The Spouter-Inn

By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris PiumaArts Books

The Spouter-Inn episodes

March 19, 2020 26. Persepolis.
That night I stayed a very long time in the bath. I wanted to know what it felt like to be in a cell filled with water. GOD (sitting next to the narrator, a young girl, as she takes a bath): What are you doing? My hands were wrinkled when I came out, like Grandpa’s.
Marjane Satrapi was ten years old at the start of the Iranian Revolution, and
her comics memoir Persepolis explores what it
was like to grow up in that environment. It’s a story of the Iranian
Revolution, which began in 1979, but it’s also the story of one individual
life in a time of great crisis, moving into the Iranian diaspora. Chris and
Suzanne discuss this personal story of revolution, how a child’s understanding
of events can be useful for introducing topics to readers, and the
difficulties of talking about comics on podcasts.
Show Notes.
Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis.
[Bookshop.]
Happy Nowruz!
Haft sin, the seven items
beginning with S.
Art Spiegelman: Maus.
Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics.
The 2500 year celebration of the Persian
Empire.
Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Other works mentioned by Marjane Satrapi:
Embroideries, Chicken with
Plums.
Marjane Satrapi on her new film Radioactive, about Marie
Curie.
A conversation with Marjane Satrapi and Art
Spiegelman.
Emma Watson interviews Marjane Satrapi.
Next: Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron.
[Gutenberg.]
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and help
us make the show. Thanks!
57 min
March 03, 2020 25. The Jungle.
The peculiar bitterness of all this was that Jurgis saw so plainly the
meaning of it. In the beginning he had been fresh and strong, and he had
gotten a job the first day; but now he was second-hand, a damaged article, so
to speak, and they did not want him. They had got the best of him—they had
worn him out, with their speeding-up and their carelessness, and now they had
thrown him away! And Jurgis would make the acquaintance of others of these
unemployed men and find that they had all had the same experience. There were
some, of course, who had wandered in from other places, who had been ground up
in other mills; there were others who were out from their own fault—some, for
instance, who had not been able to stand the awful grind without drink. The
vast majority, however, were simply the worn-out parts of the great merciless
packing machine; they had toiled there, and kept up with the pace, some of
them for ten or twenty years, until finally the time had come when they could
not keep up with it any more.
Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle (1906)
describes the lives of the working class in America by following Jurgis
Rudkus, who moves with his family from Lithuania to the US at the turn of the
century and then spends several years toiling in the slaughterhouses of
Chicago. The novel ends with Jurgis’s conversion to socialism, and Sinclair
hoped to inspire the reader to the socialist cause as well. And although the
socialist revolution in America didn’t play out as Sinclair imagined, his
novel did lead to major reforms in food safety legislation. It offers a lot
for Suzanne and Chris to chew on.
Show Notes.
Upton Sinclair: The Jungle.
[Gutenberg.
Librivox.
Bookshop.]
Also by Upton Sinclair: Manassas. The Brass
Check. Oil!
There Will Be Blood [trailer].
An article on the Helicon Home Colony.
The story of Sinclair’s run for Governor of
California.
The original serialized version of The Jungle.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
58 min
February 21, 2020 24b. Bonus: Lesley S. Curtis on Stella.
Nineteenth-century Haitian writing [is] absolutely fantastic. It still rings
radical. If you’re reading about it today, it still seems radical to us. There
[are] these really fantastic anti-colonial thinkers whose words just did not
make the impact that we are still striving for today.
We continue to think about the Haitian Revolution with our guest, Lesley S.
Curtis. Dr. Curtis is the founder and
president of Sagely, a Philadelphia-based
company offering strategy and communication services to small businesses,
schools, and universities. She holds a PhD in literature from Duke University,
where she studied gender and abolitionism in the French Caribbean. In 2015,
she and Christen Mucher (Smith College) co-translated Haiti’s first novel,
Stella, an allegorical retelling of the Haitian
Revolution. The novel was originally written in French by Haitian politician
Émeric Bergeaud and first published in 1859.
