S4 Ep41: Power, abuse, and doubled families in Otessa Moshfegh's Eileen
The Spiders pick over Otessa Moshfegh's novel Eileen, a novel whose protagonist's gaze might have its own spidery quality.
57m Jan 22, 2024
57m
S4 Ep39: The Garden of Seven Twilights and the Postmodern Mega-Novel
In which the Spider tries to unravel the tangled web of Miquel de Palol's The Garden of Seven Twilights, the Catalan language's addition to the canon of postmodern meganovelistic bricks like Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow.
1hr 4m Jan 07, 2024
1hr 4m
S4 Ep40: The Complexity of Stasis in Lexi Freiman's The Book of Ayn
In this episode we discuss Lexi Freiman's new book, The Book of Ayn. We talk about objectivism, the relationship between humor and ideology, the difficulties of interrogating meaning through the perspectives of unreliable narrators, and the perpetual rightness of Patrick Barney.
57m Dec 26, 2023
57m
S4 Ep38: David Nikki Crouse's I'm Here: Alaska Stories
In this episode, the spiders are joined by a special guest, the author of several notable short story collections, David Nikki Crouse. We ask David craft questions about their most recent story collection, I'm Here: Alaska Stories. David gives insightful answers on a variety of topics, including class, identity, and the myth of Alaska.
53m Dec 07, 2023
53m
S4 Ep37: Ben Okri's The Famished Road and the worst tendencies of magical realism
In which the Spiders grudgingly admit to not connecting with Ben Okri's legendary The Famished Road, inspiration for the best early Radiohead song, and a novel which works much better in bits and fragments than it does as a unified whole.
50m Nov 19, 2023
50m
S4 Ep36: The Future of Literacy and Vernor Vinge's Novel, Rainbows End
Note: Some audio issues with our mics in this episode. Apologies for the diminished quality. In this episode, the boys discuss the future of literacy - in large part to avoid discussing Vinge's disappointing novel. We touch upon what the emergence of generative AI might mean for writing and reading, and we talk about the craft of writing about the future.
1hr 1m Oct 30, 2023
1hr 1m
S4 Ep35: Literary Olives and the Distortions of the Moment in Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2
The Spiders are unsure how to approach Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2, a novel which they find eerily predictive of the methods used to build contemporary AI programs like ChatGPT. Does the contemporary relevance of its scientific principles cause us to overrate its thematic depth, or to look in the wrong places for meaning? And can Chris and Hans forgive Powers's unique brand of ornate prose?
47m Oct 11, 2023
47m
S4 Ep34: Is it ethically okay to enjoy the work of monstrous artists?
A discussion of Mary Beth Willard's "Why it's OK to enjoy the work of immoral artists," a philosophical text which advances the titular thesis, with a specific focus on Hans and Patrick's relationship to the classic early work of industrial-metal singer and alleged abusive partner Marilyn Manson.
1hr 9m Sep 26, 2023
1hr 9m
S4 Ep33: Truth, Morals, and Intention in Literature: Aristotle's Poetics and More
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss three important questions in literature: Can literature contain or reveal truth? What is the relationship between literature and morality? And how seriously should we take an author's intentions when discussing her work? The hosts employ a range of background texts to address these questions, including Aristotle's Poetics.
1hr 11m Aug 29, 2023
1hr 11m
S4 Ep32: Cultural Insensitivity and Beautiful Language in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory
In this episode, we discuss the tiny, ugly ways an otherwise beautifully written novel can age, as well as Patrick's inclination to invoke WWOD (What Would Orwell Do?).
1hr 16m Aug 07, 2023
1hr 16m
S4 Ep30: Interpolations and Internal States in Checkout 19
The Spiders puzzle admiringly over Claire-Louise Bennett's Checkout 19, which uses interpolated stories and a fractured narrative to explore the barriers facing artistically inclined women in a sexist society. Special focus is given to the story of Tarquin Superbus, which so charmed us that we've perhaps had a difficult time exploring other aspects of the novel.
