For this season of the Two Month Review, we’re leaving the sunny, paranoid skies of Pynchon’s California behind in favor of William Frederick Kohler’s study, where, instead of writing an introduction to his recently completed book, Guilt and Innocence in Hitler’s Germany, Kohler starts writing about his life and things that annoy him, about annoyances and disappointments, and about the awful aspects of ourselves that we never want to directly confront. In this particular episode, Chad, Brian, and Kaija talk about Gass’s life and other writings and provide a general framework for anyone approaching this masterpiece for the first time. Specifically, they discuss the first section of the novel, “Life in a Chair,” which is a jarring—and occasionally funny—overture to the themes of the novel as a whole.

This episode’s music is “Yek” by Oran Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, and Andreas Werliin.

Next week we’ll cover the second section, “Koh Whistles Up a Wind” (pages 49–96). The complete schedule (if you’re reading along in real time) can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) about all things Dalkey Archive.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com