Finnegans Take
with Sasha Mutchnik
Proof: 7 of 53 entries would be held back from publishing
-
-
The Drama
Reached for as the other recent school-shooting story, proof the Scandinavians are up to something.
-
The Mask
A mishearing of "masking" detours into Robert Pattinson's reported favorite film.
-
Son of the Mask
The contrarian's sequel pick, offered strictly for the Jamie Kennedy of it all.
-
The Odyssey
The long shadow the whole episode sits in, and the reason everyone suddenly claims the classics.
-
Iphigenia in Aulis
Performed at her hippie sixth-grade graduation, Greek-Olympics themed, with Sasha in the title role, obviously. Sasha Mutchnik
-
Iphigenia in Tauris
The sequel where Artemis swaps in a deer; her nominee for most underrated myth in the discourse. Sasha Mutchnik
-
The Odyssey
Absorbed by osmosis through every journey story, from Finding Nemo down; you may not need to read it.
-
The Iliad
The college on-ramp: read this first, then the wanderings.
-
The Canterbury Tales
Her thesis: a bunch of starter packs, which makes Chaucer the original meme lord. Sasha Mutchnik
-
Le Roman de la Rose
A medievalist's favorite, cited for how much Greek myth it quietly carries. Sasha Mutchnik
-
Finding Nemo
What the Odyssey turned out to be, once you've seen enough movies about journeys.
-
Save the Cat!
The screenwriting cliché explained to a host who missed the joke entirely.
-
Inside Llewyn Davis
Where a man literally saves a cat, as a wink to everyone who read the book.
-
Prometheus
Named while unpacking why the myth of stolen fire keeps getting handed to tech founders.
-
Jurassic Park
Goldblum's line about whether you should is the Prometheus myth in blockbuster form.
-
Game of Thrones
Shireen's wooden deer as a wink for the classics kids; accusations of plagiarism follow, fondly.
-
Beowulf
Shorthand for what Columbia's core makes you read while the university has bigger controversies.
-
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Offered as proof a biochemistry major should still have encountered something ancient.
-
A Knight's Tale
The Heath Ledger one, briefly confused for Chaucer scholarship and then for Dev Patel.
-
The Green Knight
The Dev Patel medieval film that gets tangled into the same mix-up.
-
The Decameron
Once reworked as influencers in Tulum; also the Italian twin Chaucer may have quietly borrowed. Sasha Mutchnik
-
Spoon River Anthology
Studied at acting school, and accused here of ripping off Chaucer's whole structure.
-
Hamlet
Dropped as the shrug that ends any argument about there being only one story.
-
Ulysses
One host finds Molly's soliloquy hopeful; the guest finds Joyce hopeless. Nobody moves.
-
Finnegans Wake
The ten-month reading club nobody wants to join. "I don't believe anyone's read Finnegan's Wake."
-
The Departed
Where she learned Freud's line about the Irish being impervious to psychoanalysis. The great Irish text.
-
Infernal Affairs
Noted as the Hong Kong original, since adaptation is the episode's real subject.
-
The Dead
Threatened as homework for the co-host who refuses to be read to.
-
The Goldfinch
Confessed unread, filed under doorstops men use as gym equipment for the mind.
-
-
2666
Once on the shelf of every woman a host dated; the Barnard feminist theory starter pack.
-
White Teeth
Part of one host's dating-era bookshelf inventory, alongside Roxane Gay.
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Entered as evidence about which kind of woman the other host was dating.
-
The White Album
"Some girls are really intense about the White Album, and that's one of the darkest books ever."
-
Think Like a Monk
Lobbed into the canon talk purely to watch the guest not recognize it.
- Rec.
Family Lexicon
The last book her sister sent her, and the closest thing here to an unhedged rave. Sasha Mutchnik
- Rec.
Lonesome Dove
Carried around town it turned out to be a dog whistle; her pick for gender-neutral classic. Sasha Mutchnik
-
Stoner
Spotted on the subway, it's on sight, regardless of who's holding it.
-
East of Eden
Predicted as the next book people will performatively read because of the adaptation.
-
The Odyssey
The translation that dares to sound contemporary; they respectfully decline to relitigate it.
-
Leaving the Atocha Station
Held up for the poetry of half-understood Spanish, where every sentence keeps several meanings at once.
- Rec.
Is That a Fish in Your Ear?
Cited on how losses in translation can be the interesting part. Sasha Mutchnik
-
Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything
A story she loves partly for watching each adaptation choose which themes to tease out.
-
The Great Gatsby
The Redford and Mia Farrow version, one pole of the adaptation argument.
-
The Great Gatsby
Jay-Z's soundtrack as anachronism that works: you understand these people are supposed to be cool.
-
The Shards
Anticipated hand-wringing over the adaptation, from an author nobody plays about.
-
All's Fair
The assless-dress-to-court show; taking it seriously is missing the point entirely.
-
-
Nip/Tuck
Where the Murphy-Falchuk partnership began, to one host's genuine surprise.
- Rec.
Feud: Capote vs. The Swans
The one he wrote a whole thing about loving; the banger of the Murphy canon.
-
American Love Story
Loved by one host, dismissed for its acting by the other, within four seconds.
- Rec.
The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story
The rare non-camp Murphy triumph, and Schwimmer's "we are Kardashians" speech at Chin Chin.