Great Literature (Ep. 293)

Hi, this is David Alowski and welcome back to the Rabbi Alowski Show. And whether you're watching with our friends over at Torah Anytime, our new producers, or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts, I meet people who tell me they only listen to the podcast when they're exercising. I guess it misares give people a uh little excitement. Uh I've met quite a few people who tell me they only call up to any time has an option for calling up and they said that we don't have the internet you know but we call up and we hear it on the phone and uh and we'll see that we're on a number of other platforms. Yeah. So uh that's our sponsorship for this week in honor of my sister's engagement tool maze. I I don't know who you are or your sister is and but I do know Schmully love your sister who listens to Rabi Alowski on the 246 app. So there you go. We're another another location where we are and I haven't done this in a while. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and comment. Apparently on some platforms that helps the algorithm. I don't really know what an algorithm is. I'll tell you the truth. I know we did this in high school, algorithms, but I don't know what they are. Apparently, there's something that uh Google uses and certain other platforms use to be able to control who sees what. I don't think toing time has a an algorithm. I'm not really sure. But anyway, uh but uh we want uh we want people to be able to uh hear about it. And like I mentioned, we started doing, you know, little shorts even just to advertise the podcast because why shouldn't more people enjoy it? That's the idea. If we're doing it anyway, I'm sitting there anyway. I'm talking to you anyway. We have these um uh exceptional uh programs. That's that's the only thing I can say in my opinion. I I said to somebody, uh, I think there are so many loyal fans here because, um, nobody does what we do. Nobody. You can get a straight Torah podcast. You can get um, things that'll just sus, but to be able to present things in a Torah dick fashion that hopefully will be entertaining is very meaningful. And in fact, I got a comment that was forwarded to me by my producer. I look forward all week for the new podcast to come out. Thank you so much for giving us all. I appreciate your frankness about the various topics. Yeah, I had somebody said to me once, he goes, "Every now and then when you're speaking, I see you sort of like stop and try to decide whether this is appropriate. And regardless, you say it anyway. So I don't even know why you even go through that process. Yeah. Um uh I definitely qualify as a Rabiolki crazy. I find myself quoting Rabiowski quite often. It is scary. It's scary thing. I was just telling this to my wife the other day. I I have met in the recent weeks a dozen people who know everything I have ever said and they can quote it back to me verbatim. I start a line and they finish it for me. Yeah, Hashem should bench you with many more healthy years of being for when you get flag it shows you're doing something great because the Sultan is trying to get in the way. So uh so thank you so much for that beautiful beautiful comment. Um and uh I guess maybe just a little uh housekeeping before we start. I have started a new policy and I'll explain to you the policy. Yeah. Um, as you know, I have never been a fan of from media. Uh, I I find that whatever standard they are using to make decisions as to what is Mut and user to say makes no sense to me. When I see from publications putting out an article attacking a Torah personality, it it's it's just evil. Yeah. When they don't do it, they allow people in the letter to the editor column to attack and other people, just average folks. I told you that I, you know, I was sort of writing for a publication and someone wrote in a letter and attacked me. They didn't understand what I saidl and no one told me about it or gave me a chance to respond and it was just out there this this ridiculous attack on me that made absolutely no sense. But not everybody's mad can do it. They just see, oh, you know, oh yeah, Rabowski, blah blah blah. You know what I mean? So, uh, I I think that is horrendous. There is no reason for it. there's no reason for it. And uh there are a few what are called um uh from news sites online and uh not all of them um present material that is appropriate. My daughter told me that there's some fellow here in who goes through all the news and encapsulates it and you can call up and uh you know gives you a five minute that he sums up for you in Yiddish I think in Yiddish or Hebrew I'm not sure all of the news that you need to know and that's it. So you're holding you're holding it. Um but uh but some of these places you know online and even the places that are more careful and I'll mention one by name. Yeshiva World News which has a reputation of presenting things in a uh more careful way. They don't edit the comments and people make these horrific comments that is and someone I know said that he went to them and said why do you do this and he said that's why people read the website they go there for the terrible comments but do you understand the the isuris that you're being the saying by letting people make these yucky comments. Anyway, um some of the platforms that I'm on allow you to make comments and uh I've never really edited out the comments. Sometimes when I have a uh pro- kamas person doing an anti-Jewish thing, I will delete it. But for the most part, I haven't really deleted them. But there are a few people and I can tell it's just one or two because uh because most of the people who watch and listen to me uh have this as a basic moral parameter. They understand they have basic morality. You don't say disgusting things to people. They understand that. But there's one or two people who have taken upon themselves to make Yiki comments about other people. Sometimes they attack Rabanuish. Yeah. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Yeah. Read what the Rambam says about that. Yeah. But um uh but otherwise you have the again one or two people as far as I can tell who make nasty comments about other people have made comments insulting the people who have made comments. So, I finally had enough and I started uh deleting those comments and uh and I will not allow it. So, if you're commenting because you want to say nasty things about people, go to another website. Go to World News. They don't care. They can say any y thing you want over there and they won't edit it out. Go write a letter to these uh to these places that will publish whatever you say, no matter how disgusting it is. But stay off of my websites. Stay off of my platforms because we have good people who are yer shayim and who want to have respect for other Jews. And if you're not one of them, do me a favor. Go someplace else. I don't need your business. I don't get paid for this anyway. I need your business. You know, it's all right. I'll have one last view. But stay off if you're gonna make your y comments to other people. Okay. You want to criticize me. I don't mind people who criticize me. Yeah. Even they do it in a disgusting fashion like one person does. But um but uh but you're going to pick on other people or other abundant or other people who are commenting. Not on my watch. That ends that ends now. So uh like I say, that's just a little public service announcement. And it used to get me crazy because you know they say in education that 90% of the time are spent on 10% of the kids. And um and I've found this in uh in especially when it comes to um uh when it comes to speaking and to education this somebody will say to me people uh people complained that you X that you whatever it is and I said what people you know people have commented how many comments on. So, one person makes a comment and what is this? The woke movement. One person criticizes something and they all go crazy. That is why not that I'm a beer drinker. Um, when I turn 40, I force myself to be able to drink whiskey. It's not easy. I never drink whiskey. To me, it tastes like the old Listerine, you know? It's good for like an antiseptic, you know. I don't like the taste. I read the bottle. It says, "Oh, it has hints of vanilla and cinnamon." Yeah, you got to drink a lot of that stuff before you're tasting cinnamon. Trust me. He's like cinnamon. You know, forget about it. It's not there, you know. As opposed to my go-to wine, which is Baron Herzog White Zinfendel. And when you have that chilled, it says on the bottle has tastes of strawberry and cotton candy. I can taste those in that wine. Trust me. Scott, I don't taste anything. You know, I push myself. I can't get myself to drink beer cuz to me, beer tastes like mold. I don't know. There's a difference between something that has fermented and something that mammish tastes like. It's still mold. That's what beer tastes like to me. But, uh, okay. Listen, I didn't grow up drinking, you know. Uh I have many bad habits. Uh drinking and smoking were about the only two that I didn't pick up. I can't say uh doing drugs because every morning I take a big package of medications. So I guess I do do drugs. Uh not not recreationally, but but those things I remember when I had my heart attack. You know, they said the only thing you have going for you is that you didn't smoke. You know, I eat unhealthy. I don't exercise like I should, you know. Um I have uh I I I had a terrible temper, you know, all kinds of different things that I promised. But the only thing I didn't do, I didn't smoke. I didn't drink. Yeah. So um uh so that's uh uh so beer doesn't appear to me. But there is a beer called Bud Light, which was the most popular light beer. And somebody uh the term they use of course is woke decided to expand the base and turn against everybody who normally buys their beer and put in some trans guy to advertise their beer and the entire company collapsed. you know, so now, and I'm not endorsing it, and I'm sure this story will never appear on that guy who gives his news update, but you know, there was an ad that came out recently uh for Jeans. Um, it's not anything that we should know about or be familiar with, but there were people who were outraged about this ad and they started pressuring and the company stood up and said, "You know what? Go away. I don't care what you think." and their stock shot up because a couple of online bullies it should not be who what determines how you make decisions in life and that's why I'm always amazed when someone says yes and we've had complaints don't say this what complaints people have commented what one person made a comment or two people make a comment that should not be enough to therefore say oh my goodness is an that's a joke that my kids used to tell. You know, this rabbit goes into a mullet and says, "Uh, do you have carrot cake?" I says, "No." So, he comes back the next day. Yeah. You have carrot cake? He says, "Look, four or five days he comes in." So the mak owner says to his wife, "No, people are asking." So the next day the rabbit comes in, he goes, says, "It's disgusting, right?" But the point is, people keep coming in, you know, and asking for it. So you assume that's because there's a demand for it. There's not. And so, um, uh, I have never really cared what anybody thinks per se. I've always marched to the beat of my own drummer. And, uh, and, uh, you know, I've tried to do what I think is MS and what I think is right. And, uh, people who want to