Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / Why The Odyssey Is Actually About A Broken War Veteran | Prof. Peter Meineck

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Why The Odyssey Is Actually About A Broken War Veteran | Prof. Peter Meineck · The Smart Cookies podcast

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Just so people know, we don't have the original
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text of the Odyssey. The original text of an
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Odyssey is something in a bard's head, right?
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We have a recording of an Odyssey written down
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by somebody who we don't know, right? So we don't
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have any original Greek plays. We don't have
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anything written by Aeschylus or Sophocles or
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Euripides. We just don't have this stuff, right?
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This idea of the authentic Greek text and the
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Greeks themselves. I mean, Plato is very suspicious
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of writing. He says, I don't trust writing because
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you can't interrogate it. He said, I want somebody
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in front of me speaking so I can talk to him
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or her. That's actually pretty wise. So, you
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know, the Odyssey is not the Bible, right? It's
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not a sacred text. It's a story. So, yeah, I
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push back all the time on this kind of idea of
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there is an original. kind of urtext. And then
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this whole idea about what Odysseus should be
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wearing. Well, in the classical period, when
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the Greeks painted Odysseus, he looked like a
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fifth century hoplite. He wore the armor of the
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day, right? They didn't put him in a boar's tusk
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helmet and a massive suit of dendra armor. They
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had no idea what that looked like. So to them,
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they saw Odysseus as a reflection of themselves.
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Peter Meineck holds the endowed chair of associate
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professor of classics in the modern world at
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New York University. He specializes in ancient
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performance, cognitive theory, Greek literature
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and culture, and humanities public programming.
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Professor Meineck, welcome to the program. Thank
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you. It's great to be here. I don't know if it's
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just the totally toxic nature of my own algorithm,
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but I haven't seen this much brouhaha over an
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upcoming film since maybe the whole Cats the
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musical. Butthole affair. I'm not sure if we
1:53
really want to go there. Google is your friend.
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That's all I'll say for those of you who don't
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know what that is. But I was talking, of course,
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about Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which
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some people online are already losing their minds
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over. And it's not even out yet, for God's sake.
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All we've seen so far is a trailer. But it's
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been enough for a lot of folks to demonstratively
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proclaim that they are done with Hollywood. Now,
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I definitely want your opinion on the whole affair.
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I can't believe I just called it that. And we're
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going to talk about the movie later on. But it
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will be such a wasted opportunity having you
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here and then not actually sink our teeth into
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the real thing a little bit. So the second of
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Homer's epics, still widely considered, I believe,
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to be a foundational piece of Western literature.
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I said Homer's epic. But I believe the scholarly
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consensus today is that the Iliad and the Odyssey
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were almost definitely not written by this one
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singularly genius poet from the 8th century BC
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living somewhere in ancient Greece, right? I'm
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not sure. I think the Iliad certainly was from
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a Bardic tradition. I think the Odyssey has the
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hand of an author on it, for sure. What makes
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you say that? I think the way it's constructed.
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I think the narrative voice in it, I think it's
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newer than the Iliad. I think that we tend to
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lump them together thematically, which I think
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is obviously right, but there were an enormous
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amount of these so -called nostos homecoming
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stories around in the ancient world. So I see
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the Odyssey as, yeah, I would say the Odyssey
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was the work of one mind and the Iliad not. Here
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comes the first twist. But if there's one author,
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might as well be Homer then. Sure. Why not, right?
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I mean, and that may be, I mean, the name means
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something like hostage, right? It's an enigmatic
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name. There's a great couple of great cameos
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of bards in the Odyssey, right? You know, there's
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a, so we tend to think of Homer as a kind of
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blind bard, like Demodocus, who's the bard in
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the Odyssey, one of them. So I don't know. I
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mean, we don't know, right? But that's okay.
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I mean, I just think anyone who actually reads
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it, it's so well constructed. It's at least the
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work, a recording of an exceptional bard. And,
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you know, there's a lot of theories about it.
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There's a theory that it's an Ionic text, that
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it comes from a particular area of the Greeks
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living in what is now Western Turkey, and that
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that text came over to Athens. and was kind of
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presented by multiple bards as a performance
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for the Panathenaic Festival, right? The big
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kind of celebration of Athens. And I think that's
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probably right. Greg Nagy is the big expert on
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this. And I think I agree with him. But I think
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it's the work of at least one genius bard. Yeah,
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I feel that. Okay, that's going to make it easy
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for the reminder of the conversation. So let's
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just say Homer from now on. That's cool with
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me. The Odyssey, for sure, yeah. The trailer
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for Nolan's Odyssey has scratched that collective
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itch that we get, especially with historical
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films, historical epics, in that we want to know
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how accurate they really are. I don't know why
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we can't just take stuff as it is. I'm guilty
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of it myself. I recently watched Milos Forman's
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Amadeus, you know, the film about Mozart. And
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as soon as the movie ended, I rushed to Wikipedia,
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only to be devastated to find out that the antagonist,
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Salieri, was nothing like the devilish villain
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in the movie, always wearing a scary mask to
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make Mozart pee in his pants and feel kind of
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sad about his dad. Anyway, Homer himself is writing
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about the events that supposedly happened hundreds
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of years before he was born. And ever since,
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people have looked for clues in his epics on
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how historically authentic they really are. For
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example, they focus on the bronze weapons mentioned
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in the Iliad or the big tower shields. I think,
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that were apparently common in the Mycenaean
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period. Although a lot of the other stuff I read,
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like cremation, comes from a later time, or some
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stuff is even completely invented. Do you think
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this search for historical accuracy in Homer
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is a worthwhile endeavor? Well, yes and no. I
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mean, first of all, we don't even know Homer
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was a man. There's plenty of female poets. We
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know of hundreds of them, so we should put that
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out there, right? i think it's less historical
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accuracy that's interesting to me and more kind
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of cultural exchange right there's there's so
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many um back and forth relationships between
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the the poetry and the theater and the performance
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from all over the ancient world that the greeks
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were in contact with and one one of the things
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i love about the greeks is that they were absorbing
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all these influences and spreading them as well
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and i think that's their superpower that they
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did that so you can see um you know When Odysseus
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goes to the edge of the underworld and digs this
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pit and pours blood into it, this is a Babylonian
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ritual that we can find, you know, around the
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time of the Gilgamesh texts. So, you know, you're
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seeing influences from before and other regions.
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You're also seeing contemporary Greek practice.
