Show Notes:

This week, Matt and Cameron are down with the sickness of Schulzomania, covering parts of the short story collection “The Street of Crocodiles” by Polish-Jewish literary superstar Bruno Schulz. They’ll be talking about “Visitation,” “Tailor’s Dummies,” and the eponymous “The Street of Crocodiles,” delving deep into Schulz’s surreal vision of his family and city. Order versus chaos, taking the formation of matter into our own hands, seductive tickling — we’ve got it all here! Get ready for it to get real confusing. 

Major themes: Torturing matter, Doomed eroticism, Unfinished modernity

01:51 - 1973, not later ‘70s. “The Hourglass Sanatorium.”

07:37 - “The Battle Over Bruno Schulz’s Final Works” by Adam Kirsch

30:42 - “Thinking about Absurdity with Bruno Schulz: Paradox and Potential” by Shlomit Gorin

51:27 - “Bruno Schulz and Seductive Discourse” by Jerzy Jarzębski

57:31 - “Are Crocodiles Flawless? The Reptiles Haven’t Changed in 200 Million Years” by Elizabeth Gamillo but counterpoint: “Modern Crocodiles Are Evolving at a Rapid Rate” by Riley Black

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. 

Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ 

Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | Facebook

Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at [email protected] or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:

This week, Matt and Cameron chart new territory by covering the novella Devil's Yard by Yugoslav writer, poet, and diplomat (at varying times) Ivo Andrić. Covering a story within a story, they’ll have plenty to say about the construction of narrative, storytelling from the core and periphery of empire, and what’s up with everybody talking about eyes, huh? Grab your prison blanket, find a safe spot to sleep in the yard, and tune in! 

Major themes: Narrative confusion, Residue of truth, The eyes have it

10:35 - “Narrative and Narrative Structure in Ivo Andric’s Devil’s Yard” by Mary P. Coote

00:00 - “Ivo Andric in English Translation” by Albert B. Lord

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. 

Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ 

Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | Facebook

Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at [email protected] or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Note: This episode originally aired in February 2024. Matt and Cameron are taking a much needed break this August and wanted to re-up some mid-series Life and Fate episodes they thought deserved more attention.

Pick up a copy of The Czech Manuscripts here.

Show Notes:

This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by Professor David L. Cooper to talk about his new book The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth. In the book, Dr. Cooper takes a new look at the so-called Czech Manuscripts — several forged literary works that played a large role in 19th Century Czech national identity-building — using several approaches to tackle what trends shaped them and how they were treated in turn. 

David L. Cooper is Associate Professor and Head of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A specialist in Czech and Russian literatures, his research is in the areas of nationalism in literature, forgery and mystification, translation history and translation studies, and history of criticism. David has published translations of Slovak folktales and a critical edition of the poems of the Czech 19th-century forged manuscripts, The Queen’s Court and Green Mountain Manuscripts with Other Forgeries of the Czech Revival (Ann Arbor, 2018).

Major themes: National identity, forgery or fiction, more medieval poetry

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. 

Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ 

Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | Facebook

Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at [email protected] or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Note: This episode originally aired in January 2024. Matt and Cameron are taking a much needed break this August and wanted to re-up some mid-series Life and Fate episodes they thought deserved more attention.

Pick up a copy of Ochre & Rust from Green Linden Press’ website.

Show Notes:

This week, Matt and Cameron tackle some of the work of Sergey Gandlevsky, translated by Philip J. Metres and collected in Ochre & Rust. Tune in to hear more about one of Russia’s most celebrated modern poets, self-described outsider who drifted around the edges of the USSR (and, later, the Russian Federation) and cataloged his thoughts and experiences in his poems. 

Philip Metres is a poet, scholar, translator, essayist, and peacebuilder. He is the author of twelve books, including Fugitive/Refuge (2024), Ochre & Rust: New Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (2023), Shrapnel Maps (2020), The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance (2018), and Sand Opera (2015). His work has garnered fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Watson Foundation. He has been awarded the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and the Hunt Prize. Philip has been called “one of the essential poets of our time,” whose work is “beautiful, powerful, magnetically original.” He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. He is also Core Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.  

You can find more from Philip on his website and see some other links he’s shared on his linktree. 

Major themes: Prodigious drinking, After the USSR’s dissolution, Andrei Bolkonsky returns

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. 

Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ 

Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | Facebook

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Note: This episode originally aired in April 2024. Matt and Cameron are taking a much needed break this August and wanted to re-up some mid-series Life and Fate episodes they thought deserved more attention.

You can pick up a copy of Dr. Maya Vinokour’s book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture here. 

Show Notes:

This week, Matt and Cameron sit down with Dr. Maya Vinokour to talk about her book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture and touch on Daniil Kharms’ short story “How the Old Woman Tried to Buy Ink.” 

Dr. Vinokour is Assistant Professor in the Department of Russian & Slavic Studies at New York University and the author of Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture. Her interests include Stalinism and Nazism, late-Soviet science fiction, post-Soviet media, and the global Far Right. She recently published an article in Jacobin on a phenomenon she calls "lifestyle fascism."

Major themes: Flow, cosmic symbology, energy reserves

39:45 - “How the Old Woman Tried to Buy Ink” by Daniil Kharms

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. 

Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ 

Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | Facebook

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:

They said it couldn’t be done; they said it was too much work; they say it was simply too much Grossman. (The ‘they’ here is Matt and Cameron, to be clear). This week, more than 7 months after starting their Life and Fate series, Matt and Cameron proved them (us) wrong by covering Chapters 49 through 61 of Part 3. It’s time to say goodbye to characters we’ve followed across nearly 900 pages (or around 1700 pages if you also read Stalingrad), with many of them going out on notes both painful and poignant. But the novel’s end does not imply the end of Grossman’s characters — you’ll get what we mean soon enough. 

Major themes: Bureaucracy, Stalingrad, the meaning of Life and Fate

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. 

Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!

Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ 

Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | Facebook

Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at [email protected] or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 3, Chapter 61 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here.

If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of Life and Fate, you can do so on our website.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our Discord to participate in the discussion.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 3, Chapter 60 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here.

If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of Life and Fate, you can do so on our website.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our Discord to participate in the discussion.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 3, Chapter 59 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here.

If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of Life and Fate, you can do so on our website.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our Discord to participate in the discussion.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 3, Chapter 58 of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate. You can read our post about the chapter here.

If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of Life and Fate, you can do so on our website.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and join our Discord to participate in the discussion.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands