In The Studio - The Spell Cast From A Well-Told Story_The Wisdom Of The Odyssey With Phil Cousineau

[music] >> You're watching in the studio at Davis Media Access. I'm Autumn Labbe Reno. And I'm delighted today to be speaking with Phil Cousineau, an a writer, an author, and cultural historian, and so much more who's based in the San Francisco Bay Area. With more than 40 books to his name, his deep scholarship has informed everything from story circles to travel groups to major films. And today, we're speaking about his most recent book. It's called The Wisdom of the Odyssey, and it was released July 1st by New World Library, and is already climbing the charts, as I hear. Phil, thank you so much for joining me today. >> What a joy. This is one of my favorite topics in the world, and suddenly, the world is one of the favorite topics. >> The world is paying attention right now. >> Paying attention, yes. >> Before we get started, I wanted to note that locals have an opportunity to see you this Saturday, July 19th, 2026. Um and a special speaking engagement and book signing at the Varsity in downtown Davis. Uh the presentation is sponsored by downtown businesses The Wardrobe and The Avid Reader, and you can learn more at the wardrobe.com. So, Phil, let's talk first about the Odyssey, a epic poem that's almost 3,000 years old. And here we are still talking about it today. Why was it so important in antiquity, and why are we still talking about it today? >> What a great lead question. I uh appreciate your linking the two. The I I've been reading the Odyssey since I was a boy. Our television broke when I was a kid and my father dramatically turned around and said, "Now we are going to read together as a family." And we actually did. Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights we read from the classics. And there was something about the story that even as a young boy growing up outside Detroit, I could identify with. And I think it was the notion of being on a harrowing, dangerous voyage to try to get home again and being thwarted over and over again. That is something I believe people have resonated with, identified with since antiquity. For the ancient Greeks, so like you say, we're talking 3,000 years ago, Homer writing in the 8th century, travel was fairly frequent. You had soldiers always leaving and trying to get home again. You had explorers and traders, even philosophers who would travel a great distance to learn something, to have one conversation. >> Right. >> But it was dangerous to actually get home again. The the great scholar Anthony Burgess once wrote that until the 19th century, here's a shocking figure for most people, roughly [sighs] half of the people who left home never returned. >> Wow. >> It's staggering to think about how risky it was, how dangerous it wasn't yet. The the taste for adventure, the taste for knowledge, and sometimes I'm I'm afraid the taste for war was so deep in us so that often you would say goodbye to someone and you may you may not ever see your husband, your uncle, your brother again. So everyone throughout antiquity was deeply interested in this idea of the returns. That was probably the original title for Homer's epic poem. The Returns because people would I average people would go down to the docks and say, "Oh, where have you been? How long have you been gone? Is it dangerous out there in the Black Sea?" And they would trade stories. And eventually those stories became oral poems and finally they were codified by I say the poet known as Homer. Right. And yet the book has never gone out of print. It has been fascinating to people in virtually every culture. A few years ago I had a TV show on PBS and I interviewed some gang members, the Crips and the Bloods down in South Central LA and they were reading the Iliad. A lo- a local social worker had given them the book and it was staggering for them. You know why? Because they thought they told me on on record, "We thought we were the only brothers killing other brothers and now we know we're not." So that gets to the heart of this deep deep identification. So one other other note on that, I think it's helpful for listeners, for viewers to remember that the stories that came down to us all these centuries later are the ones that survived. Thousands and thousands would have been left by the side of the road or the side of the sea so to speak. Yeah. But the ones that have lasted like the Odyssey which is about to come out worldwide in Christopher Nolan's new film are the ones that spoke most deeply to us. >> Right. >> And that's the Odyssey because in a nutshell, a great old Greek phrase by the way, >> [laughter] >> They they they used to create miniature books and put them in walnut shells. So in a nut- in a nutshell, everybody on some level is trying to get home again. Either literally because of immigration, wars, famines, or figuratively when we go off in the wrong direction with our lives and our psychologists, our therapists, our best friends are trying to tell us, "Now, go back to your true self." This is a metaphor that's at really, I think it's at the heart of Homer's Odyssey. >> Yeah, and and it really does cover the gamut of human emotion and experience. So, I read the Odyssey in high school and again in college. I would to your point in your forward, I wish your book was the one that I'd had in my hip pocket during those readings because it gave me a much more nuanced understanding of the major themes. Um can you tell us about the structure of The Wisdom of the Odyssey and its division into 24 sections or what you call books? >> Thank you for the setup. Thank you. Right. Um remember, I've been leading I've been teaching the Odyssey versions of it for years, but I also lead entire groups to Greece. I've done this for almost for 40 years. And the last 15 years or so, I narrowed it focused it down to be in the footsteps of Homer or recently in the footsteps of Odysseus and Penelope. And so, we go to many of the Homeric sites, which is really thrilling for people. To go to Delphi, Epidaurus with the sleeping temples, uh uh Pylos, which is where the great of the palace of Nestor was, and especially to Ithaca itself. And while I've been doing this, I've noticed certain stories resonate. And if there's a certain order that I can tell the stories, and then is especially there will there will be a moment when there are too many Greek words, >> [laughter] >> too many obscure characters, and I see the same look on the faces of my students and the people who travel with me through Sacred Earth Journeys, by the way, out of Vancouver, that Joe Campbell, remember my mentor, the great scholar of mythology, told me it was at the heart of his teaching. When someone might say, "Professor Campbell, Professor Cousineau, I like your writing, I like your teaching, but here is the question. Here is the essence. What does it mean to me?" >> Yeah. >> What does it mean to the living of an actual life today, rather than this really dry as dust approach that those are obscure books from antiquity, and how could it possibly have any relevance to me now? So, as soon as I heard about the movie coming out, and I knew I had to scramble and put together the book that I'd been writing and outlining for years. The question is how? >> Mhm. >> What's the structure? How can I pull people in in a natural, but also poetic way? And so, I it quickly came to me, it really did, that I simply structure it as 24 chapters, like the 24 books of the Odyssey, which were originally called rhapsodes, by the way. I think that's such a beautiful word. It was old Greek, ancient Greek, for the chapters or books. So, and that's where we get rhapsody. Isn't that something? >> Or rhapsodic. >> Beautiful. >> Yeah. >> Or rhapsodic, right. So, 24, okay, now that that's good, but there's something else. And I remember this just came to me so naturally, because if I have people in a lecture or in Ithaca, in Greece itself, I can tell the story. The the the the young counselor mentor helping Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, find himself to become a man. Okay, I can tell that story, but then, you know what the trick is, which I echoed in the book, is then to bring it home, in every sense of the word. Bring it home, right? That's what the book does, like Homer is trying to get Odysseus home again. And the way you do that is by saying the the beauty, let's say, of those first four books of the Odyssey is the way that the the goddess Athena appears to the young boy trying desperately to become a man, and she says, "Go seek your father. Go find your father." In other words, go find your story. Find out who you are. When I begin to do this, it feels like a life lesson. Mhm. There are actually lessons, and this isn't just glomming on a 21st century uh projection >> Right. >> uh onto this ancient work. On many levels, uh people like Mark Edmundson, who wrote a beautiful book, Why Read? Why read at all? He's making a case, and I am making a case in this new book of mine, The Wisdom of the Odyssey, that unless a book or a film or a piece of music is telling us, helping us, nudging us along about how to actually live our lives, >> Mhm. >> find our values, stay true to our heart, what good is it? Unless you're an a precise scholar focusing on something. But for the rest of us, there are lessons, and I feel this is why the book has lasted. >> Yeah. >> Even if you are looking at it >> [clears throat] >> in a theater in Athens or you're listening to it as part of an opera or or hearing or looking at the the Odyssey now in a movie, all along the way, this is the beauty of the It's really the invention of drama by the