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And you're also seeing memories of their own
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kind of historical period. You're seeing memories
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of their own. bronze age so i think that's what
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makes it a really wonderful text the question
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i would ask is why right why why are they projecting
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these particular ideas in this text at this time
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that's what interests me that's what makes the
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odyssey so fascinating so i'm not actually surprised
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that people still get you know in a tizzy about
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it because i think it is a really important text
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and i think people care about it and i love it
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but they get they get in a tizzy about whether
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the helmet that matt damon is wearing is accurate
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or not not about the ideas but yeah we're gonna
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talk about that okay for all the poor souls who
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haven't brushed up on their homer recently could
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you quickly recap the story of The Odyssey for
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us. Yeah. So the Odyssey is really interesting
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because when we kind of get it in school, we
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get all the adventures. We get this guy who spent
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10 years fighting the Trojan War. That's not
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in the Odyssey. There's a couple of memories
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of it, right? And then we hear about him spending
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10 years getting home. But that's actually quite
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a small part of the Odyssey, 24 books. The Odyssey
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really is... Odysseus himself it kind of takes
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place over about 40 days right and it's the it's
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um Odysseus himself uh the last real stage of
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him getting home uh he's been with Calypso this
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beautiful goddess for seven years. And when we
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meet Odysseus in book five, he's miserable, right?
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He's supposed to be in kind of an equivalent
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of Elysium, right? He's surrounded by beautiful
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goddesses. He's having as much sex as he wants.
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He's having beautiful food. He's getting massages,
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right? It's like, wow, this is what every Greek
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hero wants. And he's absolutely miserable. He
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just wants to go home. And it's interesting because
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Calypso... is from the word calypse which means
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shroud or hiding place so it's kind of like he's
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dead right it's kind of like he just doesn't
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exist anymore and so he he then decides he's
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going to leave you know the gods get involved
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he's going to leave this island he makes a raft
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poseidon is mad at him because as we all know
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odysseus blinded his son the cyclops has been
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cursed and he gets wrecked again and he ends
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up washed on washed up on a shore of an island
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fascia naked and bedraggled and kind of covered
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in barnacles and he freaks out the young women
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there and one of them nosika is like who is this
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guy right and she sees something about him so
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they kind of bathe him and dress him and they
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she brings him to mom and dad who are this king
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and queen and he's he's sitting there he's in
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disguise he doesn't want to tell anybody who
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he is he's very traumatized right it's it's been
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19 years and uh The queen asks him this incredible
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question, which is, who are you among men and
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where are you from? And she doesn't really want
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to know his address, right? She wants to know
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who, like, what's your, and this is like a, what's
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your identity? This is a famous ancient Greek
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mystery cult question, right? That a goddess
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or a priestess asks you. And he doesn't answer
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the question. He's in disguise. He lies, right?
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And so they basically, there's something about
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their guest. They entertain him. They bring in
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the bard Demodocus, who I spoke about, the blind
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bard. He starts to sing a song of Troy. It upsets
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Odysseus. So they're like, this is upsetting
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our guest. Let's play some athletic games. But
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Odysseus is like such a great warrior that he
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kind of starts beating all these kids. And then
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they start like getting angry at him and he almost
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beats one up. And it's like the mask nearly slips.
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They go back in for another feast. The bard sings
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again. Now we get the famous story of the wooden
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horse. And you'd think Odysseus would be like,
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yeah, that's me. I'm the hero. I did that. And
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he bursts into tears. And Homer says he cries
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like a woman, like a Trojan woman, mourning over
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her dead husband who's forced into slavery at
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the back of a spear. And he cries his eyes out.
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And the king says, what is it? And he's like.
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i'm odysseus they're like oh my god right i mean
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everything just grounds to a halt and then they're
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like tell us your story and then he tells the
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king and the phacians his story in his own voice
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and we we're witnessing to we we kind of witness
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that story and after that story the phacians
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are like we're going to help take you home we're
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so amazed by what you've gone through and that
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story is really interesting because we tend to
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see it as this kind of great heroic epic but
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actually what he's really saying is yeah i lost
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all my men 600 of them i cheated on my wife right
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i made lots of mistakes i got really miserable
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i was pretty violent right i mean it this is
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kind of a broken man who's trying to figure out
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like where am i in the world right now and i
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think you know okay he's an extreme version but
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a lot of people identify with that right he's
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he's broken and damaged and so they send him
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home and then that's the first half of the odyssey
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right And then the second half of the Odyssey
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is him arriving home in disguise as a beggar
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and, you know, figuring out how he's going to
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kind of take back his house and reacquaint with
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his wife and son. And just briefly, the start
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of the Odyssey, every screenwriter learns from
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this, right? The first five books of the Odyssey,
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you don't even meet Odysseus. Hold back the hero,
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right? We call it the Telemachia. It's the story
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of the son of Odysseus who's become a man. looking
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for his father and only hearing about his father
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because his house has been taken over by suitors
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who want to marry his mother because she's the
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queen and so you know and they're plotting to
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get rid of him so it's a great story because
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also there's this sense of urgency right something's
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got to give in in in um in Ithaca so it's a brilliant
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piece of narrative work still compels Like you
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said, the majority of the Odyssey is actually
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recounted by Odysseus himself. Are there any
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hints in the epic that he might be an unreliable
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narrator? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's totally
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an unreliable narrator, right? And my friend
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Joel Christensen, who's written a brilliant book
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about Odysseus, he thinks that the story that
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he tells the Odyssey may be total bullshit, right?
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Usual suspect, Kaiser Sose. Yeah, maybe he's
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just hanging out with Calypso. I mean... I think
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Joel's theory is brilliant. I don't necessarily
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agree with it. I actually think that Odysseus
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is going through this process that was known
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to the Greeks. Plato called it Eluncus. It was
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part of the mysteries where before you could
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be initiated into the mysteries, before you went
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through catharsis, you had to say your shit.
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And I think Odysseus is saying his shit. So,
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and I think actually it's really hard for him
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to say this stuff. Because he says it again to
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his wife when he gets home. And people are like,
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why does he tell her, right? And it's like, because
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he's saying his shit. And what's interesting,
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famously, everybody knows that he gets home and
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he kills the suitors and he kind of reclaims
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his house. But that's a pretty bad decision too,
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right? And all that does is cause a civil war
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on Ithaca. And Athena has to come down and be
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like, you got to stop, right? And the big deal
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about Odysseus, he gets a prophecy. When he goes
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to the edge of the underworld, which is, you
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know, you're going to leave Ithaca again and
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you've got to go wander the earth like Kung Fu
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Star, right? And plant, remember that show, and
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plant your ore, right? And only then, when you
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make your peace with Poseidon, can you come back
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and die and be a blessing for your people. So
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it's kind of like the Odyssey is not his end.
