Existential despair, the hell of isolation, and a mad dash deep into the sublime beauty of the Sahara

Is there a place in this world for an irrational creature?

Empire! Torture! Manipulation! Control! Quite the book, and quite the episode.

David and Seth return for another episode on Gravity’s Rainbow and ‘knot’ into some of the many concepts Pynchon plays with to uncover what this strange novel is about.

How does one read this groundbreaking postmodern novel Thomas Pynchon? How does one read it twice? Or thrice? David and guest Pynchonite, Seth, share some ideas.

Unusual narrative techniques, metaphysical implications, symbolic deaths, co-existing interpretations, and a fall from grace.

Season 2 is all about Control. What is it? Who has it? Join us as we explore 6 different perspectives in fiction in the 20th century.

Memory, books worth reading a 1,000 times, childhood books, and a farewell tribute to Nick.

Fear, form, apocalyptic shizz, and the faintest glimmers of hope with guest Derek Maine.

Art, death, and the divine. What exactly is “the divine”?

Kafka’s immaculate craftsmanship and misunderstood humor and why a new edition of Kafka’s diaries needed to be released

The final volume of In Search of Lost Time. Topics include: memory, the purpose of art, and . . . BDSM?

The emotional power of lists. The strange antiquitous pastime of destroying timeless artifacts.

Learn about the story Difficult People, as well as Blaisdell’s approach to digging into Chekhov’s most prolific years of 1886 and 1887.

The endless cycle of the narrator’s obsession and apathy toward Albertine; the errors and inconsistencies of this posthumously published work (and whether that matters at all); the ability of different readers to find different points of connection in such a lengthy work.

This compact work will appeal to anyone interested in tightly architected narrative structures, complex questions of individual agency, and visceral scenes situated right next to moments of quiet contemplation.

We discuss how groundbreaking it was at the time to so openly write about homosexuality, the noticeable increase in the narrator’s presence in the book’s happenings, and the increased level of action in play (at least in comparison to prior volumes, that is).