Greeks. We have to remember they also invented drama. How to tell a story, for goodness sakes. That comes from them, too. You You tell the outside story, like I call the overstory in my book. >> Mhm. >> But you know where people live? You know where they dream? It's the understory. And the understory is where emotion is. It's where the heart and soul reside. It's where myth, folklore, music, melody, it's in the understory. So, 24 chapters in my book, 24 life lessons. If when in doubt, find a mentor. >> Mhm. >> If you want to uh address the violence in your life, which many men still have to do. Oh, don't don't they? Oh, all around the world, most men break my heart even have to say this. Most men really never get a grip on how to deal with these martial forces inside us. >> Yeah. >> The Odyssey tells you how. >> Yeah. >> So, in chapter nine, just the quick follow-up on that, the beauty then of that chapter is we see Homer revealing to us how one warrior, who's been deeply, grievously wounded by war, changes himself, doesn't wait for the outside world to change him. And he does that by turning himself into a storyteller. He tells his own story. >> And if anyone ever questions the saving power of art, there it is, right there. >> Thank you, that's beautiful. [laughter] >> Um speaking of relevance and men and violence, I was especially intrigued by your framing of Odysseus' survival of the Trojan Wars and his journey home as essentially the first recorded case of PTSD, although of course it wasn't Homer didn't call it that. Um please tell us more about that. I thought that was very interesting. >> Yes, for years I've been getting it's a curious, wonderful, troubling, disturbing, but ultimately life-affirming sense, I get a lot of mail from soldiers and even prisoners from all around the world. They've read my book on pilgrimage, they've read my book on the hero's journey, my my work with Campbell. And even a few years ago, I did a book called Beyond Forgiveness, Reflections on Atonement, which the US State Department has actually been giving out to returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East, as a way to help cope with the the the savagery. We we can't whitewash this. The savagery of warfare. We we are all about the heroism of going off to war, but then Americans and many other countries, of course, around the world, tend to then ignore the soldiers when they come home. This is an ancient ancient problem. And Homer, I think, is condensing and compressing this phenomenon from antiquity into this one character called Odysseus, whose name in Greek means trouble. He is the man who brings trouble, and he also suffers trouble. It's a curious thing. You don't expect a man to say, "Oh, oh, buddy, I'm I'm my life is full of trouble. I bring trouble. It's like Pig Pen and Peanuts, right? There's a black cloud with him everywhere." So, this is a story about the this the warrior who returns home, and is savage, and he cannot make a beeline to go home. Technically, if you wanted to row from Troy on the west coast of Turkey to go to Ithaca, it would take you about 6 weeks. It takes him 10 years. So, what is Homer actually saying? I think he's saying it takes years and years of soul work >> Yeah. >> to heal from war. So, this isn't me just projecting on this. There are now a a number of therapists, psychologists who specialize in PTSD. And you know what's happening in our own time? They are taking these soldiers. For example, a guy who has never told his wife what actually happened to him in Vietnam. >> Yeah. >> Or now Iraq, Afghanistan. And they take them to Greece to go to Ithaca to tell these their stories. To go to Epidaurus. Now, here here this is something oh, I hope someone out there is listening who might be able to help with this. For at least for a number of years >> [clears throat] >> the Greek the Athenian government in particular would treat returning soldiers from battle by sending them to one of the healing temples, Epidaurus being the most famous. And pay for them to stay there as long as possible. Excuse me. So that they could return home at least in the beginning phases of being healed. And what would happen at Epidaurus? It's roughly excuse me, what Homer is saying what happened to Odysseus on the way home. He has to learn how to resist violence. He has to learn how to resist seduction. Seduction in every level of that word is it has always been an issue for soldiers. >> Yeah. >> It's the seduction of course of women, there prostitutes have been following armies since God knows when. But it's also the seduction of fame and glory. Are you going to succumb to that? Homer tells us that when Odysseus goes into the underworld and finds the shade, the ghost of Achilles, he he suddenly becomes a little boy again. He says, "Oh, Achilles, my good friend. I'm sorry you're