instead of being two separate people, so that during your lifetime as a single person the two of you share a single life; and then, when you die, you die as a single person, not as two separate people, and you share a single death there in Hades. Think about it: is this your heart’s desire?” (29; 192e)Plato’s Symposium is a curious text: a philosophical treatise on love, a play about a dinner party in classical Athens where the guests are all flirty and catty, and a story-within-a-story that goes at least five layers deep. Suzanne and Chris consider what it means to get intellectually pregnant, to philosophically crash a party, and to find your missing half.Show Notes.The Symposium by Plato, Robin Waterfield’s translation. [Bookshop.]Our friends at Dear Reader discussed some adaptations of ancient Greek material: Check it out!Aristophanes’ myth of the origin of love inspired a striking song in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.When Alcibiades stumbles into the party, drunk and beautiful with flowers in his hair, he probably looks a little like Dionysius, the god of wine.No Silenus states with effigies inside have survived, but Susan Woodford has argued that medieval “Vierges ouvrantes” statues were similar.We do have depictions of Silenus as the (significantly older) tutor of Dionysus, however.  Next episode: The Metamorphoses by Ovid. (Use whatever translation you can find.)

<blockquote>“Imagine that Hephaestus came with his tools and stood over them as they were lying together, and asked, ‘What is it you humans want from each other?’ And when they were unable to reply, suppose he asked them instead, ‘Do you want to be so thoroughly together that you’re never at any time apart? If that’s what you want, I’d be glad to weld you together, to fuse you into a single person, instead of being two separate people, so that during your lifetime as a single person the two of you share a single life; and then, when you die, you die as a single person, not as two separate people, and you share a single death there in Hades. Think about it: is this your heart’s desire?” (29; 192e)</blockquote>Plato’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2DeCCJO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Symposium</a> is a curious text: a philosophical treatise on love, a play about a dinner party in classical Athens where the guests are all flirty and catty, and a story-within-a-story that goes at least five layers deep. Suzanne and Chris consider what it means to get intellectually pregnant, to philosophically crash a party, and to find your missing half.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2DeCCJO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Symposium</a> by Plato, Robin Waterfield’s translation. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780199540198" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]Our friends at <a href="http://megaphonic.fm/reader/2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dear Reader</a> discussed some adaptations of ancient Greek material: <a href="http://megaphonic.fm/reader/2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Check it out!</a>Aristophanes’ myth of the origin of love inspired a striking song in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zU3U7E1Odc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hedwig and the Angry Inch</a>.When Alcibiades stumbles into the party, drunk and beautiful with flowers in his hair, he probably looks a little like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus#/media/File:MosaicEpiphany-of-Dionysus.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dionysius, the god of wine</a>.No Silenus states with effigies inside have survived, but <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23207922" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Susan Woodford has argued</a> that <a href="https://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/object-narratives/opening-virgin-vierge-ouvrante" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">medieval “Vierges ouvrantes” statues</a> were similar.We do have <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Silenus_bearing_the_child_Dionysos" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">depictions</a> of Silenus as the (significantly older) tutor of Dionysus, however. Next episode: <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Metamorphoses</a> by Ovid. (Use whatever translation you can find.)

2. The Symposium.

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent.We begin our cluster on Philosophical novels with Middlemarch, George Eliot’s massive and masterful “study of provincial life”. A sometimes overwhelming number of characters populate a small manufacturing town in the English Midlands around 1830—but the novel focuses on a few “later-born [Saint] Theresas”. People like Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate aspire to do some good in the world, but what does “doing good” look like? And can good be achieved in the world without a nuanced ethical relationship to the others who make up that world? Chris and Suzanne explore how these questions play out in Eliot’s characters, and also look towards Baruch Spinoza, who is quietly behind Eliot’s philosophy.Show Notes.Middlemarch. [Project Gutenberg. Librivox. Bookshop.]The portrait of John Locke.Chaucer: Man of Law’s Tale.Teresa of Ávila.Bernini: Saint Teresa in Ecstasy.Eliot’s translation of Spinoza’s Ethics will be republished next year.In the meantime, another translation of the Ethics.In Our Time has a helpful episode about Spinoza, and they mention Eliot at the very end.A.S. Byatt on Middlemarch.Ibn Tufayl: Hayy ibn Yaqzan. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon—we rely on our lovely patrons!