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It's a really fascinating story. People often
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say that one of the major themes of the Odyssey
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is homecoming, right? Because in contrast to
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Odysseus, Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks
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at Troy, gets murdered almost immediately upon
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getting back to Mycenae. And Achilles, the best
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warrior of all Greece, gets killed even before
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that, still at Troy. Odysseus is one of the few
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heroes that makes it back home, even though,
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like you said, it takes him 20 years or 19 years
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to do so. Why was this act of... coming back
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home, no matter what it takes, so resonant with
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the ancient Greeks? Because one would have thought
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that people of the time want to listen about
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glory and conquest and undefeated champions and
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such. Or am I selling them short? No, that's
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a great question. You know, we work with the
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Odyssey, with combat veterans, and they get it,
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right? They totally get it because... I think
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the audience for this were people who knew combat
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or being prepared to combat. And, you know, they
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didn't want a war movie. They would see right
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through that, right? When the combat veterans
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I've worked with see the moment when Odysseus
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hears stories about him at war and bursts into
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tears and what remembers the effects of war,
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remembers the woman grieving, they're like, oh,
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Homer knows war, right? It's like, I don't. feel
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like i'm a hero i don't remember glory i remember
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death destruction confusion bad decisions bad
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leadership right um and all this is is kind of
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embedded into the odyssey and i think that um
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that's why we get a kind of complex story of
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his homecoming so there's this kind of mythological
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homecoming but there's also a psychological homecoming
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so the question of the odyssey is how do you
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come home from war right how do you get back
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to your life and reacquaint yourself with your
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family. And look, look at what Odysseus brings
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home with him, right? You know, you can see it
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as a Mel Gibson movie. Yeah, Odysseus comes home
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and kicks everybody's ass and he's back. But
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also it's like, okay, he's come home. He's killed
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everybody. He's kind of ordered a bunch of the
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servants to be killed. His son Telemachus has
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like killed some of those female servants, you
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know, a little bit too gleefully. It's like,
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wow, is this really what you kind of want coming
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home? And I think that's the question that is
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being asked of the Odyssey. It's kind of the
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effects of war and what happens when you bring
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war home with you. So there is hope in the Odyssey,
18:08
I think, but I still think we get a really honest
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portrayal of the psychology of war. And I think
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that that's one of the reasons why this text
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has survived for so long. I just thought of this
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when you said that you're working with the veterans
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and they don't want another war movie. But then
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in contrast, the Iliad does seem like a war movie.
18:31
Well, yes and no. Look at the opening lines of
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the Iliad, right? There's the so -called earliest
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lines of Western literature, right? Which is,
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you know, first word is rage, right? You know,
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rage, seeing goddess Achilles rage, black and
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murderous, the cost of Greeks, thousands of souls.
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buried under the walls of Troy, feast for dogs
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and birds. I think you're right. There's something
18:55
to that. I changed my mind. But in the ancient
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world, war is a necessity, right? There's no
19:00
pacifism. There's no, you know, you have to fight.
19:04
That's being a citizen. It's just a reality.
19:08
And I think that's encapsulated even the way
19:11
we see Ares portrayed in the Iliad. Ares is a
19:14
coward. right aries is a god of violence they
19:17
hate aries i love it aries comes down to to fight
19:21
a greek hero and gets beaten and runs up to zeus
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it's like daddy this guy nasty greek guy beat
19:28
me and just like well what do you expect right
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so i think they have a they have a very honest
19:34
um attitude to war and violence it's necessary
19:37
in their culture but they don't like it i just
19:41
um thought of that right now when you were telling
19:44
the aries story he is one of the 12 gods one
19:47
of the 12 olympians yeah and yet he's being completely
19:50
disrespected by a mortal by homer or whoever
19:54
the audience is how did that work in ancient
19:57
greece just telling uh bad stories about the
20:00
god stories in which they're like cowardly yeah
20:03
or immoral or etc it's fascinating because in
20:08
monotheistic religions you don't get a lot of
20:10
that yeah i think that one of the things i tell
20:13
my students in my myth class is that most of
20:17
our kind of modern monotheistic religions teach
20:20
us that we have a personal relationship with
20:22
god if you told that to an ancient greek they'd
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be like well you are in the then because you
20:27
do not want to get noticed by the gods right
20:30
that's the last thing you want you you don't
20:33
want to be too great like achilles too godlike
20:35
nor do you want to be kind of too horrible you
20:38
want to be in the middle right and you want to
20:41
propitiate the gods follow them and you want
20:43
them to leave you the hell alone right um the
20:46
gods are like the weather or like your emotions
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you know and they don't care about you right
20:52
they care about each other and themselves and
20:55
they've got their own stuff going on um they
20:58
have their favorites right um they have their
21:01
disputes and their arguments and this is something
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that's that that's behind the the Iliad which
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launches the Odyssey is you know the Iliad is
21:09
a cosmic story that went wrong because um Achilles
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mother Thetis right she was she was supposed
21:17
to have a child with Zeus and that child was
21:19
was was going to overthrow the olympians remember
21:23
zeus overthrew his father and his father overthrew
21:26
his father so they're not stable gods so zeus
21:29
is like well i can't touch thetis right so they're
21:32
like let's marry thetis to the most boring mortal
21:35
alive this this dude called pelias right and
21:38
they they invite every god to the wedding go
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look i'm not touching her right i'm marrying
21:43
her to this guy pelias of course he didn't invite
21:48
eris discord to the wedding so she rolls in the
21:50
golden apple right And that's the golden apple,
21:54
which is to the most beautiful, which the three
21:56
goddesses argue about, right? And that's the
21:59
whole, you know, judgment of Paris, which now
22:03
we're getting into the whole origins of the Trojan
22:06
War, all from this wedding. And of course, Peleus
22:10
and Thetis, they get married. Who's their child?
22:12
Achilles, right? So when Achilles starts acting
22:16
out at Troy, what does he do? He goes to Thetis.
22:19
He says, can you go see Zeus and be like, yeah,
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I made that deal with you. Can you go and ask
22:25
Zeus to help? Well, that is like ballistic on
22:29
Olympus. No wonder Hera gets mad because it's
22:31
like, you got to keep away from this woman. And
22:33
then when she goes up to Olympus and asks Zeus
22:36
for help, it's like now that mortal war starts
22:41
to invade Olympus and the gods start. literally
22:44
fighting each other so there is this kind of
22:47
really interesting symbiosis between what's happening
22:50
on earth and when that's happening with the gods
22:52
but it's not stable it's not like god is or zeus
22:56
is zeus is constantly trying to manage all this
23:00
chaos that's around him and kind of keep everything
23:04
in equilibrium So I think that's a, I'm really
23:08
glad you brought that because another big element
23:10
of the Odyssey is the way that the gods are involved
23:13
in that story. And I think it's hard for us to
23:16
get our heads around, but yeah, the gods just
23:19
avoid them. Just, you know, don't get noticed.
