Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
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Thanks to his invention of Europe's first typographic printing method, and his pioneering work on the first printed Bible, the fifteenth-century German inventor Johannes Gutenberg has a fame and reputation that continues to this day. In 1997, Time magazine credited him with the most important innovation of the past one thousand years. However, due to scant and vague documentation, Gutenberg's actual life and career have been clouded in myth and speculation. In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Eric Marshall White about his new book, Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books, which seeks to correct the record by analyzing Gutenberg and the books that remain his lasting monument. PLUS HOL pays tribute to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov's beautifully told tale of a dark and ugly obsession (and #14 on the list of the Greatest Books of All Time), by repeating excerpts from three previous interviews, in which Jenny Minton Quigley, Jim Shepard, and Joshua Ferris talk about Nabokov and his highly controversial novel. Join Jacke on a trip through literary England (signup closing soon)! The History of Literature Podcast Tour is happening in May 2026! Act now to join Jacke and fellow literature fans on an eight-day journey through literary England in partnership with John Shors Travel. Scheduled stops include The Charles Dickens Museum, Dr. Johnson's house, Jane Austen's Bath, Tolkien's Oxford, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and more. Find out more by emailing jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or masahiko@johnshorstravel.com, or by contacting us through our website historyofliterature.com. Or visit the History of Literature Podcast Tour itinerary at John Shors Travel. The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate . The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By 1980, The Police were really on a roll. Their first two albums, Outlandos d'Amour and Regatta de Blanc had introduced their punk/reggae stylings to the world and had earned platinum awards on both sides of the Atlantic. Their success meant they were in demand - as a live act around the world and in the studio by A&M records. Also due to their success, they had to record outside of the UK and chose Wisseloord Studio in the Netherlands to work on their third record, Zenyatta Mondatta. However, they had to wrap up the Regatta de Blanc tour, retreat to The Netherlands with whatever they had been writing on the road, run off to Ireland and Milton Keynes for a couple of shows, record and mix the album all in one month before they disembarked for their next tour. Though they were working with Nigel Gray, producer of their first two albums, they didn't have time to explore the songs as much as they just needed to lay them down so they could release the record on time. Still, under all that pressure, they managed to cobble together a fine album that would go double platinum in the US. Thanks in large part to the lead single Don't Stand So Close To Me, an ode to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov based on Sting's experience as a teacher, which would be the boys first #1 in the UK and first Top 10 in the US. Though the lyrics may have been troubling, the song is an upbeat dance tune - something The Police would master while talking about famine (Driven To Tears), the importance of the words people say (De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da) and the monotony of life on the road (Man In A Suitcase). Of course Sting did most of the writing but Andy Summers contributed the Grammy winning Behind My Camel (instrumental) and Stewart Copeland offered Bombs Away & The Other Way of Stopping. The Police never liked the mix on the record and felt they could have done better. They rerecorded the two singles in an ill-fated reunion attempt in 1986 and Sting would rework Shadows In The Rain on Dream of The Blue Turtles. But for Police fans this does stand the test of time and we celebrate Zenyatta Mondatta as it turns 45. Check out our new website: Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By 1980, The Police were really on a roll. Their first two albums, Outlandos d'Amour and Regatta de Blanc had introduced their punk/reggae stylings to the world and had earned platinum awards on both sides of the Atlantic. Their success meant they were in demand - as a live act around the world and in the studio by A&M records. Also due to their success, they had to record outside of the UK and chose Wisseloord Studio in the Netherlands to work on their third record, Zenyatta Mondatta. However, they had to wrap up the Regatta de Blanc tour, retreat to The Netherlands with whatever they had been writing on the road, run off to Ireland and Milton Keynes for a couple of shows, record and mix the album all in one month before they disembarked for their next tour. Though they were working with Nigel Gray, producer of their first two albums, they didn't have time to explore the songs as much as they just needed to lay them down so they could release the record on time. Still, under all that pressure, they managed to cobble together a fine album that would go double platinum in the US. Thanks in large part to the lead single Don't Stand So Close To Me, an ode to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov based on Sting's experience as a teacher, which would be the boys first #1 in the UK and first Top 10 in the US. Though the lyrics may have been troubling, the song is an upbeat dance tune - something The Police would master while talking about famine (Driven To Tears), the importance of the words people say (De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da) and the monotony of life on the road (Man In A Suitcase). Of course Sting did most of the writing but Andy Summers contributed the Grammy winning Behind My Camel (instrumental) and Stewart Copeland offered Bombs Away & The Other Way of Stopping. The Police never liked the mix on the record and felt they could have done better. They rerecorded the two singles in an ill-fated reunion attempt in 1986 and Sting would rework Shadows In The Rain on Dream of The Blue Turtles. But for Police fans this does stand the test of time and we celebrate Zenyatta Mondatta as it turns 45. Check out our new website: Ugly American Werewolf in London Website Twitter Threads Instagram YouTube LInkTree www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Wie kent haar niet: Lolita, het jonge, verleidelijke meisje met de hartjeszonnebril en lolly in haar mond. Het kind dat oudere aanbidders gek maakt van verlangen. Het oorspronkelijke personage Lolita is ontsproten uit de fantasie van schrijver Vladimir Nabokov. Wat bedoelde hij eigenlijk met zijn baanbrekende boek? En hoe kon Lolita daarna zo’n invloedrijk en schadelijk archetype worden?Esma Linnemann bespreekt het - tijdens de week van het verboden boek - met chef kunst Herien Wensink en filmjournalist Basje Boer, die over vrouwelijke clichés en de male gaze de bundel Pose uitbracht.Presentatie: Esma LinnemannMontage: Julia van AlemEindredactie: Jasper VeenstraSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Samlandets besatthet vittnar om en drift där möjlighet och omöjlighet möts. Karin Brygger funderar i ljuset av Vladimir Nabokovs fjärilslätta slutord. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna.Halvvägs mellan min lågstadieskola och vår lägenhet stod ett gammalt vattentorn. I samband med att det skulle byggas nytt intill vattentornet tömdes en enorm hög med sten från havets botten där. Strax efter det började jag komma för sent till skolan. Min fröken ringde mamma och frågade varför. Hade något hänt?Något hade verkligen hänt. Jag hade hittat en skatt. Lika mycket som denna skatt av sten skärpte mitt sinne och väckte en slags känsla av oändlighet, höll den mig också borta från vardagens plikter: Jag försökte gå förbi berget av blanka, olikfärgade stenar men i stället sjönk jag ner på marken och började gräva efter de vackraste stenarna - och lägga dem i skolväskan. Tiden upphörde.”Jag erkänner att jag inte tror på tiden”, skriver författaren och entomologen Vladimir Nabokov i Tala, minne Den högsta glädjen över tidlösheten, menar han strax därpå, uppstår när han befinner sig bland sällsynta fjärilar: ”Det är en särskild sorts extas, och bakom den finns något annat som är svårt att förklara.”Samlandet slår an en ton i det inre hos den som drabbats av samlandets passion, menar psykoanalytikern Gunnel Jacobsson. Kanske är det denna ton som skymtar bakom Nabokovs extas, det oförklarliga som på en gång binder människan till det materiella och samtidigt skär av henne från det?Det är förstås skillnad på samlare och samlare, på varför man samlar och vad man gör med sina fynd. Vi kan notera genom historien såväl som i samtidens flöden allt från tvångsmässiga hoarders - vilka nu kan få hjälp av professionella städare om de förnedrar sig på TV - till antiksamlare, boksamlare och så vidare. I mitten av 1900-talet blev samlande av vardagliga ting plötslig konst, där framträdande namn är sådana som Joseph Cornell eller Louise Nevelson, den senare känd för sina stiliserade gatufynd. Ibland handlar det alltså om att skapa utifrån vad som finns tillgängligt, spränga normerna för en genre. Ibland är samlandet sjukdom och ibland är besattheten en slags fysisk översättning av en allomfattande tjusning. Besattheten viskar om en drift där möjlighet och omöjlighet möts, ungefär som i passionens längtan efter symbios. Transformationen från passionens hetsiga galenskap, som upplöser gränserna mellan jaget och den älskade, till djupare kärlek är i mellanmänskliga relationer både en nödvändighet och en förlust. Förlusten ligger i att inte längre leva där allt är uppskruvat, underbart och smärtsamt, där inget annat har betydelse än den enda andra människan. En samlare lämnar aldrig detta stadium.Det finns aldrig något giltigt skäl till att bli galen av kärlek. Det är slumpen. Det var också slumpen att ett berg av vackra stenar parkerades på min skolväg.