logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2024
48m 48s

Proust in English

THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
About this episode
Did the foundational event of Proust’s great novel really happen? Michael Wood talks to Tom about several English translations of In Search of Lost Time, old and new, and what they reveal about different ways of reading the novel. If the dipping of the madeleine in his tea conjures an overwhelming memory of the narrator’s childhood, it is also a challenge to ... Show More
Up next
Jul 15
On Politics: The US at 250
Would the Founding Fathers recognise the modern United States as the republic they declared in 1776? The nation formed from Britain’s North American colonies has become the most powerful and prosperous in the world, but the muted celebrations on 4 July reflected a divided country ... Show More
1h 8m
Jul 13
Poetry and the Turning World: Money
In the sixth episode of their series, Sarah and Sandeep look at poems that explore the complexities of money and its metaphorical power: Frederick Seidel’s ‘In Late December’ starts with an image of degradation in the symbolic heart of global capitalism but ends with an ambiguous ... Show More
1h 30m
Jul 8
Among the Private Spies
The Trump-Russia dossier, leaked to the press in 2017, contained multiple allegations of collusion between the US president and Putin, including reports of meetings between Kremlin officials and members of Trump’s campaign team, and the existence of kompromat in the form of the i ... Show More
38m 29s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2022
Marcel Proust
In 2022, France is marking the centenary of the death of the novelist Marcel Proust, the author of the 20th century masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past. In this archive edition of Witness History, Proust's friend, Prince Antoine Bibescu, recalls his conversations with the auth ... Show More
9m 1s
Jul 2019
Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) did little of note until he turned 38 years old - but from that point forward, he devoted the rest of his life to writing a masterpiece. The result, the novel In Search of Lost Time, published in seven volumes from 1913 to 1927, stands as one of the supr ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2024
Coup de Foudre
This week, Lauren Elkin on a Nobel Prize-winner's obsession with images; and Judith Flanders assesses bold claims about the origins of contemporary English.'The Use of Photography', by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie, translated by Alison L. Strayer'La Langue Anglaise N'existe Pas: C ... Show More
56m 31s
May 2023
Hegel and the Wound of Spirit
UNLOCKED: Today we're talking Žižek's chapter in his book Absolute Recoil called "The Violence of the Beginning". The reading begins with the notion that there is "nothing prior to the loss" of the sense of lost origins. Žižek then sets into play the idea of the self-alienation o ... Show More
53m 51s
Mar 2024
Between The Sheets
This week, Miranda France contemplates the final novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and Nicola Shulman on what women write in their diaries.'Until August', by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Anne McLean'Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries', by Sarah GristwoodProduced by ... Show More
47m 20s
Nov 2023
Germinal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's greatest literary success, his thirteenth novel in a series exploring the extended Rougon-Macquart family. The relative here is Etienne Lantier, already known to Zola’s readers as one of the blighted branch of the family tree and his s ... Show More
51m 39s
Mar 2024
Book Club: Pride and Prejudice
It is time for the long-awaited episode on Jane Austen's enduring classic novel Pride and Prejudice. We navigate issues of class, romance, expectations, first impressions, and of course, pride and prejudice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
52m 18s
Dec 2011
PREMIUM-Episode 48: Merleau-Ponty on Perception and Knowledge
Discussing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Primacy of Perception" (1946) and The World of Perception (1948). 
33m 23s
Oct 2024
Cherchez La Femme
This week, Lisa Hilton on the truth behind life as a 'grand horizontale'; and Juliette Bretan explores why Virginia Woolf served up boeuf en daube in To the Lighthouse.'Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman’s astonishing life of seduction, intrigue and power', by Sonia Purnell'Eur ... Show More
49m 58s