23:24
It is hard to get our heads around it. Just listening
23:27
to you now, I was reminded again how just openly
23:30
dysfunctional the Olympians are and how different
23:34
it all is. A reflection of us, right? I mean,
23:37
the Greeks made those gods and they're a reflection
23:40
of, cognitively, they're a reflection of how
23:43
they think about themselves. And, you know, I
23:47
think that there's something honest about that.
23:50
And the other thing about the Greek gods is that,
23:52
you know, they're broadly half male, half female,
23:57
right? So they're also, they're not quite a fully
24:00
patriarchal system yet. They're kind of on their
24:02
way. Zeus is on their way, but he has to deal
24:04
with Hera. who's a kind of more anthropomorphic
24:08
manifestation of Gaia, the Earth, and Zeus is
24:11
the sky god, right? So it's kind of Earth and
24:14
sky in this kind of cosmic struggle the whole
24:18
time. So that's also a kind of different way
24:22
of thinking about the way society is organized.
24:27
If we go back to the Odyssey, Odysseus seems
24:30
like a different type of hero. MMA champion of
24:37
the ancient world walking around and smacking
24:39
people's heads together like Hercules. He's a
24:43
really tricky, cunning, almost sly operator.
24:46
Could we read into this fact that the Greeks
24:49
began to shift to value brains over brawn at
24:53
this point? Yeah, that's a great question. I
24:56
mean, yes and no, right? Because, yeah, he's
25:00
Polytropos, right? He's the man of many twists
25:03
and turns. Or as the complicated man in the recent
25:10
translation, Emily Wilson's recent translation,
25:13
which I quite like, he is complicated, right?
25:15
So, you know, Ajax in the Sophocles play commits
25:20
suicide because he's so angry that the arms of
25:24
Achilles, his cousin, are awarded to Odysseus.
25:27
And Ajax is like, wait a second, I'm the next
25:29
best warrior at Troy. Why aren't they given to
25:34
me? Why does the middle manager get it, right?
25:36
The guy who comes up with the ideas or the CIA,
25:40
right? Why do they get it? But that's a kind
25:43
of reality, right, of warfare is that actually
25:46
it isn't that, the kind of heroic one -on -one
25:50
fighting that gets things done. I think we all
25:53
deal with that, right? I think we all relate
25:55
to that in our work, in our lives, you know,
25:58
that reality. of having to kind of deal with
26:03
the ideas people the management the you know
26:07
and we kind of despise it to a certain extent
26:09
but we also know deep down that we need that
26:12
someone's got to do it right and Odysseus does
26:15
end the Trojan War right he he stopped he stops
26:18
it with the idea of the wooden horse so we have
26:22
to sort of respect that and understand that and
26:25
we also do enjoy the stories we enjoy how he
26:28
uses trickery to get out of situations. But when
26:32
we see Odysseus represented in Greek tragedy,
26:35
he's always kind of a despicable character, right?
26:38
He's always this sort of tricky, sneaky guy who
26:42
operates in disguise. So, yeah, I think he operates
26:47
in that space where, you know, is this how we
26:50
want our heroes to be? And the answer is no,
26:54
not really, but he is effective, right? He gets
26:57
stuff done. I think that's still with us. I think
26:59
that's why he's such a compelling character.
27:02
Yeah, I recently read Circe. I don't know how
27:06
it's pronounced in English. The modern novel.
27:10
I forgot the author's name. Madeline something.
27:12
And Odysseus is just straight up the bad guy
27:14
there. And it's quite convincing, I have to be
27:16
honest. She flips the narrative. I think that's
27:19
reading. There's a lot of arseholery in him.
27:28
And as Ajax finds out, or the Trojans find out,
27:32
it's hard to actually defeat that kind of slipperiness,
27:35
right? And you would love to believe that it
27:39
was Achilles who had won the Trojan War, or Ajax,
27:41
or a great hero, but that's not a reality. I've
27:45
totally picked up on something that you said
27:47
before. Why is this poor fella forced by all
27:51
of these rude, if beautiful, goddesses and nymphs?
27:55
to have so much sex all the time. The man literally
27:57
cannot catch a break. What's going on? Yeah,
28:01
I mean, I think that he's a relatively young
28:04
guy, right? I mean, you know, how old was he
28:07
when he went off to war? Yeah, maybe in his mid
28:11
-20s, you know? So he's kind of, he's not super
28:16
old. I think that's part of the heroic fantasy
28:20
of the hero, right? That they get to go to Elysium.
28:24
And they get to sort of live this life where
28:27
they're worshipped by beautiful goddesses and
28:30
nymphs. And I think the Odyssey shows us that
28:36
that's kind of a fallacy. I mean, Odysseus meets
28:40
Achilles in the underworld. Actually, Achilles
28:43
comes to Odysseus out of the underworld. Achilles
28:46
is on the edge of the underworld. And he says
28:48
to Achilles, well, surely, Achilles, you must
28:50
be happy. Because this is what you wanted, right?
28:53
To be sung about, to be immortal, to live in
28:56
Elysium, to be Lord of the Dead. And Achilles
28:58
says something earth shattering. He says, I would
29:01
rather be a living servant than the Lord of the
29:04
Dead. And you're like, wow, that wasn't the deal,
29:08
right? The deal is kind of James Dean, right?
29:10
You die young and then you're remembered as this
29:12
hero. And Achilles is like, no, I'm miserable.
29:15
I wish I was still alive. So it's definitely
29:17
questioning that idea. But you think about every
29:19
young man, right? Every young man is like. If
29:22
I get ripped, if I'm really fit and healthy,
29:24
if I'm kind of like, you know, tough and strong,
29:27
then then then chicks will dig me. Right. And
29:29
it's like, no, no, it doesn't. Sorry. And you
29:33
want to say to them, but we all thought that
29:35
when we were kids. Right. Let's be honest. And
29:37
I think Hollywood kind of presents that idea
29:40
to us. Right. And it's like, actually, no, if
29:43
you maybe if you actually. with Demodocus and
29:46
you learn to sing a great song, maybe then you'd
29:49
be more successful. I don't know. But I definitely
29:51
think the Odyssey is challenging that idea. And
29:55
I've often thought maybe the audience for the
29:57
Odyssey or partially is young men. The Greeks
30:01
called them ephebes, right? People going through
30:03
that life passage from childhood into adulthood.
