With Melville's Fidèle receding into the dark distance, we turn our attention to Rodrigo Fresán's Melvill, a bombastic book about Alan Melvill and Herman and the passing down of stories from one generation to the next. On this special episode, translator Will Vanderhyden joins Brian, Chad, and Kaija to talk about translating Fresán, about the style and word play found in his books, about the footnotes, about what's to come. They also talk about the line connecting this to Confidence-Man, and how to read footnotes. And about the interplay between two narratorial voices in this first part.
Also mentioned are this interview with Fresán on Between the Covers, this one with Will Vanderhyden on Beyond the Zero, and this new Fresán story ("Music to Destroy Worlds" (An Exoeriment)") in Southwest Review.
And here's where you can get your own "Grifters Gonna Grift" t-shirt mentioned in this episode.
Next episode will cover pages 62-123 of Rodrigo Fresán's Melvill. You can find the full reading schedule here.
This week's music is "Sink or Swim" by Young Fathers.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Please rate and review! It helps more than you know.
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests.
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