In the Tentacles of the Murmur (The literature of crisis)

Fluidity, volatility, chaos, confusion, fragmentation, uncertainty, anxiety, crisis, polarization – these words are often used to describe the modern world. And even though we often find them inadequate, we feel subconsciously that they capture feelings we have that can’t be described in any other way. When I looked for a word that best captures our present era, out of nowhere came the strange expression “murmur”. We can understand it as a sort of animal growl, an unarticulated dissatisfaction, an expression of disagreement or frustration that we can’t force into words. A dissatisfied hum without a form has pushed its way into the light of day and has influenced societies across the world and nobody knows what to do with it.

Literature offers an untraditional antidote to uncertainty, chaos, and confusion. It’s one option for protecting ourselves from the disorder. The act of writing creates a different mode of thought and self-expression: when we write or read, time slows down and we try to give some sort of form to our fluid, disorganized thought – or, together with the author, we observe the movement of their complicated, branching thinking. What does our world look like when viewed through contemporary literature? And how can we break free from the tentacles of the Murmur?

3rd episode Back to Class

Like gender and race, class is an important dimension of an individual’s place in the world. The options open to people from different social backgrounds are fundamentally different. Perhaps it is for this reason that class has become a popular literary topic. The class perspective fits perfectly into the mosaic-like form of the novel, and brings to literature tensions and motives that can be elaborated on inventively in the narrative. The literary form is able to effectively and affectively communicate the relatively complex dimensions of this issue by touching the reader on a very basic level. So how do contemporary authors approach the topic of class? And what do they offer us that is new?

List of literature in the 3rd episode:

J. D. Vance – Hillbilly Elegy
Didier Eribon – Returning to Reims (translated by Michael Lucey)
Édouard Louis – Who Killed My Father (translated by Lorin Stein)
Sally Rooney – Normal People
Edward St Aubyn – Never Mind

Author: Jan Bělíček
Translation: Phil Jones

Voice: Michael Pitthan and Rebecca Rose Riisness

Sound postproduction: Jonáš Richter
Music and sound desing: Ondřej Bělíček
Teaser: Barbora Kleinhamplová

Special thanks to: Jan Sedláček