history of a candle

#158- Tolkien’s The Silmarillion Part 2

This week, Scott and Karl finish their discussion of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, a heavy fandom collection of mythopoeic stories that form a complete history of Middle Earth.

The duo agrees— don’t read this unless you’ve read the big trilogy first. Karl adds, “I think it’s very good. If Tolkien is as big of a part of your life as it is in mine, then you’ve got to read The Silmarillion.

Will Tolkien eventually make the Great Books list? Scott says, “I think that through the fog of time and through bit rot that will destroy a lot of histories, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion will take on a historical aspect.”

Tune in for Part Two of Scott and Karl’s conversation, brought to you by onlinegreatbooks.com.

Transcript

Scott Hambrick 0:09
Welcome to the online great books podcast brought to you by onlinegreatbooks.com where we talk about the good life, the great books, a great conversation, and great ideas.

Brett Veinotte 0:30
Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the online great books Podcast. I’m Brad the producer. And today Scott and Karl continue their discussion on JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, which is the complete history of Middle Earth. Now this is part two. So if you haven’t listened to part one, and you haven’t read The Hobbit in the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, hit pause right now. We’ll be here when you get back. I was very excited. Towards the end of this part of the conversation, Scott announces that his big interest right now is alternative histories. I was a history teacher at one point in a school in far simpler times. But I was fascinated with the discussion about the historicity of some of our most popular historical legends. And I’m excited to see where that goes as far as the online great books podcast is concerned in the near future. So thank you for listening. Thank you for your time. Remember to go to online great. books.com. join the mailing list. And please make a note if you have time for Scott And Carl’s personal website, Scott hambrick.com. And Carl shoot.com. Schudt of course is spelled – I’ll be right back. Okay, well, surprise, surprise, S C H U D T, karlschudt.com and Scott Hambrick, scotthambrick.com Thanks again. And here we go with the continuation of the Silmarillion

Karl Schudt 2:03
I know this all nerd stuff. I love it. I love all the names and the descriptions of places. If you love it, you’re gonna love it. Put it that way.

Scott Hambrick 2:14
I like it though. I love it. I come on. I have to I have to be all the way do I know?

Karl Schudt 2:19
I guess not. Alright, so the elves awake. And they’re summoned west to Valinor. They don’t all go. This is where we meet the elves. And you know some of them come and live with the valor. Some of them don’t. But there’s this one guy named Theodore. How to tell his story. Theodore, do you think they made fun of him when he was a kid named funer? They had these trees that gave light and Melkor. Eventually Morgoth eventually manages to kill them.

Scott Hambrick 2:56
Yeah, all the light emanates from these two trees and remember, the world is flat. So that works out okay.

Karl Schudt 3:03
Right? Right. Light and trees are a big deal to Tolkien. If you wanted to psychoanalyze him, I guess you could. You could talk about that. But Morgoth he becomes named but Melkor sneaks in with this huge spider Crusher. Ongoing ungallant that just such a good name. She manages to inject her poison into the trees and kill them. Theodore had made these jewels, the Silmarils which capture the light, but they’re the last ones that are left because the trees are gone.

Scott Hambrick 3:38
Later on, we find out somebody like snuck some fruit, I think.

Karl Schudt 3:42
Yes, Nana wept over the trees and they managed to bear some fruit and they made the sun and the moon out of them. So the Sun and Moon aren’t the original lights. They’re the secondary lights. Maybe the third lights. I love that and Goliat she just she’s like if you remember she lab. If you saw if you only saw the movies. You remember the big spider critter in the movies. She lobby lives up in the in the past on the way into Mordor. She’s one of ungodliness children, and all she wants to do is eat and get bigger. saw

Scott Hambrick 4:12
her at Walmart

Karl Schudt 4:17
well ungallant, not sure if I’m pronouncing her name, right. But she gets so hungry, she ends up there’s nothing else that she can eat. She ends up just eating herself. Her gluttony becomes so big that nothing can say it but herself.

Scott Hambrick 4:29
What about this guy’s brain? Which guy? Tolkien he would have had to have been thinking about the nature of evil a lot. But unlike Martin, not taken over by it. Martin seems fascinated by it. He’s fascinated by it and he doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t even know how black and he evil and awful he is he has no idea which is how it works. I think, gosh, there’s lots of raping incest in the, you know, that’s what a fat neck beard would do. Because he can’t conceive of like proper sex. He has no idea what that would be like. Let me psychologizing

Karl Schudt 5:16
Yeah, well, the women and there aren’t a lot of women in Florida in Tolkien’s work. I mean, there are, there are, but they’re not usually main characters. They’re usually aspirational. So before we get to this story of phenol, they fit our makes these three jewels, and they become a point of contention, because now they’re the only leftover light at the trees. And everybody wants them. I was joking with Scott earlier. They’re the worst artifacts you could get in Dungeons and Dragons. Because if you had the stat sheet for him, what are their properties? Do they do they make you mighty? Do they do things to know they’re just pretty? Really bright? If you’re evil, it’ll burn you.

Scott Hambrick 6:03
They are just objects of covetousness.

Karl Schudt 6:07
Yeah, it’s just beautiful. And Morgoth ends up stealing them Morgoth as Melkor ends up stealing them and putting them in his crown, even though it burns his hands black to do so which, you know, it’s all Ken says, if it’s a rich story, you can come up with all kinds of allegories. The idea of the the Lord of Evil The Dark Lord, loving the beauty so much coveting the beauty so much that he’s going to pick them up, stick them in his crown, even though it burns his hands and his hands are forever pained.

Scott Hambrick 6:38
Yeah, Karl, you’re talking about him as being just pure beauty, or, you know, very beautiful or whatever. And for, for me, they’re just objects of covetousness.

Karl Schudt 6:49
But they wouldn’t be objects of covetousness unless there was something to covet. The problem is not that the problem isn’t that feeler made these things. It’s that he made them and thought they were his.

Scott Hambrick 7:06
But what’s their purpose, though?

Karl Schudt 7:09
Okay, so there’s some creation, you have Ilive. Otter does whatever he does, and has these creations of his, and they do sub creations and they create the light of the trees. And the light of the trees gets captured in the gems. It’s like, you know, three or four levels of sub creation. And this fi in our character, this fiery elf Lord thinks they’re mine. They’re mine and my sons. But they’re not mean, they sort of are. So to be able to sub create, and then not to be jealous of your sub creation, I think is the is the way to do it, at least in the stories. But he couldn’t do it.

Scott Hambrick 7:53
Yes. Sure. That’s, that is certainly there. But for me, I look at this, I’m like, you know, his upgradation is improper, because it has no purpose. Like, what’s the tila? So these things? To be beautiful, just to make people kill each other?

Karl Schudt 8:13
Well, that’s what they do, in effect, because it’s a fallen world, but it’s not the fall to the summer. Oh, no, I

Scott Hambrick 8:19
think if they had proper beauty, they would have, they would have other functions, who

Karl Schudt 8:24
I think the fault is in the people not in the objects, which are works of art. In themselves. I don’t think they’re evil in their creation.

Scott Hambrick 8:34
You know, objects are just objects. Yeah,

Karl Schudt 8:36
the problem is, in not letting it go. I mean, it’d be like, I don’t know you’ve got your 54 acres, you’re gonna work your land and make it and fruitful and probably Beautiful. Well, is it yours? Yeah. But how tightly Are you going to grasp it? When you come to the end of your days? Are you going to kindle a great fire on it and burn it to the ground so that no one may ever have it again.

Scott Hambrick 9:06
I won’t make my offspring swear an oath. Blah, blah, blah. But you’re right. The objects are objects, and the fault lies with the Fallen harmed people. But I still think that creations of man require more purpose than that.

Karl Schudt 9:29
Well, they end up having a purpose. So two of them get lost. One of them falls into the earth, one of them gets thrown into the ocean. barren and Lutheran, have one and it ends up being used by this guy Arendelle who takes the silver oil and sails to the west, to try to get help for Middle Earth. That’s a proper use. It was a beacon and a gift and It ends up that val i do help. But he can’t go home again because he’s left the mortal realm and gone to the immortal realm and you can’t play both games for some reason. And so he gets, he sails through the heavens with it and it’s the North it is the morning star or the Evening Star. It ends up having a purpose. But they use it the right way. They don’t grasp it and say it’s mine. It’s mine. You know, that’s the problem is I mean, it’s the Gollum thing. It’s my precious you can’t have it read, read read. Yeah, I want to talk about women. The women in this are wonder. In chapter four of Thingol in mammalian, there’s this elf guy named Elway later called thing golf. The names change. That’s part of the process. A huge profit goal used to be Elon. I think he’s just walking around through the woods. Here’s a song of nightingales. Then an enchantment fell on him and he stood still and far off beyond the voices of the Loma Linda, he heard the voice of Meili on and it filled all his heart with wonder and desire. You forgot then utterly all his people and all the purposes of his mind like that. Now he’s in love. And following the birds under the shadow of the trees he passed deep into not elm often was lost but he came at last to a glade open to the stars and there million stood. And out of the darkness he looked at her and the light of Amman was in her face. She spoke no word but being filled with love LA came to her and took her hand and straight away a spell was laid on him, so that they stood Thus, while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them. And the trees of non Elmcroft grew tall and dark before they spoke any word, first date. They’re like elves are to humans. They’re aspirational. This is we wish we could be as good in the arts and say we wish we could have the immortality that they have. The women are kind of similar that the male figures

Scott Hambrick 12:08
there’s something to be sought. There are some rules. They’re not elves.

Karl Schudt 12:12
What the women? Yeah. Well, except they can do stuff. But you know, the LD, one of the defamations in the Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings was making r1 You know, ride a horse and save him from the ring race. No, she’s not supposed to do that. She’s supposed to stay in Rivendale she’s what makes Aragorn do what he does. She doesn’t go out and save him. Not actively, at least she’s a final cause. Not an efficient cause.

Scott Hambrick 12:43
Right. So what you’re saying is women don’t do anything.

Karl Schudt 12:47
They’re unmoved movers. They do things by being loved. Okay. They do all the things. Love makes the world go round. Read your Aristotle. The unmoved mover moves by being loved. And so which is a really weird concept, but it’s there in Aristotle, even the bunny rabbits you know that that make more bunnies are trying to partake in the the eternity of the first cause and they’re doing it as well as they can out of love for the first cause. Desire. Yeah, so Melia is not actually an L she’s a maya. So he’s he’s out kicked his coverage. And he ends up marrying her when they have a kingdom. Dory, I think there’s all these hidden elf kingdoms. I like that idea too. Because Middle Earth is What are you laughing at

Scott Hambrick 13:46
what Karl’s like I like that part. And I’m like, Oh, this is so tedious. Oh, my God.

Karl Schudt 13:52
You’re making your own Gosh, you’re making your own Gondolin.

Scott Hambrick 13:56
Yeah. Maybe, poor Karl,

Karl Schudt 14:00
and it won’t last forever. But it can be good and worth doing. Gosh, all right. So we have the love story. There’s all these it is elves and men out kicking their coverage that drives the story. And so all of the great lines are of, you know, elf human marriages of which there’s a few. So the human show up on the scene. And the world is it’s not great for them because you know, Morgoth is around and they’re sort of barbarous, but there’s a few of them that come and help the elves in their battles. And I guess the humans are really good at fighting. But there’s this love story. thing going Melian have a daughter her name’s Lee Theon and Baron, you know, falls in love with her in the same way and she falls in love with him. And he wants to marry her. And he goes to dad and says I’d like to marry her. My dad says, No. No, he doesn’t say no. He says, if you go bring me one of the Silmarils from the crown of Morgoth you can marry her.

Scott Hambrick 15:15
He said no. He was said to the guy to get killed.

Karl Schudt 15:23
Right? Yes. Well, yeah, but he manages to do

Scott Hambrick 15:27
it. But he manages to do it. Much to the Father chagrin, I can imagine.

Karl Schudt 15:32
And it’s a pretty good story. And there’s like talking wolves and Lucien herself does take a part in this. It’s good story, you should read it. And he ends up dying in prosecution of this question, and so she goes to the Halls of Mandos. And, you know, sings a song, and it moves. Metis is like the Hades is the guardian of the underworld, except it’s not an underworld. Anyway, she does this song, which moves him to so much pity that Baron gets to go back. But now she’s got to become human. So she leaves the immortal and becomes mortal. And I don’t know what to say about that. Except, this is one of the things that the movies got very correct. So there’s this scene in the extended version of the movies, where Aragorn Strider, he’s singing the song, and I think Frodo says, What are you singing about? It’s the story of Baron and Lucien. And Frodo says, Well, what happened to her? She died. That’s the end of the scene. They got that one, right? Because that is the moral of the story. So she ends, she leaves the I don’t even know what to say about it. She’s an elf queen. She leaves the elf realm of immortality, she chooses a mortal life, why would she do it? She chooses death. So there’s this idea here that for humans, death is not the end. That it’s not something to be to be feared. That it’s the proper thing is at some point to leave this realm. And to go Who knows where and desirable? It’s good story.

Scott Hambrick 17:37
I know an old guy. Yeah, at six. idea, he has some some stuff. Some stuff, some land, machine shop, some stuff. And his wife passed away and been married for, gosh, 6567 years, something like that. And I was talking to him. And he asked for some help to do a few things, got some legal stuff to deal with, and so on. And he said, Yeah, I’ve got these three things to do. And then I can go, I think that when he completes these three little things that he needs to do, may he’ll be dead. He’s sticking around to complete these few things that he needs that he believes he needs to do to care for who’s left? And then he’ll be gone. I’m no doubt about it. No doubt. He doesn’t want to live to be 90 to 105 114.

Karl Schudt 18:47
clinging to life forever old. No. The theme of mortality if you wanted to trace that out. It’s not an allegory, but there’s some food for your thought on that. So Luthy and chooses death with Baron. You could do some stuff about Tolkien and his wife, Edith. In he met her when he was 16 and wanted to marry her. And then he got prohibited from meeting talking to her even corresponding with her till she was 21. And then on the evening of his 21st birthday, he wrote to her and said I’d never cease to love you. And he asked her to marry him. And she said, Yes. The first thing he did, he followed the law. So he had the ban. You can’t talk to her until you’re 21 and then the days 21 That’s the first thing I’m doing. You know, to what extent I mean, she was she was a good looking lady, too. You can there’s one picture of her young that you can find one or two. She looks kind of elvish

Scott Hambrick 19:52
she does.

