In this edition of The Substance of Influence, Nick chats with University of California-Berkeley English Professor Catherine Flynn about her new book, James Joyce and the Matter of Paris. Listen in for discussion on the (un)romantic Paris of yesteryear, the sources of all those cool modernist moves, and why Joyce's fiction is, um, a bit smelly.

In other news, members of the B.O.S.S. reading group in San Francisco are now terrified about the potentially impending selection (read: assignment) of Finnegans Wake. Our deepest apologies in advance.