30:08
But I think that's, you know, an age old story
30:11
of kind of how men, young men want to see themselves.
30:17
And the question I think the Odyssey asks is,
30:20
okay, Odysseus gets all this, but it doesn't
30:22
make him happy, right? He wants to be at home
30:26
with his family. And I think that's really poignant,
30:30
actually. I listened to one of your interviews
30:33
where you said that a recurring theme of Greek
30:35
myths is young men having to conquer their sexuality.
30:40
And I think you mentioned Medusa being a prime
30:42
example. example i might be mistaken odysseus
30:45
doesn't seem yeah like a medieval monk in this
30:48
department though he's not exactly francis of
30:50
assisi no and um it's interesting with cersei
30:54
right because to a certain extent cersei is necessary
30:58
because cersei kind of represents the cycle of
31:01
the seasons and odysseus needs to just stop and
31:04
slow down and kind of engage with with this female
31:07
energy but you notice at the end of that year
31:10
his men are like we need when are we leaving,
31:12
right? It's like, you've got to get out of here.
31:15
And it's a little bit like the same in the Aeneid,
31:19
where Aeneas and Dido get together and Dido just
31:22
stops building Carthage. And we've all had those
31:25
relationships, right? They become really intense
31:27
and we just disappear into them. And all our
31:29
friends are like, where did you go? And what
31:30
are you doing? What's going on? And that kind
31:33
of extremity. And I think a lot of Greek myths
31:35
are like, yeah, that's, you've got to resist
31:38
that, right? You've got to sort of find a way.
31:41
to create that balance and that moderation in
31:45
not disappearing down that sinkhole of kind of
31:49
eroticism. But, you know, we do, right? Particularly
31:53
when we're young. So I think, you know, the myth
31:56
of Medusa is a classic one because she petrifies
32:02
men, okay? She turns men to stone. Well, that
32:05
has two meanings, right? You know, and I don't
32:08
have to spell it out, right? And it's like...
32:10
She was a beautiful woman. So there is a little
32:15
bit of misogyny baked in there as well, right?
32:17
And we find that in a lot of Greek texts. Sometimes
32:20
the audiences for these things might be predominantly
32:23
male. So there's a little bit of that going on.
32:25
But I also think that this stuff is constantly
32:30
trying to give you a sense that maybe there's
32:34
a moderate way, right? Maybe you don't have to
32:36
be so extreme. What I detect in a lot of these
32:40
myths and particularly a complex text like the
32:42
Odyssey is that there's what I call a cathartic
32:45
structure, right? A structure of this sort of
32:48
Greek spiritual idea of catharsis, which isn't
32:52
really purging. It's really about like knowing
32:56
who you are, right? And not being blown about
33:00
by every wind that comes at you. This sort of
33:04
idea of know thyself. I do wish I read it more
33:08
seriously when I was younger. Another aspect
33:10
of... Sorry? There's still time. I'm afraid I'm
33:16
not a teenager anymore, but thank you. Yeah,
33:19
maybe it's better late than never. Another aspect
33:21
of the Odyssey that people find intriguing is
33:25
the fact that women and slaves feature quite
33:28
prominently in it, which I believe was highly
33:31
unusual. for the era. I mean, I read that a quarter
33:35
of the entire poem is spent with Odysseus' wife
33:38
and her struggles with the cringy suitors, like
33:42
you mentioned. Could you speak about that aspect
33:44
a little bit? I don't know if it's unusual for
33:48
the Greeks. I think that we have to sort of understand
33:53
that we have so little of the literature. Because
33:58
in the Iliad, that's not the case, right? No,
34:00
not at all. I think that a lot of Greek texts
34:05
went through a kind of Roman purge, right? And
34:08
then they went through a kind of Renaissance
34:09
purge. And maybe women's voices weren't valued
34:13
so much by some societies. So, you know, we only
34:17
know about Sappho. We only have fragments. But
34:19
we know of a lot more female poets and writers.
34:26
We just get glimpses, unfortunately. So maybe
34:28
the Iliad is more of an outlier than the Odyssey.
34:31
I don't know. I think the Odyssey is fascinating.
34:36
And this also makes me think it's a slightly
34:38
later text than the Iliad, is that we do see
34:41
women's lives. Do we see women's lives through
34:46
the prism of a male writer or creator? I don't
34:49
know. Right. Again, we don't know that. But I
34:51
think it's interesting. Again, I think Emily
34:53
Wilson's translation kind of bought. female eye
34:56
to the text which is gives you another way to
34:58
look at it and i think that's fascinating and
35:01
i think penelope does you know she really holds
35:04
her own in this story and um i think she's a
35:08
fascinating character and uh it asks us to think
35:12
about how a household is maintained in antiquity
35:16
um we think of a woman being at home as maybe
35:20
a negative thing but the greek the greek word
35:23
for home oikos is where we get the term economy
35:26
from right it you know this is the economic engine
35:29
of the ancient world and and women are driving
35:31
it and uh you think of the society that we consider
35:35
the most male which is spartan culture Plato
35:38
called it a gynocracy, a culture run by women
35:41
because men couldn't own property and money,
35:44
only women could. So I think that women definitely
35:47
had a lot more influence and control than maybe
35:52
we've tended to see. I think the last 20 or 30
35:55
years, we've got better at reading women and
35:58
going, oh, here they are, right? And then, yeah,
36:01
enslaved people is really interesting as well
36:03
because, of course, there was slavery in antiquity.
36:06
And, you know, all houses of a certain income
36:09
had enslaved people. But what we see in a text
36:13
like the Odyssey is that slavery was a matter
36:17
of chance. If you lost the war, you could be
36:20
Queen Hecuba, but now you're enslaved. And, you
36:25
know, this was very common in antiquity. And
36:30
we do, you know, you do get... glimpses of enslaved
36:34
people and it's more complex than you think right
36:36
that there were there were enslaved people in
36:39
athens in the classical period who are some of
36:41
the wealthiest people in athens you're like what
36:43
how's that work right there were enslaved people
36:46
working the mines and having really short grubby
36:49
horrible lives and dying really really early
36:51
um there were enslaved people who were highly
36:56
valued so there's a whole spectrum of the way
36:58
to think about ancient slavery which is kind
37:02
of really, really fascinating. But yeah, it was
37:04
part of the economic life of the ancient world.