be, um, and disgusting, go someplace else. There there are places that will appreciate you. Yeah. They they like you. We don't I don't want anyone with a bad attitude. I only have happy campers. We're going to have fun or else I'll find you and I'll kill you. That's not my line. Jackie Mason at the end of the show cuz I know there are people here offended. What are you offended? An old old Jews trying to make a living and you're offended. Trust me, if I find anyone who's offended, you ain't got long to live. I'll track you down and I'll kill you. So, uh, you know, like I say, we're just I I I I just feel like I had to do that because I was so shocked when I happened to see that somebody would make a disgusting comment to somebody who is part of the Rabbi Olavski show community. I I it was very interesting. I came to it's now 36 years. Yeah. almost it's just almost to the date 36 years that I met Aliyah. I came here originally to learn for 3 years to prepare myself for abundance and I was going to become a shaw rabbi. I I I felt like I have the skills necessary to make a good sh rabbi. I um I believe in building communities. I believe in building families, building people. You know, I I think I could have done a very good job. As it happens, I had a lot of options here in Erit Stra. So, I never went back. But, uh, after I lost all of my jobs through my witten personality and I really didn't have much to do. So, somebody that I know reached out to me, a shul inel was looking for a r. It was mostly English speakers and uh, and they would, the way he put it, he goes, "It would be such a thrill if you would apply for this job." And I ignored it as I as I usually do. And my wife said, "Come on, you know, you have to do some mistatlas, you know, you're not doing anything, you know, so it's the one hour a week you sit in front of your bookcase and talk, you know, so you should go for the job." So I drew up the first resume that I ever made in my entire life. I never made a resume. Every job that I had ever had, I was either offered or bullied or tricked into taking, right? I was um I was uh chapter adviser in Los Angeles. I was tricked into taking it. Um they offered me regions around the country. I took Long Island. They told me afterwards they had to cover up the phone so I wouldn't hear them laughing. They had gone through five directors in two years. There was only one kid left in the region. There were no chapters, no offers, no nothing. And the fact that I was turning down major regions to take this, they thought was the biggest joke. But okay, I did pretty good. And I came to it and when I taught for discovery, somebody pressured me into teaching with discovery. Somebody pressured me to teach in uh in um in seminary you know and basically every place that I went you know so uh when I left or I was waiting for next position never happened. I was just very surprised. So I never had a resume. I never went looking for a job and uh I forget everybody knows who I am already but I wrote up my first resume and I sent it in. It was during COVID so we had a Zoom interview and everybody looked like they really liked me and we're having a good time and then I got a form letter refusal. Dear candidate, thank you so much for applying. We decided to go in a different direction. Good luck in your future endeavors. And I wasn't even trying to get the job. They asked me to apply, you know. So, someone said to me, they probably wanted to have the kashivas of saying we turned down Rabbi Olowski, Kenzine. I don't know. But, um, I never had it. So, the closest that I have to a community is is this podcast, this the people who are here. And when I meet people around the world, I was just in England for uh they're starting project inspire there and I met so many people in England who who are big fans what listen you know to the podcast and uh I said wow it comes it comes here he goes yeah the internet goes everywhere in the world I amazing you know and uh and who knows who knows you know how many people and I feel like all of us are united and that's why um just to give an update uh the fellow who the manager of the hotel that I was looking into making my pesak program said to me I can't talk to you until l because I'm busy with bes manim and then we'll talk and I hope we ever do it because just the idea of getting and I said I'm only inter I'm only going to um to uh advertise on my podcast and my website and that's it. I don't want any outsiders. I want only uh our people come together and spend pes. And that's why someone said to me, you know, you could probably take a bigger hotel. You only have 150 rooms. I said, that's all I want so that I can spend time with everybody who comes and uh and to be able to have that cash. That's what I want. I don't want a thousand uh thousand people anyway. But um um even if I could fill it up, I wouldn't want that. So, um, uh, well, be that as it may, the point is that I I I think it's a really nice thing. I I have a chuka and maybe I'll do this for next year to maybe see if I can take a hotel for Shabas Naku someplace in the in the mountains. I I assume there are still some hotels over there, you know, and uh and make something. Assuming that we're out there, I know you're out there. I know I can I can track about 25,000 of you. There might be more but that's from my numbers I can track 25,000 of you and uh I it's so interesting you know when I interviewed two of two of your singer I told this already I'm sure I mentioned you know that we have between 20 and 25,000 people and somebody I had a lot of nasty comments on that one but but one of them was yeah in your dreams 25,000 I have over 25,000 views just on YouTube alone besides all my other platforms but um uh But the but the point is that it would be a nice thing for us to be able to get together in person and not just virtually. But that's my point. My point is that don't insult my people. If you you want to watch the podcast, you want to be part of the community, that's great, but don't hurt anybody else. And uh that's it. I spent much too much time on this, but uh I thought it was important. So um what do I want to talk about? you know, it's bas and uh if you're like me where you know, you retired early, not by choice, you know, or if you have an actual job or things, you don't have a benis man. There's no kinds of benis man. There's usually people take vacation in the summer, you know, uh guy goes for a checkup, the doctor says to him, you have two weeks to live. He says, "Oh, and then I'll take the last week in July and the first week in August, you know, take vacation, you know, but a lot of people don't have that calendar of the bay manim, but uh you know, since a lot of our audience are part of the yeshiva shiva, whether you're actually in yeshiva or not, you have a certain sense of banisman. Banisman is a more relaxed time. As you know, we've had some podcasts during bay manu where we talk, you know, about more relaxed ideas and coming up, I'm going to have my son Yakov back on to talk about some interesting things. I don't want to say in advance, but uh to to do some different things. So um the podcast today what I want to talk about is based on a question that I got once and I don't know if I ever mentioned even this question but the question was like this. I see you quote a lot from literature. Could you maybe give a rabbi reading list? I think that's absolutely fascinating. Now, a little a little background to this. Yeah. Um, obviously, uh, if you have a choice between learning Torah and reading a novel, um, you should learn Tory to. If you have a choice between learning Tory and reading a non-fiction book, be it about history or science, etc., you should learn Torah. But if you're going to have some downtime anyway, then is reading novels a positive thing to do or not? I heard Ry France say on a tape more than once, you know, he gives Shir during the year and he says it was Ben. So I got to, you know, I had the time to be able to read a newspaper. Yeah. The mach is he does not read newspapers during this month. He's busy preparing for his shirum etc. I guess during Ben when he's a little more relaxed people people go swimming people uh you know uh do other recreational activities. So his rec recreational activities reading the paper. Now when I heard this, it had to be 30 35 years ago maybe. When I heard this on a cassette tape and um there was no Hamodilla or Yetade or any of these kind of things. They were just regular newspapers, you know, and uh you would read the newspapers to to be able to keep up. I heard a story, I don't know if it's true. I'm not pes but I don't check my sources that they said in tells they used to tells in Europe mu shabas they would take out all of the newspapers and learn upshot in the news what was happening in the news to get a mahalak of of how we should be dealing with things. So uh so there is such a concept as that but uh the idea is that's when I have some downtime I read the newspaper. Yeah. Um, when I go to America, I buy a copy of Scientific American and Discover magazine and I read to keep up with the latest uh quasi science. I say quasi science because they cannot help but inject politics into this which is uh very unfortunate. You know in the scientific America in the back they have story from 50 years ago, 100 years ago and 150 years ago. You never find any of this, you know, woke nonsense inside of uh inside of the magazines from many years ago. But okay. Um so that's in my bathroom. That's why that's my re my bathroom thing. Um so but what about novels? What we And by when I say novels, I mean literature. Literature. So someone told me, someone that I know who's trustworthy. He says he once asked Shapiro about um about uh literature and he said if you hold that it's then it's so what does that mean? Meaning if you say the non-Jews have made developments in science, in uh in um uh you know medicine, mathematics, you can believe that you have to have the ability to differentiate between what is actually science and what is speculative theory. So when science tells you that the world is 15 billion years old, they of course cannot prove that, they have different evidence that would suggest a theory. When they tell you that evolution is a fact, that's not true. It's a theory used to explain a number of things and there's many kashes on it. And the cashes they tend to push to the side and embrace the theory um tremendously. But uh theories are just that theories that's not science. But if it's if you can prove it, I remember when Mosha Shapiro came out against certain books that were there to explain how science basically you know Kazal don't know anything about science and only scientists do and basically attacking. So uh came out very strongly about it and I wrote me cotton shaktanim wrote a letter supporting rimish's position and of course I found myself in the midst of a firestorm and one guy says well then how does roofski fly in a plane because that's experiential you can see whether or not a plane flies it's not I have a theory that I can build a faster than light um spacecraft using quantum mechanics that can take me to another galaxy. When I see it, I'll believe it. You know, right now that falls under the category of science fiction. And even though I was a Treky in the 1960s when the show first came out. Yeah. And um and uh I we cannot at this point create a transporter. Okay. It's just not there. I cannot beam you down to the planet surface. It's