dead, but but [laughter] I want to tell you people are still telling your story." >> Right. >> Cuz remember, this is one of the huge lures in Greek culture. If you do something that is worthy of a story and people tell your story forever that's worth you going to war. And you know what it does? Achilles turns him and says, "You sucker." I'm paraphrasing of course. But he says, "You suck. Are you believe that? >> Right. You believe that death in battle was worth it?" So he said, "The beautiful [clears throat] line, beautiful line out of where he says, 'I would give up all of my glory and fame, Cleos in Greek, for one more day of sunshine in the world above.'" >> Yeah. >> And you know, I have told that story to to veterans. And they begin to weep. >> Mhm. >> Because of You didn't sense it. So many soldiers feel that they were sent down river, so to speak, by by believing if you sacrifice yourself. Of course, some fighting is worthwhile. There are some righteous wars. I use that provisionally. >> Mhm. >> But Homer >> Yeah. >> Homer's aim here is for us to question for us to question the glamour of war and battle and male vengeance. >> Yeah. >> That's what this is at the heart of this book. >> Yeah. You know, I think today, just as a side note, we suffer from the seduction of distraction. You know, the the devices, the all the noise in the world, just all of it. Um that's very interesting, Phil. So as a as a feminist and a writer, the Odyssey is often framed as one man's epic journey. But I really loved how you highlighted the impor- in your book, the importance of the women in the story, from his strategic and wonderful life, Penelope, to all the goddesses, to even his childhood maid, who pays a plays a pivotal role. In particular, can you tell us more about Penelope and her importance in the story? >> Well, well, two things there. Thank you for pinpointing that. Because >> [cough and clears throat] >> Excuse me. I was just in at the Chicago Art Institute and I saw those glorious stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. >> Mhm. >> And there's a little plaque nearby in which he says, "I paint in order to be surprised." >> Mhm. >> Isn't that wonderful? >> Mhm. >> I write in order to be surprised. So, of course I've taught this for years. I've read a different translation every year, and I know most of it. But the last 10 years or so, because my wife is an ardent feminist as well, and my mentor Joe Campbell's wife Jean Erdman was one of the great dancers, one of the great feminists, >> [gasps] >> I've been paying more attention. And you know what I found out? That Odysseus is not the standard hero who is driven by by testosterone alone, who is bullying his way to fame and glory and so on. He actually weeps a lot. He's deeply grieved. And you know how he finally gets back after 10 years? It's five female characters. >> Mhm. >> It's not his crew members who continually fall asleep, continually lead him astray into cat- catastrophe. >> Mhm. >> It's Calypso, of course, who's his glorious goddess who he spends seven years with. It's Circe, the sorceress. It's Nausicaa, the beautiful young princess on the island of Phaeacia, modern Corfu. >> Mhm. >> It's the the nursemaid Eurycleia, but especially Penelope, >> Mhm. >> whose name in Greek means weaver. So, there's another thread in every sense of the word. Every one of these women are weavers. Isn't that wonderful? >> Yeah. >> Because it's just think about what Homer's doing something really spectacular as a writer here. He's paying attention to women, which unfortunately most male writers forgot for the next 2,000 years. And why is why the thread so important? Because remember in Greek myth, >> [clears throat] >> and there's something psychologically true about this, the three fates are spinners, >> Yeah. >> weavers, and they are spinning or they're drawing out the thread, which is the length and breadth of your life. >> Yeah. >> So, thread and soul, thread and fate are deeply entrenched in Greek myth, and Penelope proves herself to be the equal, if not sometimes the superior of her more famous husband, Odysseus, because she has to raise her son all alone in a very violent world. She's raising him all by herself in a world in which 108 young bucks, called suitors, >> Mhm. >> are trying to win her affections, to put it lightly. They they say, "Uh he'll your husband will never come back. >> Right. >> So, you have to marry one of us." And at night, her I find it the equivalent of Odysseus's ruse of the Trojan horse, is the way that Penelope weaves what they call a shroud for Odysseus's father, a funeral shroud, which was a a tradition in those years. And then at night, she And this was the old phrase, she picks it apart. >> I love that. >> it. >> I love that. >> And if if if you know about the world of textiles and garments and