1hr 5m Jul 17, 2023
1hr 5m
S4 Ep31: The Art of Making Meaninglessness Comforting in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
In this episode, we discuss the lasting phenomenon that is the Hitchhikers' media series. Just why is it so popular? It's not extraordinarily profound. It's certainly not upbeat, either. But: it caught the world at the right time and: it was written to be very easily digestible by a lot of different folks.
1hr 1m Jul 02, 2023
1hr 1m
S4 Ep29: Moral Ambiguity and Magical Fetishism in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts tackle The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy. Casterbridge is a complex novel about the rise and fall of Michael Henchard. After dramatically selling his wife and baby daughter to a stranger for five pounds, Henchard vows to abstain from alcohol for twenty years. Eighteen years after this event, the novel picks up with Henchard at the height of his po...
57m Jun 15, 2023
57m
S4 Ep28: Female Perspectives and the Weight of Submission in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Does submission to fate bring weight or lightness? Can Milan Kundera find the clit? Special guest Sarah Ashcraft joins us to discuss The Unbearable Lightness of being, a novel whose deceptive readability hides its thematic obscurity.
1hr 9m Apr 23, 2023
1hr 9m
S4 Ep27: What the hell is happening in our heads in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse
In this episode, we discuss the close attention Woolf gives to her characters and how mercurial and impermanent we are under her atomic analysis. We also discuss why, it seems, To the Lighthouse is a 1 of 1, rarely emulated (at least successfully) despite the fact that Woolf is in the canon. In fact, brilliant as she is - or maybe because of her brilliance - we suggest young writers shouldn't t...
52m Apr 10, 2023
52m
S4 Ep26: Empathy and Indeterminacy in Russell Banks' Lost Memory of Skin
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss Lost Memory of Skin, a novel that seeks to empathize with probably the most reviled subgroup in the entire world: pedophiles. The novel follows the exploits of a young sex criminal known only as the kid, whose life of hardship culminates in an attempt to meet a teenage girl for sex. In the aftermath, the kid finds himself homeless, living under a c...
1hr 2m Mar 26, 2023
1hr 2m
S4 Ep25: On Quantum Theory and Social Justice in Namwali Serpell's The Furrows
The spiders attempt to fit together the refracting, self-contradictory plot and reconcile the competing thematic strands of Namwali Serpell's enigmatic The Furrows, which might or might not be a compelling meditation on grief and loss.
1hr 11m Mar 04, 2023
1hr 11m
S4 Ep24: Humor, Madness, and Existential Dread in Cormac McCarthy's newest duology: The Passenger and Stella Maris
In this episode we discuss McCarthy's newest two novels, published a couple months apart but obviously intended to be read together. And we talk about why, though they are excellent, these are such awful books for young writers to read and try to emulate. Don't even try it, kids. Leave this particular magic to McCarthy.
1hr 13m Feb 16, 2023
1hr 13m
S4 Ep23: Erotic Grotesqueries in The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
In this episode, we discuss a collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil. This collection revels in despair and decay, in erotic death. Come along with us into the depths of pain and sexual horror.
59m Jan 29, 2023
59m
S4 Ep22: Uncanny Perspectives on Art and Love in Robert Aickman's Painted Devils
The spider tackles Painted Devils, a collection of strange stories (perhaps not horror but darkly surreal in a horror-adjacent way) by the author Robert Aickman. Dense and enigmatic, these stories use the uncanny to explore various themes, particularly the life of the artist. Recorded just in time for Halloween but then posted in the middle of January.
1hr 6m Jan 15, 2023
1hr 6m
S4 Ep21: Authenticity in Drew Hayden Taylor's AlterNatives
In which we discuss, among other things: The proper level of shame one should feel for liking the television show Friends. Whether we would antagonize the rich hosts of a dinner party thrown by tech bros - should we somehow find ourselves invited. The big and messy and fascinating ideas - and bargain basement humor - of Drew Hayden Taylor's play about authenticity, and whether it is possible t...
