Lost in Redonda

Kicking off 2024 we welcome Tara Cheesman to the podcast with her recommendation, Being Here Is Everything: The Life and Times of Paula Modersohn-Becker by Marie Darriussecq, translated by Penny Hueston. Tara is a freelance critic, former judge of the Best Translated Book Award, and she brings us our first work of nonfiction. We have an absolutely fascinating conversation on art, motherhood, representations of women, and a lot more. And recommend a small syllabus of titles to dig into.

Titles/authors mentioned:

Imperium by Christian Kracht, translated by Daniel Bowles

Nathalie Léger: Suite for Barbara Loden, Exposition, The White Dress

Éric Plamondon: Apple S and Mayonnaise

Jean Echenoz’s biographical novels: Running, Lightning, Ravel

Sharks, Death, Surfers by Melissa McCarthy

Kate Zambreno: Book of Mutter and To Write As If Already Dead

Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

Jazmina Barrera: On Lighthouses and Linea Nigra

Georges Perec: Ellis Island, I Remember, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris

To hear more from Tara follow her on Instagram: @taracheesman or subscribe (and you should!) to her Substack: Ex Libris.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and find us on the socials: @lostinredonda just about everywhere.

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is upon us and it does not disappoint. Too much to say about this one and, as always, we could have gone an hour longer and still not covered it all. An absolutely fantastic novel and one that certainly lives up to the hype and praise that surrounds it.

Titles/authors mentioned:

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
• Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
• The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
• Ottessa Moshfegh
• Bryan Washington

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and find us on the socials: @lostinredonda just about everywhere.

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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We stand on the precipice, one episode away from THE PRIME! Before that, though, we discuss The Bachelors, a fantastic novel chock full of some of the strangest characters Spark has written, which is really saying something. Mediums, epileptics, blackmail, criminality, and much, much more abound in this one. And one of the funniest scenes yet involving a gentleman’s club, a game of hide-and-seek, and drapes. As always: a really great time.

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Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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We’re edging closer to THE PRIME, but today we chat about The Ballad of Peckham Rye. Spark’s novels are incredibly fun, but this might be the wildest, featuring an incredible character name (Dougal Douglas), a lot of absenteeism, a textile factory, a Nun Tunnel, and dancing. Lots of dancing.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and find us on the socials: @lostinredonda just about everywhere.

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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This week we discuss Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants, an absolutely wonderful gem of a novel from French author Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell. In 150ish pages Énard recreates the Constantinople of the early 16th Century and the brief time Michelangelo resided there to build a grand bridge. If you’ve not read Énard before this is an absolutely fantastic jumping on point.

(We have done A LOT of New Directions this season (with more to come), which isn’t a bad thing but, yes, we’ve noticed and we are trying to be mindful of representing other presses doing the good work of translation.)

Towards the end of the episode Lori mentions a lecture Énard delivered at Barnard College. You can find that here.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and find us on the socials: @lostinredonda just about everywhere.

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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This week we discuss Memento Mori, Spark’s third novel and, as we’ve come to expect, it’s a really fun ride. This go-round she brings us into the lives of septuagenarians and octogenarians as they fume, backbite, explore their sexual proclivities, and all come to terms (or not) with their impending deaths. And, of course, it’s very, very funny.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and find us on the socials: @lostinredonda just about everywhere.

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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Episode 5 of Season 2: we get to chat with Robin McLean about Ceremony by Leslie Marion Silko. And, yeah, this is probably our best episode so far, which isn’t shocking because we’re talking about talking with Robin McLean.

So, all that aside, it’s a great conversation and one that could have gone on for hours and hours yet. We could have gone deeper into nuclear weapons/testing, the residential school system, the “fragile web of the world” as Lori describes it, and so much more, but: that’s the joy of reading and of great books.

So thank you Robin.

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Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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In Episode 4 of Season 2 we dig into Muriel Spark’s sophomore effort, Robinson. Gotta say: it’s incredible and we couldn’t be more excited to keep on keeping on with her work. This time around we trade London (mostly) for a lonely island in the Atlantic and a story that is funny, tense, clever, whimsical, and just an all-around masterclass in writerly control. None of which is surprising at this point, but absolutely riveting and delightful.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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Having sorted some annoying technical issues, herewith Episode 3 of Season 2 (our way of apologizing for the delay in uploading this episode) in which we discuss The Conqueror by Jan Kjærstad, translated by Barbara Haveland and published by Open Letter Books.

And to kick off our series of guest hosts, Chad Post of Open Letter Books (and Dalkey Archive Press (and the Two Month Review)) joins to chat about The Conqueror, publishing writ large, publishing works in translation, and, well, to maybe have a go at a few different…peoples? (In fairness to Chad, Tom very much started it.) It’s a fun conversation and a really amazing book.

Titles discussed/mentioned:

Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf

kind of all of Knausgaard

also kind of a lot of Dag Solstad

Your Face Tomorrow (you really ought to know who wrote and translated this one)

Njál’s Saga

Egil’s Saga

Dickens, but specifically David Copperfield

W. Somerset Maugham, but specifically Of Human Bondage

Tirza by Arnon Grunberg, translated by Sam Garrett (and the forthcoming Good Men by Arnon Grunberg, translated by Sam Garrett (out 5/23/23 and click here to order from Open Letter)

The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor

all of Jean Echenoz: really, all of it

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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We kick off our season-long read of Muriel Spark's novels this week and what a start! The Comforters is Spark's debut, published in 1956, and is, quite simply, magnificent. Lori and Tom wax heavily on how impressive this novel is and how incredibly fun it is, too! It's going to be quite a great season judging by this title alone.

