#7 I Burn Paris by Bruno Jasieński

Jasieński’s I Burn Paris upset the French authorities enough to have him expelled from the country upon its publication . The story concerns a plague that breaks out in Paris, which exposes the worst tendencies of the city’s inhabitants.  As the death toll rises, the city breaks down and groups begin to isolate themselves according to ethnicity, nationality and ideology.   In today’s political climate, the book is perhaps more relevant than ever and serves as a stark warning about the perils of isolationism.

Over the course of the episode, we look at I Burn Paris in the light of Jasieński life and politics, consider the influence Futurism on the novel, and explore the communist message its core.

Bibliography

Nina Kolesnikoff, Bruno Jasieński: His Evolution from Futurism to Socialist Realism (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983)

Marci Shore, Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generations Life and Death in Marxism 1918 - 1968 (Yale University Press, 2006)

Aleksandr Wat, My Century (University of California Press, 1988), trans. Richard Lourie

Excerpt from Jasieński's poem read by Andrzej Girdwoyń - wolnelektury.pl

#6 Et in Arcadia Ego by Tadeusz Różewicz

In this episode, I'm joined by Stefan Głowacki to discuss Tadeusz Różewicz's long poem 'Et in Arcadia Ego' (1961).   Over the course of the episode, we consider how the  poem might be thought of as Różewicz's idiosyncratic "Italian Journey", written in response not only to Goethe's text, but as an attempt to confront the ghosts of classicism, a journey undertaken to see if the ideals of Western art can still be found among the wreckage of postwar Europe.

We also look at Rózewicz's attempts to construct new poetic forms to reflect the postwar experience, his exstensive use of ekphrasis, as well as aspects of his work that seem to be in dialogue with the anglophone poets T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. 

#5 The Man Whom the Trees Loved by Algernon Blackwood

In this episode, we look at Algernon Blackwood's story, 'The Man Whom the Trees Loved', which was published in his collection Pan's Garden (1912).  The story concerns David and Sophia Bittacy, a married couple living on the edge of the New Forest.  Under the influence of the bohemian painter, Sanderson, David becomes increasingly obsessed with the inner life of the trees in the neighbouring forest. 

Over the course of our discussion, we consider Algernon Blackwood's place in the Gothic tradition, the symbolism of cedars, and explore the dual possibilities of supernatural and psychological readings of the story. 

#4 At Twilight They Return by Zyranna Zateli

In this episode, we look at Zyranna Zateli's At Twilight They Return: a Novel in Ten Tales (1993), translated by David Connolly.  Set during the final decades of the 19th century, the novel tells the vivid and meandering history of several generations of a single family in northern Greece.  As the modern world begins encroach upon the ancient, the border between the mythic and the real becomes porous, and in Zateli's hands, both are able to exist in a perpetual twilight.

Over the course of our discussion, we consider the transitional period of the book's setting, the symbolism of wolves, and examine Zateli's curious weaving together of folklore and mythology. 

#3 Red Grass by Boris Vian

In this episode, we look at Boris Vian's Red Grass (1950), a surrealist science fiction novel in which the main character, Wolf, creates a machine that allows him to erase his own memories.  Perhaps a critique or satire of existentialism, perhaps a veiled song of mourning for post-war France, Red Grass is a somewhat obscure novel that really got us thinking.

Over the course of our discussion, we consider Vian's playful complexity, his parodies of psychoanalytical and existentialist thought, and the possible significance of Red Grass in terms of French collective memory in the wake of the Second World War. 

This episode features readings by Kinga Stanczuk

#2 The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

In this episode, we discuss Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain (1977), a work of topographical and philosophical speculation centred on the Cairngorms in Scotland.

Over the course of our discussion, we think about the recent resurgence of interest in Shepherd's work, the nature and form of the text itself , her use of synaesthetic modes of description, and consider the influence of Wordsworth and Emerson on The Living Mountain. 

Bibliography:

Louisa Gairn, Ecology and Modern Scottish Literature (2008, Edinburgh University Press)

Hugh MacDiarmid, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), (2008, Birlinn)

Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1957, Princeton University Press)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)

#1 Flower Phantoms by Ronald Fraser

In this episode, we discuss Ronald Fraser's Flower Phantoms (1926), an obscure fantasy in which Judy, a student of botanical sciences, engages in a psycho-sexual communion with the soul of an orchid in Kew Gardens.  

We were beguiled by this strange, orchidaceous novella.  Over the course of the programme, we consider Fraser's at once fascinating and problematic treatment of female sexuality, his preoccupation with epistemological questions, and his meditations on the creative act itself.