Two Month Review

NIGHTRIPPPER!!!!!!!!!! This week's music is " Dirty Boots " by Sonic Youth. You can watch next week's discussion of Tripticks live on YouTube. (Reading schedule can be found here .) And you can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel . And you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the...

Kaija Straumanis filled in for a domestically distressed Brian, and Chad went all psych0-philosophical on this week's episode, talking about schizoid personality splits, R. D. Laing, reading the various parts of Passages  simultaneously, postulating wild hot takes, and saying "fuck off" to a wide swath of bad actors. (Looking at you, Kanye.)  This week's music is " Outlook for the Future " by Inve...

This week, Brian, Chad, and Kaija discuss the first half of  Passages , arguable Quin's most poetic book, and definitely most experimental one to date. They talk about the way the two characters try to define themselves and create their identities, flow versus points, geometry and parallax, masks and threesomes, and more. It's a dense—yet fun—episode, much in keeping with the text itself! This wee...

Kaija Straumanis joins Chad and Brian this week to talk about orchids, hot takes ( did  S. sleep with L.?? how exactly did she die?), creepy British dudes, symmetry in  Three , Ann Quin's statement on threesomes, the ambiguity of the text, and much more.  This week's music is " What Went Down " by Foals. You can watch next week's discussion of Passage live on YouTube at 4pm ET on Thursday, Decembe...

Chad and Bria dive into  Three , discussing the humor of the dialogue, the poetic-cinematic techniques Quin employs, monogamy and marriage, whether or not L was a collaborationist or worse, the importance of the number three, the play-like elements of the books, anti-mimetic writing, and much more. It's a fun episode complete with dog barks, laughs, unanswered questions, and a decent amount of ins...

Dead dummies, drowned tramps, resolving the Oedipal complex, the forever incompleteness of the number "3," sex, the sea, slapstick comedy, irony, competing desires of domesticity versus the desire to escape, the beautiful ending and the reverse coda, and much more is discussed on this episode covering the whole of Ann Quin's Berg.  Now Chad and Brian move on to Quin's second novel,  Three , which...

Chad and Brian dive into the first half of Berg  this episode, mispronouncing words, talking about the literary scene Quin came out of, whether or not Berg/Greb is an incel, the humor found in the book, and more. (Inevitably there's a dig at Ohio  somewhere in this recording.)  This week's music is " When a Woman Is Around " byUnloved. You can watch next week's discussion of Berg live on YouTube a...

The eighteenth season of the Two Month Review is all about Ann Quin's books—all four novels and her collected stories and fragments—and starts off with an overview of who she was, the context of experimental British writing in the 1960s, how/why Quin has been underappreciated, some info on supplementary critical materials, and much more.  This week's music is " HaHaHome " by twen. You can watch ne...

In the final episode of this season of the Two Month Review, Brian, Chad, and Katie debate whether or not our narrator is in limbo, whether or not this book has a point, what revolution looks like today, and much more. (Chad checks out about 1/2 way through, which, to be honest, makes the episode smarter.) If you're a Patreon supporter at the $10 or higher level, you'll be able to vote on the book...

Katie and Chad tackle this section alone, discussing the revolutionary background of the main characters, going off into Bernadine Dohrn, the SDS, the Weather Underground, and direct action. They also talk about the timeline—as far as they understand it—the challenges of translating legal terms, Danny's multiple read throughs of the text, and much more.  This week's music is "Simulation Swarm" by...

In addition to talking about the Trump/Tesla/Lockwood conspiracy theory, our hosts this week discuss "bone avalanches," how translators are paid, the global literary network available for "experimental" books translated into English, "runts," Lativa's obsession with MILF graffiti, "catching fire," and driving a convertible off a cliff.  This week's music is "Bicameral" by The Range. If you like wh...

Chad and Brian go it alone and discuss "navel gazing" novels, books that entertain vs. ones about the prose, where Eltit's novel resides on that spectrum, Tommy Pham slapping Joc Peterson, shit in the bed, and much more.  This week's music is "It Was Us" by Arms and Sleepers. If you like what you hear, review, rate, and support us on Patreon! You can watch next week's episode (June 1st) live on Yo...