Även Nabokov beskriver hur just slumpen förde honom till fjärilarna en morgon i hans ryska barndom. Plötsligt såg han en underbar, ljusgul varelse med svarta fläckar, blå flikar och en cinnoberfärgad ögonfläck. Den trängde in i en blomma och fladdrade hela tiden med vingarna. Begäret som uppstod i sjuåringen var det starkaste han någonsin känt. Den gula fjärilen förändrade allt och resten av sitt liv skulle Nabokov jaga efter fjärilar överallt där han levde, i alla de länder dit han tvingades i exil eller dit han reste för att bo. Om något mer än slumpen ska tillföras historien är det svår förlust: Nabokov drabbades efter den gula fjärilen av en lunginflammation. Matematikens gåva och identiteten som underbarn försvann med sjukdomen. Åter frisk drömde han inte längre om primtal, men fjärilarna fanns kvar. Han drömde fortfarande om nya arter. Och om att vara ensam.Men trots att Nabokov sent i livet kunde se tillbaka och säga att nästan ingenting kunnat överträffa tjusningen i entomologisk forskning så förknippas denna tjusning också med skam. Samlandets praktik kräver ensamhet. Kampen mellan social plikt och begär får honom en morgon att överge en barndomsvän som han själv bjudit på besök - för att ge sig ut allena på fjärilsjakt. Skammens tårar bränner bakom ögonlocken när han i full färd med att jaga efter fladdrande vingar tänker på sin väns ensamhet därhemma. Hur kunde jag?Kanske för att i besatthetens virvlar övertrumfar begäret alltid förnuftet. Men vore det inte så skulle heller inte tillräckligt många fjärilar samlas in, eller fågelarter räknas, eller andra vetenskapliga och konstnärliga storverk ha kommit till. Troligtvis skulle också nativitetstalen vara förfärligt låga.Jag inbillar mig att den ensamhet som måste skäras ut ur det sociala rum där vi förväntas leva – en ensamhet som omgivningen betalar för med sin övergivenhet - inte bara handlar om koncentration som inte får brytas: den ensamhet som krävs möter också en annan sorts ensamhet, en inre sådan. Och denna löses från sin plats bara i jakten på en eller annan skatt. Först där upphör all dissonans. Till priset av att ingen förstår. Ännu en ensamhet, alltså.Medan Nabokov blev bannad för att släpa runt på håvar överallt, jagad av bönder, hundar och till och med en häst, läser jag att idag behövs fler amatörentomologer. Nabokov var förvisso inte amatör, men han började som alla andra forskare sin bana just som amatör. Fjärilssamlandet generellt må alltid ha gått i vågor, med toppar efter andra världskriget och så sent som 2005 men för ett par år sedan slog forskare alltså fast att det är ett problem att amatörentomolygin minskat. Det är trots allt deras arbete som står bakom majoriteten av artinsamlandet. Jakten på de fladdrande skönheterna är nödvändig för att vi ska förstå den annalkande ekologiska apokalypsen. Det är heller ingen nyhet att världen alltid kommer behöva fjärilar. Däremot är det lika oroande att den värld fjärilarna behöver – en värld där man kan vakna och se en gul, fladdrande varelse och drabbas av en insikt utan namn som säger att detta är oerhört viktigt, verkar mer och mer fjärran. Törs människan inte, eller kan hon inte, längre vara ensam? Törs hon inte, eller kan hon inte längre, drabbas av intensiva begär - och stå ut med att ingen annan förstår dessa böjelser? Hur ska vi återuppliva det mod som krävs för att man ska stå med att vara olydig, lycklig, duktig och gräslig på samma gång?I slutet av sitt liv drömde Nabokov om att fånga fjärilar i Israel där han aldrig varit. Modet bestod alltså, men resan sköts upp gång på gång på grund av sjukdom. Inlagd, återigen för lunginflammation blir det till sist uppenbart att hans dröm ska gå om intet. Det är svårt att veta om de tårar som fyllde hans ögon när han insåg att nästa möte – hans sista med en okänd art – stod för dörren var sorgens eller rädslans tårar. Kanske längtans? Innan dödsögonblicket frågar hans son honom varför han gråter. Och han svarar: ”För att en viss fjäril redan flyger.”Karin Bryggerförfattare och skribentNabokovs sista ordVladimir Nabokovs sista ord citeras ofta som ”a certain butterfly is already on the wing”. Upprinnelsen till det är en anteckning i sonen Dmitris dagbok där det står:”A few days before he died there was a moment I remember with special clarity. During the penultimate farewell, after I had kissed his still-warm forehead—as I had for years when saying goodbye—tears suddenly welled in Father's eyes. I asked him why. He replied that certain butterfly was already on the wing; and his eyes told me he no longer hoped that he would live to pursue it again.”KällorNabokov, Vladimir. Låt höra av dig, minne. Övers: Lars Gustav Hellström. Forum, 1979.Nabokov, Vladimir. Blek låga. Översättning: Caj Lundgren, 2002. Modernista, 2020.https://thenabokovian.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/Nabokovian-37-1996-Fa-0.pdfhttps://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/nabokovs-blue-butterfliesErica E Fischer, Neil S Cobb, Akito Y Kawahara, Jennifer M Zaspel, Anthony I Cognato, Decline of Amateur Lepidoptera Collectors Threatens the Future of Specimen-Based Research, BioScience, Volume 71, Issue 4, April 2021, Pages 396–404, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaa152»Varför samlar människan på saker», Fredrik Hultgren, Svenska Dagbladet, 2005-09-28Vattentornet vid Vattugatan. Tornet byggdes 1893. Idag finns där bredvid en förskola.
Obelisk och Olympia press gav ut böcker ingen annan vågade röra. Några blev odödliga klassiker. Gabriella Håkansson berättar den vilda historien om Parisförlagen som förändrade litteraturhistorien. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna. Först publicerad 2017. William S Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Henry Miller och James Joyce: alla har de en sak gemensamt – de har publicerat sig på ett obskyrt litet förlag i Paris, som under 1950-talet gav ut engelskspråkig litteratur i små gröna pocketböcker i serien ”Traveller's Companion”. Bakom den gemytliga rubriken dolde sig all den litteratur som inga andra förlag i Europa eller USA ville ta i med tång, av rädsla för att bli stämda. Allt började med att den brittiske dandyn Jack Kahane 1914 trampade på en landmina i Ypern (Ieper) i Belgien och entledigades från sin krigstjänstgöring. Under konvalescensen träffade han sin fru, fransyskan Marcelle Girodias, flyttade till Paris och började skriva böcker. Kahanes produktion var medelmåttig och innehöll lite för många erotiska anspelningar för att de engelska biblioteken skulle känna sig bekväma, så böckerna plockades bort och han fick dåligt rykte. Samtidigt började romanerna efterfrågas i bokhandeln. Kahane fick en insikt. Minsta inslag av erotik och den mest mediokra bok börjar sälja. I USA och England rådde fortfarande ålderdomliga censurlagar som satte stopp för allt som uppfattades som moraliskt eller erotiskt utmanande, men i Frankrike var situationen en annan, och nu hade Kahane fått en affärsidé. Han registrerade en fransk firma under namnet Obelisk Press och hyrde sunkig kontorslokal på vänstra stranden, nu gällde det bara att hitta sexuellt frispråkiga författare. Det var lättare sagt än gjort. I slutet av 20-talet kontaktar Kahane Sylvia Beach på bokhandeln Shakespeare & Co och får henne att förmedla kontakt med James Joyce, som några år tidigare gjort skandalsuccé på hennes förlag med den frispråkiga ”Ulysses”. Hade Joyce möjligen något mer som kunde publiceras? Det hade han. Experimentboken ”Haveth Childers Everywhere” blev Kahanes första framgångsrika publikation, snabbt åtföljd av Radcliffe Halls lesbiska roman ”Ensamhetens brunn”, som precis blivit förbjuden i England. Även D H Lawrences indragna ”Lady Chatterley's älskare” lades till på utgivningslistan, och nu rullade det på. Kahane fick snabbt rykte om sig att ge ut sånt som ingen annan vågade publicera, och snart köade folk utanför kontoret. Först ut var en helt okänd författare som hette Henry Miller och hade skrivit en bok med en titel som lät som något som handlade om cancer. Det var ”Kräftans vändkrets”. Snart hade även hans vänner Anaïs Nin och Lawrence Durrell fått manus antagna och Kahane var på banan, men när ”Kräftans vändkrets” efter många turer väl skulle ut, ja, då hade Kahane slut på pengar. Ett mönster som skulle komma att upprepa sig. Anaïs Nin visade handlingskraft och finansierade via sin psykoanalytiker Otto Rank trycket av både Millers och Durrells böcker. Som en gentjänst betalade sedan Durrell tryckningen av hennes bok ”Incest”. Sedan hann inte Kahane ge ut mer. Han dog oväntat 1939 vid bara 52-års ålder. Och med det kunde allt ha tagit slut. Det gjorde det inte. Hans 27-årige son Maurice Girodias hade hjälpt pappa på förlaget sedan han var liten, och när andra världskriget var över bestämde han sig för att blåsa liv i verksamheten igen. Nu skulle kampen för den sexuella frispråkigheten stegras ytterligare. Han började med att byta förlagsnamn till Olympia Press och kontaktade sedan faderns gamla författare för att sondera terrängen. Miller skickar in ”Plexus” men sedan var det stopp, så Girodias låter översätta alla franska erotiska böcker han hittar; Genet, Apollinaire, de Sade, Bataille, Queaneau, Reage men det räcker inte, läsarna går inte igång på litterär erotika, de vill ha hederlig porr som kan läsas med vänsterhanden. Girodias gör nu ett genidrag. Han kontaktar klicken kring avantagardetidskriften Merlin som som var de som hade översatt de franska erotiska böckerna, och frågar om de kan tänka sig att börja skriva pornografi istället. Naturligtvis under pseudonym, och gärna med lite kinky inslag. På så vis skulle de kunna finansiera sin tidskrift. Det vill de gärna. Merlin består av ett gäng jazzdansande, amfetaminsnortande utlänningar av båda könen, ledda av författaren Alexander Trocchi och finansierade av amerikanskan Jane Lougee. Kvinnor som män tar sig an uppgiften med förtjusning, och nu börjar Olympia Press glanstid. Merlin flyttar in på kontoret och redaktionen blir förlagets hårda kärna av redaktörer, sekreterare, korrekturläsare och allmänna hangaroaunds. Ur tryckpressarna spottas heta titlar som ”Tender was my flesh” och ”The Loins of Amon”. Olympia Press billiga gröna pocketböcker förses med myndigheternas varning att de inte får säljas i England eller USA, och sprids sedan till turister, matroser, soldater och pornografer som smugglar dem över gränserna en masse. Inkomsterna flödar, men Girodias är ännu värre än sin far vad gäller det ekonomiska. Han vägrar skriva kontrakt och betalar ut royalties lite när det passar. Författarna får köa utanför hans kontor när han är på gott humör, och hoppas på det bästa. Inte heller för han bok över hur många utgåvor han trycker. Ibland ger han ut en censurerad version för bokhandeln, och en annan för illegal spridning. Allt detta fungerar till en början väl med Merlins glada pornografer, men det går inte med riktiga författare som J.P. Donleavy och Vladimir Nabokov. De rasar och drar honom inför rätta. Inte heller går det att betala skatt med vänsterhanden. Bara några år in på det nya äventyret är Maurice Girodias skuldsatt, belånad och åtalad för såväl brott mot obscenitetslagarna som obetalda royalties. Och så här håller det på. Mygel, skulder, porr, åtal – allt i en eskalerande spiral, tills Girodias mot slutet av sextiotalet tröttnar på myndigheternas hetsjakt och författarnas pengatjat, och flyttar till USA för att starta ett amerikanskt Olympia Press. Där går det ännu sämre. Valerie Solanas, som författaren heter, går tre kvarter bort och skjuter Andy Warhol istället. Förläggaren som hela sitt liv bekämpat censuren verkar ha grävt sin egen grav. Den nya tidens libertiner behövde inte längre hans förlag, och när han 1968 struntar i att publicera en av sina nya författare som det är bestämt, så går hon upp på kontoret för att skjuta honom. Girodias är inte på plats och Valerie Solanas, som författaren heter, går tre kvarter bort och skjuter Andy Warhol istället. Girodias är inte sen att utnyttja publiciteten och får snabbt iväg SCUM-manifestet till tryck, det blir hans sista viktiga utgivning, innan allt går utför i ett träsk av hårdporr, scientologi och boxningsböcker. Hans livshistoria kan låta tragisk, men den ledde faktiskt fram till en av 1900-talets stora landvinningar: avskaffandet av censuren. De många och långa rättsprocesserna Girodias drogs inför och tappert utkämpade blev prejudicerande, och satte stopp för en puritanism som präglat bokbranschen i flera hundra år. Vi har familjen Kahane/Girodias att tacka för den frihet litteraturen åtnjuter idag. Och för att banbrytande böcker som Millers ”Kräftans vändkrets”, Burroughs ”Den nakna lunchen”, Trocchis ”Young Adam” och Nabokovs ”Lolita” överhuvudtaget kom i tryck. Och de gröna pocketböckerna som på 50-talet kostade några kronor när de kom ut, betingar idag skyhöga priser på den antikvariska marknaden. Samlarna dammsuger gamla lumplådor och porraffärer för att hitta kvarglömda Olympia Press, och granskar sedan böckernas omslag med lupp för att avgöra vilken utgåva det kan röra sig om. Finns påklistrade prislappar, myndighetsstämplar och korrekta tryckorter där, kan de ha stött på en äkta förstautgåva. Är det någon av klassikerna, som till exempel ”Lolita” kan de räkna med att vara 100 000 kronor rikare. Maurice Girodias dör utblottad och bitter 1990 och begravs på Père-Lachaisekyrkogården i Paris. På hans gravsten låter brodern Eric Kahane gravera ”Une journée sur la Terre”. En dag på jorden. Gabriella Håkansson, författare LitteraturJohn de St Jorre – Venus Bound. The Erotick Voyage of the Olympia Press and its Writers, Random House, 1994.A Life in Pieces. Reflections on Alexander Trocchi. Edited by Alan Campbell & Tim Niel, Rebel Inc, 1977.Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller. A Private Correspondance. Edited by George Wickes, Faber&Faber, 1962.Sylvia Beach – Shakespeare and Company, översättning ERik Andersson, Ellerström, 2008. Ett urval av berömda Olympia Press-titlar från Parisåren:Samuel Beckett Watt (1953)Henry Miller Plexus (1953)D.A.F. de Sade 120 Days of Sodom (1953)Jean Genet The Thief's Journal (1953)Pauline Reage The Story of O (1954)Vladimir Nabokov Lolita (1955)J.P. Donleavy The Ginger Man (1955)Jean Cocteau The White Paper (1957)William S. Burroughs The Naked Lunch (1959)Lawrence Durrell The Black Book (1959)Raymond Queneau Zazie dans la Métro (1959)