51m Dec 29, 2022
51m
S4 Ep20: Being Mixed and Being American: Jean Toomer's Cane
In this episode, the hosts of Book Spider discuss Jean Toomer's Cane, a collection of poems and stories that evoke rural Georgia of the early 1900s. The critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. calls attention to Cane's use of black, white, and especially mixed-race characters to represent the American experience, an astounding literary innovation never used before or since.
1hr 7m Nov 28, 2022
1hr 7m
S4 Ep19: On Irresolution and Indeterminacy in Dana Spiotta's Wayward
The podcast's second go-round with author Dana Spiotta sees us dig into her most recent novel Wayward, which makes a bold effort to argue for nuance and subtlety in the sociopolitical chaos following the 2016 election (for everyone except finance bros, who remain one-dimensional shitheads).
53m Nov 13, 2022
53m
S4 Ep18: Heinrich Böll's Billiards at Half Past Nine
This week, we discuss Böll's compelling but messy multigenerational, German POV reflection on the World Wars, evil, and their impact on the lives of common people.
51m Oct 19, 2022
51m
S4 Ep17: Psychological Dread in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca
This episode, the Book Spider gang discusses an early suspense / psychological thriller novel, Rebecca, which deals with the melancholia a nameless narrator experiences when she marries a rich man and moves to his huge estate on a whim, only to find that the memories of her husband's first wife haunt the very ground upon which she walks.
59m Sep 16, 2022
59m
S4 Ep16: Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World
This week we're dissecting a book which mixes fiction and nonfiction in ways which are enigmatic, compelling, and -- to some readers -- morally suspicious. Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World follows the fictionalized biographies of several scientists and mathematicians as they discover the principles which become quantum mechanics. This odd genre hybrid is admirable, gripp...
58m Sep 04, 2022
58m
S4 Ep15: Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End
This week, we discuss Ferris's famous "we" novel about late 2000s office space culture, and get briefly melancholic about what work friends felt like in the pre-pandemic world.
1hr 7m Aug 22, 2022
1hr 7m
S4 Ep14: Michael Flynn's Eifelheim
This episode, which discusses the modern-day sci-fi classic Eifelheim, features a rarity: all three podcasters agreeing on the quality of the text. Enjoy!
58m Aug 05, 2022
58m
S4 Ep13: Joseph McElroy's Lookout Cartridge
In this episode the three Spiders do their damnedest to wrap their heads around Lookout Cartridge, which is generally agreed to be the best novel by Joseph McElroy, an enigmatic postmodernist who is often considered an underrated peer of DeLillo, Pynchon, Gass, Gaddis, and the rest of the '60s and '70s greats. 
1hr 8m Jul 04, 2022
1hr 8m
S4 Ep12: Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler
This week, we discuss Calvino's willful commitment to celebrate the act of reading by refusing to give readers what they want - over and over and over again. 
47m Jun 22, 2022
47m
S4 Ep11: Human and Nonhuman Minds in Paul Auster's Timbuktu and Olaf Stapledon's Sirius
In this episode, we compare two novels with dog protagonists and discuss form, technique, and how a writer can represent nonhuman minds.
1hr Jun 03, 2022
1hr
S4 Ep10: Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth
The Book Spider crew puzzles over Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth, a novelish work whose mixture of bleak slice-of-life vignettes with a more fantastic, spiritual register seems like it might be magical realism (but definitely probably isn't). Are we ill-equipped to understand this work, or are we bringing the wrong tools for the job? Check out the episode for the answer, if such a thing exists. In t...
1hr 3m May 16, 2022
1hr 3m
S4 Ep9: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
In this episode, we discuss the dreamy, expansive, magical, and somehow also frustrating Martin Dressler, as well as some right and wrong ways to criticize capitalist systems. 
1hr 3m May 08, 2022
1hr 3m
S4 Ep8: Natalie Kusz's Road song
In this episode, we discuss the intriguing, awesome memoir Road Song by Natalie Kusz. Check it out, if you want to be impressed.
59m May 02, 2022
59m
S4 Ep7: Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This
No One is Talking About This is a hilarious, moving and disorienting novel about communication and the search for authentic experience in contemporary networked and mediated Western life, and how one woman's encounter with tragedy brings her back to a more human way of being. Or is that an oversimplification? 