We talk about Stella, the relationship between history writing and literature,
the ongoing resonances of the Haitian Revolution, and the generous act of
translation.
Show Notes.
Émeric Bergeaud: Stella.
[Bookshop. A scan of the second
edition, in French.]
Curtis and Mucher: Haiti’s First Novel: Expanding the Study of the Age of
Revolutions, a brief overview of
Stella.
Beaubrun Ardouin.
Eugène Delacroix: Liberty Leading the
People.
Richard Burton, trans.: The Arabian
Nights.
Baron de Vastey.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
44 min
February 14, 2020 24. The Black Jacobins.
The slaves destroyed tirelessly. Like the peasants in the Jacquerie or the
Luddite wreckers, they were seeking their salvation in the most obvious way,
the destruction of what they knew was the cause of their sufferings; and if
they destroyed much it was because they had suffered much. […] From their
masters they had known rape, torture, degradation, and, at the slightest
provocation, death. They returned in kind. […] They, whose women had undergone
countless violations, violated all the women who fell into their hands, often
on the bodies of their still bleeding husbands, fathers and brothers.
‘Vengeance! Vengeance!’ was their war-cry, and one of them carried a white
child on a pike as a standard.
And yet they were surprisingly moderate, then and afterwards, far more
humane than their masters had been or would ever be to them.
The Revolution cluster begins! C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins: Toussaint
L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution is a
remarkable book about the history of the Haitian Revolution (1794–1803) and
the astonishing man who led the revolution, Toussaint L’Ouverture. First
published in 1938, it remains read today, both for its historical insight and
for the vividness of its writing. (It has even recently been optioned to be
adapted into a tv series!) Suzanne and Chris grapple with the genre of history
writing, the way revolution acts as a protagonist in this book, and the
exceptional life and work of its author.
Show Notes.
C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo
Revolution.
[Bookshop.]
Other C.L.R. James books mentioned: Beyond a
Boundary; Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The
Story of Herman Melville and the World We LIve in;
Minty Alley; The Life of Captain
Cipriani; and the play that preceded The Black
Jacobins.
An interesting review of the new edition of that
play.
Abolqasem Ferdowsi: Shahnameh: The Persian Book of
Kings.
Thomas Carlyle: The French Revolution.
Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire.
Herodotus: The Histories.
Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War.
The Black Jacobins radio play from
1971.
The Black Jacobins has been optioned for
television.
A 1970 interview with C.L.R. James about The Black
Jacobins.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
50 min
January 22, 2020 23. Memory Serves.
Even in the worst catastrophe, there is something unknown and cherished to be
discovered. We are certain that all life and death contain something
cherished that can be observed; if we listen, if we look for its internal
dynamic, watch its behaviour, and commit to its being, we may discover it.
Once we discover it, we can establish a relationship with it. Despite the
distance maintained between the barracuda and ourselves, we still have a
relationship with it. That relationship is one of cherishing the distance
between predator and prey; in this way, the barracuda becomes a teacher, and
the relationship is one of student and teacher. The space is deep green
water.
The Spouter-Inn begins its second year (happy birthday to us!) by reading a
book that challenges and provokes us in a number of ways (only a few of which
we talk about): Lee Maracle’s Memory Serves.
Lee Maracle is a writer, activist, and Elder of the Stó:lo Nation, and this
book is a collection of oratories—which is a term and a methodology that
struck Chris and Suzanne as fascinating, and one which poses a lot of
questions about the approaches they might take (and the limits they encounter)
as they make this podcast.
Show Notes.
Lee Maracle: Memory Serves: Oratories.
[Bookshop. NeWest
Press.]
Some other works by Lee Maracle: Ravensong.
Celia’s Song. I Am
Woman. My Conversations with
Canadians.
Some of her poetry.
An interview with Lee Maracle.
Two additional resources for starting to learn about Indigenous literatures:
Daniel Heath Justice: Why Indigenous Literatures
Matter.
Gregory Younging: Elements of Indigenous Style
(aimed at publishers but useful beyond that).
Michel de Montaigne: Essays.
