TMR 26.6: "The Dream Marked a Change in Anna" [The Golden Notebook]
In this section, Chad, Brian, and Kaija go over "Free Women: 3," asking if anyone is truly free, along with the next excerpt from the "Black Notebook," which includes a significant number of dead pigeons. They talk about the overall fragmentation of this novel, its specific non-linear approach, what's "real" and what's a literary game, the humor found in the book, and who exactly is James?As Kaija calls out at the end of the podcast, the only possibility for this week’s music is “Kicking Pigeons” by [spunge].Next week’s episode will cover up to the start of “Free Women: 4.”You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) about all things Dalkey Archive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com
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1:03:30
TMR 26.5: "Everything Will Be As Usual, In Fact" [The Golden Notebook]
In this new episode covering up to page 352 of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Chad, Brian, and Kaija talk about the difficulty in keeping the various characters in the various notebooks straight—especially as the novel gets more recursive and hall of mirrors-like—the play with dates in the “Blue Notebook,” existential dread, fragmentation, and the breakdown of systems, how publishing works, the French, and more.This week’s music is “Jump Out” by Ezra Furman.You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) about all things Dalkey Archive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com
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41:01
TMR 26.4: "You Can Be Very, Very Serious in a Musical" [The Golden Notebook]
Is The Golden Notebook just novels all the way down? Brian, Kaija, and Chad talk about the idea that the “Free Women” sections of the book are just another novel, that Anna Wulf is disgusted by everything and parodies it in her notebooks, about generational distrust, colors, musicals, and more. They don’t talk about how the ending of “Free Women: 2” is a perfect TV cliffhanger, leading directly into a discussion of TV adaptations . . . This week’s music is “Drugstore Drastic” by Throwing Muses.You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) about all things Dalkey Archive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com
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58:58
TMR 26.3: "Literature Is Analysis After the Event" [The Golden Notebook]
Chad, Kaija, and Brian finish off the first "part" of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook by looking at the Yellow Notebook (a novel called "The Shadow of the Third") and the Blue one (dreams, psychoanalysis, and newspaper clippings). They talk about the names, the constant doubling, the assumptions of what is "real" and what is "fiction," how men are awful, and more.This week’s music is “National Anthem” by Radiohead.Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) about all things Dalkey Archive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com
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48:21
TMR 26.2: "Mashopi Hotel" [The Golden Notebook]
Brian returns this podcast to talk about his initial thoughts, especially as they relate to postmodernism and fragmentation. In the rest of the episode Chad, Kaija, and Brian discuss Anna’s first entry in her “Black Notebook,” which focuses on the time she spent in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with her socialist friends, which is the material she remixed into her novel, Frontiers of War. Also: Go Timberwolves!This week’s music is “The Turning Ground” by The Tara Clerkin Trio.Next week’s episode will cover up to page 242 (up to “Free Women: 2”). You can find the complete reading schedule here.All previous seasons of TMR are available on our YouTube channel (this episode can be found here) and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Please rate and review! It helps more than you know.Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) about all things Dalkey Archive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com
Each “season” of Two Month Review highlights a different new and amazing work of world literature, reading it slowly over the course of eight to nine episodes. Featuring a rotating set of literary guests—from authors to booksellers, critics, and translators—the individual episodes recap a short section of the book and use that as a springboard for a fun (and often irreverent) discussion about literature in a general sense, pop culture, reading approaches, and much more. Talking about great books doesn't need to be deadly serious, and the levity of 2MR makes it accessible to everyone (even if you’re not reading along). threepercentproblem.substack.com
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