Karl Schudt 19:54
They get married 1916 And then he’s off to war. You know, go go get me a silver oil from the crown of the Kaiser so he’s got to go do this quest and he manages to manages to make it back

he was in the Battle of the Somme he participated in oh my gosh, trench warfare. Anyway, so humans can get immortality in this world

Scott Hambrick 20:37
sort of did Homer

Karl Schudt 20:41
did Homer get immortality? Well, yeah, as as a as a name, but I mean, actually, humans in this world can get immortality. And not just in the stories if they’re willing to do certain things. So if you get one of the Rings of Power, which come much later in the story, it makes you live forever. But you just get thinner and thinner and more stretched and stretched and those builders famous line I feel like butter that’s been stretched over too much bread. So is Life is a good life is a very good thing is it to be clung to with the fierceness that Theodore clung to the somewhere else?

Scott Hambrick 21:27
The Boomer would say, yes,

Karl Schudt 21:29
the boomer might say yes, the transhumanist might say yes, yes, we’re going to make you live 500 years, for what? To what purpose 500 years of what,

Scott Hambrick 21:40
so that you can see in utero sex change operations.

Karl Schudt 21:50
So that I can eat cricket protein, and

Scott Hambrick 21:52
my clump of cells identifies as I saw a fucking article. Insect oils, you know, they’re gonna be squeezing roaches. So the chicken, fry your cricket?

Karl Schudt 22:12
Fried crickets in Roya?

Scott Hambrick 22:16
Oh, gosh, oh,

Karl Schudt 22:18
no, it’s time to go. It’s you know, life is a good thing. But it’s not the only thing

Scott Hambrick 22:23
you’ll have that you’ll love it.

So good. Let’s just keep on clinging to it.

Karl Schudt 22:35
Gosh, I don’t know what to say. It’s such a thick story. It’s so much a part of my life that it’s like, it’s hard for me to tell the listener. You know why you ought to read it. I don’t know that you ought to

Scott Hambrick 22:46
know. Don’t unless you’ve read Lord. Let read the big trilogy several times.

Karl Schudt 22:52
Yeah, I think it is very, very good. If Tolkien is as big a part of your life as he is mind, then you gotta read somewhere. And I have not dug into all the Unfinished Tales that Christopher Tolkien published, kind of saving them for the twilight of my years. I’ll probably read them. But I’m not the biggest Tolkien nerd in the world. No,

Scott Hambrick 23:12
no, you’re not.

Karl Schudt 23:14
I think I’m like, 10% of the way.

Scott Hambrick 23:16
Those guys are insufferable. And they’re gonna listen to this show, because they’re gonna Google, you know, they’re gonna go to iTunes, just look up Tolkien in the podcast store. You guys are terrible. No, they shouldn’t read it. Okay, so if an author writes something, and he has the clout that Tolkien had, and then chose to not publish it, should it be published. It’s not like he never got a publishing deal. And this is a treasure that was found in an attic somewhere, like this guy could have published anything he wanted to. And he chose not to.

Karl Schudt 23:59
Well, I think he wanted to get it published eventually. It’s an odd book by an odd guy that is thoroughly wonderful, but

Scott Hambrick 24:08
might not be for you. This is for deep fandom. So it’s, I’m glad it’s there. But you need to be a heavy duty fan. And and I’m not, you know, I’ve read this stuff a couple times. And I think it’s wonderful. Of all the stuff we’ve read on this show, you know, people ask all the time, what’s going to make the candidate what’s the next book? Probably the Lord of the Rings, set books. Probably. I mean, it’s a it’s a new genre. It’s complete. It’s excellent. It will become mythos the mythology of the English speaking peoples at some point, maybe after they’re all gone. I think it’ll make it I think there will need to be an account of the Civil War. At some point, you know, the, you know, we’ve got three cities in the Peloponnesian War, I think the civil war in North Dakota, the Yeah, in North America have to be covered somehow. So anyway, I think the Lord of the Rings thing will make it just like the Iliad and the Odyssey made it. So if Homer had a prequel or we had, you know, his notes, I think they would be important, but not as important as the Iliad.

Karl Schudt 25:18
Yeah, well, Iliad and Odyssey are probably part of a cycle, but we don’t have the rest.

Scott Hambrick 25:24
Yeah, I don’t think the Odyssey that we have is the same person that wrote the Iliad. I

Karl Schudt 25:29
know that’s what you think. What do you think? I think it is. I don’t have enough reason not to think it is.

Scott Hambrick 25:38
Stylistically, they’re completely different. Yeah. Well, why

Karl Schudt 25:41
so Sumerians? Completely different from The Hobbit. That’s their stories require different styles. And if you’re a good author, you’re probably going to change your style.

Scott Hambrick 25:50
No. Or was the Iliad never supposed to be published in his son?

Karl Schudt 26:00
Homer Jr.

Scott Hambrick 26:01
Yeah, Christopher Homer, and he lived to be 114 compilable notes.

Karl Schudt 26:06
I want to give you some my favorite part of the whole story that floored me when I was a kid. So in the Kindle, this is location 3533. So I was going between Kindle and and the texts. I don’t know where it isn’t about this. There’s this battle where battle against all the hosts of ag bond, which is where Morgoth lives, the names are great, just sounds like an evil fortress. And there’s this guy, Harun, fighting the rear guard. And he’s got a really sad story. His son comes to a bad end, his wife comes to a bad end, and it’s all the treachery of Morgoth. And this is like Beowulf. They’re in a happy ending. But nevertheless, so last of all, Harun stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield and wielded an axe to hand it and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll guard of golf mog until it withered. And each time that he flew her in cried all right into Luva day shall come again 70 times he uttered that cry, but they took him out last alive by the command of Morgoth or the orcs grappled him with their hands which clung to him. Still, though he sawed off their arms and error, their numbers were renewed until it lastly fell buried beneath them. Then Gotham, og bound him and dragged him to Angband with mockery. So they end up losing the battle. But there’s this guy in a losing battle. at an end, he never gets a happy moment. But he’s doing what he should do, which is chop the heads off works, right. And every time he does that, he’s saying day shall come again, even though he can’t see it, and in fact, never comes for him. And for me, young man, maybe I was 12. I don’t know, I was young when I read this. And I’m tearing up, you know? Yes, because there might come a time dear listener, when you are fighting the rearguard action to preserve as long as you can, all that is good and true and beautiful. And you’re going to be surrounded by orcs. And you’re going to think that there’s no salvation. And there’s no hope. But you still got to chop orcs. And you have to believe that day will come again,

Scott Hambrick 28:29
this is what the old people are supposed to do. They’re supposed to be in the rear guard and soak up the arrows. That’s what they’re supposed to do. They’re not supposed to drive their fucking motorcoach all over the country and act like the inflation’s not there, and that everything’s okay. You know, if you’re a retired person, and you’ve got some resources, and the HR people can’t fire you, because you don’t need to work anymore. You’re the one that’s supposed to stay the stuff that you’re not able to say anymore. Right? Go out and have them cancel you. Like you’re in the position to fight the poor kid that’s trying to get their first house

Karl Schudt 29:09
her and goes to the school board meeting, right? Yeah, you might not actually have to chop heads off works.