37:06
And it's reflected, I think, in the Odyssey,
37:11
you know, very, very powerfully. And in Greek
37:13
tragedy as well. Often it's kind of interesting
37:16
because in some Greek tragedy, you meet Trojan
37:21
slaves, right? Who are the chorus, right? Of
37:24
say, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia.
37:26
You mentioned it, the story of Agamemnon's homecoming.
37:30
And in the second play, you get the feeling these
37:33
are Trojan slaves and Orestes comes home with
37:36
Electra to kind of avenge their father. And they're
37:40
going, yeah, you should really kill her. And
37:44
you're like, wow, these are the Trojan enslaved
37:46
women who are kind of like genning up this whole
37:49
thing. And you start to think to yourself, I
37:52
actually wrote an article about how did the Athenian
37:56
audience take these portrayals of slaves on stage
38:00
and then go home to their own slaves, right?
38:05
That's a really interesting question. What did
38:07
they think about this? So yeah, I think the Odyssey
38:10
is fascinating for that. It's crazy that one
38:12
of the most moving bits out of a lot of moving
38:15
bits is the story of Odysseus' dog, Argos. Tell
38:20
us about him. What a ledge. I love that. You
38:25
know, that just shows you, right? all you writers
38:28
out there that one very short moment of kind
38:31
of truthful emotion is one of the most memorable
38:34
parts of this story and right this is his hunting
38:37
dog who must have been a very small puppy right
38:40
when Odysseus left 20 years ago and for 20 years
38:44
this dog has been waiting for its master and
38:48
and the suitors have kind of kicked it out and
38:50
it's depicted lying on this kind of pile of dung
38:54
this mangy old dog And Odysseus is in disguise
38:58
and he's walking back into his palace in Ithaca
39:03
with Eumaeus, his loyal swineherd. And then the
39:06
dog recognizes him, right? And two things happen
39:10
here. One, the tension, is the dog going to blow
39:13
his cover, right? And it's all over. And Homer
39:18
tells us the dog uses every ounce of its last
39:20
life force to kind of stand up and wag its tail
39:23
and then dies. And Odysseus can't do anything,
39:27
right? He can't acknowledge any love or affection
39:31
for that dog because he'll blow his cover. And
39:33
it's so tragic. And it also kind of shows you
39:37
what Odysseus needs to sacrifice in order to
39:41
kind of achieve his aim. It's a beautiful story.
39:43
I love that story. All right, from this bit of
39:48
sadness to a bit of comedy, at least for me,
39:50
I do have to say that it's quite funny that we
39:52
have this sprawling, mental epic journey that
39:57
takes 10 whopping years. And then Odysseus finally
40:00
makes it back to Ithaca only to literally piss
40:03
off on a new quest almost immediately. I was
40:06
thinking to myself at this point, we must concede
40:09
that he's being a bit of a diva, right? I think
40:12
it's more than that. I think that even though
40:17
he's got home on his terms, right? And you notice
40:20
that Penelope, she doesn't just go. Oh, great,
40:24
you're home. She's like, I'm going to test you,
40:26
right? I'm going to test you with this secret
40:29
of our bed. And Odysseus knows that she's probably
40:33
going to do that. But nevertheless, if you notice
40:35
when she does test him, she says, oh, you know,
40:40
I don't understand why you don't just welcome
40:43
me. He says, I don't understand why you don't
40:44
just welcome me home. And he's like, okay, I'll
40:48
be kind of passive aggressive. He goes, okay,
40:50
I'll sleep outside. And then she says. We'll
40:53
move our bed outside for him. And he freaks out
40:55
because as he explains, he carved the whole house
40:59
out of this olive tree, which is their bedhead.
41:02
And he's like, who moved the bed? It's a secret
41:04
and nobody can move. The implication is who's
41:07
been in this bed, right? That's the implication.
41:11
And he loses his temper. And he tells us, tells
41:16
her how he made this bed. And he's kind of very
41:19
childlike in this moment. He's like throwing
41:21
a little tantrum. And she kind of laughs at him,
41:24
right? And then kind of bursts into tears. And
41:27
there's my husband. There's the man I married,
41:30
right? There's the human being. So for all this
41:33
disguise and cleverness and complicated man stuff,
41:36
he falls apart when Penelope just does one thing.
41:40
I think that's a really beautiful moment, right?
41:42
But what you get a sense is, is that he can't
41:46
just come home and come in and put his feet up
41:49
and be like, I'm home, right? He's still got
41:52
to kind of make his peace and kind of find his
41:57
moderation and know who he is. So, yeah, he has
42:02
to leave again. And it's interesting, a lot of
42:04
the veterans understand that. They're like, yeah,
42:06
we've come home, but we're still on a journey,
42:09
right? Our homecoming is going to take quite
42:12
a long time. So I think the second homecoming
42:15
is like a psychological one where he's got to
42:17
actually be really humble. and actually really
42:21
make his peace and it's so fascinating because
42:24
the the prophecy says when he does this and he
42:28
returns and he dies in old age surrounded by
42:30
his people he'll bring blessings to his people
42:33
and the greek word is albios and albios is is
42:37
what the initiates of the mysteries got right
42:39
if you initiated into the sacred mysteries of
42:42
demeter and persephone which were ultra secret
42:46
You got Olbios, and we have argued as classicists
42:49
for years, what does that mean? What do you get
42:52
if you're initiated into the mysteries, right?
42:55
But there's a sense of blessedness that he's
42:57
going to kind of bring to his people once he
43:00
goes on that final quest. But yeah, so he's not
43:03
really home yet. What do you think it was that
43:07
you got after the mysteries? I think two things.
43:10
I think you got to know who you were. you got
43:15
to be connected to a whole bunch of other initiates
43:19
who supported you um i think you got uh not to
43:24
fear death and to understand that your life is
43:30
the same as your death which is a really hard
43:32
thing to get your head around but we find all
43:34
this thing called the unity of opposites these
43:36
these gold tablets that say life death death
43:39
life right and uh you basically uh get to go
43:44
through life without fear. And it's quite Buddhist
43:48
in a way, right? And I think there was lots of
43:50
similarities, I think, between Buddhism and some
43:53
of the stuff going on in kind of Greek mystical
43:55
religion. But the Eleusinian mysteries were highly
43:59
popular in antiquity, all through the Roman period
44:02
as well. Marcus Aurelius was an initiate. Julius
44:04
Caesar was an initiate. Socrates, Plato were
44:07
initiated. It's almost like an alternative religion
44:10
running alongside the Olympian religion. And
44:14
what is it a religion of? Of the Earth Mother.