thread, this is a mighty, mighty image. The power to create a tapestry. Some say she was actually uh weaving a tapestry of the Trojan War. This has been a big speculation, especially with feminist scholars now. Uh that that blows my mind. It's such a beautiful archetypal image. So, she But in another way, the whole business that you say I made this gesture of drawing thread out, that is the that is the sign in American Sign Language for soul, drawing a thread out of the belly. >> Mhm. >> So, thread, breath, soul, destiny, I conclude at by the end of my 24 books, 24 chapters of the wisdom of the Odyssey, that is her love that is drawing him home. Remember there are a couple times when Odysseus, this is probably also the first time in Western literature, contemplates suicide. >> Yeah. >> I think a lot of readers or listeners in the past would have deeply identified with this. It's not all bravado. If you've been off at war and you've lost most of your mates and friends and crew and fellow soldiers and generals, and then on the way home you lose everybody else, grief, loss, a sense of defeat, often leads to suicide. We know this. We know three times more survivors of Vietnam soldiers committed suicide than died in the war. And now it's five times more soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who've committed suicide. So, this notion that Odysseus almost gave up is really moving to me. And I So, I asked the question in my book, why did he keep going? Why didn't he give up? My feeling, it's a deep one, is that it's love. >> Yeah. >> It's a surprising element in this book, which people would just think, oh, it's one more book about testosterone driven and soldiers and warriors. But no. And yet So, it's a love of Penelope dr- pulling him home, but also the love of his really unmet child. >> Yeah. >> He left Telemachus when the boy was an infant. Uh love of his parents. And then a beautiful thing, Henry David Thoreau loved the Odyssey because of the nature descriptions. >> Mhm. >> Isn't that something? >> Yeah. >> So, it's the love of the land itself. Love drew him home. So, why why that would be such an unexpected thing in antiquity, except for the fact, if you think then about the audiences that Homer would have been reciting to, usually by with music, a lyre, someone would have been playing music next to him. And half of his audiences would have been women. Half men with the aristocrats, but then in public he These recitals were also at the Olympic Games. Uh a poet or a philosopher would read out loud at the Olympics. So, if you've got half of the audience as men, male aristocrats, and the other half are women, you darn well better >> He knew his audience. >> Does that Does that >> [laughter] >> Does that make sense to you? >> Yeah, yeah, he knew his audience. >> He knew. You have to. And that is the other reason, and a strong one, why the story lasts. It's not just about war. >> Love Love is a is a compelling power in the universe. >> Yes. >> So, I don't think we can talk about the Odyssey without talking about magic, really, because the poem begins and ends with an enchantment. So, how does the interaction of gods and mortals help shape the story? It also it lengthens Odysseus's journey considerably. >> Well, that's a wonderful question. Beautifully put. And I wrestled with this so much. I do when I'm there, because the presence of the gods are all over. It's part of the whole tourist industry in Greece now, so you have to take it on. But then when writing about it, so I I again I did even more research, stretching out the the book, which had to be written at a very quick pace >> Yeah. >> in order to be out in time for this movie that's coming out this week, it really. >> [snorts] >> And so, here's a here's my my to that. There is an old theory in the study of folklore uh exemplified by writers like Jack Zipes, Z I P E S. And before him Bruno Bettelheim, uh Marija Gimbutas, uh other scholars who have written a great deal about fairy tale, which are not strictly for children. This is a misunderstanding. They were originally for adults, but the stories are about young people and children and how to become an adult. Well, it seems that when you go in with the anthropologists and you follow them, there is a a kind of a formula in these stories in which the the child, the main hero, the main character, the hero or heroine, in that moment of transformation, trying a young girl trying to become a woman, a young boy becoming a man, uh monsters becoming human beings, they don't do this, that they don't make the great transformation or change in real time or everyday space. Instead, they go to an enchanted place, the deep dark forest, across the sea to a fairyland, maybe even up into the clouds. So, what were folklorists These These are stories that came from ordinary people, by the