Scott Hambrick 29:16
Fried, but you’re in a position to do the kind of conflict that we need now. So go do it. People that are 28 Can’t do it. They’re just trying to get a house.

Karl Schudt 29:33
But you have to claim to your life,

Scott Hambrick 29:35
right? live your best life. You have to live your best life. Karl,

Karl Schudt 29:39
I want to talk a little bit we’ve been we’ve been at this for a long time and I know it’s not your favorite book. There’s a section here called kala Beth, which is the story of the downfall of this place called New menorah. And I’m just going to sketch it out. So new menorah is like it’s like Atlantis The End. After I’ve tried to pronounce the right if it has the two dots, it means you’re supposed to do both vowels. So a Arendelle when he sails in the West to get help from the WLR, and they send help. And so the great houses of men, the ones that help the house, they get to go to this special place called noumenon. Where they build a real high civilization if you watch the movies, if all you did was watch the movies, I’m sorry for you. But if you’d rather watch movies or read the books, gone door is a remnant of noumenon. Solomon’s tower in Orthanc, that’s, that’s one of their old towers that he, he comes and lives in, is really high civilization in the past that has fallen. And you read the account of why they fall. So they’re given long life. So the first king of new minore LRS Anna lives, 500 years. It’s like, it’s like biblical ages. It’s like Noah and Methuselah, they get to live a long time. They are in the middle of the ocean, they are halfway to Valinor. Maybe they can even see from the top of their highest mountain, they can see Valinor which is where the valor Live, which is where the immortals are, but they’re not allowed to go there. They can’t go there. But anywhere else, nor will they go, they can sell anywhere else and go back to Middle Earth, and they do and, and they can be as great as they want to be, they just can’t do this one thing, it’s like, you might enjoy all of the fruits of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree of life, right? No, that one, it’s the tree of life they can eat, it’s the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you can’t eat. Gotta have it. No, gotta have that one. But it takes a while. And what happens is, they live a long time, they start not to have very many children, they start to worry about death and cling to life as long as they can. Until the greatest of them are far as on I believe his name. I’m, I’m not a greatest nerd, but I’m kind of a nerd on this stuff. gathers his huge host. They say Aleste and they break the band. And that’s when the worlds change. That’s that’s when it all falls to translate this into Hambrick Ian. The Boomers were allowed to drive their RVs anywhere they wanted to. Except Valinor. And they couldn’t stay away.

Scott Hambrick 32:39
Yeah, they would say that wouldn’t sell the whole thing would be infringing on their liberties. They What do you mean, we’re not free? We don’t have the freedom to go there and put things in our But how dare you. But that’s not who we are, Karl.

Karl Schudt 32:58
So now the world is round. It used to be flat and unbounded. And now it’s just a round circle.

Scott Hambrick 33:04
Have you ever read Flatland?

Karl Schudt 33:07
No.

Scott Hambrick 33:08
I have Edwin Abbott. We need to read that. I had a copy of it. So as I was, as I was reading all this, I mean, it brought flatland to mind several times it’s it’s thing is great fun. John would freak out on it. Carl, you may need to have him read it.

Karl Schudt 33:29
I’m just flipping through the index, if you are. I don’t know what the right description for me is on this stuff. But there’s a, I guess, a 43 page

Scott Hambrick 33:39
index. And I know, I was reading this book, I’m like, was the son of a gun ever gonna read and I’m finishing on I’m on a electronic reading whatever. And it’s like, you’ve got 31% to go and I’m like, Oh, my God, please, please help me. And then I flipped the page. And it was over because 30% of the book is index and pronunciation guides and family trees.

Karl Schudt 34:02
Some of the best stuff is in the indexes. If you enjoy Lord of the Rings, if you’re a normal person who read Lord of the Rings and thought this is this is good, but I’m done. And you didn’t read the appendix is to the Lord of the Rings. You missed some hot stuff. There’s some good stuff in there. The whole love story of Arwen and Aragorn is in the appendix. And the story of helm Hammerhand so Helm’s Deep that that fortress where the the real hero retreat and the two towers which my wife is rereading at this moment, so she’s only on her third reading maybe not 38th she getting there. It Helm’s Deep was helms well you don’t know who helm is helm is this old king of the Rohan, who woods they were they were besieged by orcs. It was a long winters and it was like it was climate change. There were orcs wolves all around, he would sneak out in the middle of the night and punch the enemy to death. I like that it’s great story and he doesn’t you know he doesn’t die in battle they just find him in the end he’s just frozen solid. On one of his this old man out there punching orcs to death. So good.

Scott Hambrick 35:21
Have you seen esoteric Twitter talk about while theorize that there was a time when the Neandertal people in the homo sapiens people coexisted in, in Europe, and the Neanderthal was supposedly larger, heavier, stronger, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera elves. Well, the HomoSapiens with elves and the Neanderthal is the orc and that the orc is a genetic memory of the conflict with the Neanderthal.

Karl Schudt 35:56
Huh. I haven’t seen that particular one. I’ve seen some esoteric Twitter. That’s the whole fun of Twitter.

Scott Hambrick 36:03
Yeah. I buy that. I buy that. I liked the story of made Dros. I think that’s how you pronounce his name. I don’t even care how you pronounce his name. One of the, the maker of this summer, the summer wheels, it’s one of his sons and he ends up getting captured and then bound to the cliff face by an iron hoop around one wrist. Yeah, kinda all our Prometheus kinda. He gets rescued, but they don’t break the band. They have to get to cut his arm off. Then he becomes the one handed. I like that one.

Karl Schudt 36:47
There is a little bit of fake news in this. Mr. Tolkien

Scott Hambrick 36:51
fake news?

Karl Schudt 36:54
Uh huh. This is on page 313 of my illustrated edition that I have here that has pictures in it. See, look has pictures. But on page 313, it’s recalling of the Rings of Power in the Third Age. For Frodo the halfling. It is said at the bidding of myth, Randy that’s Gandalf, took on himself the burden and alone with his servant he passed through parallel in darkness and came at last in sovereigns, despite even to Mount Doom. And they are into the fire where it was wrought, he cast a great ring of power. And so at last was unmade. And it’s evil consumed.

Scott Hambrick 37:27
I saw that’s not true. I thought, I thought you would say that

Karl Schudt 37:33
he doesn’t do it Gollum. Does it Gollum does it right. golems to hear us all that and thought you even if by mistake by accident? Well, you know, these elder sources. Fake news.

Scott Hambrick 37:48
I think this book has lots of interesting and good things to say about the nature of evil, the nature of good mortality, et cetera. Yeah, it’s a good companion to Lord of the Rings. But again, you know, I need to read Lord, the Lord of the Rings a whole lot more, before we dive into this thing. All the talk about mortality and lifespan and everything just just served to make me angrier and angrier. At like, Lindsey Graham.

