Episode 1

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Published on:

29th Mar 2025

"Kleist in Thun" by Robert Walser (1878-1956) about the self-tormented poet Heinrich von Kleist

This podcast is intended to help you fall asleep. Do not listen to it while driving. It’s best to listen while lying in bed, as comfortable as you can get, and without the likelihood of being interrupted until it’s time to wake up.

This is the first episode of Literate Sleep. I’ll read from literary texts that I hope you will enjoy hearing without being concerned about their endings. These are not cliffhangers. There is no promise of climax, epiphany, or resolution. But they’re music to my ears and, I hope, to yours. To hear a page of James Joyce’s famously unreadable novel Finnegans Wake while drifting off to sleep is, for me, nocturnal heaven. Among the other writers I have in mind for Literate Sleep are, for instance, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Richard Howard, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ronald Firbank, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Marcel Proust, William James, Walter Pater, Edith Hamilton, David Markson, Thomas Lynch, and so on. As a reader with a severe allergy to boredom, I will always strive to put you to sleep with texts that will not bore you. But they will lull you, pacify you, and induce you to sweet dreams. So settle in, close your eyes, calm yourself down, relax completely, and let yourself be taken away while I read to you for a peaceful night of healthy, restorative sleep.

I begin with a 1913 story by the Swiss writer Robert Walser. Born April 15 (coincidentally, also my birthday), 1878, Walser was a dropout from school at 14. He wandered around Europe precariously, his mental health always spotty, but at the same time, he produced essays, stories, and novels now considered classics of modern European literature. In his 50s he retired to a sanatorium where, he said, he went “not to write, but to be mad.” His story "Kleist in Thun" (1913), read here in its entirety, is set in the pretty Swiss lakeside resort town of Thun and features the German poet Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), known as one of the pre-eminent Romantic, demonic geniuses. He committed suicide at the age of 34. The episode concludes with a brief excerpt from Finnegans Wake by Walser's contemporary James Joyce. But I expect you’ll be sound asleep by then. Literate sleep.  

--Rick Whitaker

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About the Podcast

Literate Sleep
A nocturnal podcast by Rick Whitaker
Rick Whitaker, author and host of the nocturnal podcast Literate Sleep, reads aloud from literary texts that you can enjoy while falling asleep. These are not cliffhangers or thrillers. They’re citizens of the low country, content to amble along to see whatever happens to be there--fabulous but fully self-evident literary landscapes without the promise of climax, epiphany, or resolution. These texts could go on, it seems, forever, which is not to say that they’re boring. They're not. Among the writers whose work will be featured in future episodes are, for instance, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Lynch, W. G. Sebald, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Richard Howard, Ronald Firbank, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Marcel Proust, Toni Morrison, William James, Edith Hamilton, and the list could go on and on--you could be put to sleep by the list itself. But as a reader with a severe allergy to boredom, Rick Whitaker will always strive to put you to sleep with texts that will not bore you. In his quiet readings without music, these literary texts will lull you, pacify you, and induce you to sweet, smart dreams. The first episode is a reading of a 1913 story by the Swiss writer Robert Walser. Born in 1878, Walser was a dropout from school at 14. In his 50s he retired to a sanatorium where, he said, he went “not to write, but to be mad.” "Kleist in Thun" is his homage to the German poet Heinrich von Kleist. Following the Walser story, a page from James Joyce's famously inscrutable novel Finnegans Wake. But you’ll be sound asleep by then. Literate sleep.

About your host

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Rick Whitaker

Rick Whitaker is an author and producer in New York City. He created the podcast "Read Me to Sleep, Ricky" in 2022-23. He directs Everybody Sing, a community choir, and works at Columbia University's Italian Academy for Advanced Studies.