<blockquote>An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent.</blockquote>We begin our cluster on Philosophical novels with <a href="https://amzn.to/2ZSsAdz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Middlemarch</a>, George Eliot’s massive and masterful “study of provincial life”. A sometimes overwhelming number of characters populate a small manufacturing town in the English Midlands around 1830—but the novel focuses on a few “later-born [Saint] Theresas”. People like Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate aspire to do some good in the world, but what does “doing good” look like? And can good be achieved in the world without a nuanced ethical relationship to the others who make up that world? Chris and Suzanne explore how these questions play out in Eliot’s characters, and also look towards Baruch Spinoza, who is quietly behind Eliot’s philosophy.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2ZSsAdz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Middlemarch</a>. [<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/145" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>. <a href="https://librivox.org/middlemarch-by-george-eliot/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Librivox</a>. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780143107729" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Godfrey_Kneller_-_Portrait_of_John_Locke_(Hermitage).jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The portrait of John Locke.</a><a href="https://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/mlt-par.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chaucer: Man of Law’s Tale.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Ávila" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Teresa of Ávila.</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Saint_Teresa" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bernini: Saint Teresa in Ecstasy.</a><a href="https://amzn.to/2ZSx44S" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Eliot’s translation of Spinoza’s Ethics will be republished next year.</a>In the meantime, <a href="https://amzn.to/2ZUDYG4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">another translation of the Ethics</a>.<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0079ps2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In Our Time has a helpful episode about Spinoza</a>, and they mention Eliot at the very end.<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/aug/04/fiction.asbyatt" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A.S. Byatt on Middlemarch.</a><a href="https://amzn.to/31h5RW4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ibn Tufayl: Hayy ibn Yaqzan.</a> <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a>—we rely on our lovely patrons!

16. Middlemarch.

It was necessary now to carry everything a step further. With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.Our Water/Ocean cluster begins with Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. This curious novel describes two days (separated by ten dramatic years) in the life of the Ramsay family as they stay at their holiday home in the Scottish Hebrides with their assorted friends and hangers-on. But the novel does not concoct a wild plot; instead, it examines how the characters observe each other’s internal and emotional states. Chris and Suzanne explore the way Woolf and her characters try to capture not only the endless flow of time, but also those moments when people are configured just so and time seems to stand still.Show Notes.Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse. [Bookshop. In some countries, the text and an audiobook are now public domain.]Margaret Atwood on reading To the Lighthouse as a teen, and again as an adult.Vanessa Bell’s art.Vanessa Bell’s dust jacket design for the first edition of To the Lighthouse.The Hogarth Press.The Bloomsbury Group.Next episode: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. [An online edition; free audiobook at Librivox.] Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and talk book with us on a members-only Slack!

<blockquote>It was necessary now to carry everything a step further. With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.</blockquote>Our Water/Ocean cluster begins with Virginia Woolf’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2xwm1xu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To the Lighthouse</a>. This curious novel describes two days (separated by ten dramatic years) in the life of the Ramsay family as they stay at their holiday home in the Scottish Hebrides with their assorted friends and hangers-on. But the novel does not concoct a wild plot; instead, it examines how the characters observe each other’s internal and emotional states. Chris and Suzanne explore the way Woolf and her characters try to capture not only the endless flow of time, but also those moments when people are configured just so and time seems to stand still.<h2>Show Notes.</h2>Virginia Woolf: <a href="https://amzn.to/2xwm1xu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To the Lighthouse</a>. [<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780156907392" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>. In some countries, <a href="https://legamus.eu/blog/?p=937" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the text and an audiobook</a> are now public domain.]<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/sep/07/classics.margaretatwood" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Margaret Atwood on reading To the Lighthouse as a teen, and again as an adult.</a><a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-meet-vanessa-bell-virginia-woolfs-overlooked-artist-sister" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Vanessa Bell’s art.</a><a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/vanessa-bell-dust-jacket-for-to-the-lighthouse" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Vanessa Bell’s dust jacket design for the first edition of To the Lighthouse.</a><a href="https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/the-hogarth-press" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hogarth Press.</a><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/bloomsbury/lifestyle-lives-and-legacy-bloomsbury-group" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Bloomsbury Group.</a>Next episode: William Shakespeare’s <a href="https://amzn.to/2Sr1oN6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Tempest</a>. [An <a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/tempscenes.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">online edition</a>; <a href="https://librivox.org/the-tempest-by-william-shakespeare/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">free audiobook at Librivox</a>.] <a href="https://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon</a> and talk book with us on a members-only Slack!

13. To the Lighthouse.

Full of life now, compact, visible,I, forty years old the eighty-third year of The States,To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,To you yet unborn these, seeking you.When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)(“Full of Life Now”)It’s Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday today! Suzanne and Chris are celebrating by rereading Leaves of Grass, the book of poetry that Whitman kept writing, revising, and expanding throughout his life. With its ecstatic rhythms, its vigorous celebration of the body and of freedom, and its dreams of collectivity through diversity, Whitman’s poetry can be compelling, even overwhelming. And even when the book doesn’t quite live up to our hopes and dreams, it offers a path beyond itself.Show Notes.Leaves of Grass. [Project Gutenberg. Librivox. Bookshop.]The Walt Whitman Archive also contains the complete text(s).Some curious details about the first printing of Leaves of Grass.The most famous section of Christopher Smart’s “Jubilate Agno”.Walt Whitman reading “America”.(Though there is some controversy about the authenticity of the recording.)Mark Twain wrote on “The Whitman Controversy” (about Whitman’s alleged obscenity).When Wilde Met Whitman.Whitman Noir.Some of the poems we quote:Full of Life NowWhoever You Are Holding Me Now in HandTo a StrangerAmericaI Sing the Body Electric (final section; later, sections 7 and 8)Song of Myself (sections 2 and 5)Spontaneous MeThe SleepersMe ImperturbeFirst O Songs for a PreludeVigil Strange I Kept on the FieldThe Wound-DresserWhen Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’dO Captain! My Captain!Responses to Whitman:Federico García Lorca: Oda a Walt Whitman [English translation]Pablo Neruda: Oda a Walt Whitman [English translation]Allen Ginsberg: A Supermarket in CaliforniaMark Doty: Letter to Walt WhitmanLangston Hughes: I, TooPaul Hindemith set a requiem with When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d.Mark Doty reads Song of Myself (and more).Next episode: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. You can support The Spouter-Inn and gain a bunch of perks through Patreon.