Karl Schudt 38:23
Why him in particular?

Scott Hambrick 38:24
Well, I mean, not not just him, but like him. James Inhofe, my senator, Lindsey Graham, 67 years old in half is like, I don’t know, 395 years old. And at some point, these people should say, I’m not going to live forever, I’m going to draw my political career to an end. And I’m going to do all the hard stuff here. End of Life is the ultimate term limit. And I’m going to do all the hard stuff here, you know, I’m going to do the virtuous thing that that people don’t want. But the thing is, these guys aren’t virtuous, they’re not able to do it. Because they don’t know what it is. They don’t know what good is, I think. But, you know, if you I think that part of people not knowing what good the good is, this, they don’t accept their mortality.

Karl Schudt 39:14
Right, so you need to continue to serve in Congress until you’re 190 years old. But it would be different if the 190 year old representative from San Francisco was actually you know, there’s Lindsay was, was actually fiery, but instead just preserving the status quo, just preserving the interests. You know, what? You’ve already made your millions you’ve already you know, go down like her in that’s what I want. Right. Are the rear guard at the what I mean, this is from Song of Roland, you know?

Scott Hambrick 39:58
Yes. Well, One

Karl Schudt 40:00
of the esoteric Twitter posters said this about the recent plague. You’re supposed to sacrifice the old for the sake of the young and we sacrifice the young for the sake of the old. Yep. Well, in in noumenon, at the end, they actually literally did this. So how’s this for true history? They were offering human sacrifices of the young to Melkor off in the void in the hopes of extending life.

Scott Hambrick 40:35
Yay.

Karl Schudt 40:41
extending life life butter stretched over, you know, like five bagel slices. There’s your life.

Scott Hambrick 40:48
Oh, listen. Mitch, Mitch McConnell. He’s living his best life. colors are brighter food tastes better to him than it does to you. You know, what? There’s nothing thin. There’s nothing thin about what that guy’s live. And when I say nothing,

Karl Schudt 41:04
yeah. When I. When I say the Silmarillion history history, it’s truer than most.

Scott Hambrick 41:12
Yeah, I agree. I’ve been saying these things about it’s true. And the people are gonna accept US history history. And you say it’s true history. I think that story properly done, tells people everything that they need to know about the culture the writer came out of, or the worlds that the writer came out of. So you know, whether the world was flattening paginated and made a globe or not, it tells you something about early 20th century, healthy people that you know that he was able to write this and then that it has, it has a complete metaphor, this book is entirely complete, or the world of him of Tolkien is entirely complete. It has metaphysics and epistemology, and ethics of politics and aesthetics. In being that way. It says something true about his about him and where he lived. Just you know, I think that Wendell Berry’s like that. You can you can learn something about those people and where they came from. But it was a bummer to read.

Karl Schudt 42:21
It was a delight for me. I couldn’t get enough.

Scott Hambrick 42:23
Oh, I read it as fast as I could. Maybe I just go

Karl Schudt 42:27
back to the beginning and start it again.

Scott Hambrick 42:31
I think you should

Karl Schudt 42:34
put it on the shelf, maybe a year or two? I’ll pull it out. Yeah, so I’ll just repeat it. If you like Lord of the Rings, this might be the book for you. I can’t say it’s absolutely the book for you. Because, you know, it’s it’s it is the begats if you’re if you are a Christian. And you like the Gospels, that’s all right. Should you read the begats?

Scott Hambrick 43:03
Sure, but you hold them in the same esteem,

Karl Schudt 43:06
you’re gonna read them and say, Well, I’m glad I read that. Like Leviticus, you know, you’re gonna say, Yes, that was interesting. I’m never doing that again.

Scott Hambrick 43:19
Well, here’s the thing about reading that kind of stuff. One of the things about reading that kind of stuff, you’ve got to read it to know where it is, so that you’ll have it in your font of knowledge. And you can go reference it when you need to. Right, so you read The Silmarillion. And you familiarize yourself with that world and in the maps in the back and the appendices and all that stuff. And then when you read the Lord of the Rings, you’ll probably pull it off the shelf and go look up. You know more about that thing in the you know, the old testament of Tolkien’s world. I think there were some wieners I don’t know, that wrote some like, world building guides for like the world of Dune. You know, they weren’t Frank Herbert, you know, like glossaries, and maps and specs for weapons and like all kinds of nerdy stuff. You know, when I was a kid, I’d look at that. And that kind of stuff exists for the whole, the whole Sherlock Holmes world. And here it exists. And the guy who created the world wrote it, and that’s really, that really makes it special, as opposed to some. Yeah. Can you imagine the kind of person you’d have to be to write that for the Frank Herbert University? Yeah.

Karl Schudt 44:31
So dear listener, I want to tell you, when I suggested this book, Scott said something like it’s not going to be a bunch of poetry is it?

Scott Hambrick 44:41
Oh, I hate the fake poetry. I Hate it. Hate it. I can’t read it. I can’t read too well.

Karl Schudt 44:47
If the pole if you skip the poetry and Lord of the Rings. Well, I did I say two things. If you’re the sort that skips the poetry in The Lord of the Rings, probably the Silmarillion is not for you. However, if There is not much poetry in the Sumerian I don’t think there’s any. There’s one song. So it’s kind of a gatekeeping thing, the elf poems that Bilbo translates if those make you flip this probably not your book,

Scott Hambrick 45:16
Good lord. This all those poems and the songs and Lord of the Rings, I just, I don’t know, man, I admit it misses me, it misses me. You know, my interests come and go. Just because I’m not particularly interested in one thing at one time doesn’t mean that I won’t be your head at the end or that it’s not good, but I don’t know I’m fickle. And right now, the thing I’m most interested in is just alternative history, you know, the whole concept of history? And what the whole concept of history, you know, history, geography, how do you do it? What is it? How do we know what’s true? I love reading credible accounts, contrary credible accounts of the same events. That kind of stuff really is interesting to me right now. So when I was reading this, that’s the kind of thing that I was seeing in it over and over again, you know, how is this different from the historiography of World War Two, or whatever, you know, I used to write a little newspaper column for the local paper on Wednesdays about small business, if I told the story before, I know that used to do that is about small business stuff, and I’d send the thing in and the next time I would see it would, when it got published. They would insert errors of fact into the thing I wrote, they had me write it because I was a subject matter expert. And then they would insert errors into the thing. And I didn’t write it for sport. And they didn’t pay me either. I was writing it to try to get clients. So at the bottom of the newspaper article, I had a little picture in my head. And it said, Scott Hambrick is the owner above blah, blah, blah. And if you need help you can reach him at and my phone number and my email address. There, we get my phone number wrong about a fourth of the time.

I have been interviewed for newspapers and television shows and stuff back back then. And they would always get something wrong. So the story isn’t going nowhere. So what the hell is history? Like I could, I could write the fucking article, and send it to my editor. And they would destroy it, and publish it. And then you go get history, whatever that is, and then go read it. Like, what is it? How does it map on what actually happened? Did the stuff in the book happen at all?

