Episode 13: "Chronicle of the Murdered House" by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson

Lost in Redonda

And we’re back! Welcome to Season Two of Lost in Redonda. We kick things off with a backlist conversation on Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published by Open Letter Books. It’s probably one of the fastest moving 600 page sagas of a Brazilian family you’re likely to encounter. And it’s funny. And gothic. And very campy.

Our big project this season is a complete reading of the novels of Muriel Spark. That kicks off next week with her debut, The Comforters, available from New Directions, and, folks!, it’s absolutely incredible. We’ve already recorded a couple of the Spark episodes and are we ever excited. (Her last name of course being the inspiration for this season’s music.)

We’re trying to keep some spoilers out of our conversations this season (or at least flag them when they happen), so: around the 61 minute mark we start chatting about one of the more profound moments at the end of the novel. If you haven’t yet read Chronicle and would rather not hear this bit, skip ahead to 1:06.25 or so where we chat about other works that, to us anyway, resonate with this one.

Click here for Lori’s (great!) article on Chronicle in Full Stop.

Titles discussed:

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The House of Mist by María Luisa Bombal

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner

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Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs