This is a book club episode. In it, Travis and Amanda will discuss and analyze the first half of The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes. You should expect full “spoilers,” discussions of rhetorical elements, and celebrations / critiques of style and substance.
From the cover: “1936: Dmitri Shostakovich, just thirty years old, reckons with the first of three conversations with power that will irrevocably shape his life. Stalin, hitherto a distant figure, has suddenly denounced the young composer’s latest opera. Certain he will be exiled to Siberia (or, more likely, shot dead on the spot), Shostakovich reflects on his predicament, his personal history, his parents, his daughter—all of those hanging in the balance of his fate…Throughout his life, he is compelled to constantly weigh the specter of power against the integrity of his music.”