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
Taking recent spectacular progress in AI fully into account, Mark Seligman's AI and Ada: Artificial Translation and Creation of Literature (Anthem Press, 2025) explores prospects for artificial literary translation and composition, with frequent reference to the hyperconscious literary art of Vladimir Nabokov. The exploration balances reader-friendly explanation (“What are transformers?”) and original insights (“What is intelligence? What is language?”) with personal and playful notes, and culminates in an assortment of striking demos The book's Preface places the current AI explosion in the context of other technological cataclysms and recounts the author's personal (and not always deadly serious) AI journey. Chapter One (“Extracting the Essence”) assesses the potential of machine translation of literature, exploiting Nabokov's hyperconscious literary art as a reference point. Chapter Two (“Toward an Artificial Nabokov”) goes on to speculate on possibilities for actual artificial creation of literature. Chapter Three (“Large Literary Models? Intelligence and Language in the LLM Era”) explains recent spectacular progress in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), as exemplified by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. On the way, the chapter ventures to tackle perennial questions (“What is intelligence?” “What is language?”) and culminates in an assortment of striking demos. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat with Mark Seligman to talk about how the current AI revolution fits into the long arc of cultural and technological shifts, Seligman's framing of the “Great Transition” between Humanity 1.0 and 2.0, Nabokov's style as a lens for thinking about artificial creativity, the possibilities and limits of machine translation and literary artistry, and the philosophical stakes of whether AI-generated works can ever truly be considered art.Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
För Vladimir Nabokov handlade Lolita om att erövra det engelska språket. Maria Edström läser en författare som aldrig längtade hem. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna. Essän sändes första gången 2025.Som tonåring blev jag helt tagen av Vladimir Nabokovs roman ”Han som spelade schack med livet”. Schackgeniet Luzjins totala oförmåga att leva ett normalt liv utanför spelandet, hans sociala klumpighet och totala hjälplöshet i tillvaron utanför brädet och dess figurer – kändes på något förvånande vis bekant. Då den yttre världen framstår som helt obegriplig för Luzjin vill han desperat hitta ett språk att kunna vistas och navigera i. Själva schackspelet blir hans i stort sett enda språk, som levde han i ett land där detta var modersmålet. Precis som man kan känna när man är mycket ung och är på väg att bli en annan. Eller som när man måste lämna sitt land och sitt språk.Romanen ”Luzjins försvar” som enligt Nabokovs såväl ryska som engelska titel vore riktigare även på svenska, väckte direkt uppmärksamhet. I förordet till romanens svenska utgåva 1936 ansåg Anders Österling att V. Sirin – som Nabokov kallade sig då för att inte förväxlas med sin far – var ett namn att lägga på minnet, och att han ”tillhör den emigrantgeneration, vars känsloliv hunnit frigöra sig från de äldres hjälplösa hemlängtan till ett Ryssland, som blott existerar i deras minnen.” Författaren Maxim Grigoriev skriver insiktsfullt i sitt förord till samlingen ”Ryska romaner”, med flera av de verk som Nabokov skrev på ryska och senare översatte till engelska, att det centrala temat i Nabokovs författarskap är vad som händer när en människa ser världen på ett helt annat sätt än omgivningen. Grigorjev verkar också hålla med Österling, även om hans uttryck är mer drastiskt; Nabokov ägnar sig inte åt ”lökkupolsmasturbation” utan var redan från början var en sofistikerad, modern och kosmopolitisk författare. Men Nabokovs verk skildrar också migrantlivet mer handfast. I ”Han som spelade schack med livet” sitter Ljuzjins svärföräldrar ensamma, isolerade i en utkyld lägenhet i Berlin, fylld av rysk kitsch; samovarer och tavlor av bondkvinnor – i en av migrationens alla distinkta bilder. I ”Masjenka” handlar det om rysk diaspora på ett pensionat i samma stad; ”Pensionatet var både ryskt och otrevligt” som det heter. Huvudpersonen Ganin, som lever ett tröstlöst exil-liv inser plötsligt på väg till tågstationen där han äntligen ska möta sin forna ryska kärlek att hon, Masjenka, bara är en bild ur minnet. ”Det finns ingen Masjenka utom denna bild, kunde inte finnas.” Och Ganin förstår att det inte finns någon väg tillbaka. Och på den vägen är det hos Nabokov - riktningen är inte bakåt, hemåt, utan framåt, bort.Författaren Aris Fioretos som gjort en bragd-insats som översättare av Nabokovs romaner, förvisso från engelska men de låter ryska, skriver i sin elaborerade essä ”Nabokovs ryggrad” mycket om hans stil, zoomar in och ut på detaljer och korrespondenser. Tar fasta på Nabokovs påstående att det måste ”kännas i ryggraden” om något är stor litteratur. Och visst, men är inte detta uttalandet ett typiskt avfärdande från en författare som hatade allt som luktade tolkningar, psykoanalys, politiska budskap eller falsk själfullhet. Fioretos skriver att Nabokov ville skapa ett mönster, en väv av text, av språk som kunde mäta sig med själva skapelsen. En författare som inte speglar utan uppfinner sin egen värld medan han beskriver den – om det så gäller Berlin, Frankrike eller en småstad i USA.För när kriget, som jagat Nabokov och hans hustru runt i hela Europa, till slut tvingar dem över Atlanten så skriver han de två, som jag lite tillspetsat vill påstå, stora migrantromanerna: ”Lolita” och ”Pnin”. ”Lolita” med sin skandalösa pedofil-gestalt Humbert Humbert – en ”sjabbig émigré” trots sina snygga kostymer och europeiska bildning. ”Pnin” är motsatsen – en rörande och ömsint liten rysk professor som omfamnar allt amerikanskt men inte har en susning om hur han ska hävda sig i detta nya. Den onde och den gode migranten. Och en oöverträffad skildring av Amerika fylld av hån och kärlek. Nabokov blev sårad över att ”Lolita” beskylldes för att vara antiamerikansk – blott ett av allt den anklagades för – för honom handlade den om att erövra det engelska språket. Likt en förälskad och vedervärdig våldtäktsman vill han erövra sin ”Lolita” – det engelska/amerikanska språket som gäckar honom i sin barnsliga och vulgära lockelse. Men som han lyckas erövra och inlemma i sin egen språkliga praktik. ”Bilarna stod parkerade som grisar runt ett tråg” som han beskriver parkeringen utanför det hotell där det första övergreppet på Dolores äger rum. Men i memoaren ”Tala minne” utvecklar Nabokov sin fruktan att förlora det enda han räddat med sig från Ryssland – ryskan. Trots att han som barn haft en engelsk guvernant skulle han alltid vara rädd att han aldrig skulle bli i stånd att få sin engelska prosa att komma ens i närheten av den på ryska. Och han skulle fortsätta att översätta från ryska till engelska och från engelska till ryska i hopp om att vara herre över sitt språk. ”Lolita” utkom 1955 och skrevs direkt på engelska, men när Nabokov tio år senare översatte boken till ryska insåg han att det ”underbara ryska modersmålet” – som han inbillade sig ännu väntade på honom någonstans – var en chimär. Fioretos beskriver hur engelskan, övertrumfar modersmålet. Det nya har segrat över det gamla, det språkliga återvändandet blir en bitter återvändsgränd. För Nabokov har inte främst migrerat från en plats, utan från ett språk. Det är inte en lokal hemlöshet utan en existentiell tomhet som bara kan lindras av språkets, stilens, spelets inre räddande karta. Är det för att han är en migrant som vägrar spela den förväntade rollen i att sörja folket, kulturen, jorden eller nationen som hans stil så ofta beskrivs som kylig och ironisk, ja rentav trolös? Men ser inte underströmmarna av ömhet och förtvivlan. I Maxim Grigorievs roman ”Europa” åker huvudpersonen, som på ett gåtfullt vis rymt eller ”hoppat av” från Sovjetunionen under en skolresa i Paris, i nutid som vuxen tillbaka på ett impulsivt besök till barndomsstaden Moskva. Han söker upp sitt gamla hem i ett stort hyreshus där ingen öppnar, bara en sur granne undrar vad fan han gör där. ”Nånting drogs ihop och slöt sig inom mig, som när man knyter ihop en sopsäck”. Precis så skulle Nabokov kunnat formulera det och här, tycker jag, gör Grigoriev ”en Nabokov” – gestaltar det exilens tomrum runt vilket ett helt författarskap kan hovra. Själv slutade Nabokov, som aldrig haft ett riktigt hem någonstans, sitt liv på ett lyxhotell i Schweiz – Europa men ändå inte riktigt Europa, ett flerspråkligt neutralt isolat, en priviligierad tillflykt, en den oheroiska migrantens asyl. Maria Edström kritikerLitteratur:Vladimir Nabokov ”Han som spelade schack med livet” i svensk översättning av Ellen Rydelius med förord av Anders Österling. Albert Bonniers förlag 1936.Vladimir Nabokov ”Ryska romaner”, samlingsutgåva med förord av Maxim Grigoriev. Modernista 2024.Vladimir Nabokov ”Masjenka” i svensk översättning av Aris Fioretos. Norstedts 2001.Aris Fioretos ”Nabokovs ryggrad”, essä. Norstedts 2024..Vladimir Nabokov ”Lolita” i svensk översättning av Aris Fioretos. Albert Bonniers pocket 2007.Vladimir Nabokov ”Pnin” i svensk översättning av Aris Fioretos. Norstedts 2000.Vladimir Nabokov ”Tala, minne” i svensk översättning av Lars Gustav Hellström Albert Bonniers 2012.Maxim Grigoriev ”Europa” Albert Bonniers 2021
Johann Peter Hebel erklimmt todesmutig den Belchen, Vladimir Nabokov empfindet Heimatgefühle angesichts der Schwarzwaldtannen. Zahlreiche Autorinnen und Autoren haben den Südwesten Deutschland nicht nur geschätzt, sondern auch literarisch vermessen. Der Band „Herzkammern. Eine literarische Reise durch Breisgau und Hochschwarzwald“ folgt diesen Spuren und er zeigt auf vielstimmige Weise und durchaus überraschend, dass die Region auch heute ein Hotspot der Literaturszene ist.
The Trump administration halted major offshore wind projects in the Northeast, citing cost and national security concerns. Environmental advocates say wind power is key to meeting clean energy goals. The Eames House survived the Palisades Fire, underwent smoke remediation and other repairs, and reopened in late July. Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” is the story of a middle-aged professor with an insatiable obsession with little girls, who sexually assaults his 12-year-old stepdaughter. It’s also one of literature’s most celebrated novels — acclaimed for its prose and wordplay. Critics review the latest film releases: “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” “Preparation for the Next Life,” “Twinless,” and “The Threesome.”
Arthur Marchetto e Cecilia Garcia Marcon investigam o conceito de "romantização" na literatura. A discussão examina como certas narrativas transformam temas complexos ou problemáticos em representações idealizadas - e quando, na verdade, não chegam nem perto disso.Os participantes analisam o fenômeno através de obras como "Tudo é Rio", de Carla Madeira, e "Lolita", de Vladimir Nabokov, explorando a representação da realidade ou a percepção romantizada.Além disso, a conversa também reflete sobre o papel do leitor dentro dessa lógica. Então, aperte o play e compartilhe com a gente: de que obras você lembrou?---LinksApoie o 30:MINSiga a gente nas redesJá apoia? Acesse suas recompensasConfira todos os títulos do clube!
Rosa, Maya www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
Rosa, Maya www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
Lesart - das Literaturmagazin (ganze Sendung) - Deutschlandfunk Kultur
Rosa, Maya www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature (Cornell UP, 2021) explores how Russian writers from the mid-1920s on have read and responded to Joyce's work. Through contextually rich close readings, José Vergara uncovers the many roles Joyce has occupied in Russia over the last century, demonstrating how the writers Yury Olesha, Vladimir Nabokov, Andrei Bitov, Sasha Sokolov, and Mikhail Shishkin draw from Joyce's texts, particularly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, to address the volatile questions of lineages in their respective Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet contexts. Interviews with contemporary Russian writers, critics, and readers of Joyce extend the conversation to the present day, showing how the debates regarding the Irish writer's place in the Russian pantheon are no less settled one hundred years after Ulysses. The creative reworkings, or translations, of Joycean themes, ideas, characters, plots, and styles made by the five writers Vergara examines speak to shifting cultural norms, understandings of intertextuality, and the polarity between Russia and the West. Vergara illuminates how Russian writers have used Joyce's ideas as a critical lens to shape, prod, and constantly redefine their own place in literary history. All Future Plunges to the Past offers one overarching approach to the general narrative of Joyce's reception in Russian literature. While each of the writers examined responded to Joyce in an individual manner, the sum of their methods reveals common concerns. This subject raises the issue of cultural values and, more importantly, how they changed throughout the twentieth century in the Soviet Union, Russian emigration, and the post-Soviet Russian environment. José Vergara is Assistant Professor of Russian at Bryn Mawr College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature (Cornell UP, 2021) explores how Russian writers from the mid-1920s on have read and responded to Joyce's work. Through contextually rich close readings, José Vergara uncovers the many roles Joyce has occupied in Russia over the last century, demonstrating how the writers Yury Olesha, Vladimir Nabokov, Andrei Bitov, Sasha Sokolov, and Mikhail Shishkin draw from Joyce's texts, particularly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, to address the volatile questions of lineages in their respective Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet contexts. Interviews with contemporary Russian writers, critics, and readers of Joyce extend the conversation to the present day, showing how the debates regarding the Irish writer's place in the Russian pantheon are no less settled one hundred years after Ulysses. The creative reworkings, or translations, of Joycean themes, ideas, characters, plots, and styles made by the five writers Vergara examines speak to shifting cultural norms, understandings of intertextuality, and the polarity between Russia and the West. Vergara illuminates how Russian writers have used Joyce's ideas as a critical lens to shape, prod, and constantly redefine their own place in literary history. All Future Plunges to the Past offers one overarching approach to the general narrative of Joyce's reception in Russian literature. While each of the writers examined responded to Joyce in an individual manner, the sum of their methods reveals common concerns. This subject raises the issue of cultural values and, more importantly, how they changed throughout the twentieth century in the Soviet Union, Russian emigration, and the post-Soviet Russian environment. José Vergara is Assistant Professor of Russian at Bryn Mawr College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature (Cornell UP, 2021) explores how Russian writers from the mid-1920s on have read and responded to Joyce's work. Through contextually rich close readings, José Vergara uncovers the many roles Joyce has occupied in Russia over the last century, demonstrating how the writers Yury Olesha, Vladimir Nabokov, Andrei Bitov, Sasha Sokolov, and Mikhail Shishkin draw from Joyce's texts, particularly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, to address the volatile questions of lineages in their respective Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet contexts. Interviews with contemporary Russian writers, critics, and readers of Joyce extend the conversation to the present day, showing how the debates regarding the Irish writer's place in the Russian pantheon are no less settled one hundred years after Ulysses. The creative reworkings, or translations, of Joycean themes, ideas, characters, plots, and styles made by the five writers Vergara examines speak to shifting cultural norms, understandings of intertextuality, and the polarity between Russia and the West. Vergara illuminates how Russian writers have used Joyce's ideas as a critical lens to shape, prod, and constantly redefine their own place in literary history. All Future Plunges to the Past offers one overarching approach to the general narrative of Joyce's reception in Russian literature. While each of the writers examined responded to Joyce in an individual manner, the sum of their methods reveals common concerns. This subject raises the issue of cultural values and, more importantly, how they changed throughout the twentieth century in the Soviet Union, Russian emigration, and the post-Soviet Russian environment. José Vergara is Assistant Professor of Russian at Bryn Mawr College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature (Cornell UP, 2021) explores how Russian writers from the mid-1920s on have read and responded to Joyce's work. Through contextually rich close readings, José Vergara uncovers the many roles Joyce has occupied in Russia over the last century, demonstrating how the writers Yury Olesha, Vladimir Nabokov, Andrei Bitov, Sasha Sokolov, and Mikhail Shishkin draw from Joyce's texts, particularly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, to address the volatile questions of lineages in their respective Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet contexts. Interviews with contemporary Russian writers, critics, and readers of Joyce extend the conversation to the present day, showing how the debates regarding the Irish writer's place in the Russian pantheon are no less settled one hundred years after Ulysses. The creative reworkings, or translations, of Joycean themes, ideas, characters, plots, and styles made by the five writers Vergara examines speak to shifting cultural norms, understandings of intertextuality, and the polarity between Russia and the West. Vergara illuminates how Russian writers have used Joyce's ideas as a critical lens to shape, prod, and constantly redefine their own place in literary history. All Future Plunges to the Past offers one overarching approach to the general narrative of Joyce's reception in Russian literature. While each of the writers examined responded to Joyce in an individual manner, the sum of their methods reveals common concerns. This subject raises the issue of cultural values and, more importantly, how they changed throughout the twentieth century in the Soviet Union, Russian emigration, and the post-Soviet Russian environment. José Vergara is Assistant Professor of Russian at Bryn Mawr College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature (Cornell UP, 2021) explores how Russian writers from the mid-1920s on have read and responded to Joyce's work. Through contextually rich close readings, José Vergara uncovers the many roles Joyce has occupied in Russia over the last century, demonstrating how the writers Yury Olesha, Vladimir Nabokov, Andrei Bitov, Sasha Sokolov, and Mikhail Shishkin draw from Joyce's texts, particularly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, to address the volatile questions of lineages in their respective Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet contexts. Interviews with contemporary Russian writers, critics, and readers of Joyce extend the conversation to the present day, showing how the debates regarding the Irish writer's place in the Russian pantheon are no less settled one hundred years after Ulysses. The creative reworkings, or translations, of Joycean themes, ideas, characters, plots, and styles made by the five writers Vergara examines speak to shifting cultural norms, understandings of intertextuality, and the polarity between Russia and the West. Vergara illuminates how Russian writers have used Joyce's ideas as a critical lens to shape, prod, and constantly redefine their own place in literary history. All Future Plunges to the Past offers one overarching approach to the general narrative of Joyce's reception in Russian literature. While each of the writers examined responded to Joyce in an individual manner, the sum of their methods reveals common concerns. This subject raises the issue of cultural values and, more importantly, how they changed throughout the twentieth century in the Soviet Union, Russian emigration, and the post-Soviet Russian environment. José Vergara is Assistant Professor of Russian at Bryn Mawr College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
Episode: 3236 Analysis, Creativity, and the Humble Index Card. Today, the humble index card.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, the controversial novel about a man's relationship with a 12-year-old girl. Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr! discusses the complex literary legacy of Lolita, and listeners share their thoughts.
Send us a textThis week Fresta talks to Will Samson about Vladimir Nabokov's novel Bend Sinister and the Fall record of the same name. As Fresta and Will are both avant-garde music-spazz's the conversation ends up in a discussion about other artists such as The Country Teasers, Lana Del Rey, Kanye, Pere Ubu, The Melvins, Townes Van Zandt, Oasis, Throbbing Gristle, Roky Erickson and The Kinks.Note: there are a couple of audio issues on Will's end with this one, but we prefer to think of it as authentic lo-fi experimentation.Music: Living Too Late by The Fall, Get Lost by Kanye WestWill's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samsonwill93/?hl=en Will's recent appearance on Bistro Californium: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep-117-my-name-w-133687985?l=es Will's essays: https://apocalypse-confidential.com/2021/05/12/war-at-33-1-3-throbbing-gristle-public-enemy-datapanik/ https://safetypropaganda.substack.com/p/life-stinks-cuz-i-like-the-kink-byhttps://apocalypse-confidential.com/2024/05/21/paradise-stands-in-the-shadow-of-swords/Support the show
Davide Tortorella"La vita normale"Yasmina RezaAdelphiwww.adelphi.it"La vita normale", traduzione a cura di Davide Tortorella.«Per me il tribunale è un luogo di osservazione come un altro, come la strada, o la mia camera da letto» ha risposto Yasmina Reza quando le è stato chiesto perché, da quindici anni, segua processi, oscuri o clamorosi, in giro per la Francia. «Colui che crediamo altro da noi non lo è» afferma Reza, che, lasciando ai cronisti giudiziari il loro mestiere e alla giustizia di cercare (invano?) un senso nel caos, preferisce fare un passo di lato – e ogni volta spiazza il lettore. Senza curarsi di proclamare verità universali e concentrandosi invece su «frammenti di umanità» – un gesto, una frase, una postura, un dettaglio dell'abbigliamento –, Reza riesce a cogliere, nelle esistenze degli imputati, dei testimoni e delle vittime, qualcosa che non di rado alla giustizia sfugge, e che a quelle esistenze ci accomuna. È «la vita normale», che segue come un'ombra la sua controparte assassina, sovrapponendosi continuamente a essa. Come nel caso della donna che, un mattino di novembre, «incalzata, spinta da una forza senza nome», esce di casa per andare su una spiaggia ad abbandonare sua figlia alle onde, e poi torna a chiudersi nell'opacità della sua esistenza, «presente senza esserlo, come a strapiombo su sé stessa». A lei e ad altri fantasmi è dedicato questo libro. Fantasmi che irrompono sulla scena accanto a quelli dell'autrice, che ha la capacità, propria solo dei grandi scrittori, di insinuarsi nella psiche del lettore senza lasciargli il tempo di comprendere ciò che ha appena letto.«Yasmina Reza appartiene senza alcun dubbio alla famiglia dei grandi ironisti, tra Kafka, Bellow e Bashevis Singer» («Livres Hebdo»).Yasmina RezaDrammaturga, scrittrice, attrice e sceneggiatrice francese, le cui opere teatrali sono state adattate e rappresentate in molti Paesi e hanno ricevuto svariati premi. Figlia di un ingegnere iraniano e di una violinista ungherese di origine ebraica, comincia la sua carriera teatrale come attrice, partecipando a rappresentazioni di opere contemporanee e di classici di Molière e Marivaux. La prima pièce da lei scritta, Conversations après un enterrement, rappresentata per la prima volta nel 1987, la vale il Premio Molière come miglior autore; La traversée de l'hiver vince invece il Molière come miglior spettacolo regionale.Il successo internazionale arriva con l'opera successiva, Art (1994; Einaudi 2006), tradotta e rappresentata in oltre trenta lingue, per cui la Reza viene nuovamente premiata con il Molière per il miglior autore, il Premio Laurence Olivier e l'Evening Standard Award come miglior commedia (1997) e il Tony Award per il miglior spettacolo (1998); il romanzo Babylone, pubblicato da Flemmarion, ha vinto invece il premio Renaudot (2016).Tra le sue pubblicazioni: Al di sopra delle cose (Archinto 2000), Una desolazione (Bompiani 2003), Uomini incapaci di farsi amare (Bompiani 2006), L'alba, la sera o la notte (Bompiani 2007), Il dio del massacro (Adelphi 2011), Da nessuna parte (Archinto 2012), Felici i felici (Adelphi 2013), Babilonia (Adelphi 2017), «Arte» (Adelphi 2018), Bella figura (Adelphi 2019), Anne-Marie la beltà (Adelphi 2021), Serge (Adelphi 2022), La vita normale (Adelphi 2025).Davide Tortorella è traduttore, editor e autore televisivo. Per la tivù ha curato molti programmi di varietà e intrattenimento tra cui la rubrica libraria A tutto volume. Ha tradotto dall'inglese e dal tedesco Kenneth Anger, Botho Strauss, Susan Sontag, Groucho Marx, Alan Bennett e Vladimir Nabokov, ed è stato editor per la casa editrice Leonardo.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarewww.ilpostodelleparole.itDiventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.
How literature helps us to understand morality, totalitarian politics, and the life of Jesus Christ.Join the team at the IAI for four articles about great, classic literature, covering world-renowned authors such as George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Clarice Lispector, to name but a few.These articles were written by Michael Marder, Emrah Atasoy, John Givens, and Dana Dragunoiu.Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Emrah Atasoy is a professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. John Givens is a professor of Russian at the University of Rochester and the author of 'The Image of Christ in Russian Literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Pasternak'. Dana Dragunoiu the author of 'Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Moral Acts' and 'Simply Nabokov'. And don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!To witness such debates live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is once again about the fifth Cormoran Strike novel, Troubled Blood. Nick discusses Rowling's history with the Clerkenwell neighborhood. John talks about Troubled Blood as a double re-telling of The Faerie Queene, Book One, with Strike and Margot as the Redcrosse Knight and Oonaugh and Robin as Una.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Our first look at Christmas Pig with both Nick and John talking about the Blue Bunny. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* The Clerkenwell/Islington Gate of St John (Twitter Header)Faerie Queene!John Granger:* How Spenser Uses Cupid in Faerie Queen and Its Relevance for Understanding Troubled Blood* Reading Troubled Blood as a Medieval Morality PlayElizabeth Baird-Hardy* Day One, Part One: The Spenserian Epigraphs of the Pre-Released Troubled Blood Chapters* Day Two, Part Two: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Eight to Fourteen* Day Three, Part Three: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Fifteen to Thirty* Day Four, Part Four: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Thirty One to Forty Eight* Day Five, Part Five: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Forty Nine to Fifty Nine* Part Six: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Sixty to Seventy One* Spenser and Strike Part Seven: Changes for the BetterBeatrice Groves* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 1): Spenserian Clues in Troubled Blood Epigraphs* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 2): Shipping Robin and Strike in the Epigraphs of Troubled Blood* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 3): Searching for Duessa in Troubled BloodThis is a tentative listing by category of the posts at HogwartsProfessor about Troubled Blood. There's much more work to do on this wonderful work!1. Chiastic StructureRowling's fixation on planning in general and with structural patterns specifically in all of her work continues in Troubled Blood. From the first reading, it became apparent that in Strike5 Rowling-Galbraith had taken her game to a new level of sophistication. She continued, as she had in her four previous Strike mysteries, to write a story in parallel with the Harry Potter septology; there are many echoes of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth and equivalent number in the Hogwarts Saga, in Troubled Blood. Just as Phoenix was in important ways a re-telling of Philosopher's Stone, so Troubled Blood also echoes Cuckoo's Calling — with a few Stone notes thrown in as well. The new heights of Rowling's structural artistry, though, extend beyond her patented intratextuality; they are in each of Strike5's first six parts being ring compositions themselves, the astrological chart embedded in the story chapters, and the six part and two chapters correspondence in structure between Troubled Blood and Spenser's Faerie Queen.* Structure Part One* Structure Part Two, Notes Two to Six* Structure Part Three, Notes One to Three* Structure Part Four, Notes One to Three, Eight, and Ten* Structure Part Five, Notes One to Four, Nine* Structure Part Six, Notes One to Four* Structure Part Seven, Ring Latch, Story Axis* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Career of Evil Echoes* Order of the Phoenix Echoes* Cuckoo's Calling Echoes* Philosopher's Stone Echoes2. Literary AlchemyPer Nabokov, literary artistry and accomplishment are known and experienced through a work's “structure and style.” Rowling's signature structures are evident in Troubled Blood (see above) and her characteristic hermetic artistry, literary alchemy, is as well. Strike5 is the series nigredo and Strike and Robin experience great losses and their reduction to their respective and shared prima materia in the dissolving rain and flood waters of the story.* Strike's Transformation* Robin Ellacott and the Reverse Alchemy of the First Three Strike Novels* Lethal White as the Alchemical Pivot of the Strike Series* The Wet Nigredo: Troubled Blood's Black Names, Holiday Three Step, and Losses3. Psychology/MythologyRowling told Val McDermid that if she had not succeeded as a writer than she would have studied to become a psychologist:V: If it hadn't worked out the way it has. If you'd sat there and written the book in the café and nobody ever published it, what would you have done with your life, what would you have liked to have been?JK: There are two answers. If I could have done anything, I would have been really interested in doing, I would have been a psychologist. Because that's the only thing that's ever really pulled me in any way from all this. But at the time I was teaching, and I was very broke, and I had a daughter and I think I would have kept teaching until we were stable enough that we were stable enough that I could change.Because of her lifelong study and pre-occupation with mythology, it is fitting that in Strike5 readers are confronted with a host of references to psychologist Carl Jung and to a specific Greek myth which Jungian psychologists consider essential in understanding feminine psychology. All of which leads in the end to the Strike series' equivalent of the Hogwarts Saga's soul triptych exteriorization in Harry, Hermione and Ron as Body, Mind, and Spirit, with Robin and Strike as Handless Maiden and Fisher King, the mythological images of anima and animus neglected and working towards integration.* Carl Jung and Troubled Blood* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus* The Anima and Animus: The Psychological Heart and Exteriorization of the Cormoran Strike Novels4. Valentine's DayThe story turn of Troubled Blood takes place on Valentine's Day and the actions, events, and repercussions of this holiday of Cupid and Heart-shaped candies, not to mention chocolates, shape the Robin and Strike relationship drama irrevocably. Chocolates play an outsized portion of that work symbolically, believe it or not; the word ‘chocolate' occurs 34 times in the first four Strike novels combined but 82 times in Troubled Blood. I explore the importance of this confection in two posts before beginning to explain the importance and appropriateness of Valentine's Day being the heart of the story, one that is in large part a re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth.* Troubled Blood: Interpreting the Poetry of Cormoran's Five Gifts To Robin* Troubled Blood: Poisoned Chocolates* Troubled Blood: The Secret of Rowntree* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus5. Edmund Spenser's Faerie QueenTroubled Blood features several embedded texts, the most important of which is never mentioned in the book: Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen. Serious Strikers enjoyed the luxury of not one but two scholars of Edmund Spenser who checked in on the relevance and meaning of Rowling's choice of the greatest English epic poem for her epigraphs, not to mention the host of correspondences between Strike 5 and Queen. Elizabeth Baird-Hardy did a part by part exegesis of the Troubled Blood-Faerie Queen conjunctions and Beatrice Groves shared her first thoughts on the connections as well. Just as Lethal White's meaning and artistry is relatively unappreciated without a close reading of Ibsen's Rosmersholm, so with Strike 5 and Faerie Queen.* Spenser's Faerie Queen (Above)6. The GhostsRowling's core belief is in the immortality of the soul and her favorite writer of the 20th Century is Vladimir Nabokov, whose work is subtly permeated by the otherworldly. No surprise, then, that Troubled Blood is haunted by a host of ghosts, most importantly the shade of Margot Bamborough but to include the women murdered by Dennis Creed and Nicolo Ricci. Their influence is so obvious and so important that it has spurred discussion of the spectres that haunt the first four Strike novels whose presence had not been discussed prior to the revelations of Strike 5.* Troubled Blood: The Dead Among Us* The Ghosts Haunting Troubled Blood* The Ghosts Haunting Cuckoo's Calling, Silkworm, Career of Evil, and Lethal White7. The NamesThe Cryptonyms or Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood are as rich and meaningful, even funny, as those found in Lethal White. From Paul Satchwell's “little package” to Roy Phipps as the Spanish King Phillip, from the nigredo black elements of Bill Talbot and Saul Morris to the Spenserian echoes of Oonaugh Kennedy and Janice Beattie, and the Rokeby-Oakden coincidences, Strike5 is full of name play. Did I mention that the detectives solve the mystery largely through their exploration of names? Douthwaite and Oakden only pop-up after Strike has revelations consequent to serious reflection on their names and pseudonyms. Rowling-Galbraith really wants her real-world readers to be reflecting on the Dickensian names of all her characters.* The Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood: A Top Twenty Round Up8. The Flints and GaffesRowling commented in one of her interview tableaus for Troubled Blood that she had worked extra hard to get the dates right in this most complicated of novels and that her proof reader and continuity editor found a big mistake. Serious Strikers, though, were left crying “Alas!” and laughing aloud at the number of bone-headed gaffes in The Presence's longest work to date. It remains her best as well as her longest book to date, but, really, get the woman the help she needs to comb the book for errors pre-publication. Can you say, “Isla”?* Troubled Blood: Flints, Errors, and Head Scratchers* Troubled Blood Gaffes: A Second Look at Ages and Dates9. The AstrologyThe principal embedded text in Troubled Blood, the one Robin and Cormoran read repeatedly, create keys for, and discuss throughout the book, is Bill Talbot's ‘True Book.' It features an astrological chart for the exact time and place of Margot Bamborough's disappearance in 1974, which map Talbot used to try and solve the case. Strike is profoundly disgusted by this approach but spends, as does Robin, much of his time trying to figure out the chart or at least what Talbot made of it. Troubled Blood, consequently, turns into something of an exploration of astrology and its relevance to understanding ourselves and the world. Unpacking what Rowling means by it, not to mention what the natal charts of Robin and Cormoran tell us about these charactes, their relationship, and Rowling-Galbraith's intentionally hermetic artistry, is a large part of the exegetical work to be done on Troubled Blood.* Nick Jeffery: Troubled Blood — The Acknowledgements* Part Three, Note Five* Troubled Blood: Strike's Natal Chart* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Astrological Allegorical: The Sun Signs of Characters in Troubled Blood* A Second Look at Talbot's Chart: What Does it Reveal to the Unbiased Eye?10. The Tarot Card SpreadsWe know that Rowling has significant skills when it comes to astrology. What is less well appreciated is that almost from childhood she has played with tarot card reading which knowledge has informed her work. This is comic in Trelawney, say, but comes to the fore in Troubled Blood‘s card spreads: the Celtic Cross in Talbot's ‘True Book,' his embedded three card spreads in the illustrations of that tome, and Robin's two readings, one in Laemington Spa and the other in her flat at story's end.* Part Three, Note Six* Part Four, Note Five* Part Five, Note Five* Part Six, Notes Five, Six, Eight* Bill Talbot's Tarot: The Embedded Occult Heart of Troubled Blood* Robin Ellacott's Tarot: The Missed Meanings of Her Twin Three Card Spreads in Troubled Blood11. Who Killed Leda Strike?To Rowling-Galbraith's credit, credible arguments in dedicated posts have been made that every person in the list below was the one who murdered Leda Strike. Who do you think did it?* Jonny Rokeby and the Harringay Crime Syndicate (Heroin Dark Lord 2.0),* Ted Nancarrow (Uncle Ted Did It),* Dave Polworth,* Leda Strike (!),* Lucy Fantoni (Lucy and Joan Did It and here),* Sir Randolph Whittaker,* Nick Herbert,* Peter Gillespie, and* Charlotte Campbell-Ross12. Embedded TextsAll of Rowling's novels feature books and texts, written work as well as metanarratives, with which her characters struggle to figure out in reflective parallel to what her readers are trying to do with the novel in hand. Troubled Blood is exceptionally laden with these embedded texts. Beyond Talbot's True Book and Spenser's Faerie Queen noted above, we are treated to selections from The Demon of Paradise Park, Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?, Astrology 14, and The Magus.13. The Murderers: Creed and BeattieA demon-possessed psychopath and the brain-damaged lonely woman… Each is described as “a genius of misdirection” and being without remorse or empathy. The actual murderers in Troubled Blood are distinct, certainly, but paired as well, as one of the many mirrored pairs in this story.14. FeminismTroubled Blood, Rowling has said, is a commentary of sorts on changes in the history of feminism. It is an unvarnished, even brutal exploration of the heroic age of the feminist movement, its front and back, largely through the personalities, circumstances, choices, and experiences of two pairs of women, Margot Bamborough and her plucky Irish side-kick Oonaugh Kennedy and the paired through time couple of Irene Bull-Hickson and Janice Beattie.15. Rokeby 3.0Jonny Rokeby makes his first appearance, albeit only by phone call, in Troubled Blood and yet it has reset thinking about Strike and his biological father considerably. Kurt Schreyer thinks the head Deadbeat is more Snape than Voldemort — and, if this is the case, we need to re-read the series to see how much Strike's emotional injuries from childhood neglect have misshaped his understanding of his dad so he lives in upside-down land.* Guest Post: Rokeby Redux – Is Strike's Father More Snape than Lord Voldemort? Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe
Today's Lake and Shed framed conversation is about the fifth Cormoran Strike novel, Troubled Blood. Nick discusses Rowling's history with the divinatory art of astrology and the occult resources and reference works she brought into play in writing a novel whose primary embedded text is a murder scene's astrological chart. John talks about the astrological clock structure of twelve houses in which Galbraith tells this remarkable story.New to the Lake and Shed Kanreki Birthday series? Here's what we're doing:On 31 July 2025, Joanne Murray, aka J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, will be celebrating her 60th birthday. This celebration is considered a ‘second birth' in Japan or Kanreki because it is the completion of the oriental astrological cycle. To mark JKR's Kanreki, Dr John Granger and Nick Jeffery, both Nipponophiles, are reading through Rowling's twenty-one published works and reviewing them in light of the author's writing process, her ‘Lake and Shed' metaphor. The ‘Lake' is the biographical source of her inspiration; the ‘Shed' is the alocal place of her intentional artistry, in which garage she transforms the biographical stuff provided by her subconscious mind into the archetypal stories that have made her the most important author of her age. You can hear Nick and John discuss this process and their birthday project at the first entry in this series of posts: Happy Birthday, JKR! A Lake and Shed Celebration of her Life and Work.Tomorrow? Another look at Troubled Blood, this time with an introduction to Rowling's ties to Clerkenwell from Nick and with John making a case for reading Troubled Blood as a re-telling of Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book One, with Strike and Margot as the Redcrosse Knight and Robin and Oonaugh as Una. Stay tuned!Links to posts mentioned in today's Lake and Shed conversation for further reading:* Nick Jeffery: Troubled Blood — The Astrologers in the Acknowledgements* J. K. Rowling, Author-Astrologer, Pt 1: How Did We Not Know About This?* Troubled Blood: Strike's Natal Chart* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled BloodThis is a tentative listing by category of the posts at HogwartsProfessor about Troubled Blood. There's much more work to do on this wonderful work!1. Chiastic StructureRowling's fixation on planning in general and with structural patterns specifically in all of her work continues in Troubled Blood. From the first reading, it became apparent that in Strike5 Rowling-Galbraith had taken her game to a new level of sophistication. She continued, as she had in her four previous Strike mysteries, to write a story in parallel with the Harry Potter septology; there are many echoes of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth and equivalent number in the Hogwarts Saga, in Troubled Blood. Just as Phoenix was in important ways a re-telling of Philosopher's Stone, so Troubled Blood also echoes Cuckoo's Calling — with a few Stone notes thrown in as well. The new heights of Rowling's structural artistry, though, extend beyond her patented intratextuality; they are in each of Strike5's first six parts being ring compositions themselves, the astrological chart embedded in the story chapters, and the six part and two chapters correspondence in structure between Troubled Blood and Spenser's Faerie Queen.* Structure Part One* Structure Part Two, Notes Two to Six* Structure Part Three, Notes One to Three* Structure Part Four, Notes One to Three, Eight, and Ten* Structure Part Five, Notes One to Four, Nine* Structure Part Six, Notes One to Four* Structure Part Seven, Ring Latch, Story Axis* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Career of Evil Echoes* Order of the Phoenix Echoes* Cuckoo's Calling Echoes* Philosopher's Stone Echoes2. Literary AlchemyPer Nabokov, literary artistry and accomplishment are known and experienced through a work's “structure and style.” Rowling's signature structures are evident in Troubled Blood (see above) and her characteristic hermetic artistry, literary alchemy, is as well. Strike5 is the series nigredo and Strike and Robin experience great losses and their reduction to their respective and shared prima materia in the dissolving rain and flood waters of the story.