44:16
So it's probably kind of very, very old shamanistic
44:20
practice that you got connected with. We get
44:24
elements of that in the Odyssey, that Odysseus
44:26
is being kind of connected with this kind of
44:30
much deeper resonance that the warrior needs
44:33
to kind of understand that he is a child. What
44:37
they said, the initiates, I am a child of the
44:40
starry sky and the Earth Mother. And I think
44:43
Odysseus needs to kind of come to that conclusion
44:45
too. And maybe the war has made him, you know,
44:49
too much a child of the sky, too much the sky
44:51
father, the warrior, the hero, you know, too
44:54
brutal. And he needs to sort of find that kind
44:58
of cosmic balance. So yeah, the mysteries were
45:00
really, really important in antiquity. And I
45:01
think there's, I think the Odyssey is full of
45:03
the mysteries. I'm afraid the time has come when
45:08
we have to address the elephant in the room.
45:10
And that's Christopher Nolan's upcoming retelling
45:13
of the Odyssey. I imagine you've seen the trailer.
45:15
What did you think of it? What are some of your
45:17
initial impressions? Well, first of all, I love
45:20
that we have an Odyssey movie. I think Nolan's
45:23
a good director to take it on. I don't think
45:28
it's ever been done successfully. I've done a
45:30
couple of stage productions of the Odyssey. They
45:32
were okay. I think it's a really hard story to
45:34
contain. So we'll see how he does that. I love,
45:39
I think the controversy is right. I think that,
45:42
you know, I mean, I find every time I say anything
45:45
about antiquity, people get pissed off. On one
45:48
podcast, I said that I was talking about the
45:51
influence of Africa on Greece. And of course,
45:54
I include Egypt and Africa because Egypt's in
45:56
Africa. Look at a map. And I said, you know,
45:59
half the Mediterranean is the coast of Africa.
46:02
And you would have thought that I would have
46:03
just killed a bunch of children. I mean, people
46:05
just got really mad. at denying this but the
46:09
ancient world was a place that was very interconnected
46:11
and we've got to stop looking at antiquity through
46:14
through our own modern lens right it wasn't the
46:16
modern world it was it was different to us which
46:19
is what makes it fascinating so i think that
46:21
uh classics often gets held up as you know on
46:28
the extreme this kind of idea of white supremacy
46:31
right and sometimes on on on the other side you
46:35
know It can be held up as as a kind of Marxist
46:39
utopia and everything in between. Right. And
46:41
in a way, I love that. Right. That's what we're
46:43
supposed to do with these ancient texts and these
46:45
myths. We're supposed to reflect ourselves off
46:47
them and have conversations about them, because
46:50
I think actually it's easier to sort of go to
46:53
antiquity sometimes and wrestle through our problems
46:57
than scream at each other. Certainly the veterans
47:00
that we work with come from all kind of. sides
47:03
of the political spectrum and so we find this
47:05
material helps kind of create a dialogue so we're
47:07
having a dialogue right and and i think that's
47:10
really interesting and so you know there was
47:11
a big debate about the cast of a black actor
47:15
in the role of of helen and uh you know i think
47:18
one of the comedians said well let's actually
47:20
analyze helen she's the daughter of a swan right
47:23
i mean this is how kind of ridiculous it gets
47:26
when we start to think about historical accuracy
47:29
when it comes to mythology So, you know, I think
47:32
that I embrace it. I think it's great. And if
47:35
it drives people to go see The Odyssey and gets
47:38
people to read The Odyssey and take my class
47:41
and read my books and my colleagues' books, great.
47:44
I welcome it. Yeah. If you're such a diehard
47:50
fan of Greek mythology, you should just read
47:52
Homer's original text and imagine whoever you
47:54
like in the roles. But this is a version made
47:57
by some English. director fella who likes to
48:00
make movies and is living in the lord's year
48:02
of 2026 so yes a little bit of you know at a
48:05
loss as to what's the matter exactly here yeah
48:08
he's not gonna hurt homer right and um you know
48:12
it's like percy jackson right i mean i'm not
48:14
a huge fan of the percy jackson books but personally
48:17
but i love them because they are often the first
48:20
way that young people get acquainted with this
48:23
material and i think they're genius for that
48:26
right And, you know, so many of my students come
48:29
to my classes having read Percy Jackson. And
48:32
I kind of have to deprogram them a little bit
48:35
from Percy Jackson and mythology, not because
48:37
it's wrong per se, but it gives one idea of it,
48:41
which great, works really well in those books.
48:43
But one of the things is that there's a thousand
48:46
different ways to tell these stories. And sometimes
48:48
we have a thousand different versions of them
48:50
and it can get very confusing. So the question
48:53
is, I ask is. Why is Nolan telling this story?
48:57
What does this story say about us? I actually
49:00
wrote, I'm going to plug my book now. I wrote
49:02
a whole book about this called Tony Stark, Odysseus
49:06
and the Myths Behind Marvel, where a publisher
49:10
asked me as a classic professor to spend a year
49:13
with Marvel movies and comics. Condolences. And
49:17
kind of, oh, I had a great time actually. And
49:19
actually analyze them as what do they say about
49:23
us, right? And I actually really enjoyed it.
49:28
And I found that was a great way to talk about
49:32
mythology. And actually, Nolan said quite recently
49:36
that this stuff is kind of our Marvel cinematic
49:41
universe. And I think he's right about that.
49:43
I think Hollywood is a myth -making machine.
49:47
So I found actually what's going on with Marvel
49:50
is they are retelling these myths. And sometimes
49:53
they do it really successfully. But in a more
49:54
boring way. I mean, Captain America is just great
49:58
all the time. And you said how, you know, Odysseus
50:01
keeps fucking up. He loses all of his men. He's
50:04
cheating on his wife. Like, in the first five
50:06
minutes of this conversation, it was already
50:09
more interesting than the entire Iron Man trilogy
50:11
or whatever. Yeah, but, you know, what I love
50:13
about Captain America is he was originally created
50:16
as a great Nazi fighter, and Jack Kirby got death
50:19
threats for having him punching Hitler on the
50:21
cover of the first edition. Oh, right, you're
50:23
talking about the original comics more than the
50:25
movies. Even in the films, right? And obviously
50:29
there's a flattening that happens in films, right?
