The Spouter-Inn

91. On the Natural History of Destruction / Dhalgren.

The fire, now rising two thousand meters into the sky, snatched oxygen to itself so violently that the air currents reached hurricane force, resonating like mighty organs with all their stops pulled out at once. The fire burned like this for three hours. At its height, the storm lifted gables and roofs from buildings, flung rafters and entire advertising billboards through the air, tore trees from the ground, and drove human beings before it like living torches. Behind collapsing facades, the flames shot up as high as houses, rolled like a tidal wave through the streets at a speed of over a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, spun across open squares in strange rhythms like rolling cylinders of fire. The water in some of the canals was ablaze. The glass in the tram car windows melted; stocks of sugar boiled in the bakery cellars. W.G. Sebald’s collection Luftkrieg und Literatur, translated and expanded as On the Natural History of Destruction, is both a reflection of the air strikes that Germany endured during World War II and on the literary response — or lack of repsonse — to that destruction. Samuel R. Delany’s monumental science-fiction novel Dhalgren explores the people who remain in a Midwestern American city after an unexplained collapse mostly cuts it off from the rest of the world. Suzanne and Chris find each of the books they’ve been reading difficult to discuss, but nevertheless they're compelled to try. (Thank you to Michael Collins for helping to edit this episode.) Show Notes. W.G. Sebald: On the Natural History of Destruction. Samuel R. Delany: Dhalgren. Our episodes on The Rings of Saturn and Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. Other books by W.G. Sebald: Austerlitz. The Emigrants. Trümmerliteratur. Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five. Chris discussed the book on another podcast. Other books by Samuel R. Delany: The Jewels of Aptor. The Einstein Intersection. Tales of Nevèrÿon is the first book in the series that Chris particularly enjoys. Bill Wood, ed.: On Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren. Our episodes on Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Jared’s little joke. Our episodes on Middlemarch, Peter Hujar’s Day, and Forgetting Elena. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and you can hang out with us in a friendly little Discord.

90. Peter Hujar’s Day / On Elizabeth Bishop.

So then I go and I make another cup of coffee and two pieces of toast with raspberry jelly and now I’m going to call Allen Ginsberg at exactly noon. Because he does his meditations and they told me to call him either at 11 at night or after twelve. So it’s exactly 12 and I call him. And it’s busy. I go and put my red jacket on and I go down and get cigarettes. I break a ten-dollar bill. And I give her a penny because the cigarettes are 56 cents. Linda Rosenkrantz’s Peter Hujar’s Day is a transcription of a conversation she had with the photographer, detailing everything that he did on one day in 1974. Colm Tóibín’s On Elizabeth Bishop explores the life and work of the poet, weaving in an account of Tóibín’s own life and influences. Chris and Suzanne discuss different approaches to portraiture (in books, films, and photography) — as well as some of the particular joys of smaller books. Show Notes. Linda Rosenkrantz: Peter Hujar’s Day. Colm Tóibín: On Elizabeth Bishop. The end of the mass-market paperback. Gertrude Stein: How to Write and The World Is Round (illus. Roberta Arenson). Linda Rosenkrantz: Talk. Chuck Close: Linda. Peter Hujar’s Day (Ira Sachs, 2025). Follow Chris or Suzanne on Letterboxd. The Peter Hujar Archive, which includes an iconic photo of Susan Sontag, catacombs and some spectacular cityscapes. Oh, and his photo of Allen Ginsberg. Peter Hujar: Portraits in Life and Death. It was, indeed, pretty cold on 19 December 1974, with a high of 38°F, if this website is to be believed. Elizabeth Bishop: Poems. (Ah, right, the latest edition is no longer called The Complete Poems, 1927–1979!) Poems by Elizabeth Bishop mentioned: One Art Poem North Haven Wuthering Heights (Emerald Fennell, 2026). Our episode on Wuthering Heights. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and you can hang out with us in a friendly little Discord.

