“Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.”

In this episode, we dig into the story of the Latin poet Catullus and his beloved Lesbia and the mysterious sparrow which stood between them. The sparrow is an obstacle, but when the bird dies, its ghostly presence remains to haunt Catullus' desire. Jeffrey Eugenides uses this to claim that a love story is defined by the presence of an obstacle to a character’s desire. What is more, love itself depends on there being some discontent, something that makes it out of reach, not fully possessed, not fully claimed, not fully tamed.