In this episode of the Books of Some Substance podcast, Nick is joined by Steve Von Till of the seminal metal band Neurosis for a conversation about Ted Hughes’ Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow. Von Till’s prolific career now includes his latest solo record, No Wilderness Deep Enough, and his first published book of poems, Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics, both of which provide ample material for discussing his approach to songwriting, lyrics, poetry, and their endless overlaps. Naturally, references to the film The Crow are made and Nick predictably (and repeatedly) confesses that he likes things with a dark tone.
Grab some Hughes, some Neurosis, Von Till’s new solo record and/or poetry collection, and settle in for a relaxing discussion of language, art, and the subtleties of everything in between.
In this episode of the Books of Some Substance podcast, Nick is joined by Dylan Desmond of the Seattle doom metal band Bell Witch for an in-depth discussion of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Listen in as we discuss what exactly Desmond connects with in Tolstoy’s writing, how this short novel was remarkably ahead of its time in documenting the emptiness of a materialist life, and how unique of a conundrum death is to us all.
Grab some Tolstoy and/or some Bell Witch (Stygian Bough Volume I, their new collaboration record with Aerial Ruin is out now on Profound Lore Records) and get ready for the comfortable pain of the slow burn.
What’s that you say? Didn’t read Steinbeck in high school? Well then welcome to the safe space of Cannery Row, where one is not judged by achievements or accolades, but by the innate goodness found deep within.
Ahhhh, just kidding, this one’s more about having a rollickin’ good time gettin’ into fights with fishermen, getting thrown into (and buying your way out of) jail, and sharing a snort here and there of the best kind of liquor known to man: free.
Join Nick, Nathan, and David as they discuss the joys of this classic romp — as well as its overwhelming sadness and loneliness — and try to figure out just where or when in American history this might have occurred. At the very least, you’ll leave with some of the warmth to be found in the things that make us human and/or some weird ass gastronomical ideas.
What do you call it when a cynical intellectual, a loyal party member, and a Moravian folklorist walk into a bar?
A joke!
Or rather, The Joke. Milan Kundera’s 1968 debut novel, that is. Join Nathan, David, and Nick for a lengthy — and tricky — discussion on the individual vs. the collective, the tendency of history to turn into myth, and tips for the best way to unassumingly hide a bunch of laxatives. Is this Kundera jam only a political novel, or does it use a political setting as a way to chase a deeper, more broadly applicable truth? Listen in to find out (but check your Trotskyite humor at the door, obviously).
Good luck summarizing this one, nerds! Listen in as we examine William H. Gass’ holy casket of hellfire and judgment, Omensetter’s Luck, a wild stream of preacher prose, suicide and/or murder mystery, and small-town cat gossip. Seemingly intelligent points are made by the B.O.S.S. gang regarding the book’s odd three-part structure, its allusions to original sin, and Gass’ iterative writing process, but in this episode it’s truly just about the words. Cathartic, unhinged, godly (godless?) passages steeped in rhythmic precision and linguistic excess are the focus here, dear listener. Enjoy the wonderful release that comes with reading this gem aloud — it just might get you through our present day IRL reenactment of The Book of Revelation.
Obsessions! Cacophony! Typography! Listen in as we dissect William H. Gass’ post-modern cult classic, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife, a bizarre kaleidoscope of killer sentences, 1960s design, and, of course, gratuitous nudity. David argues that the book’s overtly sexual content actually maps to Gass’ love of language. Nathan provides a breakdown of the typefaces and visual strategies at play. And Nick takes a break from musing on the intellectual properties of eroticism to give a shout out to his mom for (theoretically) making it all the way through this episode. Also featuring a guest appearance by Nathan’s cat, which we’re pretty sure Gass would have wholeheartedly supported.
They say that reading Albert Camus’ The Plague in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic is trendy. Well, it’s not so bad being trendy. Join us this month as David, Nathan, and Nick unpack Camus’ classic work and ask all of the questions on everyone’s minds: Is it logical to do good? Are pestilences real or mere abstractions? Is the philosophical novel genre fiction?
For the sake of maintaining normalcy in our now chaotic, fully virtual world, the B.O.S.S. hosts have done their best to stay true to their pre-pandemic IRL characters. Listen in as David aptly summarizes the tenets of existentialism and the world’s associated meaninglessness, Nathan yet again brings up questions about his emotional vacancy, and Nick makes sure everyone knows that he is alternative by comparing the novel to ‘90s straight edge hardcore. Together, we will fight this thing. Break! Down! The walls!