way, not scholars from Cambridge and Oxford. No. I think they came upon a truism that Homer borrowed for the middle four books, not books 9 through 12 of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus has to transform himself. He has to change in in order to heal >> Yeah. >> from these grievous wounds, or he will never get home again. He will just be one more soldier who dies on the way home or gets lured by seductresses. This is it's a it's an archetype for all the different ways you can be waylaid in every sense of the term. So, just like in the old fairy tales, I I would argue that 18 of the books take place in more or less real time and historical time with some enchantment, of course. But the main books, the kaleidoscopic books we remember from childhood and I suspect will be at the heart of Christopher Nolan's movie, the Cyclops, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the the the floating island of the god of the winds. These are all metaphors for the need for someone deeply wounded by trauma. It could be war, famine, it could be sexual trauma, sexual abuse, all of these. The suggestion is you we need to go to a place outside of time, outside of ordinary profane time. And that's where the magic healing and transformation takes place. Only after he has gone through this, just like Hansel and Gretel going into the dark forest and so on. These are all places of transformation and healing. And I think I think this is part of the long long long allure. You didn't have to hit people over the head with this. I mean, in places as as far away as the Black Sea and Northern Africa, these stories were told all around the world. They influenced Frank L. Baum when he wrote The Wizard of Oz. These stories influenced one of the very first movies. I just found this out, so it's not even in the book, my book, The Wisdom of the Odyssey. Georges Méliès, one of the fathers of filmmaking at the turn of the century, made hundreds and hundreds of short films. He made a 4-minute movie of the Odyssey in 1905. >> Wow. >> And it's called Calypso. It's about Odysseus on the island of Calypso and then a short business with the Cyclops. Why? >> Yeah. >> Because there is something in us in our deep imagination. Maybe because grandma read a beautiful fairy tale to us. Maybe because our father read a myth to us. We know we are transported. And Autumn, I think this is the final charm, if you will, being that being an enchanting word. The final charm of the book is it transports us. This is the glory of art. We are here when we sit down with a book or turn on the TV to watch a great old movie or put on some music. We are transported to another place. And then, if it's a good story, uh 20 minutes later an hour maybe 3 hours later, we snap out we we we we once we shake our head, where was I? >> Yeah. >> For these last couple of hours. Isn't that one of the most wonderful sensations in the world? >> Yeah. There's nothing better than being lost in a book or a story or a fable, right? And and on on that note >> that's wonderful. >> On that note, I can't even begin to fathom how many stories have derived are derived in some point. I you know, I think about um as in your family, I read aloud to my three children and my husband for years. We had family story night and I think about some of the books we read. The The Lord of the Rings trilogy, um contemporary Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson stories that are directly drawn from the Greek myths and and countless others that just were really informed, inspired, somehow shaped by some of the ideas and the language that that Homer put forth as we said almost 3,000 years ago. It's pretty wild. As you mentioned, this book is key to the forthcoming release. We're recording this on July 14th, 2026, and on July 17th, Sir Christopher Nolan's new film, The Odyssey, is coming out. Um if you're not uh viewers, if you're not familiar with him, uh he's really known for complex storytelling. Think um Inception or Oppenheimer. And so I'm really curious to see this movie and what his take on this will be. Um how for the final question, how will your book help moviegoers better understand this? >> Thank you. The wonderful setup. Uh first, I was deeply touched and felt a sense of vindication for the way that I began my book in my introduction by beginning it with the famous story of Odysseus and Argus. The the his hound, his swift hound, who waited for him for 20 years. So, on Stephen Colbert's second-to-last show, he had Nolan on. Not for 5 minutes like usual, for 21 minutes. And the very last question, which I would have asked first, you're an interviewer, you know this, I mean, so when did you finally decide to make this movie? And you get kind of sideswiped. Nolan Nolan says, "When I was a kid, my parents never bought me a dog. I raised my wife and I raised three kids. We were too busy. We never had a dog." He said, "Roughly 2 years ago, I finally bought a dog. We have brought the dog home. I held it in my arms." And he says, I'm paraphrasing, but he says, "My imagination went back to the famous scene in the Odyssey when Odysseus is finally back on Ithaca and he's walking with his best friend, the loyal friend, Eumaeus, back to the palace. And on the steps of the palace, on this twisted stone staircase, is his dog, Argus, which he got as a boy. And Nolan said, "I'm holding my dog. I think about this scene and I realize I need to make this movie." >> Wow. >> What What that tells you something about what I I've begun to call the tender and tough genius of the book. It's not just a tough story about war and warriors from antiquity. There is a surprising amount of tenderness in this. The The uh themes of crying when in grief, the desire to close the wound by scarring over the wound so you can go forward with your life. There's a lot of weeping, which is a sign of grief and catharsis. >> Yeah. >> So, that's at the heart of the movie. And then what I think is going to happen is that Nolan is steering us back to you might even call it the ur-story, the original story of everybody on some level. What would that possibly be? Well, you know, if you make a hugely expensive movie, $250 million for the movie, another $250 million already for the promotion. This is a $500 million [laughter] movie. How do you get that money back? You go wide. You cast superstars. >> Yes. >> We'll leave it there at [laughter] that. And then you try to to blend some way some heart and soul, which is at the heart of Nolan's movies. He really is a soulful, spirited director. But he's all He's will be going into the this the kaleidoscopic imagery from the film. Because that's what we remember from being kids, and it's also rich, loamy soil. The Cyclops again, the Sirens are being sucked down into the whirlpool. The The return home and not even recognizing your own home when you finally get back, and they don't recognize you. This is part of the universal appeal of the story. When everybody from uh J.R.R. Tolkien, we know we've seen his manuscripts. They're at the British Museum for The Hobbit, and there was a There are a number of references in the margins, the marginalia, in which he says, "See The Odyssey." >> Mhm. Yeah. >> Is that so? Is that moving? >> Yeah. >> What So, what's happening? He is sending his hero on a quest through dangerous lands and territory on a goal to fetch the ring and so on and so whatever the goal might be. There's no story without going into the dark night of the soul. >> Mhm. >> But there's also [clears throat] no story if you don't have the return. So, maybe we can end on this. This is You know I love word play. I've written a number of books on etymology. >> Mhm. >> Our word nostalgia, which has tended to be just treacly sentiment. Well, I'm nostalgia for the 1950s, something like that. But the origin of the word actually combines these two beautiful Greek words, the nostoi, which means return. These are the return stories that everybody asked, everybody heard. But the other half of the word is algia, pain. >> Mhm. Mhm. >> The It's In its depths, all the Odyssey, but all great stories have this black thread of pain going through them. We We have the phrase bittersweet, but for the Greeks, it was actually sweet bitter. That's the the original phrase, which again is so mysterious to me. This is part of the beauty of myth and fairy tale. They are taking you into the dark night of the soul, but they're bringing you home again. And it feels sweet and bitter at the same time. Which leads to what? Something you You're a storyteller. You read You had books stories read to you. You You read them. Now you're helping everybody else appreciate stories. Stories are cathartic. >> Mhm. >> The deep ones are. There's entertainment, and believe me, I know there's room for just sheer entertainment. Take me away. Take me away. But these mythic stories take us into a a deep mysterious place in the imagination where I think, like Odysseus, we are reborn. >> Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much for making time to speak with me today. Bill Kuszner folks. And I want to remind you that you have a rare opportunity to see him speak in downtown Davis. The event starts at noon on Saturday, July 19th at the Varsity Theater. Um you can visit one of the sponsors uh websites, The Wardrobe at the wardrobe.com. Phil, thank you so much and uh best of luck with the continued rollout of your latest book. >> Well, thank you for being so prepared, so enthusiastic about these ancient stories. And you you're helping me as I'm helping you spread the word about so soulful storytelling. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> [music] [music]