We’ve been nominated for a Canadian Podcasting Award in the Outstanding Arts
Category! If you are a Canadian
podcaster, you’re eligible to vote for us (so please do).
Next episode: C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon, help us
make the show possible, and chat about books with us in a members-only Slack!
50 min
December 19, 2019 22. Beloved.
I can forget that what I did changed Baby Suggs’ life. No Clearing, no
company. Just laundry and shoes. I can forget it all now because as soon as I
got the gravestone in place you made your presence known in the house and
worried us all to distraction. I didn’t understand it then. I thought you were
mad with me. And now I know that if you was, you ain’t now because you came
back here to me and I was right all along: there is no world outside my door.
I only need to know one thing. How bad is the scar?
As 2019 draws to a close, Chris and Suzanne remember Toni Morrison, who passed
away this year, by reading Beloved. It’s a
difficult book—and a difficult book to talk about—but also a beautifully and
sensuously written book, and entirely worth reading. Your hosts explore what
genre(s) the book is, how time gets wobbly, and the unexpected roles of food,
as well as closely reading a few typically stunning passages.
Content warning: graphic violence, including the murder of a child.
Show Notes.
Toni Morrison: Beloved.
[Bookshop.]
An obituary for Toni Morrison.
That interview with Toni
Morrison.
Toni Morrison: The Source of Self-Regard.
The essay from that book about
Beloved.
An interview with Toni
Morrison.
Next episode: Lee Maracle: Memory Serves.
Support The Spouter-Inn via Pateon if you
can; it helps a lot. Or tell your friends about the show. Or both! Thanks.
58 min
November 27, 2019 21. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels
that change color every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery
sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips.
He can make chewing gum that never loses its taste, and candy balloons that
you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble
them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely little blue birds’
eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it
gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except
a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting at the tip of your tongue.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a classic work of children’s
literature by Roald Dahl. It tells the story of Charlie Bucket and his visit
to the fantabulous chocolate factory run by the reclusive Willy Wonka. Chris
and Suzanne explore how the book distinguishes between hunger and gluttony,
how it marks the bodies of children with their sins like some medieval
morality tale, and how parts of the story are tied up with colonialist
fantasies. All in time for (American) Thanksgiving!
Show Notes.
Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
[Bookshop.]
The Roald Dahl box set that Chris has been gorging
on. Includes, in particular, Matilda and
Boy.
His short story “Royal Jelly” is found in Cruelty
(among other collections).
Our episodes on Little Women, the
Metamorphoses, the
Inferno, and How to Cook a
Wolf and A Moveable
Feast.
An interview with Joseph Schindelman, who illustrated the first edition of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Roald Dahl was apparently not a great person.
Prudentius: Psychomachia. [More
info.]
Early (racist) versions of the Oompa-Loompas.
Next time: Toni Morrison: Beloved.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon if you
can, please. Thanks!
58 min
November 18, 2019 20b. Bonus: Irina Dumitrescu on Food Writing.
I’m actually not that interested in food writing that’s primarily about food.
I love food, but...
Irina Dumitrescu is a professor of
medieval literature at the University of Bonn, but she also has a secret life
as a food essayist. She is particularly interested in how food reflects
culture, how people use craft and creativity to survive hard times, and the
positive uses of imperfection. Her essays on food have been nominated for the
James Beard Foundation’s M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, and been
reprinted in Best American Essays 2016, Best Food
Writing 2017, and Jay McInerney’s Wine Reads: A
Literary Anthology of Wine Writing (2018). She joins
us to talk about food writing and amateurs, the allure of survivalism, and
food writing that isn’t really about food.
Show Notes.
Irina Dumitrescu’s website, including links to
her essays My Father and the
Wine and
Currywurst.
The New Braunfels Wurstfest.
Najmieh Batmanglij: Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking
and Ceremonies.
Rose Levy Berenbaum: The Cake Bible. (Chris points
out that her Pie and Pastry Bible and Bread
Bible are both great.)
Mark Bittman: How to Cook Everything.
Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg: The Flavor Bible.
Chris first heard of Thermomix through The Katering
Show.
John Thorne: Serious Pig. (Based on articles from
his newsletter.)
Dawn Drzal: The Bread and the Knife. (Irina’s
review.)
Anthony Bourdain: Medium Raw and Kitchen
Confidential.
Emmymadeinjapan’s YouTube series on Hard
Times
cooking.
See also Great Depression
Cooking.
Lizzie Collingham: Curry.
Abe Opincar: Fried Butter.
Fuchsia Dunlop: Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper.
Laurie Colwin: Home Cooking.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and join
us on a members-only Slack where we can share recipes.
47 min
November 15, 2019 20. How to Cook a Wolf.
There are times when helpful hints about turning off the gas when not in use
are foolish, because the gas has been turned off permanently, or until you can
pay the bill. And you don’t care about knowing the trick of keeping bread
fresh by putting a cut apple in the box because you don’t have any bread and
certainly not an apple, cut or uncut. And there is no point in planning to
save the juice from canned vegetables because they, and therefore their
juices, do not exist.
In other words, the wolf has one paw wedged firmly into what looks like a
widening crack in the door.
M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf is a book
about food written during World War 2. It’s full of meditations on hunger—the
wolf clawing at the door—and recipes for dishes that you might eat to survive
if supplies, fuel, and morale are limited. Chris and Suzanne talk about the
food she describes (both sumptuous and horrifying), her curious personality,
and the insight she provides on war and survival.
Show Notes.
M.F.K. Fisher: How to Cook a Wolf, also available
in the omnibus The Art of Eating.
[Bookshop.]
Laurie Colwin: Home Cooking.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: The Physiology of
Taste, translated by Fisher.
A review of Fisher’s translation from the New York
Times.
M.F.K. Fisher: A Cordiall Water.
Luke Barr: Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the
Reinvention of American Taste.
YouTuber Emmymadeinjapan recreated the preserved
eggs.
Bill Moyers interviews M.F.K. Fisher.
Next book: Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon if you
can. Thanks.
55 min
November 04, 2019 19b. Bonus: Simone de Rochefort on Ernest Hemingway.
For me, in coming to Hemingway in the 2010s as a queer woman, to start
reading the work of this man who can be incredibly polarizing and incredibly
cruel to women and queer people (although that’s very complicated…)—for me,
having the context of who he was and the dramatic backstory behind [The Sun
Also Rises] made me able to deal with the ugly parts of it a little more.
Simone de Rochefort is a Senior Video
Producer at Polygon, where she co-hosts the
podcast The Polygon Show. She’s also one of the hosts of the tech podcast
Rocket on Relay FM, which recently celebrated
its 250th episode. And, luckily for us, she is also a passionate amateur
Hemingway enthusiast. We were excited to bring her on the show to talk about
how and why she fell in love with Hemingway, how she navigates his more
problematic aspects, and how to reclaim Hemingway for women and queers.
Show Notes.
Simone de Rochefort on Twitter, her podcasts
The Polygon Show and Rocket, and her
work on Polygon’s YouTube channel.
Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast and the re-edited 2009 version.
Other Ernest Hemingway novels mentioned: The Sun Also
Rises, A Farewell to
Arms, and The Garden of
Eden.
A. Scott Berg: Max Perkins: Editor of Genius.
Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald Perkins
Correspondence.
Matthew J. Bruccoli: Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous
Friendship.
Lesley M. M. Blume: Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind
Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises.
Djuna Barnes: Nightwood.
Our episodes on the Iliad and The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
Mikaella Clements: The Queerness of Ernest Hemingway.
Simone’s quote comes from Adam Gopnik: Hemingway, the
Sensualist.
Simone discusses her Dream
Daddy
avatar on The Polygon Show episode
7.
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and
you’ll get to hear a short bonus bit where Simone offers an unflattering
anecdote about Hemingway.
52 min

About The Spouter-Inn

From the publisher's feed

Chris (a poet) and Suzanne (a professor) spent six years talking about “great books” (whatever that means), and are now talking about reading (and all the things that means).