<blockquote>Full of life now, compact, visible, I, forty years old the eighty-third year of The States, To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, To you yet unborn these, seeking you.When you read these I that was visible am become invisible, Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me, Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade; Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)(“<a href="https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/84" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Full of Life Now</a>”)</blockquote>It’s Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday today! Suzanne and Chris are celebrating by rereading <a href="https://amzn.to/2QuaLub" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Leaves of Grass</a>, the book of poetry that Whitman kept writing, revising, and expanding throughout his life. With its ecstatic rhythms, its vigorous celebration of the body and of freedom, and its dreams of collectivity through diversity, Whitman’s poetry can be compelling, even overwhelming. And even when the book doesn’t quite live up to our hopes and dreams, it offers a path beyond itself.<h2>Show Notes.</h2><a href="https://amzn.to/2QuaLub" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Leaves of Grass</a>. [<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>. <a href="https://librivox.org/leaves-of-grass-by-walt-whitman/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Librivox</a>. <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2257/9780140424515" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>.]<a href="https://whitmanarchive.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Walt Whitman Archive</a> also contains the complete text(s).<a href="https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/blog/the-story-behind-the-first-edition-of-walt-whitmans-leaves-of-grass/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Some curious details about the first printing of Leaves of Grass.</a>The most famous section of Christopher Smart’s “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/jubilate-agno-fragment-b-i-will-consider-my-cat-jeoffry" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jubilate Agno</a>”.Walt Whitman reading “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnMoUm87QII" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">America</a>”.(Though there is <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/hear_walt_whitman_maybe_reading_the_first_four_lines_of_his_poem_america_1890.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">some controversy about the authenticity of the recording</a>.)Mark Twain wrote on “<a href="https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-symposium/walt-whitman-controversy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Whitman Controversy</a>” (about Whitman’s alleged obscenity).<a href="https://lithub.com/when-wilde-met-whitman/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">When Wilde Met Whitman.</a><a href="https://amzn.to/30NZFVN" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Whitman Noir.</a>Some of the poems we quote:<ul><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/73.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Full of Life Now</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/37.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/52.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To a Stranger</a></li><li><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53091/america-56d23215696b8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">America</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/19.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Sing the Body Electric</a> (final section; later, sections 7 and 8)</li><li><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Song of Myself</a> (sections 2 and 5)</li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/21.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spontaneous Me</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/96.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sleepers</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/84.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Me Imperturbe</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/110.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">First O Songs for a Prelude</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/122.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field</a></li><li><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53027/the-wound-dresser" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Wound-Dresser</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/192.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/142/193.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">O Captain! My Captain!</a></li></ul>Responses to Whitman:<ul><li>Federico García Lorca: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=26580" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Oda a Walt Whitman</a> [<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=26580" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">English translation</a>]</li><li>Pablo Neruda: <a href="https://www.neruda.uchile.cl/obra/obranuevasodas5.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Oda a Walt Whitman</a> [<a href="https://jacket2.org/commentary/toward-poetry-americas-8-pablo-neruda" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">English translation</a>]</li><li>Allen Ginsberg: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47660/a-supermarket-in-california" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Supermarket in California</a></li><li>Mark Doty: <a href="http://www.webdelsol.com/Five_Points/issues/v4n3/doty.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Letter to Walt Whitman</a></li><li>Langston Hughes: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47558/i-too" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I, Too</a></li></ul>Paul Hindemith set a requiem with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXeEyO2B2Y&amp;list=OLAK5uy_mCCEVzPoCWyEUUwlcOvn75Kod3-s1YM7c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d</a>.<a href="https://poetshouse.org/audio/2012-mark-doty-on-walt-whitman-full-audio/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mark Doty reads Song of Myself (and more)</a>.Next episode: <a href="https://amzn.to/2ED9JHU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Autobiography of Malcolm X</a>. You can <a href="http://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="payment nofollow" target="_blank">support The Spouter-Inn</a> and gain a bunch of perks through <a href="http://patreon.com/megaphonic" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Patreon</a>.

10. Leaves of Grass.

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