89. The Travels of Sir John Mandeville / Voyage Around My Room.

You should realize that no living man can go to Paradise. By land no man can go thither because of the wild beasts in the wilderness, and because of the hills and rocks, which no one can cross; and also because of the many dark places that are there. No one can go there by water either, for those rivers flow with so strong a current, with such a rush and such waves that no boat can sail against them. [...] And so no man, as I said, can get there except through the special grace of God. And so of that place I can tell you no more; so I shall go back and tell you of things that I have seen in the isles and lands of the empire of Prester John, which, relative to us, are below the earth. We start the new year (a little late) by looking at some old travel literature! Suzanne is revisiting The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a fourteenth-century guide to visiting the Holy Land and beyond. Chris, on the other hand, is looking at Xavier de Maistre’s Voyage Around My Room, an eighteenth-century account of one man’s triumphant journey from his bed to his writing desk. Show Notes. John Mandeville: The Book of John Mandeville, trans. Iain Macleod Higgins, is the translation Suzanne read; The Book of Marvels and Travels, trans. Anthony Bale, is what Chris read. Xavier de Maistre: Voyage Around My Room, trans. Stephen Sartarelli. This volume includes the sequel, Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room. Read a sample. Robert Durling & Ronald Martinez: Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante’s Rime Petrose contains the text and a translation of Dante’s poems. Not I (Anthony Page, 1973), a film of Samuel Beckett’s play starring Billie Whitelaw. Chris discusses this more on another podcast. Suzanne’s article The diversity of mankind in The Book of John Mandeville. Iain Macleod Higgins: Writing East: The“Travels” of Sir John Mandeville. Our episodes on the Inferno and the Hereford Mappa Mundi. Prester John. Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS nouv. acq. fr. 4515 has the correct Hebrew alphabet at fol. 96v. Otto of Freising: The Two Cities is his universal history. Joseph de Maistre, Xavier’s brother. Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Our episodes on Boethius and Montaigne. Daniel Spoerri: An Anecdoted Topography of Chance, trans. Emmett Williams. Daniel Spoerri: Kichka’s Breakfast. The map of Spoerri’s desk is included in his Wikipedia article. Georges Perec: An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, trans. Marc Lowenthal. Our episode on W, or the Memory of Childhood. Boris Razon: Écoute. Melissa Moreton & Suzanne Conklin Akbari, eds.: Textiles in Manuscripts: A Local and Global History of the Book Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and you can hang out with us in a friendly little Discord.

88. The Gospel According to Mark / On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.

The men seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” Then everyone deserted him and fled. A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. We wrap the year up by looking at a few ways people have written about Jesus. Chris revisits The Gospel According to Mark, with all its strange little moments (and looks at a few recent queer retellings of Jesus’ life story). Suzanne, meanwhile, revisits On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, John Milton’s poem about the birth of Jesus, and how its poetry makes us question our sense of time. Show Notes. The Gospel According to Mark, in its New International Version (which Chris reads from) and the King James Version (which Suzanne reads from). John Milton: On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. Our episode on Milton’s Paradise Lost and its accompanying bonus episode with Anthony Oliveira. The audiobook reading of the Bible that Chris mentions. Geoff Ryman: Him. We also discussed his Was in our episode on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. His hypertext novel, 253, is worth checking out too. Anthony Oliveira: Dayspring. (An early version of a section was published in Hazlitt if you want a taste.) Leo Steinberg: The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (later published as a book). Catherine Conybeare: Augustine the African. David Townsend: The Ram in the Thicket: A Novel of Medieval Norwich. Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and you can listen to a special holiday treat!

87. Waiting for Godot / Theory of Water.

[Estragon takes Vladimir's hat. Vladimir adjusts Lucky's hat on his head. Estragon puts on Vladimir's hat in place of his own which he hands to Vladimir. Vladimir takes Estragon's hat. Estragon adjusts Vladimir's hat on his head. Vladimir puts on Estragon's hat in place of Lucky's which he hands to Estragon. Estragon takes Lucky's hat. Vladimir adjusts Estragon's hat on his head. Estragon puts on Lucky's hat in place of Vladimir's which he hands to Vladimir. Vladimir takes his hat. Estragon adjusts Lucky's hat on his head. Vladimir puts on his hat in place of Estragon's which he hands to Estragon. Estragon takes his hat. Vladimir adjusts his hat on his head. Estragon puts on his hat in place of Lucky's which he hands to Vladimir. Vladimir takes Lucky's hat. Estragon adjusts his hat on his head. Vladimir puts on Lucky's hat in place of his own which he hands to Estragon. Estragon takes Vladimir's hat. Vladimir adjusts Lucky's hat on his head. Estragon hands Vladimir's hat back to Vladimir who takes it and hands it back to Estragon who takes it and hands it back to Vladimir who takes it and throws it down.] Chris revisits an old favourite — Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot — and revels in how many types of nothing happen in its two acts. Suzanne, meanwhile, is excited about a new book, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s essay Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead, and is wrapping her head around how, in it, Simpson thinks with water (in all of its forms) to imagine new political possibilities. Show Notes. Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot, originally published as En Attendant Godot. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead. Other books by Samuel Beckett mentioned: Molloy, and Imagination Dead Imagine. Other books by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson mentioned: Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, Rehearsals for Living (with Robyn Maynard), Islands of Decolonial Love, and Dancing On Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence. Our episode on Dancing On Our Turtle's Back. Also, our episode on The Tempest. Jean-Paul Sartre: No Exit. Beckett on Film. When Robin Williams and Steve Martin starred in Waiting for Godot. Wikipedia’s overview of sintering. Textiles in Manuscripts: A Local and Global History of the Book, edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Melissa Moreton, will be available in a few months! You can already explore the book’s companion website. Map Men (Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones): This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (And Why It Matters). And their YouTube channel. Chris talks about Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull, 1972) at length in the latest episode of It’s Just A Show. Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, 2025). Taxi (Jafar Panahi, 2015). Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon and hang out with us in a friendly discord.