What do you get when you create a society with no fixed gender, a whole hell of a lot of snow, a shitload of shifgrethor, and a week off every month for carnal activities? You guessed it: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Listen in as Nathan, Stephanie, and Nick discuss the many flavors of science fiction, Le Guin’s nuanced role as a prominent feminist writer, and how this book seems to deal with so many moving subjects but also lacks an emphatic touch. Also included are flagrant errors by wannabe scholars Nick and Stephanie, because, well, mistakes are simply a lot more fun sometimes. Whether you are co-quarantining at home or on a thousand mile journey across an isolated, icy landscape with the frenemy of your dreams, let’s partake in some good-hearted attempted-intellectualism together.
Pragmatic non-hierarchical structures! Breaking the space time continuum! The sociopolitical and philosophical dualities that exist between two planets — but also inside us all! Join David, Eric, and Nick as they dissect Ursula K. Le Guin’s often revered classic The Dispossessed. They wonder if the book is the left-wing equivalent of The Fountainhead, if the neon color scheme of the mass market paperback version was an agent of pre-bias, and if they are missing some key aspect of the book that makes this such a beloved tome to many a sci-fi reader. And perhaps most predictably, Nick finds another excuse to talk about the Warped Tour (metaphorically speaking, of course).
What’s the deal with how choppy this Nabokov book is? Is the character of Pnin actually the target of a faculty conspiracy? Or is the real conspiracy the fact that David is secretly employed as a salesman for the word-a-day industry? Join Nick, Nathan, and David for another rousing discussion on Vladimir Nabokov, this time on the (sometimes) beloved Pnin. And don’t worry, even if they may be a bit critical, many a failed attempt at reading Nabokov passages out loud proves who the real master is. Dude’s got some killer words in his employ, amirite?
Drama! Comedy! Opacity! Turpitude! All are up for grabs in Vladimir Nabokov’s holiday classic, Invitation to a Beheading. Listen in as Nathan, David, and Nick try to figure out just what exactly is going on in Nabokov’s oft-overlooked gem that may or may not be about: personal exile, political exile, gnosticism, or the inability to get a good night’s sleep. Just don’t call it Kafka-esque (even though it’s definitely Kafka-esque).
In this edition of The Substance of Influence Nick chats with Ross Farrar, vocalist of the Northern California punk band Ceremony, about the connections between the band’s latest record In the Spirit World Now and the classic Saul Bellow novel Humboldt’s Gift. Listen in as we discuss the similarities between Bellow’s blend of rough intellectualism and the literary underpinnings of punk music, why poetry should just tell you what it is, and the psychological impact of being on a Megabus for over ten hours. Additionally, convincing arguments are presented for why you should stop being a square, yo.
In this edition of The Substance of Influence, Nick chats with University of California-Berkeley English Professor Catherine Flynn about her new book, James Joyce and the Matter of Paris. Listen in for discussion on the (un)romantic Paris of yesteryear, the sources of all those cool modernist moves, and why Joyce’s fiction is, um, a bit smelly.
In other news, members of the B.O.S.S. reading group in San Francisco are now terrified about the potentially impending selection (read: assignment) of Finnegans Wake. Our deepest apologies in advance.
In this installment of the Books of Some Substance podcast, Nick is joined by University of California-Berkeley English Professor Catherine Flynn to dissect the endless permutations of Samuel Beckett’s oft-overlooked Watt. Is there meaning behind Sam’s lists upon lists upon lists? Is this a reality more real than realism itself? And will there be an opportunity for Nick to —most predictably — use the term “post-post-post modern”?
To language, we raise our glass, and descend into the Schopenhauerian darkness . . . but with a few delightful aphorisms destined for refrigerator magnets along the way.
You may be thinking: If I had a dollar for every time I felt like I was just sitting in the waiting room of life—except that the room was an open field with a single tree in it and my best bud just wouldn’t keep his boots on—I’d be rich! Or in a hit Samuel Beckett play. Whether it is about morality or acceptance or the morality of acceptance, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot resonates indefinitely. Listen in as David, Nick, and the recently returned Nathan talk it through, possibly existentially navel-gazing in the process.
[Update (8/12/19): After recording and releasing this podcast, it has come to our attention that Sarvis has been barred from teaching in Florida public schools following allegations he engaged in inappropriate communications with students on social media. We in no way condone this alleged behavior. This episode will remain available and those that choose to listen may do so at their discretion.]
In this edition of The Substance of Influence, David and Nick speak with Caleb Michael Sarvis, managing editor of Bridge Eight Press and author of the short story collection Dead Aquarium or (i don’t have the stamina for that kind of faith) available from Mastodon Publishing. They discuss the lasting impact of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, the perks of interpreting the past as fiction, and, of course, all those damn nutria down in Florida.
Have you heard the bad news? God is dead. But in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood, you can't keep a good god down—even when you murder a consumptive flim-flam man, seduce a fifteen-year-old, and blind yourself with quicklime. So put glass shards in your shoes, turn up your headphones, and drink every time we say "nihilism."