ridiculous. But uh you know, so okay, but it's a theory. Theories are fine, but that's not science. But if the timing So does he say English literature if you hold it? He didn't say no. He says if you hold then it's then it's what does that mean? So uh when I taught in discovery, one of the people I had discussive working with was Rabbi Ari Khan and we were discussing giving stories over and uh and I have a policy that I will never uh knowingly say a story that's not true. Yeah. because um I like to feel like I have some integrity and he said to me says you can now I did not see this from I heard it from Khan but I consider him to be uh he says that says you can make up a story and present it as if it's true his everyone knows the book Job and um uh and all of his sufferings and everything that happens to him and the conversations he has with his friends and God appears to him at the end. And the question was when did he live? And the Gmorra discusses all kinds of different positions. When did Yo live? Did he live uh during the time of Mosher Rabenu? Uh did he live you during the time of Abraham? Did when did he live? And there's one that says he never lived. He's just a mush. So they present an entire book of Tanakh as if it's MS and it may never have ever happened. It's just a mush. So he says, you see from this that you can present something as true even though it didn't happen. Uh reminds me of a line that Ruby Wine likes to say, all of my stories are true. It's just some of them haven't happened yet. Yeah, having said that, he himself is a historian and I don't believe that he really says things unless he has some basis for them. But but that's the point that he makes, you know, he's telling a story. I guess what he's trying to say is, you know, he's not bas and he checks out all of his sources to make sure that uh he traces it back to see where it comes from. But um um literature is a mushel. It's there basically to teach us things in a way that we can understand. Now the whole idea of a marshall is we make it in a way that you can grasp it because you may not understand the essence. That's why the smartest guy who ever lived Schlommoik wrote a book called Mish Mishim because he wanted to explain the greatest depth of Torah and um he presented it as stories so that you could get the story and within the story figure out what was going on behind the scenes. And that's what a mushel does. How many times do you see that in kazal? What is this like? There was a king, there was this, there was that. There's a mush, there's a mush, and there's a nimshell. And the mush helps you understand it. Um said once, he goes, you find in midrashim sometimes fantastical things, stories that are just mindbending that you you you know just couldn't possibly have happened. And the rashba says not every agata is meant to be taken literally. And you know sometimes they're there. Now which are and which are not you need a misora for but the rashba says the the gum in braos that says that og picked up a mountain the size of the entire mach was going to drop it on top of them and the ants ate it and it fell on his head and then his teeth grew and it broke off. Goes that's that did not literally happen. Yeah that's what the rashba says. So when it comes to gadgetas why are they written in in fantastical things you know all of the raana gumaras you know so they're written that way because they're trying to communicate ideas that are outside of our frame of reference. So it's it can't use regular stories. It has to bring a fantastical story to bring something of tremendous depth to us. So if I tell you a story, the story is that the say you're not allowed to learn on why because you'll get so caught up in that you won't go to the that are given on Yantiff. And we want you to learn and not just a so stories pull you in and you become emotionally attached to the characters that are being introduced and it allows you to bring across different values. Now you have to be very careful because sometimes the value they want to bring across is not necessarily good. Now, I don't know if anyone's aware of this, but some years ago, uh, this woman JK Rowling wrote a series of books, uh, based on a little boy who becomes a wizard, um, Harry Potter. It was somewhat popular. And, uh, I was asked to write an article, I think, when book four came out. And I said the problem with this is that once people are emotionally invested and suddenly she wants to bring across values that are not good, what are you going to do? People are already invested. When book five came out, there was an article in Time or Newsweek, I don't remember which one it was, where they were trying to examine the phenomena. They say, "Teachers say when a new Harry Potter book goes up comes out, reading scores rise to grades." He says, "Kids with dyslexia read this book six, seven times over and over again, pushing themselves to get through it. It has a, if you pardon the expression, a magical effect on people and sucks them in. So what do you do if you're in the middle of the series and suddenly she reaches a point where she decides to say let's say for example one of the main characters is gay and you didn't know that or more important she slips in um values without you even realizing it. So the Death Eaters who are the bad guys, yeah, they believe in pure bloods only pure blood wizards marrying other wizards. And so therefore, um, if you're not a pure blood, you know, term mud blood, that's a terrible thing. So they have a uh a number of characters like Hagrid who's from an intermarriage of a wizard and a giant or they have um um Lupin who's a werewolf you know or they have uh you know the smartest one this Hermione her real name is pronounced Hermoni um