Karl Schudt 48:14
I have a big chunk of Livia have to plow through for I think next week. I hope it’s Thursday, not Tuesday.

Scott Hambrick 48:23
You need those extra days? Yeah,

Karl Schudt 48:26
it’s talking about Hannibal and his father and the Carthaginians. And the elephants and how much of it happened? How would I even know if it happened?

Scott Hambrick 48:38
And then doesn’t even matter if it happened? Like if this is like, if this is our cultural, institutional knowledge, what’s, what are in these accounts? And this is what informs our decision making and how we interact with people in terms of war and politics or whatever. Doesn’t even matter if it happened. It becomes knowledge whether it’s true or not.

Karl Schudt 49:04
I think it matters that if it happened, but no, yes, it matters if it happened, because it matters if it’s true.

Scott Hambrick 49:11
Wait a minute, it doesn’t have to happen for it to be like big, teak. True.

Karl Schudt 49:17
So if they said it is did it actually happen? Like he said it? He said it did? I don’t know. There’s no way to know there’s no way. And even if you did when you’re writing a history, you’re writing a narrative of a few people write in a time when they are, you know, a million in how many were in Greece at the time. So you’re going to pick some people to talk about and you’re not going to talk about there’s gonna be a whole lot that’s unknown to you. There’s no way to get the whole story. So I think back to that, I’m going to think back to that myth of the music at the beginning of the Silmarillion the you’ve got all of the music and all you know is your part. And so you could tell a story of your part. There’s ways in which it can be true Is it true dyadic just got up before the assembly and said the orators are the ones that are responsible for the actions of the Athenian state. Did he say that? I don’t know. I have no way of knowing. Is it truly wrong? Know what he said? Is it true? I kind of think it is. Because the assembly can’t know anything. The orders. I mean, the point that he’s making has truth whether or not he actually said it. If that makes sense, right?

Scott Hambrick 50:29
The whole chameleon dialogue, the whole Emilian chapter into acidities. No, they were supposedly completely destroyed. Well, that’s convenient. You know, I’m gonna tell a story about some people that don’t exist. Well, okay, now, is it true? I have no idea. Nobody, nobody really knows. Nobody really knows. thermophila what happened? They all got killed? I? Nobody knows.

Karl Schudt 50:54
Did it actually happen? So you can say, Well, gosh, actually, it didn’t. We don’t know. You don’t know, either. The skeptics don’t know, either. Right? Nobody knows whether it happened or not. What we have in the stories

Scott Hambrick 51:08
is the stories become your your myth and your legend. If Leonidas the 300 men, you know, become your image of the hero, and then who informed Harold inform heroism for your culture for 3000 years. Then it’s true history. Even if that never happened, it becomes it becomes true history. And you know, and I’m not being mystical here, because most of the stuff that we think is true that is in your Macmillan, seventh grade world history textbook is absolute fucking bullshit never happened. And it didn’t happen the way that way. And the consequences weren’t what they said. And the causes weren’t what they said. But by time you all dog pilot, then you believe in all kinds of stuff, you’d make up words to cover the old concepts. I mean, it becomes, you know, used to be the guy that one just killed all of his opponents, they would just hang him, kill him, whatever. And that was just the nature of war. Well, now we now we have to try our opponents for war crimes. Well, we used to just kill them. They didn’t have any excuse. They’re just like, you lost. You lost. And so as a consequence, you don’t get to be anymore. Well, now we get to have a trial. But what does that mean? What is that? That’s crazy. That’s a historical book. Except it’s not now. Yeah. So what is all this history stuff? So I think through the fog of time and through bit, right, that will destroy a lot of history’s I think that the Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion will take on, will take on historical aspect. Beowulf, I think Beowulf only been around a couple 100 years. It’s a very, very old story, but it was last until the 1700s. And I think that Beowulf is already taking on a historical note views of Beowulf are becoming historical views. Not that anybody thinks that there was a dragon, but but they see the history of England as being set in that kind of world now.

Karl Schudt 53:34
Yeah, I think I want to start a nation were similar and is our guiding myth.

Scott Hambrick 53:39
I don’t think that it will become the guiding myth of the English speaking people until they’re all gone.

Karl Schudt 53:44
There’ll be discovered in the ruins somewhere. Yeah. I want to read speaking of barren and lazy and I want to read this is on the info galactic Tolkien page. His wife died in 71. I think he died in 73. He said I never called Edith Lutheran. But she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at roots in Yorkshire, where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber garrison in 1917. And she was able to live with me for a while. And those days her hair was Raven, her skin clear her eyes brighter than you have seen them. And she could sing and dance. But the story has gone crooked and I’m left and I cannot plead before the inexorable. mandus

Scott Hambrick 54:38
you have seen a few of those wrap up in the last couple of years. It’s horrible, horrible. It’s part of it though.

Karl Schudt 54:50
It’s it’s the hand you’re dealt. It is the doom of men or the gift of men that things end.

Scott Hambrick 54:57
Yeah, I tell people, I tell young people that Let me know that, oh, we’ve gotten engaged and we’re getting married. On the other hand, if I like them, I tell them, congratulations. And then I tell them best case scenario. You bury all the together you bury all of your parents in one of the berries the other one

that’s the best case.

Karl Schudt 55:28
But it is a good case. It’s the way things are, you know, does the it is does the sunflower weep because it goes to seed. If it does, and you know, it’s like DNR and the rest of them

Scott Hambrick 55:42
bows its head. Yeah. Good, Lord. I can’t believe you’ve done this to me. So I want to do right now. How I am today. I just want to read nothing but just opposing histories.

Karl Schudt 56:02
I just want to read Tolkien now.

Scott Hambrick 56:05
Right? Yeah, that’s what I said. Yeah, so is this heretical if I think that divinely inspired he retell retold the creation story?

Karl Schudt 56:21
divinely inspired you raising him to the status of profit?

Scott Hambrick 56:25
No, I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t know. No. Yeah. I think you’re right. Like, how do you write it if it’s not some sort of divine inspiration?

Karl Schudt 56:38
Well, that goes with his understanding of artistic creation. Anyway, that’s what it is for him. Right? Anyone artistic creation is sub creation. We were at applica. Hands on it on fairy tales. Gold, think back to the music all you can do. You can either create beauty. And beauty has a form, believe it or not. You can create beauty or you can create ugliness. But even ugliness is parasitic on beauty. So you can’t get away from beauty, no matter what

Scott Hambrick 57:12
you want to do with the absence of beauty.

Karl Schudt 57:16
You can rebel against it.

Scott Hambrick 57:19
seen that? Yeah. wife came over the other day to me. And she said to look at this. Look at this. And she showed me she showed a picture to me of a girl who we’ve known since she was in, I don’t know three or four years old, who graduated from high school last year. And she was a shiny haired, bright eyed nine. The picture of health and beauty and vitality and youth and promise. She went to university. There’s just like a Twitter meme. hacked her hair off look like somebody cut her hair with a pocket knife holes in her face. Makeup designed to hide what she truly is. She looked horrible. You’ve seen you’ve seen the memes guys. It was the whole name. It’s April and she graduated from high school in May left her parents home in August. So between August and April she took her light auburn hair cut it with what looks like children’s scissors dyed it black shaved her eyebrow the whole thing. What is that?

