Dylan and Kassia gather around the hearth to discuss Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal, a Christmassy novella translated from German by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore. In this story, two children get lost in a snowstorm on Holy Eve. We shovel away the layers of winter snow to uncover the deeper meaning of their predicament.

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In this clip, Kassia and Dylan how Victor Hugo's Guernsey compares to the Guernsey of Ebenezer le Page and the use of essayistic digressions in novels.

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In this episode, Matt Tannenbaum, proprietor of Lenox, Massachusetts' The Bookstore and focus of the documentary Hello, Bookstore, joins us to discuss The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by G. B. Edwards. At 80, Guernseyman Ebenezer reflects on the joys, sorrows, and annoyances of his life as he searches for an heir to his modest fortune, some of which is buried in the backyard. We talk about the novel's direct, singular style, the overlapping of Edwards' character with Le Page's, and Tannenbaum's decades of reading and loving the book.

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We paired last month's NYRB Classic, The Golovlyov Family, with another Russian classic on the Patreon, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, and compare these tales about the dying Russian aristocracy and the freedom of serfs.

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Professor of Russian José Vergara recommends a dark story of family betrayal. Shchedrin's 1880 novel follows the fall of a miserly matriarch and the rise of her even more punitive son. We talk about tragicomedy, fate, faith, and constant death. Spoilers are out of control. This is one of our favorite books, so read it quick!

Michaela Telfer's article on bureaucracy in the novel (open access)

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In this clip, we revisit the classic tale of toxic stan culture: Henry James' The Aspern Papers. Ever moved into a dilapidated Venetian palazzo to possibly steal the yellowing missives exchanged between your literary idol and his former flame? Us neither! Join us as we pick apart the narrator's twisted mind.

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Elise Riley, an accessioning archivist at the Beinecke Library, offers us an expert's perspective on In The Freud Archives, Janet Malcolm's nonfictional exploration of archival infighting. The book concerns three psychoanalytic scholars who come to epistolary blows over the scattered remains of Freud's legacy. But unlike most niche academic debates, this one resulted in a $13 million dollar lawsuit. In this episode, we discuss Malcolm's narrative distance, the role of fantasy versus reality, and some things the Sigmund Freud Archives could have done to avoid all this Oedipal drama.

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In this clip, we discuss how Home acts as a "spiritual sequel" to Penelope Mortimer's The Pumpkin Eater, showcasing a more detailed portrait of the narrator's family and how it reflected mid-century British society.

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