The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Klaus? No one here has ever heard of it. No one here has ever even heard of the author. This book was approached with a high degree of trepidation.
As it would turn out, this novel was one of the more thought-provoking works to ever be explored on this podcast. By turns amusing and disturbing, Hugo Klaus’s meandering and emotional examination of a childhood spent in Nazi-occupied Belgium is just as confounding as it is enjoyable– all fodder for an in-depth discussion.
This extra-long episode includes the discussion, an examination of recent news about Cormac McCarthy, a look back at the listener statistics from the previous year, and a fantastic finale when Rodney hand-picks our novel for February!