(This episode’s summary was written by our guest, Kathleen Founds. Before she found herself dreaming up nihilism-themed drinking games on a classic literature podcast, Founds wrote the novel When Mystical Creatures Attack!, which won the 2014 University of Iowa Press John Simmons Short Fiction Award and was named a New York Times Notable Book.)
In this latest installment of the Books of Some Substance podcast San Francisco State University English Professor Sarita Cannon returns to talk about the violent grace (or graceful violence?) of Flannery O’Connor’s short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Listen in as Nick and Sarita talk about the curious relationship between Catholicism and the grotesque, how O’Connor can keep a live audience laughing right up until a story plunges into mass murder, and the intriguing, dark-prophet nature of The Misfit. Somewhat surprisingly, zero Glenn Danzig references were made.
On this, our first episode of The Substance of Influence episodes, David speaks with fiction writer and poet Chaya Bhuvaneswar, winner of the 2017 Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize for her first book White Dancing Elephants.
They discuss authorial voice, being a reader and a writer, influence in general, direct influence in particular with Chaya's selection of the novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and, of course, her wonderful collections of short stories.
You can find Chaya and her work at https://chayabhuvaneswar.com/ and on Twitter @chayab77
As always you can find us here at http://www.booksofsomesubstance.com/ and on Twitter & Instagram: @booksosubstance
In this latest installment of the Books of Some Substance podcast David, Nick, and Eric go for a disorienting ride through the comedic darkness of László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango. This paragraph-shunning tome from the “Hungarian Master of the Apocalypse” is perfect for the reader seeking that good ole bleak, rain-soaked, mud-packed, worm-eatin’, dust-filled vibe. Listen in for a rousing discussion in which we unlock all of the secrets: why Satantango can feel like an amalgamation of influences while being entirely its own; whether or not the point of Irimiás’ scheme remains entirely unclear; and why it is that Nick owns so many black T-shirts.
In this episode of the Books of Some Substance podcast, Stanford English Professor Roanne Kantor stops by to chat with Nick about Mohammed Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes. While providing a fertile ground to discuss what exactly Global Anglophone literature is, the 2008 novel also packs many a nod to Latin America greats García Márquez and Vargas Llosa and pairs well with that other stellar work about General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and 1980s Pakistan, Salman Rushdie’s Shame. A Case of Exploding Mangoes is also hilarious, thus asking the question: Is realism or satire the correct way to address topics as unsettling as the violence and oppression of a dictator’s regime? Either way, rest assured: The general dies in this one.
If by chance—and what else really controls it all other than chance?—you are into examining the futility of it all, or, of course, the scorn of it all, then the latest B.O.S.S. podcast on László Krasznahorkai’s The Last Wolf in which David, Stephanie, and Nick examine the tale of how a washed up German author tells the tale of traveling to the barren plains of Spain to encounter a warden telling a tale of how the area’s final wolf perished—yes, perished—all told to the Hungarian barman who doesn’t totally mind, even though this Stammgast isn’t Hungarian or even a good looking chick, is for you (the podcast episode, that is, but also the book, naturally).
Did you just stop at digging up her body? How crippling is your love?
That day they discoursed in a cool and oft solitudinous basement. Eric and Nick and Dean Rader of the University of San Francisco examined Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and inquired what Cormac McCarthy had in mind. Sulphurous and detached and surgically endeavored as that mind may be. They passed through the beauty and bleakness of the prose and the ruinous afterimage of the bloodstained vacancies of emotions firestoked and withheld. They glanced upon the ragged edges of representations of history and race and staccato swells of animalistic fervor.
The judge!
His judgeness!
Gunpowder manufactured in a swatch of Miltonlike fury. Bloodslaked heart strings pulled by feats of erudition and eloquence. Interpretations laggard and dusty slithered out of flattened enormity. Agecurled pictures of America at its genesis and at its present left naked and creaking to wrench a somnolent populace from dreams into harsh plumes of introspection and reckoning.
A man sits down at a cafe. Pauses. Thinks. Writes a sentence. Pauses. Thinks. Writes another sentence. Pauses. Thinks. Will that next sentence be about solving an age-old puzzle of a pirate’s submerged treasure? Or perhaps it will be about cloning Carlos Fuentes? Or maybe it will just be about an attack of giant, shimmering silk worms. Only César Aira knows, but he ain’t looking back and neither should you.
On this episode of the podcast, join David, Nick, and Frida as they embrace the constant flight forward of Aira’s The Literary Conference. If your wholly unique collection of life experiences and consumption of art have led to an overlap of experimental fiction, surrealism, and B-movies, this one’s for you.