Karl Schudt 58:41
Rebellion.

Scott Hambrick 58:43
I remember against watt,

Karl Schudt 58:44
a line from Terry Pratchett, one of the novels with the witches and there’s this young, beautiful lady and then the other character she says, Well, she couldn’t be as beautiful as her friend. But she could look sick.

Scott Hambrick 59:01
Check. This girl did it man. Unbelievable. Goodness. Carl, I don’t think it’s a rebellion. I think it’s an infection. And that results in rebellion. the metaphysics of those places is disgusting. And you see you steep one of those young people in that and they don’t have the defenses to deal with it. And their metaphysics were shaky or whatever at best. And they will they will destroy themselves. They’re not able to withstand it. They don’t have the reserves and the resources to to withstand it. Few 18 year olds would

Karl Schudt 59:48
few seven year olds would. Yeah. Socrates tells a story of the statues of Daedalus. Daedalus is the guy that put the wings on his son and they flew. And but he was he would make statues that were so lifelike that if you didn’t chain them down, they would walk away. So your garden gnome would have to have chains on him. Or he’d walked to the neighbors. And Socrates says, This is what this is what even true opinion is like you say metaphysical reserves, he thinks if you don’t have true knowledge, you may think you believe something. But it’ll walk on you. A good understanding of have met I’d say metaphysics it, the list of I think, What do you mean by that? I don’t know, understanding what being is and that evil is a privation. Even if it doesn’t seem like it. It’s a sure most of it is privation, understanding that sort of thing. Understanding what the good for a human being is, understanding what things are, if you don’t have that, then you’re subject to whatever the whims of the age are. Because you don’t know why you believe what you believe. It’s already going to be hard, even if you know why you believe what you believe, because there’s a delight in corruption. For a lot, a lot of us,

Scott Hambrick 1:01:25
not for all of us. I mean, that’s Augustine’s pair, right?

Karl Schudt 1:01:30
Yeah. Yeah, it’s like that you can eat anything you want except that tree. Well, now, what do you really want to eat? I used to draw in class, I used to teach the confessions long time ago. And we get to that part, and I would, I would draw a button on the board. And I color it red with the marker and say, Whatever you do, don’t press the big red button. And immediately created in all of those students that desire even to go up, go up and press it even though it was a fake button. Yep. Yeah, thanks can walk on you. So time down. Feed yourself good stuff.

Scott Hambrick 1:02:14
The slippery slope is not a fallacy. Yeah, things will walk on you. The slope is slippery.

Karl Schudt 1:02:22
So stand like her and chop those arc next. Daylight will come again.

Scott Hambrick 1:02:29
Oh, gosh. So what next? Next trip is? As much Gibbon as we can take starting with page one.

Karl Schudt 1:02:36
Oh, sure. Let’s just do that. If I don’t have the time to edit out a chunk.

Scott Hambrick 1:02:42
I don’t either. I’ve never read a page of it. It’s been on my list for a long time. And I hope it doesn’t stick a single page. Oh, there’s no way it stinks. There’s no way it stinks. Here’s how you know, it’s good. It’s not like the moderns are like it’s so much of that’s been discredited by the research now. Like, okay, that’s this, this is the shit I want, then, you know? Oh, a gibbon has been supplanted by the motor historical research. And it’s really I continue to get feedback from the Shelby footing and some of the feedback there are a lot of there are a lot of civil war cranks. Carl.

Karl Schudt 1:03:22
Do tell. No, you don’t need to tell. I’m pretty sure I

Scott Hambrick 1:03:25
yeah, there’s some civil war cranks. But I also have gotten, okay, foot is not what historians would call the historian. I think he does history and therefore he’s a historian. But but you know, he’s not at a university. He’s not, he’s not the typical guy. You know, he doesn’t have a research team helping him write his book like David McCullough, or, you know, whatever. I’ve had a number of people email and say, This is why history experts are important to help us interpret this. And if they can’t stand to not control it. They can’t stand it. First Book would never be published today. Macmillan would never let it through. Gibbon would never be let through the cities Come on, like what are these guys? What do

Karl Schudt 1:04:21
they know? I mean, what are they? So you have you have gatekeeping there’s only certain things that are

Scott Hambrick 1:04:27
allowed, will and Ariel Durant story of civilization. Oh, where it’s been subtended now by archaeological finds of discredit Shut up bullshit. Nope. I’m not buying it.

Karl Schudt 1:04:40
Well, the archaeological finds. I mean, it’s a couple of pots. That if you go and actually see the amount of evidence that great claims are made from it’s really, really small. I think much more intriguing. Speaking of esoteric Twitter is the study of haplotypes genetic archaeology Ji, because then you can find out where the people came from, you know, and you can find out that for example, the Turks are pretty much Greek with a layer of Turk

Scott Hambrick 1:05:11
makes it us. Troy was in Turkey II.

Karl Schudt 1:05:15
That’s that’s interesting to me. But you know, all I can do is read what other people say about it.

Scott Hambrick 1:05:21
I just typed in Duck Duck go which is all cooked out now but cut cut go pottery shard in history, inter pottery shards or pieces of history Redland, daily facts.com Oh, here’s article number two pottery shards reveal Nadi pupils in ancient Egypt may have been forced to write lines as punishment, pottery shard, maybe missing link and alphabets development. And they’ll find one of these pottery shards and then just just start, you know, because history has to be narrative start telling a story about around this pottery shard, or four of them or eight of them.

Karl Schudt 1:06:02
It’s a point on the graph. And you’re extrapolating the entire shape of the function from it. And you got maybe three points. Yeah, it might be more complicated. And you know, the the Egyptians who are writing their graffiti or their school lessons on the potsherds, which they have all over the place, because you have to have pots to store all your stuff. Then I have refrigerators. It’s just what you had at hand. It doesn’t mean that they shaped history. Right? It means they were around when history was happening and somebody scrawled a letter the pharaohs stupid on a posture.

Scott Hambrick 1:06:38
Yeah. So when will and Ariel Durant draw conclusions for Pat Potts? And then a modern does and then the modern say, Will and Ariel Durant had been supplanted? I’m not buying it. I don’t care. I’ll read them both, and we’ll all decide it myself. Can we read that too? Well, you will and will Durant’s story of civilization. Can we do that one?

Karl Schudt 1:07:04
Ah, I think I have it all packed away. All of it.

Scott Hambrick 1:07:08
Yeah, we gotta get Yes. We’re gonna get Gibbon or Hey, foot, will and Ariel Durant. And there is 12 volumes. I’m gonna read Charles and there are 4000 pages apiece. And then we’re gonna read Charles Oman’s history of the Peninsular War in 11 volumes.

Karl Schudt 1:07:27
Whatever, we’re gonna finish this and 2538

Scott Hambrick 1:07:30
I’m never gonna die. I’m like Lindsey Graham.

Karl Schudt 1:07:34
My brain will be in a jar. Second, Lindsey

Scott Hambrick 1:07:37
Graham, can you imagine being that guy laying down a bed at night? Next year? Boy, I mean it with your thoughts? Can you imagine?

Karl Schudt 1:07:50
But I would be rich, right. I would be able to buy whatever

Scott Hambrick 1:07:54
I wanted and say whatever I wanted. He doesn’t get to say whatever he wants. I hope no. You get

Karl Schudt 1:07:59
to say what the mob wants you to say. You get to say what? Yeah, that demagogues aren’t really free? No. Diogenes was free. Because he sat he lived in a tub and didn’t care. Yeah, there’s

Scott Hambrick 1:08:16
just there’s some history. Did he really say that Alexander? He should have he should have. So whether he did or not, it stands.

Karl Schudt 1:08:24
It didn’t happen. It should have happened. Yes. Okay. The history of the Peninsular War,

Scott Hambrick 1:08:29
I’m sorry, that’s a seven volume set Carl. Seven volumes.

Karl Schudt 1:08:33
So we just do Proust. long as we’re reading enormous Yes. For the rest of our lives not

Scott Hambrick 1:08:42
listen, it’s chips at 15.7 pounds. We can do it

Karl Schudt 1:08:50
well, if you’re gonna do that, why not just get the the big set, I forget what it’s called of the collection of all the Civil War documents all of the dispatches being written back and forth that took about three bookshelves.

Scott Hambrick 1:09:04
You know, there’s one of World War Two and World War One and start

Karl Schudt 1:09:06
on page one. The weather was bad and sent three soldiers out to fetch a mule,

Scott Hambrick 1:09:13
man. Look at this though, Carl, look at that. Come on, mess around. Huh? Does that does that not fill you with desire?

Karl Schudt 1:09:26
Oh, it’s an infinity pile Scott. For which I would need an infinity shelf.

Scott Hambrick 1:09:32
Yeah, I just I just showed Carl a picture of the seven volumes of history of the Peninsular War by Sir Charles Oman. Yeah, well, there’s that we’re going to crack Gibbons history of the Fallen decline of the Roman Empire. I’m going to do my best to read all of it. We’ve said that we’re gonna start at page one and cover what we can get read by the next time. I want to try to read all of it and I’m going to spend most of my time trying to talk about the stuff Carl didn’t read.

Karl Schudt 1:10:01
For the next show, yes, the contests,

Scott Hambrick 1:10:03
no contest. A lady quit online great books the other day because she she said she didn’t like my prepper mentality. Yes. And I said, Okay. But I had I’ve written a couple of posts got hampered.com One says we are cursed with living in interesting times where I make a little list of things maybe you might want to kit and then I wrote one called the apocalypse book list. And these are books I think that you need. Did you look at my list, Carl?

Karl Schudt 1:10:36
No, I didn’t because I have too many books. To pack already.

Scott Hambrick 1:10:41
So you don’t have to. I’ve got the Foxfire books, the gingery books, the ball book of canning and preserving the Iliad, the Odyssey get complete. Playdough complete Aristotle both uses constellation constellation philosophy. I don’t have the Foxfire books, but I need them you know, Aquinas Summa contra gente, Lee’s Summa Theologiae Dante is Divine Comedy Hobbes Leviathan, Machiavelli the prince, Machiavelli Discourses on Livy, Mark Machiavelli Art of War, Clausewitz on war. The landmark they say today’s landmark, Caesars landmark, Colorado, just a Bible, Gibbons, Oman. And then a few other little things on here to hoyles rule of game rules of games. Like if he hits the fan, you need to have some game rules around so you can play cards or whatever. Durant’s story of civilization in Oxford English Dictionary micrographic edition, stuff like that. You need those things.

Karl Schudt 1:11:41
Well, and you could go to Carl st.com and read why I’m an existentialist. Yeah, I read that. Don’t get it. So you don’t one of the points of that you don’t look is for Hambrick being a prepper. No. I don’t think that’s true. He doesn’t have a bunker. In this No, no, it’s just having a really big pantry. Strip. Which the worst that can happen from that as you have a really big pantry and you’ve got a whole lot of beans. You don’t have to buy beans for another 15 years.

Scott Hambrick 1:12:24
Yeah, property is bowl anyway. Like if civilization breaks like an icicle just just click and then it doesn’t work anymore. You can’t save enough food.

Karl Schudt 1:12:37
No, no, you can’t. So you’re you’re just being a little more resilient. So that if the ice storm comes and shuts everything down for a month, you come out of it better than your neighbors. I ordered from Azure standard, I bought a big bag a corn. And it’s 96,000 calories, which sounds like a lot. And if you do 2000 calories a day that is 48 days worth of calories. If you have a family of seven that’s a week. So you’re going to store enough food. No, you just have more. You just have more CBD more. But you know, having a good pantry might might hold you out through hard times that may be coming a bit better than your neighbor. Yeah, so I don’t know why anyone would get offended by that.

Scott Hambrick 1:13:29
I know why. You know why to why is this if that guy’s right. I’m fluxo word. They can’t tolerate it. They can’t tolerate it. They can’t even entertain it. Yeah, that’s that’s resentment of course. But he is right about that. That’s not a good motive for anything up but it’s a real motive. I mean, people it’s real. It exists it’s not a good one but it exists

Karl Schudt 1:13:55
yep, I can’t make my own song therefore I will destroy all of your songs. See how I brought it back to the summer?

Scott Hambrick 1:14:03
Yeah, so we’ll cover Gibbon guys read the read along with us we’ve actually got a pretty decent list I think that Carl and I will disclose on I’m need to know basis. You guys don’t need to know the rest of it right now. But we’ll be we got some goodies coming up. And then I’m continuing to work on the little Suma Carl. In the group I’m in that’s doing that one. We’ve decided that when when that’s over, we’re going to read Aristotle’s I’m sorry, Aquinas is commentary on Aristotle’s metaphysics. Very good. Otzi.

Karl Schudt 1:14:41
Then you want to add peninsular campaign to all of that? I do. Yeah, you know, this is like, this is like barren going after Luth in the mortal realms not enough for you.

Scott Hambrick 1:14:50
It’s greed. You know, it’s great. I can’t get enough. I’m a bottomless hole. I keep throwing books in

Karl Schudt 1:15:00
Are you the ungodly amount of reading? Yes.

Scott Hambrick 1:15:02
I’ll eventually read myself. That’ll be the end of it. All right, that’s enough of this stuff. Hey, thank you guys so much for listening. Go to Scott hambrick.com. And check that out. You can go to Carl shoot.com Carlos with the K shoots with the CNN H and A D.

Karl Schudt 1:15:19
That’s hard to pronounce hard to spell easy to

Scott Hambrick 1:15:22
just think Kraut and you’ll get it right. Go to online great books.com/podcast and get on the mailing list. Their times are tough. discretionary income is shrinking. And I know that the fee we asked for there at online great books is a bigger and bigger ask every day. But hopefully, as the where Dineen morphs into the great simplification, you’ll want to do these kinds of things with us. So go there and at least get on the mailing list that we can at least stay in touch and pass the show on to someone else would you? That’d be a great help to us. We’ll catch you in another week.

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