1hr 8m Apr 09, 2022
1hr 8m
S4 Ep6: Graham Swift's Waterland
In this episode, Hans and Patrick patiently butcher and then discard the disappointing cuts of Chris's pick, Waterland - a novel he's sure he remembers liking, the first time he read it.
59m Mar 26, 2022
59m
S4 Ep5: George Orwell's Coming Up For Air
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Orwell's hilarious Coming Up for Air, the best of his lesser known novels.
1hr 3m Mar 12, 2022
1hr 3m
S4 Ep4: J.G. Ballard's High Rise and the Dystopia of Modernity
Take a trip up the apartment building of death with J.G. Ballard's classic tale of social disintegration, High Rise. Scrupulously faithful to the cold details of modern mechanized life while ignoring the very idea of psychological verisimilitude, High Rise is a brilliant scummy head trip, easy to follow but hard to truly understand, and we do our best to tease out its many secrets.
1hr 3m Feb 20, 2022
1hr 3m
S4 Ep3: Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis
In this episode, the Book Spider crew discusses Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis, which is deals with haircuts, getting tazed, self immolation, the dehumanizing aspects of capitalism, and where limousines go at night when they're not in use during the day. 
1hr 19m Feb 05, 2022
1hr 19m
S4 Ep2: Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly
In this episode, the Book Spider crew discusses PKD's A Scanner Darkly, which deals with addiction, authority, and the nature of identity. Enjoy!
1hr 1m Jan 29, 2022
1hr 1m
S4 Ep1: Can Xue's Love in the New Millennium
Can Xue's Love in the New Millennium is a dense, confusing novel which portrays a complex web of relationships with no clear center, and lacks a conventional protagonist. It is, perhaps, a fitting choice for our first episode under the new name Book Spider.
1hr 1m Jan 12, 2022
1hr 1m
S3 Ep15: On Michael Crichton's Sphere
In this episode, we chat about Michael Chrichton's novel Sphere, which Hans claims is the only one of the popular novelist's books that has depth enough for an extended discussion.
1hr 4m Dec 13, 2021
1hr 4m
S3 Ep14: On Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document, a novel that tells the story of two activists through shifting experiences and time periods. Check it out.
1hr 1m Oct 29, 2021
1hr 1m
S3 Ep13: On Keith Gessen's A Terrible Country
In this episodes, Hans, Chris, and I discuss Keith Gessen's A Terrible Country, which is a novel that explores corruption in modern day Russia. Check it out.
1hr 3m Oct 15, 2021
1hr 3m
S3 Ep12: On Mieko Kawakami's Heaven
In this episode, we discuss a novel that explores Nietzschean philosophy in the context of two Japanese schoolkids who are subjected to ruthless bullying.
1hr 4m Sep 03, 2021
1hr 4m
S3 Ep11: On Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
In this episode, we discuss the classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Turns out, it's kind of problematic.
1hr 3m Aug 19, 2021
1hr 3m
S3 Ep10: On William Shakespeare's Othello and Paula Marantz Cohen's Of Human Kindness
In this episode, we discuss William Shakespeare's Othello and refer to Paula Marantz Cohen's Of Human Kindness for critical context.
58m Aug 05, 2021
58m
S3 Ep9: On Pola Oloixarac's Mona
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Pola Oloixarac's hilarious Mona, a satire of academia as well as a comment on the spiritual condition of woman. Note to listeners: I mistakenly refer to Oloixarac as Peruvian in this episode, when she is in fact Argentine.
1hr 3m Jul 21, 2021
1hr 3m
S3 Ep8: On Brian Catling's The Vorrh
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I trash a terrible book that has few redeeming qualities.
1hr 2m Jul 03, 2021
1hr 2m
S3 Ep7: On Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss the classic novel Invisible Man, which examines black identity, the sense of invisibility, and individuality in the fifties in the United States.
1hr 10m Jun 18, 2021
1hr 10m