And it comes over her in a rush, the memory of what it used to feel like, being alive.

This episode is our first look at a novel by Rachel Cusk, my favorite writer (or co-favorite, with Woolf), and, à mon avis, the most important novelist of the 21st century. We talk about The Bradshaw Variations, from 2009, looking at how Cusk’s narration and its interest in philosophical depth power the book.

We talk about how her use of free indirect style—one more attuned to an “observational mirroring” rather than the messier, more associative syntactic refraction of, say, Woolf—enables her to cover an entire year in the lives of several perspective characters while still getting us close to them. We read out a few passages and talk about the ways that art—what it is and why it matters—gets into this novel. I would definitely encourage everyone to check it out; it’s a great first Cusk book if you’ve never read her. Some really incredible lines and passages all over this one.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes in a few days, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

This episode features the formidable friend of the journal, Devyn Andrews, joining the show to discuss Anna Burns’ Milkman. Devyn—Issue Seven L’Esprit contributor and fellow veteran of the UIC Program for Writers—brings her singular insight to this incredible novel and its very strange, highly compelling use of first-person.

We get into the novel and break down its use of homodiegetic narration, and nearly make it out of the first chapter in the process. It’s an incredible novel and the first in our (possible?) series Indirect After Dark, which may or may not continue! In any event, it was a very fun conversation, and I hope you all enjoy it. In the meantime, check out Devyn’s website and, of course, stay critical!

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…seemed to suggest the possibility of madness as a kind of shelter.

In the episode of Les Cordelivres Criticism Club, we dive deep into Rachel Cusk's 2024 novel Parade as an example of a work that pushes the boundaries of the novel form. We discuss how the book arguably represents a new frontier in utilizing the novel as a philosophical text while still maintaining compelling narrative elements. We also use a super cool cricket-oval analogy to get there!

We get into Cusk's attempt to enact, rather than describe, the process and costs of artistic creation. The novel's fragmented structure, shifting perspectives, and blurring of fiction and reality are viewed as mirroring the messy, non-linear nature of art-making and selfhood. This allows Parade to encompass themes such as the relationship between art and life, gender and creativity, and the possibility of madness as both a danger and a shelter for artists. In many ways, Parade is a culmination of Cusk's career-long exploration of these ideas, praising its philosophical depth and formal innovation while remaining an endlessly engaging read.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes in a few days, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

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She could probably return in time to destroy the notes.

Happy New Year! This episode is the second half of our conversation on Mrs Dalloway intertextualities, looking at Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Robert Lippincott's Mr. Dalloway. We dove right back into composition, looking at how both novels look to make their readerly impact through plot-based narrative developments rather than through narration itself, which differs from Woolf's approach in MRSD.

We also covered the books’ status as queer literature, their meta-textual elements, and a look at how POV functions in each. In this second part, we focused a lot on the various ways in which Lippincott and Cunningham “win”—by which we simply mean how they seek to execute the plans and goals of their work and, ultimately, achieve an emotional resonance.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes in a few days, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

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She is allowed, for now, to read unreasonably.

This episode is the first half of our conversation on the intertextualities of Mrs Dalloway, looking at Michael Cunningham's The Hours and Robert Lippincott's Mr. Dalloway. We introduced the books, spending a little time on each and discussing the MRSD legacy more broadly before turning to the texts themselves.

We talk about how both authors approach narration differently, with Lippincott using a more playful style that closely mimics Woolf's technique of moving between multiple character perspectives within a single point of view, particularly during a party scene set on a train. Cunningham's approach is a bit more structured, with distinct chapters for each timeline and perspective character. Ultimately, these are both very accomplished novels that are super cool emanations of the great Mrs Dalloway.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes next week, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

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First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.

In this episode of Les Cordelivres Criticism Club, we dive deep into the narration, language, and aesthetics of Woolf’s seminal novel Mrs Dalloway—maybe the greatest novel of all time? One could make a strong case.

