Upper Middlebrow

Upton Sinclair spent about seven months in the Chicago stockyards, dressed as worker, making notes about poor working conditions, corrupt bosses, unsanitary conditions, and inhumane slaughter. And in his debut novel, he tried to include nearly everything he saw. Sinclair’s 1906 novel contains a litany of outrages. Its publication brought about some important reforms. But, the lads suspect he tried to cram too much in, to the detriment of good storytelling. 

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The lads follow up Phillip Roth's 1959 eponymous novel with Larry Peerce's 1969 film version. The film was the 10th highest grossing film of 1969, which is quite an achievement, given the other films that surfaced that year, and Peerce deploys his significant powers in delivering a commercial success. Jesse and Chris discuss the nature of adaptation and whether the film, ultimately, rises to the level of its source material.

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Roth's 1959 novella begins with an account of the protagonist, Neil Klugman watching the lovely Brenda swim while he holds her glasses. Immediately, we're transported to the poolside, and into Klugman's brain. But, is Klugman's brain worth visiting?

Klugman is charming and manipulative, funny and arrogant. We watch him pursue Brenda, begin and relationship and (spoiler alert) predictably louse it up. The UMBs discuss the virtues in inhabiting the world of a bad person who doesn't improve.

Chris and Jesse watch one of Chris' favorite films: Claire Denis' 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail, starring Denis Lavant and Colin Gregoire. The film is plot-light but significance-heavy, and the lads agree that it is beautiful and poetic and uncondescending. Can the power of imagery, sound, and implicated action balance a plot that sheds many of our usual expectations around how action unfolds in books and film?

Herman Melville's Novella Billy Budd, Sailor was not published until 1924, thirty-three years after his death. The literary world was in the midst of the Melville revival, suggesting that his themes of existential dread, guilt and innocence, right and wrong, and the conflict between what is good verses what is allowed had become salient to readers in the 1920s. The lads find it to be an absolute masterpiece: delightful in it's language, haunting in its human insight.

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Chris and Jesse are BACK! And the lads return with the first episode in Chris' series called "This Came From That?" where we consider both a piece of source material and its later adaptation. For our return we go back to one of our favorite works way back in Season One: Andy Weir's fantastic novel Project Hail Mary.

The question we'll be asking throughout the five episodes of this series is primarily about the relationship between source and adaptation, and we kick things off by looking at this 2026 film starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Müller. Does the film stand equally alongside the book?

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We go all the way back to episode 17, in honor of the release of the major motion picture, starring Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace. Our part 1 was originally titled Bromancing the Stone Carapace, perhaps the single greatest podcast title in history.

Many many many many writers take on “hard” science fiction, and get lost in the science, leaving behind such niceties as plot, character development, human insight, or deep emotional stakes. Somehow, Andy Weir imagines a thrilling and scientifically plausible adventure, that’s really just about friendship in space. Amidst the ammonia, burritos, and penis blood, sits a tale that brings both Dukes and Bagg to occasional tears. So much so that Bagg wonders if this is the “perfect novel” for our time.

Isaac Asimov doesn’t PERFECTLY predict today’s era of anxiety and excitement around AI. But he does pretty well for somebody writing eighty years ago. In this 1990 collection of Asimov’s classic robot stories, we see corporations trying to make money while navigating human anxiety around robots, and humans trying to determine whether robots should have human rights, and whether it’s OK to be friends with a robot. 

Bagg was busy for this one, so we’re joined by friend of the show Justin Reich, host of the Teachlab podcast, and a frequent collaborator of Dukes. 

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The second half of Feinstein’s book of minor league baseball stories and characters feels very much like the first half. The reporting is extensive, and Feinstein has a knack for the well described scene, brief characterization, and finding the drama in the everyday. In spite of those virtues, the book continues to overwhelm the reader with names, numbers, and anecdotes, until they all blend together into something rather soupy. It’s not unpleasant, and it certainly has wonderful moments, but the UMBs conclude that the book fails to transcend the category of good sport reporting. 

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John Feinstein’s baseball writing is as sharp as ever, the anecdotes of Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in the Minor Leagues of Baseball portraying a desperate but determined subculture of professional baseball. The many characters of Feinstein’s book hunger to make it to the bigs, whether they are past their prime, approaching that point, or beginning to suspect that their prime won’t be good enough for that callup. It’s a heartbreaking and affecting yarn, but does some of the impact fade into a forest of similar stories?