50:31
Even in the films, I think there's such a great
50:34
debate between Captain America, yeah, his worthiness,
50:37
his idea of a hero, and then Tony Stark's brokenness,
50:40
right? And I kind of love that debate between
50:44
them and how things fragment and how the Winter
50:48
Soldier is both this horrible enemy, but he's
50:51
also Captain America's best buddy. And the Winter
50:55
Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents. captain
50:58
america doesn't tell him and it's i love all
51:00
this stuff right so i actually think there's
51:02
some some wonderful complexities in there that
51:05
actually can lead you to going oh i want to know
51:09
more about these stories it's like well actually
51:11
if you like this stuff then read the odyssey
51:14
right um you know i i definitely compare tony
51:17
stark to odysseus it's just the okay last thing
51:21
i'll say about the marvel movies but the stakes
51:22
are so low even when they all die they immediately
51:25
come back well that's the moment during this
51:27
conversation yeah yeah there's this conversation
51:29
we said like agamemnon dies achilles dies yeah
51:32
yeah even odysseus is gonna die in the end well
51:35
that's you know that's real stakes yeah and i
51:38
don't know i make that point that i think the
51:40
multiverse was a mistake because it took away
51:43
agency And I think Marvel have realized that
51:46
now. I've worked with some of the Marvel screenwriters.
51:50
I work as an advisor on some movies. And, you
51:53
know, I do think that some of these people are
51:55
geniuses and they're great storytellers. And,
51:58
you know, we were working on a version of Hercules,
52:02
which has not been made yet. And it was so interesting
52:05
because you put your finger on something which
52:07
is, you know, Marvel is now owned by Disney.
52:11
these screenwriters when i was telling the real
52:13
story of heracles you know he he kills his own
52:16
family like what they were like wow if only this
52:19
was a marvel movie and not a disney movie this
52:21
would be amazing so yeah i do think that sometimes
52:25
when these movies get bought out by these large
52:27
corporations the myths get flattened and i think
52:31
when we go back to to the the source material
52:33
we're like whoa this this is really deeply complex
52:36
but for me right if i can convince a marvel fan
52:40
and i've come to really enjoy marvel uh to to
52:44
actually see this stuff as modern mythology and
52:47
get into ancient mythology then great so and
52:49
i and i feel the same way about pipeline yeah
52:52
i feel the same exactly i feel the same way about
52:54
nolan's odyssey right i think um if people want
52:57
to read it and get into it and ask questions
53:00
about it i guess you know here's a at least a
53:03
two and a half thousand year old text that people
53:06
are getting their knickers in a twist about i
53:08
love it But what do you think the backlash is
53:11
actually about? Because I don't think all of
53:12
these online critics, pissed off people, are
53:15
secret armchair historians of ancient Greece
53:18
spending all of their time in the classics department
53:20
of the local library. Like, what do you think
53:22
it's really about? Some of it's racism, just
53:25
out and out racism, of course. Some of it is
53:28
conservatism in the wrong way, right? You know,
53:33
just having this idea. that there is an original
53:38
text. I mean, just so people know, we don't have
53:42
the original text of the Odyssey. The original
53:44
text of an Odyssey is something in a bard's head,
53:47
right? We have a recording of an Odyssey written
53:52
down by somebody who we don't know, right? So
53:55
we don't have any original Greek plays. We don't
53:58
have anything written by Aeschylus or Sophocles
54:00
or Euripides. We just don't have this stuff,
54:02
right? This idea of the authentic Greek text
54:07
and the Greeks themselves. I mean, Plato is very
54:10
suspicious of writing. He says, I don't trust
54:12
writing because you can't interrogate it. He
54:14
said, I want somebody in front of me speaking
54:17
so I can talk to him or her. That's actually
54:20
pretty wise. So, you know, the Odyssey is not
54:23
the Bible, right? It's not a sacred text. It's
54:27
a story. So, yeah, I push back all the time on
54:31
this kind of idea of there is an original. kind
54:34
of text that and then this whole idea about what
54:38
Odysseus should be wearing well in in the in
54:40
the classical period when the Greeks painted
54:42
Odysseus he looked like a fifth century hoplite
54:45
he wore the armor of the day right they they
54:48
didn't put him in a boar's tusk helmet and a
54:50
massive suit of dendra armor they had no idea
54:53
what that looked like so to them they saw Odysseus
54:56
as a reflection of themselves and I think that's
55:00
what makes it really powerful I looked at the
55:03
trailers. I think the costumes look really cool,
55:05
you know? So I think it's like, you know, do
55:10
they work? Are they compelling? Are we drawn
55:13
into the story? That's what I'm interested in.
55:16
I think Nolan might pull it off, you know? Let's
55:20
see. Yeah, I was just, the algo struck again,
55:24
and I was recommended a clip of the movie Troy,
55:27
like just yesterday, preparing for this interview.
55:30
And there was a lot of new, fresh comments. saying
55:33
this is an epic done right because it was like
55:35
Brad Pitt being ripped and blonde even though
55:38
he looks like a Swedish Swedish man who just
55:40
walked in the Mediterranean in a sarong yeah
55:44
yeah that's an odd movie anyway Troy is not my
55:48
favorite film there's some nice parts in it but
55:50
let's say it's a really hard thing right to contain
55:54
this material and and build a narrative out of
55:58
it um But we're going to go see the movie with
56:02
the vets, actually, in an IMAX cinema. So we're
56:05
really looking forward to that. And we're going
56:09
on a big outing with the vets of the Bronx VA,
56:12
which is the Veterans Administration Hospital.
56:14
So that's going to be a lot of fun. Because I
56:16
think at heart, it is a story of a veteran returning
56:20
home from war. And I'm really looking forward
56:23
to experiencing it with them. Professor, last
56:27
question. What's your favorite piece of pop culture
56:29
related to Greek mythology? And you can totally
56:31
say Xena, the warrior princess. I'm a fan myself.
56:35
Yeah. Wow. Favorite piece of pop. That is such
56:41
a great question. Jason and the Argonauts, the
56:44
original 1960s. Oh, from the 60s. Yeah, with
56:48
those incredible stop motion. That was amazing.
56:51
Harryhausen. I love that. Maybe because I saw
56:54
it as a kid. I love the scene with Talos, right?
56:57
The bronze man. That's my favorite. Epic. Yeah.
57:01
Good answer. Professor, thank you so much for
57:04
taking the time. Do you have any social media
57:06
where people can follow your work? You're too
57:08
busy, right? No, I do. They can find me. I'm
57:14
not very good with all the online stuff, but
57:16
they can find me at NYU, Peter Meineck. Definitely,
57:22
if they're interested in more from me, my book
57:25
is out there, published by William Morrow. So
57:28
they might enjoy that. There's some fun stuff
57:31
in there. We're going to put the link in the
57:33
description. I really appreciate that. Thanks
57:35
again. This was a delight. It was a lot of fun.
57:37
Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Please
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