Technical difficulties are kept to a minimum on this week's episode, as Chad, Brian, and Katie talk about the advancement of plot, the French New Novel, the title and its translation, the body, trauma, touching eyeballs, and more. This week's music is "Monday" by The Regrettes. If you like what you hear, review, rate, and support us on Patreon! You can watch next week's episode (June 1st) live on...

In lieu of a live episode, this week's TMR features interviews with Mónica Ramón Ríos and Carlos Labbé about their relationship with Diamela Eltit and her role in Chilean letters. That's followed by a conversation with Tony Malone (of Tony's Reading List) about the two books under discussion this season and the Shadow Man Booker International jury that he's been helping run for a number of years. ...

Technical difficulties abound as Chad struggles to find reliable Wifi in Latvia. (While being recruited by the Russian mafia?)  Katie and Brian take the lead this episode, discussing the next few chapters of  Never Did the Fire , gendered adjectives and information, Marxist groups and analysis, and much more. Also: Stay tuned at the end for a special interview with Sam McDowell of Charco Press! Th...

TMR is back, breaking down Daniel Hahn's translation diary,  Catching Fire , alongside his translation of  Never Did the Fire  by Diamela Eltit.  In this episode, they contextualize Eltit and this particular book, talk about intentional ambiguity, Franco and Pinochet, action vs. analysis, bad and hard to eat rice, and more.  Also, Katie sings.  This week's music is "Impossible" from the new Röykso...

We've reached the end of  2666 and Chad, Katie, and Brian convene to talk about how amazing the ending is, publishers protecting authors, love and family, the book being a "love letter to literature," the circular nature of the book, and James Joyce. This week's music is "Swoonn" by The Chemical Brothers. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along with all our past...

Chad and Brian talk about more vampires, about semen, about senseless scene after senseless scene, about WWII, about masterpieces and mediocre writing, about publisher laments, and about other things. This week's music is "Damn These Vampires" by The Mountain Goats. (The Jordan Lake Sessions version, specifically.) If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along with al...

We're in the home stretch, as Archimboldi appears at last. Chad, Katie, and Brian discuss his origin story, vampires, seaweed, the nature of time, various echoes appearing in this final section, what Bolaño might be saying about himself as a writer through Hans Reiter, and masturbation. Here's a link to the blog post Katie references in this episode. This week's music is "Bloodletting (The Vampire...

Chad and Brian tackle the braided narratives that close out "The Part About the Crimes," discussing Michel Butor's thoughts about detective novels (from  Passing Time ) and the "rules" laid out in 20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them  against  2666.  Some interesting observations about what the core "mystery" of the book really is, questions about the chronology of the four parts so far, and som...

Brian's back to talk about dead baby jokes, repetition, the power of reading, snuff films, matriarchal lineage, and much more. Chad didn't sleep before this episode, which explains some of the wackiness.  This week's music is "World Gone Deaf" by Bill Baird. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along with all our past episodes . And tune in next Thursday at 9am ET...

Chad and Katie go it alone on this special Thanksgiving episode, going deeper into "The Part About the Crimes," talking about Chris Andrews's critical book on Bolaño's fiction (in particular the ideas about aimlessness and narrative identity), about Klaus Haas's arrest, about the failure—and disinterest—of most police and detectives in Santa Teresa, and about how to read this particular section of...

Chad, Brian, and Katie dive into "The Part About the Crimes," talking about the fact that the Penitent gets more detective time than all of the murdered women, about the seer, about ventriloquism, about Lalo Cura, and about the existence of Ciudad Juárez in 2666.  This week's music is "Highlights of 100" by Kiwi Jr. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along with a...

After Chad, Katie, and Brian finish recapping the end of "The Part About Fate"—including the  Twin Peaks  reference, representations of violence, the apocryphal Robert Rodriguez porno, blindness and impaired sight, and much more—they're joined by Dr. Andrew Martino, a massive Bolaño fan who raises more questions and observations as the group read heads into "The Part About the Crimes." This week's...

In the first chunk of this week's episode, Brian, Chad, and Katie break down the first half of "The Part About Fate" and look specifically at Kessler's speech in the diner, the areas of exploitative capitalism, femicide and how it's everywhere, the idea of a system that kills, and much more. (They literally run out of time.) Then, Chad and Katie are joined by Natasha Wimmer to discuss her translat...