EPISODE 13: SQUIRREL HOUR

On a wholesome episode of a new podcast, co-hosts Clementine Ford, Vincenzo Barney, and Christian Lorentzen turn to Vladimir Nabokov’s 1957 novel Pnin. Topics discussed include the theme of the holy fool; how to write about an innocent man when you’ve just written about a monster; etymology; living in a language other than the one you were born into; teaching a language you don’t know how to speak; genres; the campus novel; malapropisms; meanness; sweetness; cuteness; Upstate New York; John Updike; Edmund Wilson; Charlotte Bronte; Cervantes; the philosophy of gesture; bowls; bubblers; shadow-tails; soccer balls; bipolar disorder queens; Wilhelm Reich; the Kinsey Report; infidelity; unequal love; earth fathers; water fathers; how long novels should be; serialization; selling out; renting a room; parties; panic attacks; pyrographic screens; ophthalmology; cruelty; the Holocaust; zippers; the many manifestations of the squirrel; and much more. Thank you for listening.