who uh she's a mud blood she did not come from wizarding family you know they're all the good people and the pure bloods unless they reject this are bad ones which means that a from Jew is a death eater because we only marry other other Jews we disagree with intermarriage and that means that we're bad so this is a subtle message but one that comes across yeah now I understand she's going for a sense of universal tolerance But um on a Jewish value that could be problematic. Okay. Well, that's all by way of introduction. So uh um I'll start with I think a very important book. Um I was teaching in the intro program in Orame. I may have told this story already. I was teaching in the intro program in Orame and um uh a guy asked me just out of the blue, "What do you think is the best book that was ever written?" And without hesitating, I said, "Watership Down." He said, "What?" I said, "It's about rabbits." Okay, that's a little offputting. 6 months later because people in the intro program come and go. Sort of like Alice in Wonderland. People come and go so quickly around here. So, um uh so she uh somebody else just out of the blue says to me, "What do you think was the best book ever written?" And once again, without hesitating, I said, "Watership Down." He says, "Water shipped down?" I said, "It's about rabbits." It turns out that the guy who had asked me the question six months ago was back in Israel and he was in the class and he says, 'You know, I asked you this question six months ago and when I got back to America, I bought a copy and you're right, it's the best book ever written. Now, um I've gone through any number of copies because people borrow my copy and it disappears. So when I was in America the last time I bought myself another copy of it uh to Kazar over and I didn't realize that this is the 50th anniversary of the book coming out and uh I ended up with the 50th anniversary copy of Watership Down and it comes with an introduction of an author I've never heard of, Maline Miller. Yeah. Who uh won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2012 and uh her books have been translated more than 32 languages. And she gives an introduction and I was shocked when I read this introduction because this is almost word for word what I have been saying for years and to see somebody else say it. So you'll indulge me if you will. I'll explain to you why I think this book is so important. I first read Watership Down when I was 12 on a family road trip. I had terrible motion sickness and usually didn't read in the car. But once I began the book, I found I couldn't stop. For hundreds of miles, I read on nauseiated but unwilling to turn away for even a moment from Hazel, Fiverr, Bigwig, and the rest. I was still reading when we got out of the car and walked into the hotel lobby. The clerk said, "Looks like a good book. What's it about?" I looked up at her woozy. It was about everything is what I wanted to say. About trauma and injustice and hope and courage. It's about friendship, leadership, community, what makes a good life. But I didn't have the words for all that. So I said, "It's about rabbits." She blinked. Huh? I've returned to Watership Downt often since then. All it takes is for me to open the book to any page, any page at all, and I'm plunged back into the same deep joy that I felt when I was 12. In the intervening 30 years, my appreciation for Adam's masterpiece has only grown. At every turn, Adams threads a nearly impossible needle, creating a story with both great simplicity and great depth, full of thrilling plot twists, pounding action scenes, and genuine tragedy that somehow centers around the lives of, yes, rabbits. He pulls off the trick of never letting us forget that they are rabbits who only live for a few years, who speak pragmatically of breeding, who can't count higher than four, while also creating characters with a very human psychology. From the ground up, he imagines an entire culture, language, and mythology. and the result remains one of the most entertaining and immersive fantasy worlds I've encountered. Adams is well-versed in epic and classical literature and Watership Down draws inspiration from Homer, Shakespeare, Virgil, and others. Its plot springs from the tantalizing question. What if the prophet Cassandra foretold the fall of her home? But instead of ignoring her, a band of brave souls listened and fled in time. Uh for those of you not familiar with your Greek mythology, Cassandra was cursed by Apollo to always tell the truth and never be believed. So she said that her city would be destroyed and no one listened to her. But what if some of them did? The story can be seen as a sort of lap retelling of the Anid refugees from a foreign city search for a new home mixed with a few other famous mythological episodes including the kidnapping of the Sabine women and the land of the lotus eaters. I don't know what that is, but you don't need to know any of this to enjoy the book. Adam's intent isn't classical named dropping, but rather classical innovation. Mythology is by definition larger than life. Stuffed with gods and monsters and magic. Adam keeps the stakes from the great epics, war, loss, death, powerful threads of community and personal courage. but of instead of imagining them on a grand stage, he sets them with utter seriousness in the English countryside among ordinary rabbits. This could sound absurd, but it doesn't. Because, as Adam understands, courage is even more thrilling when you aren't half immortal. When you don't have ikar in your veins. When you're a prey animal who has a thousand enemies trying to eat you. True epic Adams shows us isn't what gods do but what underdogs do in a world where there are no gods to help them. It is a thrilling subversion and from it Adams creates one of the best superheroes of all time. The dowy bigwig. Bigwig has no godmade weapons, no supernatural protection, no divine heritage, only his own bluff and stubborn heart. Reckless and hard-headed, he faces down cats and winds. He survives a snare that would have killed anyone else. In another world with different companions, he would have become a bully. Instead, he becomes one of the most inspiring and endearing characters in the book. The climactic scene where he stands alone against the tyrant Woundwart. Knowing he is overmatched but not yielding an inch gives me chills every time I read it. The most delightful part of the book is that Bigwig, though, isn't the novel's hero. Hazel is not heroic. He begins the novel as a gangly outcast with little physical strength and ends it disabled. His notable traits are his gentleness and his quiet conviction in doing what's right and his willingness to listen to things other people would dismiss, including his strange mystic friend, Fiverr. Yet still, others trust him and choose him to lead. He isn't the best fighter, that's Bigwig, or the fastest, that's Dandelion. He's not the best storyteller, that's Dandelion, or the cleverest, that's Blackberry. He's not the farthest seeing, that's fiverr, or the most authoritative, that's Holly. But he has tremendous gifts. First and foremost, his humility. Like Socrates, he knows what he doesn't know. When Blackberry figures out how to float the rabbits across the river, Hazel scarcely understands what's happening, but he understands that Blackberry understands and gives the order to go forward. He is emotionally intelligent, handling both the difficult bigwig and the traumatized strawberry. He has integrity when he makes mistakes. He apologizes for them. And if the sign of a civilization's strength is how it cares for his most vulnerable members, Hazel is exemplary there too. Always supporting the timid pipkin. As a child who grew up on Greek myth, Bigwig was wonderful. But Hazel changed my understanding of what a hero could be. A hero's strength is their love and kindness and careful attention. Seeing the rabbits defeat roundwood under Hazel's leadership is one of the most pleasurable and satisfying edings to a story I have ever read. Pleasur and satisfying. Those two words sum up the whole book. Okay, I'm not going to keep reading. But but that's exactly what I've been saying about this book. Yes, it's about rabbits and you have to buy into that in the first two chapters, but then you understand it teaches you. I have to tell you that like she says in this essay, um, Hazel is probably the best example of leadership that you can see because Hazel has no special abilities, but he can find everybody's abilities and help them develop it. And that's absolutely amazing. And it's action-packed. It's exciting. I used to read this book to my kids before bedtime. I'd read them a chapter and sometimes they wouldn't they would get upset when I would stop because they wanted me to keep going. So, um it's uh what can I tell you? I think there's tremendous Musa scale in this book. You know, it starts off like like she says about the Warren where this fiber gets like an image that is going to be destroyed and the warrant and they run away, you know, and sure enough, the warrant gets destroyed and a couple of survivors come back. And I may be projecting here, but I can't help but compare it to, you know, to European jewelry were destroyed in the few survivors who went to find, you know, a new place in either America or Israel to be able to rebuild and to start over. But uh what can I tell you when a book about rabbits has the ability to make such an impression and uh on people, I think it's tremendous thing. So, um, that's my go-to. That's the first one. Um, I, uh, I'll mention two more without giving it the same treatment that I gave worship down. I just happened to have read this essay. That's why it was on my head. And, uh, I said, "Wow, that's exactly what I've been." Every now and then you see something that's exactly what you've been saying all along and it's just amazing. Um, I've been doing a critique of Mormonism for many, many years. And it turns out that there was a Broadway show that came out called Book of the Mormon and uh I put in a new uh I put in a new radio in my car and it came with a uh with Spotify for a year. I was able to get Spotify. So I went to, you know, the Broadway channel cuz I haven't listened in a long time. I'm all of my musical knowledge is uh you know uh from from musicals to old. So there was this thing called the Book of the Mormon and this guy sings this song. I believe it's much everything I've ever said all these years and there it is al spoken out in uh an amazing detail. So there's something you know when you find someone expressing exactly what you're trying to say, you know. Um someone told me that they gave Shia Cohen my platonic relationship cassette. This was a share I gave some 35 years ago and it they didn't say viral back then. They said, you know, it went platinum. You know, when a record sells a lot, it goes platinum. It was my first tape ever go platinum. And someone played it for Shia Cohen and and he said, I've been saying these things for years. He just says it better. So that to me is, you know, when you when you can say it say what everyone is saying, but you could just say it clearly. Anyway, that's why I saw this. But I'll mention two other novels that I think um are of tremendous value. One is a miser rob by Victor Yugo. A very important book, a very large book. Um it fits the definition of a classic. I don't know who said this. I really should Google it, but I heard it many years ago. The definition of a classic is a book that takes 500 pages to tell a 300page story. And lay miserab takes a thousand pages I think give or take because every now and then he goes off on an 80page tangent. So one of the characters in the book his father was in the battle of Waterloo. So he spends 80 pages talking about the battle of Waterloo. At one point he ex escapes into a um a nunnery and he spends 80 pages talking about nunneries. At one point, Jean Valjon escapes into the Paris sewer system and he spends 80 pages talking about the Paris sewer system. So between me and you, you can skip those parts of the book and uh still but uh but the story of Chuva and of redemption that is in that book is just so powerful. Such a tremendous marshall for for the power of Chuva that it's just inspiring. I find it inspiring and it's emotional. Never happened. It's all make believe. But um but when it shows you uh the goodness of people and the capability of what people could achieve, it's uh I find that inspiring. And uh another book now I should point this out. All right. I guess by way of introduction, um although it's a little late for introduction since we only have five minutes left, but by way of introduction, um uh I never really went to university. Yeah. I went to Queens College Night College to try to make my parents happy. Um I took two courses, introduction to psychology and introduction to sociology. I remember this was in the 70s and my dad was like, "So, you signed up for college?" And I said, 'Y yeah. So, what'd you take? I said, "Psychology 101 and sociology 101." The psych and so every hippie takes psych and so why don't you take a math class? So, I realized at that point that I wasn't going to make them happy anyway. So, I didn't go back to college. when I uh moved to Los Angeles uh to learn and work in LA, which my parents referred to as running away from home. So once my parents saw that I was able to succeed on my own, they made another push for me to go to college and I went to Valley Night College and here I took two um courses that I wanted. I took uh journalism and broadcasting and uh and after that I said anyone who can do this for four years I have tremendous respect for you. I mean if you want to become a you know a doctor or you know a geneticist or something like that I understand but if you want to get like you know um you know feminist dance theory or like you know these these these hokey kind of um you know degrees seems to me like a waste of time. So, I just couldn't see doing it for that long. But I uh I do, you know, use my bathroom time as well as I can. And uh I read um I read classical novels. So, I've gone through a lot of Dickens. In fact, I was speaking once in a very uh academic high school and I quoted from Blee House. Now, to show you how uh academic this is, they have a head of the English department. I don't mean general studies. When I went to school, we had a a Hebrew principal and a general studies principal. I mean, she is there's one person in charge of the English department, one person in charge of the science department, one person in charge of and all the different, you know, classes, very large school. Anyway, in the course of my speech, apparently I had quoted from Blee House by Dickens. And she came up to me at the end and she said, "You read Blee House?" And I said, "Yeah." She goes, "I can't get through Blee House." Yeah. How did you do it? I said, "Two pages at a time in the bathroom." You know, there was one time I I was talking about this and I brought one of these books to quote and a woman told me, she says, "Another woman said to me, he's telling the truth. Look, he uses a piece of toilet paper as the bookmark." That's true. I do. But um uh you know, I read a lot of Dickens. So, if I have to uh recommend if you're going to read one Dickens novel, remember they're all very long. He's verbose because he got paid by the word. Yeah. Uh I would suggest David Copperfield. Um and I've read a lot of Dickens, but David Copperfield is somewhat autobiographical. And um you know what's what's nice about it is that none of these characters are perfect by any stretch of the imagination. you know, I mean, I I could argue that little Dorret maybe has uh also tremendous amount of mus, but it's not it's not as easy to read. Um but um um but David Copperfield is of course by many considered a classic Dickens and um um definitely uh a worthwhile thing to read and uh to put into perspective. Um uh maybe I would mention just one more and that's Crime and Punishment by Dasteski. Um uh also psychological thriller about uh crime and punishment you know and about consequences of actions and how they go on and also very very powerful and uh how it goes on. I'll give one more you know and that is by Hardy. Hardy is very difficult to read. Um not because he doesn't write well. He writes wonderfully but because um he is very negative. And as he goes on, the books become more and more negative to the point when there was such outrage that he just stopped writing novels and switched to um um switched to uh just doing poetry because uh it was just too too uh harsh the stories. But uh the mayor of Castaster Bridge is such a story of how people can be so self-destructive in their life and just destroy their lives. Every time success comes, they do something that just destroys it. So uh so those are some of my recommendations. Okay. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope some of this was worthwhile to you. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, revolowski.com. You can leave a comment. You can sponsor an episode, please. We're almost out of sponsors. You can sponsor a question and answer. You can sponsor a paran. 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