* Strike's Transformation* Robin Ellacott and the Reverse Alchemy of the First Three Strike Novels* Lethal White as the Alchemical Pivot of the Strike Series* The Wet Nigredo: Troubled Blood's Black Names, Holiday Three Step, and Losses3. Psychology/MythologyRowling told Val McDermid that if she had not succeeded as a writer than she would have studied to become a psychologist:V: If it hadn't worked out the way it has. If you'd sat there and written the book in the café and nobody ever published it, what would you have done with your life, what would you have liked to have been?JK: There are two answers. If I could have done anything, I would have been really interested in doing, I would have been a psychologist. Because that's the only thing that's ever really pulled me in any way from all this. But at the time I was teaching, and I was very broke, and I had a daughter and I think I would have kept teaching until we were stable enough that we were stable enough that I could change.Because of her lifelong study and pre-occupation with mythology, it is fitting that in Strike5 readers are confronted with a host of references to psychologist Carl Jung and to a specific Greek myth which Jungian psychologists consider essential in understanding feminine psychology. All of which leads in the end to the Strike series' equivalent of the Hogwarts Saga's soul triptych exteriorization in Harry, Hermione and Ron as Body, Mind, and Spirit, with Robin and Strike as Handless Maiden and Fisher King, the mythological images of anima and animus neglected and working towards integration.* Carl Jung and Troubled Blood* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus* The Anima and Animus: The Psychological Heart and Exteriorization of the Cormoran Strike Novels4. Valentine's DayThe story turn of Troubled Blood takes place on Valentine's Day and the actions, events, and repercussions of this holiday of Cupid and Heart-shaped candies, not to mention chocolates, shape the Robin and Strike relationship drama irrevocably. Chocolates play an outsized portion of that work symbolically, believe it or not; the word ‘chocolate' occurs 34 times in the first four Strike novels combined but 82 times in Troubled Blood. I explore the importance of this confection in two posts before beginning to explain the importance and appropriateness of Valentine's Day being the heart of the story, one that is in large part a re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth.* Troubled Blood: Interpreting the Poetry of Cormoran's Five Gifts To Robin* Troubled Blood: Poisoned Chocolates* Troubled Blood: The Secret of Rowntree* A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus5. Edmund Spenser's Faerie QueenTroubled Blood features several embedded texts, the most important of which is never mentioned in the book: Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen. Serious Strikers enjoyed the luxury of not one but two scholars of Edmund Spenser who checked in on the relevance and meaning of Rowling's choice of the greatest English epic poem for her epigraphs, not to mention the host of correspondences between Strike 5 and Queen. Elizabeth Baird-Hardy did a part by part exegesis of the Troubled Blood-Faerie Queen conjunctions and Beatrice Groves shared her first thoughts on the connections as well. Just as Lethal White's meaning and artistry is relatively unappreciated without a close reading of Ibsen's Rosmersholm, so with Strike 5 and Faerie Queen.Elizabeth Baird-Hardy* Day One, Part One: The Spenserian Epigraphs of the Pre-Released Troubled Blood Chapters* Day Two, Part Two: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Eight to Fourteen* Day Three, Part Three: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Fifteen to Thirty* Day Four, Part Four: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Thirty One to Forty Eight* Day Five, Part Five: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Forty Nine to Fifty Nine* Part Six: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Sixty to Seventy One* Spenser and Strike Part Seven: Changes for the BetterBeatrice Groves* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 1): Spenserian Clues in Troubled Blood Epigraphs* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 2): Shipping Robin and Strike in the Epigraphs of Troubled Blood* Trouble in Faerie Land (Part 3): Searching for Duessa in Troubled BloodJohn Granger:* How Spenser Uses Cupid in Faerie Queen and Its Relevance for Understanding Troubled Blood* Reading Troubled Blood as a Medieval Morality Play6. The GhostsRowling's core belief is in the immortality of the soul and her favorite writer of the 20th Century is Vladimir Nabokov, whose work is subtly permeated by the otherworldly. No surprise, then, that Troubled Blood is haunted by a host of ghosts, most importantly the shade of Margot Bamborough but to include the women murdered by Dennis Creed and Nicolo Ricci. Their influence is so obvious and so important that it has spurred discussion of the spectres that haunt the first four Strike novels whose presence had not been discussed prior to the revelations of Strike 5.* Troubled Blood: The Dead Among Us* The Ghosts Haunting Troubled Blood* The Ghosts Haunting Cuckoo's Calling, Silkworm, Career of Evil, and Lethal White7. The NamesThe Cryptonyms or Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood are as rich and meaningful, even funny, as those found in Lethal White. From Paul Satchwell's “little package” to Roy Phipps as the Spanish King Phillip, from the nigredo black elements of Bill Talbot and Saul Morris to the Spenserian echoes of Oonaugh Kennedy and Janice Beattie, and the Rokeby-Oakden coincidences, Strike5 is full of name play. Did I mention that the detectives solve the mystery largely through their exploration of names? Douthwaite and Oakden only pop-up after Strike has revelations consequent to serious reflection on their names and pseudonyms. Rowling-Galbraith really wants her real-world readers to be reflecting on the Dickensian names of all her characters.* The Cratylic Names of Troubled Blood: A Top Twenty Round Up8. The Flints and GaffesRowling commented in one of her interview tableaus for Troubled Blood that she had worked extra hard to get the dates right in this most complicated of novels and that her proof reader and continuity editor found a big mistake. Serious Strikers, though, were left crying “Alas!” and laughing aloud at the number of bone-headed gaffes in The Presence's longest work to date. It remains her best as well as her longest book to date, but, really, get the woman the help she needs to comb the book for errors pre-publication. Can you say, “Isla”?* Troubled Blood: Flints, Errors, and Head Scratchers* Troubled Blood Gaffes: A Second Look at Ages and Dates9. The AstrologyThe principal embedded text in Troubled Blood, the one Robin and Cormoran read repeatedly, create keys for, and discuss throughout the book, is Bill Talbot's ‘True Book.' It features an astrological chart for the exact time and place of Margot Bamborough's disappearance in 1974, which map Talbot used to try and solve the case. Strike is profoundly disgusted by this approach but spends, as does Robin, much of his time trying to figure out the chart or at least what Talbot made of it. Troubled Blood, consequently, turns into something of an exploration of astrology and its relevance to understanding ourselves and the world. Unpacking what Rowling means by it, not to mention what the natal charts of Robin and Cormoran tell us about these charactes, their relationship, and Rowling-Galbraith's intentionally hermetic artistry, is a large part of the exegetical work to be done on Troubled Blood.* Nick Jeffery: Troubled Blood — The Acknowledgements* Part Three, Note Five* Troubled Blood: Strike's Natal Chart* Astrological Clock Structure of Troubled Blood* Astrological Allegorical: The Sun Signs of Characters in Troubled Blood* A Second Look at Talbot's Chart: What Does it Reveal to the Unbiased Eye?10. The Tarot Card SpreadsWe know that Rowling has significant skills when it comes to astrology. What is less well appreciated is that almost from childhood she has played with tarot card reading which knowledge has informed her work. This is comic in Trelawney, say, but comes to the fore in Troubled Blood‘s card spreads: the Celtic Cross in Talbot's ‘True Book,' his embedded three card spreads in the illustrations of that tome, and Robin's two readings, one in Laemington Spa and the other in her flat at story's end.* Part Three, Note Six* Part Four, Note Five* Part Five, Note Five* Part Six, Notes Five, Six, Eight* Bill Talbot's Tarot: The Embedded Occult Heart of Troubled Blood* Robin Ellacott's Tarot: The Missed Meanings of Her Twin Three Card Spreads in Troubled Blood11. Who Killed Leda Strike?To Rowling-Galbraith's credit, credible arguments in dedicated posts have been made that every person in the list below was the one who murdered Leda Strike. Who do you think did it?* Jonny Rokeby and the Harringay Crime Syndicate (Heroin Dark Lord 2.0),* Ted Nancarrow (Uncle Ted Did It),* Dave Polworth,* Leda Strike (!),* Lucy Fantoni (Lucy and Joan Did It and here),* Sir Randolph Whittaker,* Nick Herbert,* Peter Gillespie, and* Charlotte Campbell-Ross12. Embedded TextsAll of Rowling's novels feature books and texts, written work as well as metanarratives, with which her characters struggle to figure out in reflective parallel to what her readers are trying to do with the novel in hand. Troubled Blood is exceptionally laden with these embedded texts. Beyond Talbot's True Book and Spenser's Faerie Queen noted above, we are treated to selections from The Demon of Paradise Park, Whatever Happened to Margot Bamborough?, Astrology 14, and The Magus.13. The Murderers: Creed and BeattieA demon-possessed psychopath and the brain-damaged lonely woman… Each is described as “a genius of misdirection” and being without remorse or empathy. The actual murderers in Troubled Blood are distinct, certainly, but paired as well, as one of the many mirrored pairs in this story.14. FeminismTroubled Blood, Rowling has said, is a commentary of sorts on changes in the history of feminism. It is an unvarnished, even brutal exploration of the heroic age of the feminist movement, its front and back, largely through the personalities, circumstances, choices, and experiences of two pairs of women, Margot Bamborough and her plucky Irish side-kick Oonaugh Kennedy and the paired through time couple of Irene Bull-Hickson and Janice Beattie.15. Rokeby 3.0Jonny Rokeby makes his first appearance, albeit only by phone call, in Troubled Blood and yet it has reset thinking about Strike and his biological father considerably. Kurt Schreyer thinks the head Deadbeat is more Snape than Voldemort — and, if this is the case, we need to re-read the series to see how much Strike's emotional injuries from childhood neglect have misshaped his understanding of his dad so he lives in upside-down land.* Guest Post: Rokeby Redux – Is Strike's Father More Snape than Lord Voldemort? Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe
This week, Dan Hawkins and Jason Jefferies continue to read through the works of Cormac McCarthy with The Stonemason. Child of God is also discussed (by way of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita), and Dan and Jason answer a listener question about Blood Meridian. Happy reading, friends!