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Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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And we’re back! Welcome to Season Two of Lost in Redonda. We kick things off with a backlist conversation on Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published by Open Letter Books. It’s probably one of the fastest moving 600 page sagas of a Brazilian family you’re likely to encounter. And it’s funny. And gothic. And very campy.

Our big project this season is a complete reading of the novels of Muriel Spark. That kicks off next week with her debut, The Comforters, available from New Directions, and, folks!, it’s absolutely incredible. We’ve already recorded a couple of the Spark episodes and are we ever excited. (Her last name of course being the inspiration for this season’s music.)

We’re trying to keep some spoilers out of our conversations this season (or at least flag them when they happen), so: around the 61 minute mark we start chatting about one of the more profound moments at the end of the novel. If you haven’t yet read Chronicle and would rather not hear this bit, skip ahead to 1:06.25 or so where we chat about other works that, to us anyway, resonate with this one.

Click here for Lori’s (great!) article on Chronicle in Full Stop.

Titles discussed:

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The House of Mist by María Luisa Bombal

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner

And click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

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Here it is, folks, our final episode on Your Face Tomorrow and the last part of our Marías project. It's a longer one, but very worth it if we do say so ourselves.

Our next season and new project will kick off in a couple weeks' time, but before that a thank you for listening along. It's a fun project and one we hope folks are getting as much out of as we are (and do let us know what you think and/or what you'd like to see us dive into next!).

So, stay hydrated as we wrap up our time with Deza and his creator, the late, great Javier Marías.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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It's very strange to be this close to the end of our Marías focus, but that's rather how time moves, ever forward (unless you're Marías and can make time a rather fungible thing in your novels...). This is a fun episode, touching on East End gangsters, Spandau Ballet, the Spanish Civil War, swordplay, and more. And a couple of characters from the previous volume make appearances, though we rather welcome one over the other.

One more episode of Marías, a brief break, and then a new project. Thank you as always for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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And now we enter the homestretch. Over the next few episodes we'll tackle Marías' masterpiece, Your Face Tomorrow. Starting, of course, with the first volume, Fever and Spear.

Once we wrap up the Marías project we're going to take a week or so off and then we'll be back with more backlist dives and a new author whose work we'll spend some time digging into.

As always, thank you for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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This week we dive into Christian Kracht's Imperium, and boy do we ever go deep (sorry/not sorry). It's an incredible piece of historical fiction (one of Tom's favorites and, now, one of Lori's) that follows one man's attempts to manifest his destiny to live in the tropics and subsist only on the noble coconut. And walk around nude. In the German South Pacific holdings at the turn of the 20th Century. There's a lot going on here and we had a great time chatting about it and hope you'll enjoy it, too.

In fact, we had such a good time talking about it we didn't reference any other books, other than the only other title available in English from Kracht, The Dead. So definitely give that one a look, too!

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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A fun discussion this week of two novels published almost 30 years apart in The Infatuations and The Man of Feeling. We walk down some interesting paths and may get ourselves into a moral quandary or two (wouldn't be a discussion of Marías without some moral murkiness, now would it?).

These are the last two Marías novels we discuss before wrapping this season with a three episode discussion of that absolute beast: Your Face Tomorrow. A backlist episode next week and then we begin the deep dive. As always, thank you for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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We're going weekly! As the episodes have grown longer we've decided to split them up so instead of discussing two titles per episode (and delivering a 2+ hour podcast) every other week we're switching to one title every week. A guide to the next few episodes will be up on the Substack shortly.

This week we dig into Marie NDiaye's My Heart Hemmed In, translated by Jordan Stump and published by Two Lines Press. This one is Lori's recommendation and, folks, she did not miss. It's a phenomenal novel, and one that rather speaks to the moment we're in (have always been in?).

Books mentioned in this episode:

• Other titles by Marie NDiaye, including The Chef and Ladivine
• Kafka's, well, everything
• The Armies by Evelio Rosero, translated by Anne McLean
• The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana
• You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin
• Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson
• Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk, translated by Michiel Heyns

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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In our sixth episode we discuss Gob’s Grief by Chris Adrian for our backlist deep dive. In the Marías portion we dig into Thus Bad Begins (spoiler alert: it’s phenomenal). This is a doozy of an episode, so stay hydrated and do be a hero: listen to the whole 2+ hours in one go!

Books mentioned in this episode:

Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States by George R. Stewart

The Stammering Century by Gilbert Seldes

The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death by John Gray

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America by Garry Wills

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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Lori and Tom discuss Marías' final novel, Tomás Nevinson, just published in the US on May 23rd. A warning that spoilers do occur, especially after the 37 minute mark, so listener beware.

Next episode we will return to discussing backlist in addition to our Marías deep-dives.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

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To mark the publication of Marías final novel, Tomás Nevinson, we're spending this episode and our next episode diving into the twinned works of Berta Isla and Tomás Nevinson. On this episode we dive deep into Berta (warning: we do rather go into the plot in a more significant manner than we have with other titles discussed thus far). And in two weeks' time we'll be back to chat about Tomás Nevinson (so if you haven't picked up a copy yet, get thee to your local indie and get cracking!).

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs