novelists
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The History of Literature #61 – Wharton, Murakami, Chandler, and Fowles (with Professor Vu Tran)
What do Edith Wharton, Haruki Murakami, Raymond Chandler, John Fowles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Wong Kar-wai have in common? All are known for their ability to generate a particular mood and atmosphere – and all were selected by our guest, Professor Vu Tran of the University of Chicago, as being particularly inspirational as he wrote his Continue reading
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The History of Literature Episode 60 – Great Literary Endings
https://youtu.be/X7bInqjmEN4 Everyone always talks about the greatest openings in the history of literature – I’m looking at you, Call me Ishmael – but what about endings? Aren’t those just as important? What are the different ways to end short stories and novels? Which endings work well and why? In this episode, Jacke and Mike take a look at Continue reading
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The History of Literature Episode #59 – Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) lived a life that, in retrospect, looks almost like one of her short stories: sudden, impactful, and lastingly powerful. Deeply Catholic, O’Connor portrayed the American South as a place full of complex characters seeking redemption in unusual and often violent ways. She once said that she had found that violence was “strangely capable of returning Continue reading
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History of Literature Podcast Ep. 58 – Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism (with Professor Paul Peppis)
Embattled and arrogant, the novelist and painter Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was deeply immersed in Modernism even as he sought to blast it apart. He was the type of person who would rather hate a club than join it – and while his taste for the attack led to his marginalization, his undeniable genius made him impossible to ignore. Eventually, his Continue reading
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Covering James Joyce
Yes! Our James Joyce podcast episode smashed our record for one-day downloads. A reminder that you can get the History of Literature Podcast for free on iTunes and Stitcher. Question for the Day: Which James Joyce cover is your favorite? (Or is your favorite not here?) Let me know in the comments! Continue reading
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James Joyce and the Picture House
I can’t believe I had forgotten about this little Joycean tidbit until my interview with Vincent O’Neill. James Joyce started Dublin’s first cinema in 1909. From Wikipedia: In the early 1900s, demand for moving pictures was fierce and cinemas were springing up all over the world. After visiting Trieste, the writer James Joyce was determined to bring Continue reading
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The History of Literature #55 – James Joyce (with Vincent O’Neill)
Vincent O’Neill hails from Sandycove, Dublin, where he grew up in the shadow of the tower made famous by the opening chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. After a childhood spent tracing the steps of Joyce’s characters, Vincent developed a love for the theatre, eventually becoming the co-founder and artistic director of the Irish Classical Theatre Company in Continue reading
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History of Literature #52 – Recommend This! The 101 Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers
What works of literature are essential? When we start reading literature, where do we begin? The College Board, an organization that prepares standardized tests for millions of American young people, has published list of 101 recommended books for college-bound readers. High schools and colleges across the country take their lead from this list, and students are encouraged to use Continue reading
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The History of Literature #47 – Hemingway vs Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) were the pole stars of the Lost Generation, the collection of young American authors who came of age in the Paris and New York of the 1920s. The Hemingway-Fitzgerald relationship has been examined for decades and continues to fascinate. Why are we so drawn to these two Continue reading
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History of Literature Episode 43 – Seeing Evil (with Professor Rebecca Messbarger)
What is evil? Is it a force that lives outside us? Or something that dwells within? And how do we recognize it? Professor Rebecca Messbarger joins Jacke to discuss the problems of seeing evil and the particular ways that post-Fascist Italian writers dealt with the dilemma. We also hear the story of how a mild-mannered Italian Continue reading
alabama moon, anna morandi manzolini, carlo gadda, family sayings, italian enlightenment, italian post-fascist detective fiction, italo calvino, lady anatomist, leonardo sciascia, mr palomar, natalia ginzburg, rebecca messbarger, recognizing evil, that awful mess on the via merulana, todo modo, watt key
Jacke Wilson 