Cohen, Ute www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
Cohen, Ute www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita shocked American readers with its provocative tale of obsession and manipulation—just as Alan Jay Lerner's musical Gigi, featuring the now-cringeworthy “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” was charming its way to nine Oscars. Though vastly different in tone, both stories revolved around older men's fixation on adolescent girls. Which makes it all the more surprising that Lerner, the man behind Gigi's sugarcoated serenade, would take on Lolita for the stage just over a decade later.In this episode, we explore Lolita, My Love—a musical adaptation plagued by rewrites, walkouts, and uncomfortable audience reactions. With music by James Bond composer John Barry and direction from a team trying to toe the line between art and provocation, the production aimed high but never made it to Broadway. Instead, it became one of theater's most fascinating failures, collapsing under the weight of its subject matter—and proving that some stories may simply resist musicalization.---Theme music created by Blake Stadnik. Click here for a transcript and list of all resources used. Produced by Patrick Oliver Jones and WINMI Media with Dan Delgado as co-producer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov, a multi-level marketing scheme to get you into an emigre's state of mind.
durée : 00:19:16 - Lectures du soir - 5ème et dernière émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit l'éditeur et traducteur Michel Parfenov, qui parle d'un des derniers romans de Vladimir Nabokov Ada ou l'ardeur.
durée : 00:19:51 - Lectures du soir - 4ème émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit l'écrivain Geneviève Brisac, qui parle des conférences et cours qu'a donnés Vladimir Nabokov aux Etats-Unis dans les années 50.
durée : 00:19:42 - Lectures du soir - 3ème émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit Laure Troubetzkoy (maître de conférence de littérature russe), qui parle d'une nouvelle inédite de Nabokov, La pluie de Pâques.
durée : 00:19:59 - Lectures du soir - 2ème émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov : aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit Anne Wiazemsky, qui parle essentiellement de son autobiographie Autres rivages.
Cohen, Ute www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
Cohen, Ute www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
durée : 00:19:32 - Lectures du soir - 1ère émission d'une série de 5 consacrée à l'écrivain russe Vladimir Nabokov aujourd'hui, Diane Kolnikoff reçoit Nata Minor, psychanalyste et traductrice du russe, qui parle des rapports entre Nabokov et Pouchkine.
In this week's episode, having been inspired by Sarah Weinman's book The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World, Madigan dives into the novel Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, and discusses it's cultural relevance, what it says about sex and assaults on minors, as well as the stories of the real “Lolita's” of the world. Why is Lolita considered one of the best novels of all time… Isn't it about a pedophile? Let's talk about it. Do you have a topic that you want the show to take on? Email: neighborhoodfeminist@gmail.com Social media: Instagram: @angryneighborhoodfeminist Get YANF Merch! https://yanfpodcast.threadless.com/ JOIN ME ON PATREON!! https://www.patreon.com/angryneighborhoodfeminist The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37959891-the-real-lolita https://josephnmercado.medium.com/why-read-lolita-6ff1fe81caae#:~:text=The%20theme%20of%20manipulation%20is,hallmark%20of%20a%20literary%20classic) https://americanlibraryinparis.org/on-writing-lolita/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/nabokov-sarah-weinman-the-real-lolita-book-review/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Olivia Luper founded Lexicon Advisor Marketing in 2018 with the desire to assist financial advisors grow their businesses by disseminating well-written, compelling content backed by the systems needed to generate new business online.She graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 2016 with her Master of Arts in English, where she concentrated on American Modern and Postmodern Literature. Her favorite books are LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov and THE CRYING OF LOT 49 by Thomas Pynchon. She is also an aspiring memoirist and published poet. She began writing website content in 2013 while finishing her undergraduate studies.Olivia lives in South Florida with her three exceptional children–Nola, Shiloh, and Roman. Olivia enjoys IFBB Professional bodybuilding, growing as an entrepreneur, and spending time at the beach with her family. She is also a huge foodie and loves trying out new local restaurants!Learn more: http://lexiconadvisormarketing.com/interview-with-olivia-luper-founder-of-lexicon-advisor-marketingInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/
It's The Stacks Book Club Day, and we're unpacking Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov with returning guest Ira Madison III. This literary classic is widely studied, but why? We explore what makes this novel a classic, why it's still taught today, and what Nabokov wanted readers to take away from his most infamous work.There are spoilers on this episode.Be sure to listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our March book club pick will be.You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:https://thestackspodcast.com/2025/2/26/ep-360-lolitaConnect with Ira: Instagram | WebsiteConnect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | SubscribeSUPPORT THE STACKSJoin The Stacks Pack on PatreonTo support The Stacks and find out more from this week's sponsors, click here.Purchasing books through Bookshop.org or Amazon earns The Stacks a small commission.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This week, journalist and activist Rebecca Nagle joins us to discuss her debut book, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land. We discuss her decision to expand her podcast, This Land, into a book, the deliberate erasure of Indigenous people in the United States, and how she approaches the idea of "objectivity" in journalism.The Stacks Book Club pick for February is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. We will discuss the book on February 26th with Ira Madison III returning as our guest.You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:https://thestackspodcast.com/2025/2/19/ep-359-rebecca-nagleConnect with Rebecca: Instagram | TwitterConnect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | SubscribeSUPPORT THE STACKSJoin The Stacks Pack on PatreonTo support The Stacks and find out more from this week's sponsors, click here.Purchasing books through Bookshop.org or Amazon earns The Stacks a small commission.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at The New Yorker and host of The New Yorker's Fiction podcast. Deborah is the editor of a new anthology of short stories, A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker, 1925-2025, which features some of the incredible writers that The New Yorker has published over the past 100 years. There are stories by J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, Vladimir Nabokov, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, Don DeLillo and Zadie Smith and many, many more. Deborah discusses how she put the collection together and how she thinks about the short story as a form.
This week, scholar and author Eve L. Ewing joins us to discuss her new book, Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. We examine the differences between schooling and education, the purpose of schools and how their design perpetuates inequality, and how we can change them for the better. Eve also shares how her experience as a middle school teacher has shaped her as a writer.The Stacks Book Club pick for February is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. We will discuss the book on February 26th with Ira Madison III returning as our guest.You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:https://thestackspodcast.com/2025/2/12/ep-358-eve-ewingConnect with Eve: Instagram | Website | TwitterConnect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | SubscribeSUPPORT THE STACKSJoin The Stacks Pack on PatreonTo support The Stacks and find out more from this week's sponsors, click here.Purchasing books through Bookshop.org or Amazon earns The Stacks a small commission.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This week, writer and host of the podcast Keep It!, Ira Madison III joins us to discuss his essay collection, Pure Innocent Fun. We talk about nostalgia, how the book has changed Ira's identity as a writer, and why he considers literature to be the ultimate form of gossip.The Stacks Book Club pick for February is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. We will discuss the book on February 26th with Ira Madison III returning as our guest.You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks' website:https://thestackspodcast.com/2025/2/5/ep-357-ira-madison-iiiConnect with Ira: Instagram | WebsiteConnect with The Stacks: Instagram | Twitter | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | SubscribeSUPPORT THE STACKSJoin The Stacks Pack on PatreonTo support The Stacks and find out more from this week's sponsors, click here.Purchasing books through Bookshop.org or Amazon earns The Stacks a small commission.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
“I admire Freud greatly,” the novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “as a comic writer.” For Nabokov, Sigmund Freud was “the Viennese witch-doctor,” objectionable for “the vulgar, shabby, fundamentally medieval world” of his ideas. Author Joshua Ferris (The Dinner Party, Then We Came to the End) joins Jacke for a discussion of the author of Lolita and his special hatred for “the Austrian crank with a shabby umbrella.” [This episode was originally released on September 30, 2017. It is presented here without commercial interruptions.] Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On this week's show, Slate experts June Thomas (author of A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture) and Dan Kois (author of Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) fill in for Dana and Julia. First, the trio tackles Blitz, director Steve McQueen's new film about the German bombings of London during World War II, which stars Saoirse Ronan, Harris Dickinson, and randomly, Paul Weller. For a McQueen movie, it's quite traditional – predictable plot beats, an easy to understand moral viewpoint – but as a piece of culture, does it work? Is the film informative and incredibly ambitious? Or didactic and boring? Then, the panel unravels HBO's Get Millie Black, a British crime drama set in Kingston, Jamaica. Created by Marlon James, the five-part detective series delivers a good, old-fashioned mystery (there's corruption! Familial complications! Rich queer narratives! And way too much voiceover!) that reveals itself slowly, like peeling back the layers of an onion. Finally, can a “vibe” be copyrighted, in a world built on copying? The hosts pour over “Bad Influence,” a reported piece by The Verge about the groundbreaking legal case between two lifestyle influencers that has the potential to radically alter the online commerce industry. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel discusses movie credits and debates the merits of sitting through them. We are still taking questions for our annual call-in show! To submit your question, either leave us a voicemail at (260) 337-8260 or send us a voice note via email at culturefest@slate.com. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements: Dan: The Mighty Quinn (1989), starring a very handsome Denzel Washington. June: Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst. Steve: A quote by Vladimir Nabokov. Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong. Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond's yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond's YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices