We may have crossed the episode 40 threshold, but there will be no dad jeans here. The boys delve into the world of earth science, psychoanalyze Ben and his female characters, and give a report on their own writing before tackling Kafka’s excellent story “A Hunger Artist.” After discussing the world of commerce and the timelessness of art, they wonder about the merits of flash fiction.
- Download directly as an MP3
- Subscribe to us and write a review on iTunes
- Subscribe to the new episode RSS feed
Reading Discussed
- Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” (Muir translation).
- Kafka feels contemporary, much like Peter Ho Davies’ “The Criminal Mastermind is Confined” (published in Harper’s 10 or 15 years ago).
- Other contemporary fabulist fiction includes Karen Russell’s “The Barn at the End of Our Term” (discussed way back on episode 14).
- The guys are ambivalent about flash fiction, but Brian recommends the short pieces in Kafka’s Collected Stories.
- Ben is learning about different kinds of twilight. Not that Twilight. Or that Twilight. This twilight.
- Jon recommends Ann Patchett’s essay “The Getaway Car,” included in her latest collection, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.