Deborah Holmes

speaker

128 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 4 Jun

Deborah Holmes’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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In Our Time · Joseph Roth · 4 Jun 2026 podcast

I mean, we've said that he champions the underdog.

He looks at the small details, everyday life.

So it's partly that, but he's not afraid to combine small details with very big ideas.

So he's looking for the universal.

He can be quite, not exactly kitschy, but he can be quite sentimental.

I'm thinking of a passage in Rebellion that we've just been talking about where the main character, Andreas Pum, has to sell his donkey.

And it's a very, very sad scene.

And the donkey is described as having grey fur and a human soul.

And that, you know, poignant, sentimental, bit of both.

But in the context of the novel as a whole, it really works, or it works for me anyway.

So it's often, he's very good at children and childlike figures.

And he's also, I think what makes it poignant to me is that he manages to make these

Figures convincing, you're invested in them, but they're not made into heroes in any way and they don't become sort of unrealistically perceptive or they remain ordinary people.

Yes, although it's surprisingly often not commented on or commented on far too much in the wrong way.

I mean, it's a difficult topic.

I mean, Helen has already referred to Frau Slama.

In the novels, women are never major characters.

There are no main female characters at all.

But they quite often play quite a decisive role.

The power dynamics are always uneven.

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