Two Month Review

Covering two sections of the novel—the “Fifth Intermezzo” and “Book Ten”—this episode of TMR starts by discussing how life didn’t turn out how Oskar Pakulat had hoped, and then meanders through Beatrice’s search for the unicorn Anaximander, along with Benno’s all too honest conversation with Laura, before wrapping with an anti-AI reading of the golem/robot section. There’s more talk about how Imtraud Morgner is disrupting patriarchal literary forms, incorporating a dazzling array of literary structures, and having a great time writing this book. Also: Chad discovers the “Glossary” and learns about Paul Wiens for the second time this season.

This week’s music is “Brothers” by Dan Deacon.

Next week’s episode will cover up through page 360. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

This week, Kaija, Brian, and Chad talk about the various levels of narration to this book and the interplay between the “books” and the “intermezzos.” They also end up comparing and connecting The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice to a number of books and authors, including Mulligan Stew, Samuel Beckett, The Golden Notebook, I the Supreme, and Flann O’Brien. Finally, they focus in on the idea of a “montage novel” and how this upends male-dominated patterns of fiction.

This week’s music is “Not Today” by Kim Gordon.

Next week’s episode will cover up through page 299 (“Fifth Intermezzo” and “Book Ten”). If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

In an episode as scattered as the book itself, Brian, Chad, and Kaija spend this week wrestling with the wild fragmentation of Morgner’s novel. They talk about co-opting stories, about brains like waffles vs. those like plates of spaghetti, and about what they think might lie ahead. Also: ton of jokes in this one. And some terrible music references.

This week’s music is “Pony” by Ginuwine. (Blame Brian.)

Next week’s episode will cover up through page 242. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

On this episode, Chad admits to Brian and Kaija that he’s been wrong about something for decades . . . or has he? After that, they discuss the story of Jonah and the whale and Melusine, the poetry generator, Morgner’s general subversions, and more!

This week’s music is “Der blaue Planet” by the GDR band Karat.

Next week’s episode will cover through page 179. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

The new season kicks off by talking about what compelled Kaija to select The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by her Minstrel Laura, which didn’t get much attention when it came out from the University of Nebraska Press in 2000, but has developed a bit of a cult following. (Maybe the scene will be primed for a reprint by the time this season ends.) Myths, Melusine, Genshin Impact, the “Lady and the Unicorn” tapestries, Hopscotch and Tristram Shandy are all discussed, before Kaija gets to share the real reason she picked this book (spoiler: it’s a bunch of insults).

This week’s music is “De Troubadour” by Lenny Kuhr, winner of Eurovision 1969.

Next week’s episode will cover through page 116. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

On this episode, special guest Aryan Omar Hassan talks about Henar Press and their first publications: Gābor by Seyed Qader Hedayati, translated from the Kurdish by Chiya Parvizpur & Hourieh Maleki Qouzloo; I Am Going to Kill Somebody by Firat Ceweri, translated from the Kurdish by Jeannette Okur; and Who’s Afraid of Kurdistan?: An Anthology of Contemporary Plays, edited by Aryan himself. He also discusses the Kurdish Literary Database he built and maintains, along with discussing the element of suppression (of language, of the people) in Kurdish literature and some other common tropes, and makes a number of recommendations.

This episode’s music is “Damascus” by Gorillaz.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

On the final episode of this season of the Two Month Review, librarian, book reviewer, passionate reader, and Open Letter intern, Joseph Alcala joins Chad, Brian, and Kaija to talk about the last chunk of Augusto Roa Bastos’s I the Supreme. They discuss what did and didn’t keep them interested in the book, how it compares to other dictator novels, who the audience for this book might be, and just how fire the ending is.

This week’s music is “A House on Fire” by TRAAMS.

Next season’s title is The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura: A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos by Irmtraud Morgner, translated from the German by Jeanette Clausen, and the reading schedule will be available next week.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

Chad is still battling post-COVID brain fog, but he and Kaija make a solid go of it, talking about the brilliance of Roa Bastos’s voice, and reflecting on just how flimsy the monument of words and justifications he’s building really is. Then Kaija brings up this week’s primary topic: How to contribute to a group read when you’re just not feeling the book.

This week’s music is “Seven” by Holy Fuck.

Next week’s episode will cover the last section of the book, pages 382-435. The reading schedule for next season’s title—The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura: A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos by Irmtraud Morgner, translated from the German by Jeanette Clausen—will be available next week.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

Chad has Covid, giving this episode a feverish quality—and making it even more entertaining than usual? Regardless, he’s joined by Kaija and Brian and they talk about their struggles with the book, what’s pulling them through (or not), the philosophies and big ideas of it all, and failure.

This week’s music is “Mata Zyklek” by Angine de Poitrine.

Next week’s episode will cover through page 381. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

Carlos Labbé (Navidad & Matanza, The Murmuration) joins Chad and Kaija to talk about his experience reading Yo el Supremo in college, influences on this period of “el Boom,” Latin American history, and much more. They also discuss the plot, as it relates to Paraguay’s independence and the instillation of Francia as Supreme Dictator, and make predictions on what’s to come. Also: More skulls!!

This week’s music is “Northern Wind Brings Redemption” by Saagara.

Next week’s episode will cover through page 326. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.