Chapter by Chapter

A two-parter! Eric and Annie discuss the final chapter of Northanger Abbey and the movie adaptation with Carey Mulligan and Rey from Star Wars. We bid goodbye to our sweet puss cinnamon bun Catherine Morland and a number of our former guests send us off as well. 

Flannery O'Conner comes on to describe how worshipping the old gods allowed her to avoid unwanted touch by male professors in the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Eric entertains the mushrooms growing in his apartment and Annie eats the cornbread of undoing. 

Catherine has been sent back to her childhood home in naught but a hack post-chaise with nary a servant. The Outrage! Annie and Eric spend most of this episode figuring out what a hack post-chaise is, but they also manage to fit in some pornographic speculation about Sauron from LOTR. Stay home and stay safe everyone! 

Witness to the bubonic plague, Giovanni Bocaccio, stops by to discuss his works, disease, the ghost Amazon warehouse, and social distancing in the land beyond the vale.

In an unexpected twist, our little cinnamon bun, Catherine Morland, all set up to live happily ever after, is expelled from Northanger without even a servant to accompany her home.

Trigger warning: offensively bad Italian accent.

Well well well look who comes crawling back to Catherine Morland, begging for her brother back. It's everyone's messy diva Isabella Thorpe! Meanwhile Annie makes a horrifying discovery about doorknobs and Eric sings Cole Porter.

Because of Covid-19 we recorded this episode over the phone, and smooshed together our different audio tracks during editing. So if it sounds like we're talking over each other, sorry! We're looking at better ways to record while social distancing. Meanwhile, everyone please stay safe and healthy!

Annie canvasses for Bernie Sanders in the Iowa beyond the veil betwixt life and death, Jane Austen indulges in house porn, and your hosts reveal their many scarecrow-related erotic fantasies. 

Alakazam! Anarchist warlock Alan Moore drops by to discuss psychohistorical magic and tell problematic jokes. There's a very English singalong before we get back to Catherine Morland who's quite regained her senses. 

Virginia Woolf comes on the pod to explain her blackface episode and divulge the deepest, darkest, kinkiest secrets of John Maynard Keynes. Also Eric attempts to phonebank for the Labour Party and our sweet Catherine Morland has a nutty in the tower room of the eponymous abbey. 

For this episode, Eric recommends The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. 

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252774/the-memory-police-by-yoko-ogawa/

Not gonna lie, we didn't like this chapter very much. We try to put off talking about how dumb Catherine has gotten by going on long-winded tangents about literature, politics, and regency costume. Then we make a bunch of fart noises. No, seriously. 

Article: Hilary Davidson, "Tight Breeches and Loose Gowns: Going Deep on the Fashion of Jane Austen," in LitHub

Catherine Morland finds a haunted cabinet and is at her most annoying as she fangirls all over Northanger Abbey. Eric and Annie argue CIA funded mid-century literature and pair classical composers with recreational drugs.