The discussion is somewhat based on an essay I presented at the 34th Annual International Conference this past July, titled ”The Hour, Irrevocable: Death, Time, and Narration in Mrs Dalloway,” which looks at some implications of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell on the first 538 words of the novel. The core of my (very much still in-utero) idea is looking for a way to map the account of language—and thereby the world—made by Wittgenstein (and Cavell, among others) onto an account of narration—and thereby consciousness—in the novel. I do successfully manage to avoid making this a straight philosophy podcast, however, although maybe we could get more into this stuff in a future episode.

For now, we focus on the ways in which Woolf's use of methods such as free-indirect discourse, figurative language, and temporal movement creates meaning beyond the literal text, drawing on Wittgensteinian “ordinarily language philosophy” and Cavell's work on metaphor, simile, and idiom. We also look at some interesting complications presented by translation (en Français!), as well as this idea of “death/time” that I’ve fashioned. We also talk a little about the conference and one of my tattoos.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes in a few days, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

If you’d like to join Les Cordelivres Criticism Club—for free!—and support fearless writing located beyond convention, simply follow the link below.

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Suddenly Elizabeth stepped forward and most competently boarded the omnibus, in front of everybody.This episode is the first in our series on Mrs Dalloway, for the 100th anniversary of its publication. In this episode, we talk somewhat generally about the novel, getting into Woolf's style and narrational mode, and how she manages to create a sense of her book being "lived-in."What's really interesting about MRSD, (well, one of the many, many things), is how scenic it is. Literally: the novel is almost entirely scene. This creates a sense of it being "shot in one continuous take," to use a cinematic comparison, and deepens the feeling of life at its core. This universality, I think, gives MRSD its remarkable staying power.

This series will continue over the rest of the year, looking at other texts, taking a deeper dive into MRSD itself, and having a guest or two on to discuss. It's my favorite book and I really enjoyed recording this one; an excellent way to spend Halloween.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes next week, and in the meantime check out everything happening at the journal and the press and, of course—stay critical.

Merci !

A sharp spur of anxiety runs up her leg.

This episode focuses on the second half of Eimear McBride's 2020 novel Strange Hotel, talking about the way her prose creates a parallel relationship between the reader’s repose to the text and the character’s response to memory. We looked at some more of that awesome McBride language, and had fun with quotes. Check out the first half of our conversation, from a couple weeks ago, below!

In part two, we focused on how the novel's language and structure create immersive memories and emotional depth, with specific attention to the narrative's shift from third-person to first-person perspective in the final pages. Then we talked a bit about stream-of-consciousness, and where Strange Hotel does or does not fit into that world—a conversation that’ll be ongoing in the Club. Hopefully this is only the beginning of McBride’s “experimental” phase.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes next week, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

In the end he needs reality, to measure his creation against.

Our first memoir in the Cordlivres Club! On this episode, we’re talking Rachel Cusk’s The Last Supper, from 2009, about a summer spent in Italy with her family. It’s all about art, language, meaning, truth, tennis—you know, typical stuff.

We get into Cusk's distinctive writing style, particularly her ability to blend abstract philosophical concepts with concrete human experiences through figurative language. I touch on her unique narrative technique of "first-person free and direct," which allows readers to experience conversations more intimately by subtly incorporating other characters' speech patterns into the narration. We shares a few passages from the book to demonstrate how Cusk explores the relationship between language, art, and experience, observing how she approaches memoir writing with those novelistic techniques that make her nonfiction particularly compelling.

Stay tuned for the Substack post with complete show notes in a few days, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !

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Our latest guest episode in the Cordelives Club doubles as our first author talk! The marvellous H. S. Cross joins us to talk about her new novel, Amanda.

Heather and I talk about her belief in point-of-view, the MFA-less route she took to writing, how she researched and thought about her novel, and so much more. Amanda is a super cool book, and this episode is a great look both at it and at Heather’s approach to her craft. A fascinating conversation that might offer a lot of insight for those thinking about how longterm careers in writing.

I’ve got a review of the novel coming out with Chicago Review of Books, and Heather and I did a written interview that’ll be out in L’Esprit Issue Seven, in October. For now, check out Heather’s website, and order one of her books! You can preorder Amanda now and find her first two novels via her website. If you can, please consider buying them direct from FSG.

Thanks so much to Heather for coming on the show. I hope everyone enjoys this excellent discussion; I know I did. More soon, and in the meantime—stay critical.

Merci !